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Italy’s Premier Giorgia Meloni gives a speech in Rome, Italy, on March 11, 2026. [Riccardo De Luca – Anadolu Agency]
Italy has suspended the automatic renewal of its defense agreement with Israel, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Tuesday, Anadolu reports.
“In light of the current situation, the government has decided to suspend the automatic renewal of the defense agreement with Israel,” ANSA news agency reported citing Meloni’s talk with reporters in the northeastern city of Verona.
She further said international efforts should continue to advance peace negotiations in order to stabilize the situation in Iran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Meloni also urged caution on the issue of Russian gas.
The defense agreement, whose renewal the government decided to suspend, has been in force since 2016.
Intending to enhance defense capabilities, the agreement focuses on cooperation across several sectors, ranging from defense industries to procurement policies, with responsibility for the defense ministries.
It includes the import, export, and transit of weapons, the organization of armed forces, the training and education of military personnel, and the exchange of knowledge and technical data.
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
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Firefighters work where rockets fired by Hezbollah reportedly struck several locations in Nahariya, Israel’s northern Galilee region, on March 16, 2026. [Samir Abdalhade – Anadolu Agency]
The Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported that Hezbollah launched at least 40 drones towards northern Israel on Monday, causing significant damage. Among them was a drone deployed for the first time, equipped with an optical guidance system that makes it difficult to detect.
According to the broadcaster, one of the drones crashed in the settlement of Kiryat Shmona.
It said only a small number of the drones were intercepted, while the rest struck targets, causing heavy damage, without providing further details.
Kan added that the new drone is considered an advanced aerial system, resistant to electronic warfare and difficult to detect or stop. It said the drone can manoeuvre inside buildings, carry up to 5 kilograms of explosives, and reach ranges of tens of kilometres.
Separately, the Israeli website Globes reported that Hezbollah has recently begun using FPV (first-person view) drones to target Israeli tanks and armoured personnel carriers in southern Lebanon.
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone …
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Smoke rises as the Israeli army carries out airstrikes on multiple locations in southern Lebanon on February 28, 2026. [Ramiz Dallah – Anadolu Agency]
Israeli warplanes launched a series of airstrikes on southern Lebanon on Monday, targeting the town of Qantara and the outskirts of Tibnin, while artillery shelling struck the ancient citadel of Tyre, a site listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.
According to the Lebanese National News Agency, the citadel area includes the shrine and tomb of Prophet Simeon the Just, raising concerns over damage to cultural and historical heritage.
Israeli drones and artillery also targeted multiple towns and villages across southern Lebanon, amid continued escalation.
An earlier airstrike on the town of Bustan resulted in the deaths of several Syrian workers, while another strike on Nabatieh al-Fawqa killed a young man.
Israeli air operations have also extended to the southern suburbs of Beirut and areas in southeastern and northern Lebanon, alongside a ground incursion that began in mid-March.
The escalation follows ongoing hostilities since 2nd March, after Hezbollah launched attacks on Israeli-controlled areas in response to US and Israeli strikes on Iran on 28th February.
Israeli airstrikes continue across Lebanon, contributing to rising casualties and increasing concerns over further regional escalation.
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
A view of the heavy destruction in the buildings of Shema, a town in southern Lebanon’s Tyre district, following the withdrawal of the Israeli army two days ago, on January 13, 2025. [Stringer – Anadolu Agency]
Israeli forces have destroyed the shrine of Prophet Shimon the Just in the town of Shamaa in the Tyre district, according to official and local media reports.
The Lebanese National News Agency reported that Israeli artillery shelling targeted the area of the ancient citadel in Tyre, where the shrine was located. The site was listed as part of a UNESCO World Heritage area, granting it international cultural protection.
According to the report, surrounding hills near Shamaa were subjected to intermittent shelling early Monday, though there was no immediate confirmation of casualties.
Lebanese media, including Al-Akhbar, said Israeli forces had bulldozed the shrine before destroying it in an airstrike.
The shrine had previously been destroyed during the 2014 war before being restored by local residents, who regard it as a historical religious site and mosque.
The incident comes amid continued Israeli airstrikes across southern Lebanon. According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, the escalation since 2nd March has resulted in 2,055 deaths and 6,588 injuries.
Israeli military operations continue across southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces have maintained a presence in certain areas for decades, alongside renewed incursions during the current escalation.
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone …
US Vice President JD Vance, exhausted after fruitless marathon negotiations with Iran, prepares to board Air Force Two on April 12, 2026 in Islamabad, Pakistan. (Photo by Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/Getty Images)
“Blocking the Strait of Hormuz to unblock the Strait of Hormuz is peak Trump foreign policy,” said one observer.
