We’re closing this blog now but our coverage continues on a new liveblog here, including a recap of the latest developments. Thanks for following along.
Hello and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the US-Israel war on Iran and the consequences for the region, the world, and the global economy. Here are the latest developments: Donald Trump said he will extend – once again – his pause on his threat to attack Iran’s energy infrastructure for 10 days until 6 April, claiming that the request came from Tehran and that talks were going “very well”. The US president threatened last Saturday to would strike Iranian energy infrastructure if Tehran did not reopen the strait of Hormuz. Then, on Monday he postponed his threat for five days (until Friday), citing “very good and productive conversations” with Iran on ending the war (which Tehran dismissed as “fake news” designed to “manipulate” the oil markets). Now, he’s pushing that deadline back, again. The price of Brent crude also dropped following Trump’s latest announcement. Oil prices rose to their highest level this week, with Brent crude trading at roughly $108 a barrel after Trump’s cabinet meeting earlier on Thursday. Yemen’s Houthis have said there is no need to worry amid fears that if Donald Trump follows through on threats to seize Iran’s Kharg Island, Tehran may ask them to attack shipping in the Red Sea. A day after Tehran dismissed Trump’s 15-point ceasefire plan, the US president claimed that Iran was “begging to make a deal,” and that he wasn’t the one pushing for negotiations. Earlier, he told Tehran to “get serious soon” on negotiating a deal to end the war. Trump rejected reports that he was looking for an exit ramp, as oil prices soar and political pressure mounts to avoid the kind of drawn-out Middle East war he once spurned. “I read a story today that I’m desperate to make a deal,” Trump told reporters. “I’m the opposite of desperate. I don’t care.” A US proposal for ending nearly four weeks of fighting is “one-sided and unfair”, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Thursday. However, Trump said Iran is allowing some oil tankers through strait of Hormuz as a sign of good faith for talks. He said that Iran allowed 10 oil tankers to pass through the strategic strait as a “present” to show it was serious about negotiations to end the war. The Pentagon is looking at sending up to 10,000 additional ground troops to the Middle East to give Trump more military options even as he weighs peace talks with Tehran, the Wall Street Journal is reporting, quoting defence department officials with knowledge of the planning. The Israel Defence Forces’ chief of staff has warned that the military will “collapse in on itself” as it faces increasing demands and a growing manpower shortage while fighting on multiple fronts, according to Israeli media reports. A Thai-flagged cargo ship that was hit by unknown projectiles in the strait of Hormuz earlier this month has run aground off Iran’s Qeshm Island, Iran’s Tasnim news agency said on Friday.
Malaysia’s prime minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Thursday he had spoken to the leaders of Iran, Egypt, Turkey and other regional countries and that Malaysian vessels were now being allowed to pass through the strait of Hormuz. In a televised address, Anwar thanked Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, for allowing the passage of Malaysian ships. “We are now in the process of releasing the Malaysian oil tankers and the workers involved so that they may continue their journey home,” he said. Malaysia, despite being an oil-producing nation, is highly dependent on the oil passing through the strait, with approximately 50% of the country’s oil supply transported through the waterway. “For us now, we are compelled to manage the situation because the effects of the blockade at the strait of Hormuz, the war, and the halted supply of oil and gas all have an impact on us,” Anwar said. A trickle of cargo ships and tankers – most of them Iranian, but some from Thailand and China – have made it through the strait of Hormuz since Iranian forces in effect blocked the crucial trade route in retaliation against US and Israel strikes. Earlier this week, a Thai oil tanker safely passed through the strait after diplomatic coordination between Thailand and Iran. It was not required to pay to escape the blockade, a Thai official and the owner of the vessel said on Wednesday. The Bangchak Corporation-owned tanker crossed the strategic waterway on Monday after successful talks between Thai foreign minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow and Iran’s ambassador to Thailand. At least two Chinese-owned liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carriers have also reportedly transited through the strait. A Chinese-owned containership – the Newvoyager – also transited the waterway after making a payment to Iranian authorities, Lloyd’s List reported. A Thai-flagged cargo ship that was hit by unknown projectiles in the strait earlier this month has run aground off Iran’s Qeshm Island, Iran’s Tasnim news agency said on Friday. Thailand said 20 crew members were rescued by the Omani navy, while three were missing after an explosion in the stern of the ship, Mayuree Naree, caused a fire in the engine room. The UK has in recent days offered to host an international security summit to draw up a “viable, collective plan” to reopen the strait of Hormuz as economic fallout from the Iran conflict continues. Defence chiefs have been discussing how they could unblock the vital shipping lane, through which about 20% of global oil supplies usually pass, as the impacts of the war continue to reverberate globally.
