A suspected car bombing followed by a firefight at a police checkpoint has killed more than a dozen people in Bannu, northwestern Pakistan, near the Afghan border. The police post has been reduced to rubble, with mangled vehicles scattered around the area.

After a week in Israeli custody, flotilla activist Saif Abu Keshek has been deported to Greece. He recorded a defiant message after arriving in Athens, urging supporters to keep mobilising for Palestine.

EXPLAINER

Israel kills at least 24 people in Lebanon in one day as Tehran’s response to US proposal to end the war is awaited.

Israeli jets have targeted more than 10 towns in southern Lebanon as the ceasefire between Iran and the United States appears to be holding despite naval skirmishes near the Strait of Hormuz.

Israel on Saturday killed at least 24 people in a wave of attacks despite a ceasefire that took effect last month.

Meanwhile, Washington is awaiting Tehran’s response to its latest proposal to end the US-Israel war on Iran, which entered day 72 on Sunday.

Here is what we know:

In Iran

• The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Saturday threatened to target US sites in the Middle East and “enemy ships” if its tankers come under fire, Iranian media reported.
• The Football Federation of Iran said its men’s national team would take part in the 2026 World Cup this summer but demanded that joint hosts the US, Mexico and Canada agree to its conditions.
• A spokesperson for Iran’s military warned that any country enforcing US sanctions against Tehran will “definitely face difficulties passing through the Strait of Hormuz”, according to the Tasnim News Agency.

War diplomacy

• Pakistan’s military chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, said Islamabad will continue its mediation efforts between the US and Iran. “We will do all our efforts to succeed in the mediation, and we will continue to do so,” Munir said in a public address on Sunday.
• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met on Saturday with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani to discuss the importance of “security across the Middle East”, the US Department of State said.
• Iran has yet to reply to the US proposal to end the war despite US President Donald Trump saying late on Friday that he expected to receive it that night.
• A reporter for the French broadcaster LCI, Margot Haddad, said on Saturday that Trump told her in a brief interview that he still expected to find out Iran’s answer “very soon”.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed Moscow’s willingness to oversee the transfer and storage of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile.

In the Gulf

• Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the deputy prime minister and foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, expressed his country’s “full solidarity with the Kingdom of Bahrain and its support for all measures taken by the Bahraini security authorities” to uncover a cell linked to the IRGC and “espionage activities”.
• Bahrain said on Saturday that it arrested 41 people who are part of a group affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The Ministry of Interior said investigations confirmed they were in contact with the IRGC and collected funds “with the aim of sending them to Iran” to support its “terrorist operations”.

In Israel

• The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Avila, two activists whom Israel abducted from the Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla, were deported on Sunday.
• The Israeli military said it intercepted a “suspicious aerial target” that was detected in the area where its invading troops are operating in southern Lebanon.
• Dozens of Israelis have rallied in Tel Aviv to protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and the military operations in southern Lebanon.

In Lebanon

• Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group, said its fighters hit an Israeli D9 bulldozer in the Khallat Raj area of the town of Deir Siryan in southern Lebanon on Sunday.
• The Israeli military said it struck more than 40 infrastructure sites belonging to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon over the weekend.
• European Union crisis management chief Hadja Lahbib urged increased humanitarian access to southern Lebanon, where Israel and Hezbollah have continued to engage in hostilities despite a ceasefire. “Humanitarian aid is ready, but too often it cannot reach those who need it most,” Lahbib told journalists on the second day of a visit to Lebanon and before an expected EU aid delivery.

Strait of Hormuz

• A ⁠bulk ⁠carrier reported being struck by an unknown ⁠projectile while sailing 23 nautical miles (43km) northeast ⁠of Doha, Qatar, United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said on Sunday.
• A Qatari tanker carrying liquefied natural gas has sailed through the strait en route to Pakistan and was in the Gulf of Oman on Sunday, according to MarineTraffic shipping data. Its voyage marks the first transit of a Qatari LNG vessel through the strait since the US and Israel launched their war on February 28.
• The UK said it would send a destroyer to the Middle East before any international mission to help protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The mission is to be led by Britain and France, which have previously emphasised it would be separate from the US war deployment in the region.
• The US military’s Central Command said on Saturday that it has “disabled” four ships and prevented 58 commercial vessels from entering or exiting Iranian ports since April 13.

More than 30 Global Sumud Flotilla vessels have reached Marmaris on Turkiye’s coast, preparing for the final leg of their mission to break Israel’s siege of Gaza. At the end of April, Israel intercepted 22 boats off Greece and detained activists.

The pair was abducted by Israeli forces from the aid flotilla in late April and held in Israel.

Israel has deported two foreign activists who had been abducted from a Gaza-bound flotilla in international waters, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says.

Saif Abu Keshek, a Spanish national of Palestinian origin, and Brazilian Thiago Avila were among dozens of activists sailing with the flotilla when it was intercepted by the Israeli navy off the coast of the Greek island of Crete on April 30.

The pair were seized by Israeli forces and taken to Israel for questioning while others were taken to Crete and released.

“Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Avila, from the provocation flotilla, were deported today from Israel” on Sunday after an investigation, the Israeli Foreign Ministry posted on X.

In a video shared on social media, Abu Keshek said he had arrived in Athens, Greece, and thanked his legal team.

“I want to thank everyone who mobilised, our legal team Adalah, my family, my wife and children, my colleagues in the movement,” he said in the video shared by the Global Sumud Flotilla on X.

Israel’s foreign ministry said Abu Keshek was suspected of affiliation with a “terrorist” organisation and Avila was suspected of illegal activity.

Both denied the allegations, saying they were on a humanitarian mission for Gaza’s civilian population and their arrest in international waters was unlawful.

Spain, Brazil and the United Nations all called for the men’s swift release.

Appeal rejected

On Wednesday, an Israeli court rejected an appeal contesting the pair’s detention, and the rights group representing them called the ruling “unlawful”.

The Global Sumud Flotilla had set sail from France, Spain and Italy with the aim of breaking Israel’s blockade of Gaza and delivering humanitarian aid to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.

The flotilla’s first voyage last year was also intercepted by Israeli forces off the coasts of Egypt and Gaza.

Israel controls all entry points into Gaza, which has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007.

Throughout Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza, which started in October 2023, there have been shortages of critical supplies in the territory.

The war has left much of the enclave’s population homeless and dependent on aid, which humanitarian agencies said is arriving too slowly as Israel at times cuts off aid entirely.