US President Donald Trump on Sunday announced a military blockade of the Strait of Hormuz as Vice President JD Vance’s negotiating team failed to gain the trust of their Iranian counterparts, who have been burned by the United States before and are loath to surrender sovereignty over their nuclear program.
Trump announced in an early morning post on his Truth Social network that, “effective immediately,” the Strait of Hormuz—which was open before the president launched his illegal war of choice—would be closed to all shipping. Around 20% of the world’s oil passed through the waterway before the war.
“At some point, we will reach an ‘ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO IN, ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO OUT’ basis, but Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying, ‘There may be a mine out there somewhere,’ that nobody knows about but them,” Trump wrote. “THIS IS WORLD EXTORTION, and Leaders of Countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted.”
Blocking the Strait of Hormuz to unblock the Strait of Hormuz is peak Trump foreign policy.
“I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran,” the president continued, referring to one of the concessions reportedly in the cease-fire agreement with Iran that he approved last week. “No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas. We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the Straits. Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!”
“Iran will not be allowed to profit off this Illegal Act of EXTORTION,” Trump added. “They want money and, more importantly, they want Nuclear. Additionally and, at an appropriate moment, we are fully ‘LOCKED AND LOADED,’ and our Military will finish up the little that is left of Iran!”
Responding to Trump’s post, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink, said: “So get this. Trump wants to open the Strait of Hormuz by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Blow up the world economy to punish Iran. Make sense?”
Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council, also took to social media, writing that “a blockade is an act of war, so Trump is announcing he will reenter the US into a war has been illegal under domestic and international law and has been disastrous for US interests, regional security, and the people of Iran.”
In a social media post, journalist Séamus Malekafzali said: “I have legitimately never heard of a more insane, designed-to-backfire policy under this administration; maybe ever. Not only attempting to blockade Iranian ships, but ANY ship that goes through the Strait of Hormuz by paying the toll.”
While Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubioattended a UFC match in Miami, Vance was left with the task of marathon negotiations with Iranian officials in Islamabad, Pakistan. It was the first direct high-level talks between the two countries since 1979.
“We need to see an affirmative commitment that [Iran] will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon,” Vance told reporters after the talks. “That is the core goal of the president of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.”
Iran’s government was willing to make unprecedented concessions regarding its nuclear program up until the US and Israel began bombing the country on February 28. Every US administration since that of former President George W. Bush—including Trump’s—has concluded that Iran is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran gave its assurance that it would not build nukes in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action it signed in 2015 during the presidency of Barack Obama. Trump unilaterally scrapped the agreement, which was also called the Iran nuclear deal, during his first term despite—some say because of—Iran’s full compliance.
So the Trump administration’s two goals in peace talks with Iran are:1. A commitment by Iran not to develop a nuke (This was part of the Obama deal that Trump canceled)2. Opening the Strait of Hormuz. (Was open before war.)
Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf blamed the US for the breakdown in talks.
“My colleagues on the Iranian delegation Minaab168 raised forward-looking initiatives, but the opposing side ultimately failed to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of negotiations,” Ghalibaf said in a social media post. The Iranian delegation was named after the town where 168 children and staff at an elementary school were massacred in a US cruise missile strike on the first day of the war.
“Before the negotiations, I emphasized that we have the necessary good faith and will, but due to the experiences of the two previous wars, we have no trust in the opposing side,” Ghalibaf explained.
Just hours before Trump announced his decision to bomb Iran in February, Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, the mediator of talks between the US and Iranian governments, said that a “peace deal is within our reach,” prompting Iranian officials and others to accuse the Americans of acting in bad faith. Similar accusations were leveled when the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran in the summer of 2025 amid ongoing nuclear negotiations.
“America has understood our logic and principles,” said Ghalibaf, “and now it’s time for it to decide whether it can earn our trust or not?”
Want to know why negotiations did not succeed?
JD Vance: "they have chosen not to accept our terms."
Bingo.
No negotiations – at least with Iran – will succeed based on "our/your terms."
The US must learn: you can't dictate terms to Iran.
The US and Israel have been bombing Iran for 43 days. They have bombed more than 13,000 targets, assassinated senior political and military figures—including the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—and, according to Iranian medical officials, killed more than 3,000 people, including hundreds of women and children. Israel’s concurrent bombing of Lebanon has also killed hundreds of civilians.
Iran, while weakened militarily, appears to be in a position of strategic strength. But to hear Trump say it, Iran is “LOSING, and LOSING BIG!”
“The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways,” he wrote on Truth Social as Vance headed to Pakistan. “The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei advised patience, asserting that a diplomatic breakthrough was highly unlikely after just one round of talks.
“Naturally, from the beginning we should not have expected to reach an agreement in a single session,” Baghaei said. “No one had such an expectation.”
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
