Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, a key international waterway, in response to Israeli attacks against the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon as ceasefire dubbed ‘fragile’
The US has demanded that Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz after the Islamic Republic shut the waterway following Israeli strikes against the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. Tehran’s action raised questions over whether an already fragile ceasefire to halt more than a month of warfare would survive.
Both the US and Iran declared success after securing the agreement, with world leaders voicing relief, despite continued drone and missile strikes hitting Iran and Gulf Arab nations.
Israel escalated its offensive in Lebanon, striking multiple commercial and residential districts in Beirut without advance notice. At least 182 people perished in the deadliest single-day casualty count of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, Lebanon’s health ministry reported. A further 890 individuals sustained injuries, the ministry confirmed.
The renewed hostilities risked derailing what US vice president JD Vance described as a “fragile” arrangement.
“Aggression towards Lebanon is aggression towards Iran,” General Seyed Majid Mousavi, aerospace commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, wrote on X. He cautioned that Iranian forces were preparing a “heavy response”.
Iran alleged the US had breached three provisions of its framework for an accord.
Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi maintained that ending the Lebanese conflict formed part of the ceasefire deal with the US. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump stated the truce excluded Lebanon. “The world sees the massacres in Lebanon,” Mr Araghchi penned on X. “The ball is in the U.S. court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declared the reported closure of the strait in Iranian state media as “completely unacceptable”. She reiterated Mr Trump’s “expectation and demand” for the strait to be reopened.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth stated that American and Israeli forces had secured a “capital V military victory”, and that the Iranian military no longer represented a significant threat to US forces or the region. The Iranian military claimed the country compelled Israel and the US to accept its “proposed conditions and surrender”.
Much about the agreement remained uncertain as the parties presented vastly different interpretations of the terms.
– Iran claimed the deal would permit it to formalise its new practice of charging ships passing through the strait, a vital transit route for oil, but the specifics were not clear, nor was it known whether vessels would feel secure using the channel or whether ship traffic had resumed. It also remained unclear whether any other country agreed to this condition. The White House stated Mr Trump is opposed to tolls for ship passage.
– Pakistan, which assisted in mediating the deal, and others said fighting would cease in Lebanon, where Israel has initiated a ground invasion against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group. Israel maintained it would not, and strikes hit Beirut on Wednesday.
– The future of Iran’s missile and nuclear programmes – the eradication of which were key goals for the US and Israel in initiating war – remains uncertain. Mr Trump stated that the US would collaborate with Iran to remove concealed enriched uranium, although Iran did not confirm this.
Initially, Mr Trump claimed that Iran proposed a “workable” 10-point plan that could potentially end the war launched by the US and Israel on February 28. However, when a Farsi version surfaced suggesting Iran would be permitted to continue enriching uranium – crucial for constructing a nuclear weapon – the US president dismissed it as fraudulent without further explanation.
Mr Vance later suggested that the deal was being misrepresented within Iran, though he did not provide specifics.
Ms Leavitt described Iran’s original 10-point plan as “fundamentally unserious, unacceptable and completely discarded”, but a new 15-point plan presented by Tehran on Tuesday could now “align with our own” peace proposal.
The White House announced that Mr Vance would head the American negotiation team in discussions in Pakistan aimed at securing a permanent end to the war. Pakistan indicated that the talks could commence in Islamabad as early as Friday.
Iran’s conditions for ending the war include a withdrawal of US combat forces from the region, the lifting of sanctions and the release of its frozen assets.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s personal envoy arrived in Iran for discussions on “the way forward”.
Israeli Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir declared Israel will continue to “utilise every operational opportunity” to strike Hezbollah. The Israeli military reported it hit more than 100 targets within 10 minutes on Wednesday across Lebanon, marking the largest wave of strikes since March 1.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun denounced the attacks as “barbaric”, while Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit accused Israel of “persistently seeking to sabotage” the Iran ceasefire deal.
Hezbollah has not confirmed whether it will comply with the ceasefire, though the group has indicated it was open to giving mediators a chance to secure an agreement. An official stated the group would not cease firing at Israel unless Israel agreed to do the same.
Iranian attacks and threats discouraged many commercial vessels from using the strait, through which 20% of all traded oil and natural gas passes in peacetime. That shook the world economy and increased the pressure on Mr Trump at home and abroad to find a way out of the standoff.
The ceasefire may formalise a system of charging fees in the strait that Iran instituted – and provide it with a new source of revenue.
The plan permits Iran and Oman to charge ships, according to a regional official. The official said Iran would use the money for reconstruction. This would overturn decades of precedent that views the strait as an international waterway open for transit and is unlikely to be acceptable to the Gulf Arab states, which also need to rebuild following repeated Iranian assaults on their oil fields.
US-Israeli strikes have severely impacted Iran and its leadership, but they haven’t completely eradicated the threats posed by Tehran’s nuclear programme, its ballistic missiles or its support for regional proxies like Hezbollah. The US and Israel stated that addressing these threats was a crucial reason for going to war.
Mr Trump declared that the US would collaborate with Tehran to “dig up and remove” enriched uranium that was buried under joint US-Israeli strikes in June. He added that none of the material had been disturbed since. There was no confirmation from Iran.
Mr Hegseth informed a Pentagon briefing on Wednesday that the US would execute “something like” last June’s joint strikes with Israel on Iranian nuclear sites if the country refuses to surrender its enriched uranium voluntarily.
Shortly after the ceasefire announcement, Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all issued alerts about incoming missiles from Iran. That barrage ceased for a while, then hostilities seemed to recommence.
An oil refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island was attacked, according to Iranian state television. The island houses one of the terminals that Iran utilises to export oil and gas.
As of late March, over 1,900 individuals had been killed in Iran, but the government has not provided an updated count for several days.
In Lebanon, 1,739 people have lost their lives and 5,873 have been injured in just over five weeks since the war began, resulting in a million people being displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have also been killed.