A ceasefire deal to pause the war in Iran appeared to hang by a thread Wednesday after the Islamic Republic closed the Strait of Hormuz again in response to Israeli attacks in Lebanon. The White House demanded that the channel be reopened and sought to keep peace talks on track.
The U.S. and Iran both claimed victory after reaching the agreement, and world leaders expressed relief, even as more drones and missiles hit Iran and Gulf Arab countries. At the same time, Israel intensified its attacks on the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, hitting commercial and residential areas in Beirut. At least 182 people were killed Wednesday in the deadliest day of fighting there.
The fresh violence threatened to scuttle what U.S. Vice President JD Vance called a “fragile” deal.
Parliament speaker accuses US of breaking Iran's conditions
The Iranian parliament speaker said planned talks were “unreasonable” because Washington broke three of Tehran’s 10 conditions for an end to the fighting. In a social media post, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf objected to Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, an alleged drone incursion into Iranian airspace after the ceasefire went into effect and U.S. refusal to accept any Iranian enrichment capabilities in a final agreement.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi insisted that an end to the war in Lebanon was part of the ceasefire deal with the U.S. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump said the truce did not cover Lebanon.
“The world sees the massacres in Lebanon,” Araghchi said in a post on X. “The ball is in the U.S. court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments.”
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes killed 182 people on Wednesday, the highest single-day death toll in the Israel-Hezbollah war.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, reported in Iranian state media, was “completely unacceptable.” She repeated Trump’s “expectation and demand” that the channel be reopened.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said American and Israeli forces had achieved a “capital V military victory” and that the Iranian military no longer posed a significant threat to U.S. forces or the region. The Iranian military said the country forced Israel and the U.S. to accept its “proposed conditions and surrender.”
Much about the agreement was unclear as the sides presented vastly different visions of the terms.
Iran said the deal would allow it to formalize its new practice of charging ships passing through the strait, a crucial transit lane for oil. The White House said Trump is opposed to tolls for ship passage through the strait.
Only 11 vessels moved through the strait Wednesday, roughly the same as in prior days, according to Windward, a maritime intelligence firm. Iran was requiring shippers to pay tolls of up to $1 a barrel for outbound oil, it said. The largest supertankers carry up to 3 million barrels of crude.
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The fate of Iran’s missile and nuclear programs — the elimination of which were major objectives for the U.S. and Israel in going to war — also remained unclear. Trump said the U.S. would work with Iran to remove buried enriched uranium, though Iran did not confirm that.
White House looks ahead to peace talks
Trump initially said Iran proposed a “workable” plan that could help end the war the U.S. and Israel launched on Feb. 28. But when a version in Farsi emerged indicating Iran would be allowed to continue enriching uranium — key to building a nuclear weapon — Trump called it fraudulent.
Vance later said the deal was being misrepresented within Iran, though he did not offer details.
Leavitt said Iran’s original, 10-point plan was “fundamentally unserious, unacceptable and completely discarded.” But a new, 15-point plan Iran presented Tuesday could now “align with our own” proposal for peace, she said.
The White House also said Vance would lead the American negotiating team in talks in Pakistan aimed at finding a permanent end to the war. Pakistan said the talks could begin in Islamabad as soon as Friday.
Iran’s demands for ending the war include a withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region, the lifting of sanctions and the release of its frozen assets.
Meanwhile, Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said Israel will continue to “utilize every operational opportunity” to strike Hezbollah. The Israeli military said it struck more than 100 targets within 10 minutes Wednesday across Lebanon, the largest wave of strikes since March 1.
Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit accused Israel of “persistently seeking to sabotage” the ceasefire deal.
Hezbollah has not confirmed if it will abide by the ceasefire, though the group has said it was open to giving mediators a chance to secure an agreement. An official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly, said the group would not stop firing at Israel unless Israel agreed to do the same.
Iran and Oman could collect shipping fees in Strait of Hormuz
Iranian attacks and threats deterred many commercial ships from using the strait, through which 20% of all traded oil and natural gas passes in peacetime. That roiled the world economy and raised the pressure on Trump both at home and abroad to find a way out of the standoff.
The ceasefire may formalize a system of charging fees in the strait that Iran instituted — and give it a new source of revenue.
The plan allows for both Iran and Oman to charge ships, according to a regional official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss negotiations they were directly involved in. The official said Iran would use the money it raised for reconstruction.
That would upend decades of precedent treating the strait as an international waterway that was free to transit. Such a shift would likely be unacceptable to the Gulf Arab states, which also need to rebuild after repeated Iranian attacks targeting their oil fields.
Iran’s nuclear and missile threats survive
U.S.-Israeli strikes have battered Iran and its leadership, but they have not eliminated the threats posed by Tehran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missiles or its support for regional proxies, like Hezbollah. The U.S. and Israel said addressing those threats was a key justification for going to war.
Trump said the U.S. would work with Iran to “dig up and remove” enriched uranium. There was no confirmation from Iran.
Hegseth told a Pentagon briefing Wednesday that the U.S. would do “something like” last June’s joint strikes with Israel on Iranian nuclear sites if the country refuses to surrender its enriched uranium voluntarily.
Netanyahu warned in a televised address that his country was “ready to return to fighting at any time. Our finger is on the trigger.”
