The expanding U.S. military campaign against Iran has put three small islands that sit at the confluence of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz in the crosshairs once again.

The islands of Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunb — which were seized in 1971 by Iran from what would become the United Arab Emirates — have become a garrison for Iran, helping it exert significant control over the strait, through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas passes in peacetime.

Fighting between the U.S. and Iran has intensified over control of the Strait of Hormuz, but hopes for a possible diplomatic solution have shown stubborn signs of life.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry on Thursday rejected suggestions that Islamabad had abandoned efforts to bring Washington and Tehran back to the negotiating table after brokering an initial ceasefire agreement last month that has now collapsed.

It was just before sunrise when the last columns of Israeli tanks crossed from Lebanon back into Israel and then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who ordered the withdrawal, said the homecoming of Israeli troops sent "shivers down his spine."

That was May 24, 2000, the day Israel ended its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon.

People in Bahrain and Kuwait awoke on Wednesday to the now familiar sound of warning sirens and explosions in the distance, as Iranian strikes again dashed hopes of a return to normalcy.

It was the deadliest reported strike in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Most of the victims were children.

In almost any other conflict, these haunting truths would be seared into national memory. Yet more than 120 days since at least one U.S. missile struck an Iranian primary school, there remains no final accounting of what happened.

A ceasefire sounds straightforward: Fighting stops. Negotiations ensue. Ordinary citizens get a break from fighting — and some time to rebuild.

That's not what's happening in the volatile Mideast, where ongoing fighting still resembles a war long after ceasefire agreements were announced and President Donald Trump declared victory.

Four days of nonstop negotiations in Washington this week between the Israeli and Lebanese governments were propelled by "one clear shared interest: weakening the influence of Hezbollah and Iran in Lebanon," according to U.S., Israeli and Lebanese officials.

Hezbollah's leader has criticized a framework agreement that Israel and Lebanon have signed to end months of conflict between the Iran-backed group and Israel, raising concerns about its effectiveness.

The agreement signed Friday in Washington links Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon to Hezbollah's disarmament, something the group rejects.

Lebanon and Israel, under U.S. sponsorship, signed an agreement on Friday hoping to end hostilities between them, but experts say it does not guarantee Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and its implementation depends on Hezbollah and its backer Iran.

Lebanon took the historic step of negotiating directly with Israel despite them having no diplomatic relations, as a reaction to Tehran-backed Hezbollah drawing the country into the Middle East war on March 2.

Looking out from a friend's balcony, Milia el-Cheikh struggled to find her own home in the ruins of her now-deserted village, its entrances strung with barbed wire.

Her village of Dibbine is one of several Shiite-majority communities across southern Lebanon destroyed by Israeli forces battling Iran-backed Hezbollah. Israel has occupied vast areas and fighting has raged through declared ceasefires. The latest truce — part of the interim peace deal between the United States and Iran — appears to be holding.