Body
A U.S.-Iran ceasefire deal to pause the war appeared to be under strain on Wednesday after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz again, prompting the White House to demand the channel be reopened and to press for peace talks to continue. The renewed pressure came as Israel expanded its strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon, with strikes reported in and around Beirut.
Iran’s closure of the strait followed Israeli attacks in Lebanon, according to the account laid out by the Iranian side and echoed by the way the two governments described the ceasefire’s stability. The White House said the Strait of Hormuz closure reported by Iranian state media was unacceptable, while the Iranian government and officials portrayed the move as tied to Israeli actions.
The ceasefire’s fragility deepened amid competing descriptions of what the deal covered. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said an end to the war in Lebanon was part of the ceasefire, while Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump said the truce did not cover Lebanon.
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes killed 182 people on Wednesday, the highest single-day death toll in the Israel-Hezbollah war. The report said the renewed violence threatened to derail what U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance called a “fragile” deal, even as world leaders expressed relief at the original agreement.
Iran’s political leadership also raised objections to the pace and terms of the next stage. In a social media post, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said planned talks were “unreasonable” because Washington broke three of Tehran’s 10 conditions for an end to the fighting, and he cited issues including Israeli attacks on Hezbollah after the ceasefire took effect, an alleged drone incursion into Iranian airspace, and the U.S. refusal to accept Iranian enrichment capabilities in a final agreement.
Araghchi, meanwhile, used the public messaging around the ceasefire to frame the next step as a U.S. responsibility. In a post on X, Araghchi said, “The world sees the massacres in Lebanon,” adding that “The ball is in the U.S. court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments.”
At the U.S. end of the negotiation, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Strait of Hormuz closure was “completely unacceptable” and 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 the Iranian military said the country forced Israel and the U.S. to accept its “proposed conditions and surrender.”
Many details of the agreement remained unclear because the sides described different versions of the terms. On Strait access, the report said Iran described the deal as allowing it to formalize a practice of charging ships passing through the strait, while the White House said Trump is opposed to tolls for ship passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
Shipping movement also appeared limited. The report said only 11 vessels moved through the strait Wednesday, roughly the same as in prior days, according to Windward, a maritime intelligence firm, and it said Iran was requiring shippers to pay tolls of up to $1 a barrel for outbound oil, with the largest supertankers carrying up to 3 million barrels of crude.
Diplomatic activity was also set to continue even as the fighting escalated. The White House said Vance would lead American negotiators at upcoming peace talks that could begin in Pakistan as soon as Friday, and it said Iran’s demands included withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region, lifting sanctions, and release of frozen Iranian assets.
Israel’s military leadership said it would keep striking Hezbollah. In the report, Israel’s chief of staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said Israel will continue to “utilize every operational opportunity” to strike Hezbollah, and the Israeli military said it struck more than 100 targets within 10 minutes Wednesday across Lebanon—its largest wave of strikes since March 1.
Hezbollah did not confirm whether it would abide by the ceasefire, though the group said it was open to giving mediators a chance to secure an agreement. Early Thursday, Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at northern Israel and would continue doing so “until the Israeli-American aggression against our country and our people ceases.”
Regional leaders warned of the ceasefire’s deterioration as well. The Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit accused Israel of “persistently seeking to sabotage” the ceasefire deal, while the report also said Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates issued warnings about incoming missiles from Iran shortly after the ceasefire announcement before hostilities appeared to restart.
The report said that Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities also remained unresolved in the public descriptions of the agreement. Trump said the U.S. would work with Iran to “dig up and remove” buried enriched uranium, though Iran did not confirm that, and 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 Iran refuses to surrender its enriched uranium voluntarily.
Netanyahu, in a televised address, warned that Israel was “ready to return to fighting at any time. Our finger is on the trigger,” while Iran has said its nuclear program is peaceful. The AP report also said the story corrects the overall death toll in Lebanon on Wednesday to 182.