As the US and Iran continue to negotiate a fragile ceasefire, and fighting continues in the strait of Hormuz, life goes on in Tehran.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, met the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, in Rome on Friday at a moment of unusual strain between Trump and Italy, driven largely by the war with Iran.

Meanwhile, in Lebanon, more than half of that country’s population now depends on humanitarian aid, according to the European Union, as Israel continues its attacks on the country despite a ceasefire in the two-month-long war with militant group Hezbollah.

Following our earlier post on comments made by Donald Trump about negotiations with Iran for a Middle East ceasefire, the US president has told reporters at a White House briefing on Friday evening that he expects a response from Iran soon.

“I’m getting a letter supposedly tonight,” he said. Asked whether Iran was intentionally slow-rolling the negotiation process, he replied: “We’ll find out soon enough.”

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, also said Washington was expecting a response from Iran on Friday to its proposals for an interim deal to end the conflict in the Middle East.

In recent days there have been the biggest flare-ups in fighting in and around the contested strait of Hormuz since the informal truce began. The rise in violence followed Donald Trump’s announcement – then rapid pause – of a new naval mission aimed at opening the strategic waterway.

You can read our wrap about the negotiations here.

Satellite images appear to show an oil slick spreading off the coast of Iran’s Kharg Island, a key oil export terminal for the Islamic republic.

It was not immediately clear what caused the apparent spill, which is near the small Gulf island’s west coast.

Orbital EOS, which monitors oil spills, told the New York Times the spill appeared to cover more than 52 sq km (20 sq miles) as of Thursday.

The Conflict and Environment Observatory, a non-governmental organization, said on X that the “original source remains unclear, meanwhile it’s drifting south and seems unlikely to be addressed appropriately”.

Kharg Island is at the heart of Iran’s oil export industry.

Trump said Friday that he expects a response from Iran soon as negotiations continue on a potential proposal to end the US-Israel war.

Trump told pool reporters that he expects to hear from Iran “tonight” on a potential deal that could end the fighting.

More details could be forth coming as Trump wraps up his remarks to pool reporters.

US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said that the department is prepared to take financial actions against those providing weapons to Iran’s military, in a statement shared by Reuters.

Bessent’s latest comments came after the US Treasury announced sanctions against 10 individuals and companies, including many based in China and Hong Kong.

“Under President Trump’s decisive leadership, we will continue to act to Keep America Safe and target foreign individuals and companies providing Iran’s military with weapons for use against U.S. forces,” said Bessent.

Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said on Friday that having control over the strait of Hormuz is an asset “on the scale of an atomic bomb”.

“Indeed, having in one’s hands a position that allows you to influence the global economy with a single decision is a major opportunity,” he said.

The US Treasury has announced sanctions against 10 individuals and companies, including several in China and Hong Kong, for aiding efforts by Iran’s military to secure weapons and raw materials used to build Tehran’s Shahed drones.

The Treasury move, first reported by Reuters, comes days before Donald Trump plans to travel to China for a meeting with president Xi Jinping and as efforts to end the war in Iran have stalled.

These sanctions are part of a broader pressure campaign by the US against Iran’s ability to finance, manufacture, and transport military supplies.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told his United Arab Emirates counterpart on Friday that US-Iran talks needed to be supported to prevent a resumption of hostilities in the Middle East.

“The Russian side emphasized the need to focus on supporting the ongoing negotiations between Iran and the USA,” a foreign ministry statement said of Lavrov’s telephone conversation with UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The statement said Russia did not want “to jeopardize the prospects for stabilization by resuming hostilities.”

Qatar’s prime minister called for renewed diplomacy on an agreement with Iran as he met with US vice-president JD Vance in Washington earlier.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met with Vance and discussed Pakistani-led efforts to broker a permanent peace amid a shaky ceasefire.

The Qatari prime minister “stressed the need for all parties to engage with the ongoing mediation efforts, to pave the way for addressing the root causes of the crisis through peaceful means and dialogue, leading to a comprehensive agreement that achieves lasting peace in the region,” the Qatari foreign ministry said on X.

The United States will facilitate two days of “intensive talks” between Israel and Lebanon on 14-15 May, the US state department has said.

The talks will be aimed at establishing long-term border security, and reaching a “comprehensive”, lasting peace agreement to prevent further conflict, the state department said.

They will also seek to address Hezbollah’s ability to “entrench and enrich themselves”, which has allowed the group to “undermine the authority of the Lebanese state, and endanger Israel’s northern border”.

As we reported earlier, US secretary of state Marco Rubio met the Italian prime minister Giorgia Miloni in Rome on Friday at a moment of unusual strain between Trump and Italy, driven largely by the war against Iran.

Rubio also met with Pope Leo for a meeting he described as “cordial and important” and said he had explained the US position on Iran, in a fence-mending visit to Rome after sharp disagreements over the US-Israel war on Iran and Trump’s criticisms of the pontiff.

Here’s the clip.

US Central Command said in a post on X that its forces have redirected 57 commercial vessels and disabled 4 others to prevent them from entering or leaving Iranian ports.

Two of the disabled ships were oil tankers struck by a US navy jet earlier on Friday, Centcom said in an earlier update.

Lebanese authorities reported five people including a rescuer killed in fresh Israeli strikes.

The Lebanese health ministry said in a statement that an Israeli raid on the town of Toura in the southern Tyre district killed four people, including two women, and wounded eight others in a preliminary toll.

Lebanon’s civil defence said earlier that one of its members was killed in an Israeli attack on the south.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah has said it launched missiles at a military base in Israel earlier on Friday in response to Israeli attacks that killed a top commander.

In a statement, the Iran-backed militant group said the missiles targeted a base south of the Israeli city of Nahariya “in response to the Israeli enemy’s violation of the ceasefire, the targeting of Beirut’s southern suburbs and the attacks that affected villages and civilians in southern Lebanon”.

Air raid sirens had sounded earlier in several cities in northern Israel, according to the Israeli military, which said it “intercepted one launch, and the additional launches fell in open areas”, adding that no injuries were reported.

Israel has kept up its attacks on Lebanon despite a truce agreed last month, and its strike on the capital’s southern suburbs on Wednesday – its first there in nearly a month – killed a senior Hezbollah commander.