Vladimir Putin has asked Russia’s oligarchs to donate to the country’s dwindling defence budget to continue its invasion of Ukraine, it has been reported. The Russian president is expected to continue the conflict, which began in February 2022, until Moscow has secured the remaining areas of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region not under its control, according to the Financial Times. At least two businessmen have told Putin they would be willing to make contributions to the defence budget after talks on Thursday, the newspaper reported. Putin is understood to be pressing ahead with the invasion after Ukraine refused to withdraw unilaterally from Donbas during recent negotiations brokered by the US. Russia will be in contact with the US about a new round of talks on a peace settlement as soon as conditions allow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. Peskov said Russia had not lost interest in peace talks but added that key issues – including territory – had yet to be settled. The Kremlin’s defence bill has increased by 42% to reach Rbs13.1tn (£121bn) last year and it has sought to stabilise its economy through taxation. The economy minister, Maxim Reshetnikov, said on Thursday that Russia was considering another windfall tax this year if the rouble continues to weaken. Russia raised Rbs320bn (£2.95bn) through a one-off 10% windfall levy on some large companies in 2023. In January, the Kremlin increased VAT to 22% in a bid to raise an extra Rbs600bn over three years from small and medium-sized businesses. Russia’s budget deficit for January and February swelled to more than 90% of the figure projected for the whole year as US sanctions forced Moscow to sell oil at significantly discounted prices. Earlier, Putin cautioned that Russian companies and the government should take a guarded approach when deciding how to spend windfall gains from higher oil prices resulting from the war in the Middle East. “Now that the prices of our traditional exports are rising, but the markets are in turmoil, there may be a temptation to take advantage of the situation,” he told business leaders in Moscow. Putin added this temptation could involve squandering the extra revenue, paying it out in company dividends or, in the state’s case, expanding budget spending. “We must remain prudent. If the markets swing one way today, they could swing the other tomorrow,” he added. “A moderate degree of conservatism and a moderately conservative approach are needed, both in the corporate sector and in public finances.” On Wednesday, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told Reuters the US is making its offer of security guarantees for a peace deal in Ukraine conditional on Kyiv ceding all of the country’s eastern region of Donbas to Russia. Zelenskyy said: “The Middle East definitely has an impact on President Trump, and I think on his next steps. “President Trump, unfortunately, still chooses a strategy of putting more pressure on the Ukrainian side. “I would very much like the American side to understand that the eastern part of our country is part of our security guarantees.”
