WASHINGTON, April 22 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Iran had agreed not to execute eight women protesters in a sign of respect for him, while officials in Tehran denied the executions had been planned and accused the U.S. president of spreading falsehoods.

"Very good news," Trump said in a social media post a day after granting a unilateral ceasefire in the war started by the U.S. and Israel on February 28.

Trump said four of the eight women would be released immediately and four would be sentenced to one month in prison.

April 22 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump wants to see a "unified" response from Iran's leadership to U.S. proposals to end hostilities, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday.

Leavitt told reporters that Trump had not set a deadline for an end to the ceasefire extension he announced on Tuesday.

Earlier, Leavitt said in an interview with Fox News' "The Story with Martha MacCallum" that Iran must agree to turn over its enriched uranium to the United States as part of negotiations to end the war.

By Maya Gebeily

BEIRUT, April 22 (Reuters) - Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon wounded one journalist and left another trapped under rubble on Wednesday with rescuers temporarily blocked from reaching her by ongoing Israeli fire, Lebanon's health ministry, a senior military official and press advocates said.

Israel's military said in a statement it had received reports that two journalists were injured as a result of its strikes, and denied it was preventing rescue teams from reaching the area.

ANKARA, April 22 (Reuters) - Turkey is making efforts to revive negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and bring together the leaders of the warring sides, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in a meeting in Ankara, the Turkish presidency said on Wednesday.

Earlier on Wednesday, Kyiv said it had asked Turkey, a NATO member, to host a leaders' level meeting with Russia. Ankara has maintained good ties with both Ukraine and Russia since Moscow's full-scale invasion in 2022.

Palestinian mourners said Wednesday that Israeli settlers descended from a nearby hill and attacked a school in the occupied West Bank, killing two people, including a teenage student.

Aws Hamdi al-Naasan, 14, and Jihad Marzouq Abu Naim, 32, were killed by gunfire on Tuesday in the village of Al-Mughayyir.

"The students were taking their monthly exams. Suddenly, we were shocked to see settlers advancing towards the school and attacking it," principal Bassam Abu Assaf told AFP, as relatives and villagers gathered at the funeral.

April 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. breach of commitments and its blockade of Iranian ports and threats are the main obstacles to "genuine negotiations", Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Wednesday.

"[The] world sees your endless hypocritical rhetoric and contradiction between claims and actions," he said, one day after U.S. President Donald Trump's ceasefire extension.

(Reporting by Menna Alaa El-Din and Ahmed Tolba; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Iranian officials have kept a united front in the Middle East war and there appears for now to be no major split within the leadership, even though factional disagreements exist and the complete absence from public view of key decision makers creates confusion, analysts said.

Announcing an extension of the ceasefire in the war against the Islamic republic, US President Donald Trump said Tuesday the move was partly "based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so".

By David Brunnstrom and Olivia Le Poidevin

April 22 (Reuters) - Former Costa Rican vice president Rebeca Grynspan, a candidate to head the United Nations, vowed on Wednesday that peacemaking would be her first priority if chosen, while warning that trust is waning in the world body and time running out to restore it.

"Peacemaking is the purpose of this organization," Grynspan, one of four candidates vying to become the next U.N. secretary-general from next year, told a hearing on her candidacy at the U.N. in New York.

The United States has vowed to blockade Iran's ships until the country makes a deal to end their war. But is the blockade working?

Analysts and ship-tracking data paint a complicated picture. Shifting objectives and shadowy activity by vessels making the success of the US operation hard to measure.

"There's been confusion over the scope and the parameters of the blockade because of conflicting information given by the US administration and some delays in when information has been released," Bridget Diakun, an analyst at shipping journal Lloyd's List Intelligence, told AFP.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday defended the Trump administration's recent about-face to temporarily extend a sanctions waiver that allowed the sale of Russian oil already at sea.

The month-long relief announced last Friday was meant to cool soaring energy prices. But it came just two days after Bessent told reporters that Washington would not renew the waiver.

The latest move allowed for purchases of oil and petroleum products that had been loaded onto vessels as of Friday, through 12:01 am (0401 GMT) on May 16.