Some residents in Beirut believe south Lebanon should be included in a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

They said a deal will not be sustainable without a lasting truce between Iran and the United States.

Pope Leo XIV urged the United States and Iran to return to talks to end the war Thursday, in a wide-ranging press conference en route home from his trip to Africa.

He called for a new "culture of peace" to replace the recourse to violence whenever conflicts arise.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni on Thursday thanked Italian peacekeepers serving in southern Lebanon for donating a new crucifix to the village of Debel after the original was destroyed by an Israeli soldier in an incident that drew international criticism.

Meloni said images showing the crucifix being delivered and placed in the same spot as the one destroyed days earlier conveyed “a message of hope, dialogue and peace.”

Residents in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv expressed mixed views on talks between Israel and Lebanon, with opinions ranging from calls for diplomacy to deep skepticism over Hezbollah’s role.

“I always believe that you can talk, but you have to be prepared for war,” said Ben Kurtzer, a Jerusalem resident.

Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri said ministers on Thursday discussed joining the International Criminal Court, a permanent tribunal that prosecutes individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, for “a specific period.”

The move would mark a significant shift for Lebanon, which is not a member of the court. Mitri said the move would enable the ICC to “look into war crimes and humanitarian crimes which were committed on Lebanese territory.”

The president reiterated that the U.S. continues to demand that Iran stop it’s backing of proxy groups in the Mideast, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, as part of any deal between Washington and Tehran to end the U.S. war on Iran.

"Yeah, they’ll have to cut that," Trump said to a reporter’s question about aiding the militant group. "That’s a must."

Speaking alongside Trump in the Oval Office, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter said Israel and Lebanon “have never been next to each other more than today.”

Leiter thanked Trump and Vice President JD Vance for a day he said was decades in the making.

The U.S. military on Thursday seized another tanker associated with the smuggling of Iranian oil, ratcheting up a standoff with Iran a day after its paramilitary Revolutionary Guards took control of two vessels in the crucial Strait of Hormuz.

The Defense Department released video footage of U.S. forces on the deck of the Guinea-flagged oil tanker Majestic X, which was seized in the Indian Ocean.

The European Union on Thursday approved a massive loan package to help Ukraine meet its economic and military needs for the next two years, the bloc's Cypriot presidency said, after Hungary lifted its veto.

The EU also approved a new raft of sanctions against Russia over its war on Ukraine. The measures were prepared early this year and set to be announced in February to mark the fourth anniversary of the conflict, but Hungary and Slovakia opposed the move.

U.S. weapons deliveries to Ukraine haven't stopped despite the Iran war, and Ukrainian long-range strikes continue to hammer Russian oil production and manufacturing plants, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday.

"Of course, we are hitting what is painful for Russia, and it is very painful," Zelensky said in voice messages to reporters. He said that Russian losses in the strikes have reached tens of billions of dollars.