A group of 18 Venezuelan men whom the US expelled a notorious Salvadorian mega-prison are demanding that Salvadorian authorities be held internationally accountable for violation of human rights – detailing new allegations of torture, sexual assault and medical neglect. A new petition, filed on Thursday before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, alleges that El Salvador violated the human rights of these men, who were expelled to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) last year without charge. Human rights groups filed the petition on behalf of the 18 men, who were among 288 Venezuelans and Salvadorians that the US transferred to Cecot in March 2025. The detainees detail a “pattern of abuse, including beatings, humiliation, and sexual assault” while they were incarcerated. “One year later, these men are still waiting for justice,” said Bella Mosselmans, co-counsel on the petition and Director of the Global Strategic Litigation Council (GSLC). “We are demanding accountability for them, for their families and to ensure it never happens again.” In new testimony, the men, who were released from Cecot and returned to Venezuela in July last year, also recount the lasting mental and physical toll of their incarceration. One man testified that he still has scars from the shackles that the detainees were forced to wear for extended periods of time, writing that they “are a constant reminder of the horror I lived”. The former detainee said he is also triggered by loud noises, including the clanking of keys – “because the officials used to bang their keys on the cells to torture us and keep us awake at all hours. The sound of keys puts me into a panic state.” The human rights organizations and advocates who filed the petition have requested that the individuals’ names remain anonymous, given that some of them fled persecution and danger in Venezuela, and remain vulnerable now that they have returned to their home countries. Another of the men said that officials beat him from the moment he disembarked from the flight to El Salvador. “When I got off the plane, I fell, and two riot police from El Salvador picked me up with blows to the ribs,” he said. “They lifted me up by the handcuffs. This was an unimaginable pain.” He was beaten dozens of times during his four months of incarceration. “After each beating I was in severe pain for about seven days, to the point where I couldn’t move or walk properly,” he said. But in neighboring cells, he said, detainees were beaten more than 100 out of the 125 days that they were incarcerated. “We could hear them screaming in pain. “Several times,” he added, “The guards told us that human rights did not exist in Cecot.” The petition echoes abuses that several of the men released from Cecot have recounted to the Guardian and other media outlets, noting that detainees were held in windowless cells with no air conditioning and were made to sleep under the glare of bright lights that remained on 24/7. The detainees staged a hunger strike – which they said they kept up until one of their fellow detainees was beaten and dragged out of his cell “half dead’. Other detainees also staged a “blood strike”, cutting their wrists, “but neither the guards nor the doctors cared”, one of the men said in his testimony. The men also testified that they were deprived of basic necessities including food, water and sleep. Sometimes there was only one tank of water for bathing and drinking provided for a cell with 10 people, the men said – and sometimes there were worms and mosquitoes in the tank. One individual said he had stomach issues and diarrhoea three out of the four months he spent in Cecot. “I don’t know if it was because of the water or the food. I always had diarrhea. The food hurt my stomach so much that I still have a stomach aches,” he said. The men were detained in windowless rooms, without air conditioning, and were made to sleep on metal bunks. Bright lights remained on at all hours. “This was torture,” one of the former detainees wrote. “At first, we did not know if it was day or night. I felt like a chicken raised in a cage with constant light.” Many of the other Venezuelan migrants who were expelled from the US to El Salvador note that they have no criminal records. The US spuriously accused them of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang, the men have alleged, based on scant evidence including innocuous tattoos. After four months at Cecot, 252 Venezuelan men were released and returned to their home countries – where many were forced to confront the same danger and persecution they had fled. In an interview with the Guardian last winter, Andry Hernández Romero – a gay makeup artist who had fled persecution in Venezuela due to his sexuality and his political views – said that after he returned to his home country, it was difficult to navigate daily life back in Venezuela. It had been difficult to find work, he said, because some employers believed the US government’s claims that he was a gang member. The whereabouts of 36 Salvadorians the US sent to Cecot remain “unconfirmed”, the petition states, and their