Tehran has insisted for years that its nuclear program was peaceful, although it has enriched uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels.
Airstrikes reported after ceasefire announcement
Shortly after the ceasefire announcement, Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all issued warnings about incoming missiles from Iran. That fire stopped for a time, then hostilities appeared to restart.
An oil refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island came under attack, according to Iranian state television. A short time later, the UAE’s air defenses fired at an incoming Iranian missile barrage.
More than 1,900 people had been killed in Iran as of late March, but the government has not updated the toll for days.
In Lebanon, more than 1,700 people have been killed, and 1 million people have been displaced. Twelve Israeli soldiers have died.
In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel, and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.
Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Magdy from Cairo and Metz from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press writers Edie Lederer at the United Nations, Natalie Melzer in Jerusalem, Abby Sewell and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Mike Catalini in Trenton, N.J., and Michelle L. Price, Aamer Madhani, Zeke Miller, Michael Biesecker and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.
Now that I think about it, I guess Iran’s economy will eventually be p iss poor even compared to Greece’s. Maybe the US should just get the bombing over with. Nobody will miss these Persians except their dying terrorist proxy groups.
Iran once again buying time through weak agreements. US may as well bomb the electric & oil facilities right now because Iran is what Iran is.
Trump looks like a fool with all his flip flopping,
Listen, I don’t quite have a horse in this race, but to be fair, when the Germans did what they did last century we initially broke them up into 4 parts. So, I can see the final end result of this being a partition of Israel…perhaps she not even existing as a state any longer.
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I take that back. Looks like it was the Iranians that violated the truce by blocking the Strait again and firing missles at the gulf states. Just creating enemies of the whole world. I guess Iran really does need to be taught a lesson. Oh well.
Besides the Jews, I hate n iggers, and chinks too. H itler was right baby.
Figures Nutty would have a way to keep slinging missles. he wont stop. Cant kill those ones? Ok Ill kill these ones instead. All the same in his book of jewness otherwise known as the Bible.. F*ck U Nuttyyahhoo.
Of course israel violates the ceasefire before the ink dries. Can’t expect anything else from a terror state.
Trump violates everything, literally.
If all of a sudden the Canadians went off the petro dollar (like Venezuela and Iran)they would be next country to be invaded. Its how fragile the u.s. economy has become.
LOL Iran was the one who violated the truce by closing Hormuz again today and firing missles at the Gulf states. Israel fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon was not part of the Truce Agreement. That is between Lebanon/Hezbollah and Israel. Is Lebanon part of Iran?? Keep violating the truce and threatening Hormuz shipping and you’ll see what happens to what’s left of Little Iran.
Then again, what am I saying. Israel hasn’t stolen any land. But how many times have the surrounding Arab countries attempted full military ground invasions and the wiping out of all of Israel in the last 100 years, and failed? I guess as long as Israel gets attacked by any surviving Iranian proxy terrorist groups, Israel has the right to hit back. I hate that but it’s how it goes. I wouldn’t do things differently if I was Israel.
Like Netanyahu cares about peace. He gains more land under war, than during “peace: when his rightnut kibbutz steals it bit by bit. Either way, stealing it bits by bits, only angers kicked out land owners. A perfect environment for retaliation which is pretense to war and mass land grab.
I’m starting to agree with “The only person commenting here with a brain.” I can only imagine that if Canada was surrounded by countries that wanted to wipe Canada off the map, and tried for 100 years to invade us, we’d slam anyone who tries to attack us, or slip past our border and murder 1000’s of people, including babies and elderly (Oct. 7). And I have no idea what genocide really means, just like most people who try to use that word here. An all the criminal accusations I just spouted about Trump are untrue/unfounded.
Not that I have a clue how the markets even work. I have never saved a penny.
Yup, and the dumb stock market is surging today, only to plummet tomorrow when the world realizes that Trump lied again!
The only person commenting here with a brain does seem to have much for a brain. They support genocide, pedophilia, murder, rape, covering up felonies and fraud, stock market manipulation, insider trading, the list goes on and on.
I can agree the Iranians needed to be dealt with but not at the expense of innocent lives and the globe all for one c*nt.
Lebanon happily houses Hezbollah, and when Hezbollah attacks israel with rockets, Israel responds. Lots of brain dead morons like the people posting below me don’t understand that simple concept. These surrounding Arab countries have tried invading Israel multiple times in the last century and thankfully failed. When your country has had multiple invasion attempts like that, you have to respond to these attacks with disproportionate force. That’s the only thing the neanderthals understand.
Terrorist state doing terrorist state things.
Netanyahu is insane. He is a murderer, committing so many war crimes. He will be known as the current dictator of genocidal massacre, akin to WWII German dictator. His greed will cost lives of the Israelis and the world will start to believe they deserve it. Sad.
Israel is and always will be a warmongering country!
If only the rest of the world would ignore them, maybe they would ‘go away’!
So disgusting how this little jew b*stard is allowed to kill whoever he wants. When does he get stopped? When do these countries all out hammer these freaks?
Israel has never stopped it’s attempt to expand into other countries. It has never stopped it’s attempt at genocide. No wonder there is anti-semitism in the world.
We need to quit defending the aggressors and allowing them to dictate what we say.