Senior Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah praised Friday Iran as he spoke to reporters in the battered Beirut southern suburb of Haret Hreik.

“Yesterday, before the ceasefire, Hezbollah’s leadership was formally informed around 4am from the Iranian ambassador that there will be a ceasefire at night,” he said. “We were informed from the Islamic Republic that the calls they took with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were encouraging and facilitating for a ceasefire as first step.”

Tilak Pokharel, a spokesperson for the U.S. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon known as UNIFIL, said peacekeepers have not observed any airstrikes since midnight, when a 10-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah took effect.

He said, however, that they had observed “artillery shelling in several areas in south Lebanon” up until 6 a.m. and “continue to observe IDF airspace violation in their area of operations,” referring to the Israeli military.

The leaders of France and the U.K. gathered dozens of countries — but not the United States — on Friday to push forward plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil route choked off by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

The Paris meeting is part of attempts by sidelined nations to ease the impact of a conflict they didn't start and haven't joined, but that has sent the global economy reeling. After the war started on Feb. 28, Iran effectively shut the narrow strait though which a fifth of the world's oil usually passes.

Israel's defense minister said on Friday that the campaign against the militant group Hezbollah was not yet complete, just hours after a 10-day ceasefire came into force in Lebanon.

"The ground maneuver into Lebanon and the strikes on Hezbollah have achieved many gains, but they are still not complete," Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a broadcast statement.

A fragile calm settled over parts of Lebanon on Friday as a 10-day ceasefire brokered by the United States took hold between Israel and Hezbollah, prompting thousands of displaced families to begin the journey home — even as uncertainty, destruction and Israeli warnings against going back to parts of southern Lebanon clouded their return.

By early morning, cars were backed up for kilometers on the route leading south to the damaged Qasmiyeh bridge over the Litani River, a key crossing linking the southern coastal city of Tyre to the north. Vehicles piled high with mattresses, suitcases and salvaged belongings crept forward through a single reopened lane, hastily repaired after an Israeli airstrike just a day earlier.

Tom Barrack, the U.S. special envoy to Syria and ambassador to Turkey, told a diplomacy conference Friday that the “brilliance” of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire in Lebanon was that it ended “senseless killing.”

“The brilliance of what happened yesterday is it stopped senseless killing and President Trump and Secretary Rubio stepping in strongly and saying we need a time out,” Barrack said at the conference in Antalya, southern Turkey.

Two local leaders in northern Israel criticized the nascent ceasefire with Lebanon, warning it would leave communities vulnerable.

Hezbollah said in a statement that “any ceasefire must be comprehensive across all Lebanese territory and must not allow the Israeli enemy any freedom of movement.”

More than three dozen Democrats supported an effort by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday to block arms sales to Israel, signaling a growing discontent in the party with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the wars in Gaza and Iran.

The two resolutions to block U.S. sales of bulldozers and bombs to Israel were opposed by all Republicans and rejected 40-59 and 36-63. But Sanders has repeatedly forced votes on the issue to put pressure on his colleagues — both Democrats and Republicans — to oppose Netanyahu's regime.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni was supposed to be Europe's bridge to U.S. President Donald Trump. It may be burning.

After chastising Pope Leo XIV, Trump turned his ire on Meloni, long one of his closest European allies, for calling his papal broadside "unacceptable" and not backing the U.S.-Israel war on Iran.