families remain unable to contact them. The petition was filed to the IACHR, a regional body within the Organization for American States tasked with protecting and promoting human rights across the region. It asks the commission to declare that the agreement between the United States and the Republic of El Salvador for the transfer of deportees to Cecot violates El Salvador’s obligations under the American convention on human rights. It also asks the commission to require El Salvador to make reparations to the former detainees, make a public apology and provide resources for psychiatric and psychological rehabilitation. It includes testimony not only by men incarcerated at Cecot, but also from medical workers who corroborated their accounts, from former US officials who attest that the Trump administration knowingly sent deportees to a country with a record of human rights abuses and from former UN special rapporteurs on the human rights of migrants. Most American states, including El Salvador under prior administrations, have complied with orders of the inter-American human rights system. But it is unclear how the current administration in El Salvador, under the autocratic leadership of President Nayib Bukele, will respond to this international pressure. Since 2022, El Salvador has operated under a “state of exception”, an emergency security policy that Bukele implemented as part of his government’s campaign against organized crime. Under the policy, authorities have also incarcerated about 1.4% of the Salvadorian population without due process. “We still feel that there’s fundamental importance in trying to hold the regime to account and in supporting the victims of Cecot and their families and their fight for justice,” she said. Human rights groups within the US have also filed claims and lawsuits on behalf of the deportees sent to Cecot. Last year, the ACLU and Democracy forward filed suit arguing that the Trump administration unlawfully invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act – which grants the president the wartime authority to expel nations of foreign countries engaged in a “declared war” against the US – to remove Venezuelan migrants. Declaring that Tren de Aragua was at “war” with the US, Trump invoked the act to swiftly expel Venezuelan men – many of them asylum seekers with no criminal records – to Cecot. Earlier this month, the legal aid group ImmDef filed claims against the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of six deportees including Hernández. And on Tuesday Neiyerver Adrián León Rengel, 28, filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking at least $1.3m in compensation, alleging false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress. “The men who disappeared to Cecot are beloved fathers, sons, husbands and neighbors,” said Julie Bourdoiseau, an attorney at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies. “US and Salvadorian authorities colluded to rip them from their homes and communities without warning, and without any semblance of due process … One year later, these families have received no redress for the unimaginable pain our governments inflicted upon them. That is unacceptable.” The petition to the IACHR is part of a broader series of cases challenging US deporting migrants to third countries – not only El Salvador but also Costa Rica, Panama and Eswatini.
First he hears a faint chatter coming from the ocean depths, then clicks and squeaks as the creatures draw closer. From the murky edges of his goggles they appear, swift and agile, darting within 10cm of his bare outstretched arms and following him for a time, as he swims hundreds of metres off the coast of New Zealand. Jono Ridler, an ultra-distance swimmer who is 1,254km (779 miles) into his world record attempt for the longest-ever unassisted staged swim, has learned to hear dolphins more than 15 minutes before they reach him and long before his support boats can see them. It is the type of knowledge of another species one can only achieve through spending hundreds of hours in their habitat. Ridler says he can now tell a small pod from a super pod at distance and can sense when they are about to reveal themselves. “Then they are just rushing beneath me, huge amounts of energy,” says the 36-year-old as he takes a break on the Wairarapa coast, three hours drive north of Wellington. “You can really sense their intelligence when you’re in the water with them … there is a lot of value and connection that we can draw from the ocean.” That connection, and Ridler’s desire to raise awareness about the threats facing the ocean, has driven him to attempt this unprecedented feat of the longest-ever unassisted staged swim. An “unassisted” swim means he must only wear swimming shorts, a cap and goggles, and “staged” means he takes breaks on land but returns to swim from where he left off. Two assist boats follow him, providing food and water, and tracking his progress. Ridler began his roughly 1,350km Swim4TheOcean campaign at the northern tip of New Zealand’s North Island on 5 January and aims to swim the length of the east coast. Depending on the