By Parisa Hafezi, Maya Gebeily, Maayan Lubell and Ariba Shahid
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT/ISLAMABAD, April 9 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he is seeking direct talks with Beirut, a day after the worst bombardment of the war killed more than 300 people in Lebanon and placed Donald Trump's U.S.-Iran ceasefire in jeopardy.
Trump announced a ceasefire in the six-week-old Iran conflict late on Tuesday, just hours before a deadline after which he threatened to destroy Iran's entire civilisation.
In Pakistan, authorities were preparing for the first round of U.S.-Iran talks, locking down parts of the capital Islamabad.
But there was no sign Iran was lifting its near-total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused the worst disruption to global energy supplies in history, with Israel's ongoing attacks on Lebanon cited as a key sticking point.
FEW SIGNS OF INCREASED TRAFFIC
In the first 24 hours of the ceasefire, just a single oil products tanker and five dry bulk carriers sailed through a strait that typically accommodated 140 ships a day before the war, accounting for around a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas flows.
Netanyahu, whose government rebuffed a historic offer for direct talks with Lebanon last month, said in a statement that he had given instructions to start peace talks as soon as possible, which would also include disarming Iran-aligned militant group Hezbollah.
"In light of Lebanon's repeated requests to open direct negotiations with Israel, I instructed the cabinet yesterday to start direct negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible," he said. "The negotiations will focus on disarming Hezbollah and establishing peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon."
An hour before Netanyahu’s statement, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said he was working on a diplomatic track on this matter that was starting to be seen "positively" by international actors.
A senior Lebanese official told Reuters that Lebanon had spent the last day pushing for a temporary ceasefire to allow for broader talks with Israel, describing the effort as a "separate track but the same model" as the U.S.-Iran truce.
Israel was preparing to scale down its attacks in Lebanon, a senior Israeli official said on Thursday. Another Israeli official said talks with Lebanon were expected to begin in Washington next week.
Under a November 2024 U.S.-brokered ceasefire accord that halted more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon agreed that only state security forces should bear arms, which means Hezbollah must be fully disarmed.
But a bid the following year by the Lebanese army to disarm the group fell short, Israel said.
U.S. Brent crude futures fell sharply after the ceasefire announcement, and dropped a further $4 after Israel announced direct Lebanon talks.
ISRAEL SAYS CEASEFIRE DOES NOT COVER LEBANON
Washington and Israel, which invaded Lebanon last month in parallel with the war on Iran to root out Hezbollah, say Lebanon is not covered by Trump's ceasefire.
But Iran and Pakistan, which acted as mediator, say it was explicitly part of the deal. A host of countries, including Britain and France, said the truce should extend to Lebanon.
Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, expected to head the Iranian delegation opposite U.S. Vice President JD Vance, tweeted that Lebanon and the rest of Iran's "axis" of regional allies were inseparable parts of any ceasefire.
A Pakistani source said Pakistan was working on ceasefires for Lebanon as well as Yemen, where Israel has also hit Iran-aligned forces.
ISRAEL SAYS IT KILLS HEZBOLLAH CHIEF'S NEPHEW
Earlier on Thursday, Israel kept up its bombing of Beirut's southern suburbs and other parts of the country, Lebanese state media said.
It also expanded evacuation orders for areas on Beirut's outskirts to areas near Beirut airport and several displacement shelters.
Hezbollah announced at least 20 military operations on Thursday, saying it had targeted Israeli vehicles on Lebanese territory as well as firing into northern Israel.
Lebanese officials declared a day of mourning after Wednesday's attacks on heavily populated areas, which they described as a "massacre".
Outside Beirut's Rafik Hariri University Hospital, a steady stream of ambulances arrived throughout Thursday afternoon full of mangled bodies recovered from the sites of Israeli strikes the previous day.
"We're picking up body parts for the most part. It's very rare that we find entire bodies intact," said a rescue worker on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press.
One woman, between tears, told Reuters she had lost her entire family in one of the strikes.
IRAN AND US BOTH DECLARE VICTORY
Inside Iran, where the halt to six weeks of U.S. and Iranian airstrikes has been portrayed as total victory for the clerical rulers, huge crowds turned out to commemorate 40 days of mourning for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed on the war's first day.
Though Trump has also declared victory, Washington has not achieved the aims he announced at the war's outset: to eliminate Iran's ability to attack its neighbours, destroy its nuclear programme and make it easier for Iranians to topple their government.
Iran still possesses missiles and drones that can hit its neighbours and a stockpile of more than 400 kg (900 pounds) of uranium enriched to near weapons grade. Its rulers survived the superpower onslaught with no sign of organised opposition and demonstrated their ability to exert control of the strait.
In a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump expressed frustration with allies for their lack of support in the war and made clear he wanted concrete commitments within the next few days for help to secure the waterway, according to two European diplomats.
Iran is pressing for even more U.S. concessions in a final deal, including the total lifting of sanctions that have crippled its economy and acknowledgment of its control over the strait, previously freely open to trade.
Washington, for its part, wants Iran to yield up the enriched uranium, forego further enrichment, give up its missiles and stop backing regional allies, all demands it had already made in talks it abandoned two days before the war.
(Reporting by Reuters bureausWriting by Peter Graff and Sharon SingletonEditing by Gareth Jones and Jan Harvey)