conditions, he swims two six-hour stints a day, five days in a row before taking a rest day. He has clocked 428 hours in the water and swum the equivalent of 49 Cook Strait crossings, or39 English Channel crossings. Ridler has battled swarms of stinging jellyfish, sunburn, salt tongue, fatigue and hypothermia. He says it is physically gruelling as much as it is isolating and monotonous. “It can be quite lonely being in your own head for a long period of time – it’s an important thing to try and manage,” he says, adding he has developed meditative coping methods. “I do a lot of counting and following my breath, creating a pattern with my breathing. It almost becomes kind of musical.” It is also difficult being away from his wife, Sarah, and two-year-old daughter Georgie, who live in Auckland. “[Sarah] has made a big personal sacrifice to make it all happen – it wouldn’t be possible without what she is doing,” he says. Ridler is working with Live Ocean, a marine conservation charity founded by sailors Peter Burling and Blair Tuke. The charity is live-tracking his progress. He swims between 18km and 30km a day. Tuke says the scale of Ridler’s efforts are “hard to fully grasp”. “He’s just there, stroke after stroke, minute after minute, hour after hour. It’s relentless,” Tuke said. “But there’s something pretty special about it too. The power of what he’s doing, and the message he’s carrying with him. When you see that in person, it’s pretty hard to put into words,” Tuke said. It is an astonishingly taxing endeavour to sign oneself up for, but for Ridler, it was decades in the making. ‘Drawing people into the story of the ocean’ Ridler was born and raised in Auckland, where he spent his childhoods swimming, snorkelling and “getting dumped by waves”. His early experiences with the ocean were formative. When he attempted ocean swimming in his early 20s he “caught the bug” and his distances grew from 5km to 10km marathon swims. In 2019 he swam the Cook Strait, which separates New Zealand’s North and South Islands. Spending time in the water meant he could observe the changes he was seeing beneath the surface, particularly in the Hauraki Gulf near Auckland. In 2023, he became the first person to swim the 99km from Aotea/Great Barrier Island to Auckland, to raise awareness about the state of the gulf, which has suffered species decline from pollution, sediment buildup and overfishing. “There was this passion for the ocean and desire to want to create change – and feeling a tugging in me to do that – that’s really how this current adventure has come about,” Ridler says. “It’s drawing people into the story of the ocean and getting people to really care about the ocean in a new way.” His swim comes with a specific call to action – a petition to ban bottom trawling, in which heavy nets are dragged along the seabed. “These very fragile ecosystems can take a very long time to grow and if they are wiped through a trawl, it could take centuries for them to recover. It is devastating to see the damage caused for short-term return.” Ridler’s efforts have caught attention – the petition has more than 40,000 signatures, with numbers growing daily. He also managed to secure himself a spot in New Zealand’s fish of the year competition (he came fifth, losing out to a little-known Northland mudfish). In late April, Ridler intends to deliver the petition to parliament in Wellington. But he will need to make the final arduous 111km swim first. “This is going to be the hardest part – the water temperature is dropping every day as we go further south, the conditions get more exposed and the weather is unsettled,” Ridler says. “But it’s doable. It’s very doable. And in the next week, we can have it all wrapped up.”
The deposed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro had a smile on his face as he walked into a Manhattan court with shackles around his ankles and affably shook hands with attorneys at the defense table. But though he appeared at ease on Thursday, Maduro, who was captured in Caracas by US special forces on 3 January, faces a “narco-terrorism” indictment that could land him in federal prison for life. Cilia Flores, Maduro’s wife, who is charged alongside him, was also present at the defense table and both wore khaki jail scrubs. The former strongman had also slimmed down since his last court appearance. Maduro had a neon T-shirt underneath his prison garb and Flores a grey long-sleeve shirt; they both had black-framed glasses. She wore hers throughout the proceeding while he seemed to treat his as readers. While this once-powerful couple’s appearance was at times visually humdrum, it was also a stark reminder of how quickly events in Venezuela moved when the couple involuntarily swapped life in a presidential palace for sparse Brooklyn jail cells. Their presence also touched on an overlap between domestic US law enforcement and Trump’s aggressive foreign policy that has become increasingly confusing during his second term. Maduro and Flores’s arrest came after months of US pressure against him, including attacks on alleged “narco boats” that resulted in more than 100 deaths. The Trump administration also seized oil tankers in keeping with US sanctions against Venezuela. With Maduro gone, the US got to work trying to rebuild links to the country’s oil industry and forging ties with the now Maduro-less Venezuelan government – not its exiled opposition. Before court proceedings kicked off this morning, demonstrators for and against Maduro’s capture shouted on their respective sides of metal barricades. One sign stated: “Free President Maduro.” A man with an amplifier shouted: “This is not a trial! This is a judicial farce!” But several dozen Maduro opponents sang Venezuela’s national anthem, briefly drowning out the pro-Maduro camp’s claims about injustice. Some sported Venezuela’s flag around their shoulders. Others donned caps with Venezuela’s logo. “I’m a Venezuelan. I was raised and born in Venezuela, and I’m representing my community that wants justice for our country,” Adriana Malave said. “They have so many people that still need to be arrested in our country, and they are still in the government. “I hope they’re in jail for ever,” Malave said. “I know that for some people, it’s hard to understand that another country has to go to your country and take the people,” Malave added. “It sounds crazy, right? But for us, it’s the only hope that we have.” In an unexpected twist, Trump’s recent efforts for regime change elsewhere in the world could help Maduro and Flores. The US-Israel bombing campaign against Iran has roiled global oil markets – heightening demand for petroleum outside the region. Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who is overseeing Maduro’s case, pointed to the unfolding oil crisis as prosecutors fight to keep Venezuelan government money from funding Maduro’s legal defense, with the prosecution claiming national security and foreign policy concerns. “We are doing business with Venezuela,” Hellerstein said. “The oil interest in Venezuela has become vital particularly because of the shortages arising from the strait of Hormuz.” While Hellerstein did not make a decision related to debate over the Venezuelan government funding his defense, the ex-head of state remained seemingly upbeat at the hearing’s end. Maduro smiled as he whispered to his lawyers and tucked papers into an envelope. He bid them adieu with a breezy “hasta mañana” (see you tomorrow) while US marshals escorted him out of court.
Donald Trump has extended his deadline for Iran to open the strait of Hormuz by 10 days to 6 April after saying talks are “going very well”. The president made the statement on Thursday in a social media post, saying: “As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well.” Later Trump told Fox News: “I gave them a 10-day period, they asked for seven.” He also continued to declare victory in the war, adding: “In a certain sense, we have already won.” Earlier, the US president had urged Iranian leaders to negotiate an end to the near-month-long war or face further assassinations of senior officials amid intensified action by the US and Israel. That threat came as Israel said it had had “blown up and eliminated” the Revolutionary Guards’ naval commander, Alireza Tangsiri, and several senior officers in a strike on the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. Heavy strikes by Israeli or US warplanes were also reported around Isfahan, home to a major Iranian airbase and other military sites, as well as one of the nuclear sites bombed by the US during the 12-day war in June. Iran has strenuously denied it is “begging to make a deal”, as Trump claimed, and continued its retaliatory strikes across a swathe of the Middle East on Thursday. Loud booms were reported in Tel Aviv, the central Israeli city of Modi’in and Jerusalem throughout the day as Israel’s air defences worked to bring down incoming missiles. In the Gulf, Iranian attacks were also intercepted. Trump’s new threat was among a series of statements made by the US president in Washington and on social media on Thursday in which he again criticised Nato allies, described Iran as producing “great negotiators” but “lousy fighters”, and repeated his claim that the war he launched last month had already been won. “They now have the chance, that is, to permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions and to join a new path forward,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting at the White House. “We’ll see if they want to do it. If they don’t, we’re their worst nightmare.” He claimed Tehran had let 10 oil tankers sail through the strait of Hormuz as a goodwill gesture in negotiations, including some Pakistan-flagged vessels. Since the war began with an Israeli airstrike that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dozens of senior Iranian security and military officials have been killed by the US and Israel, as well as political leaders such as Ali Larijani, the veteran head of the national security council. The new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is thought to have been injured, possibly severely, in the attack that killed his father. Adm Brad Cooper, head of US Central Command, said Thursday’s killing of Tangsiri put Iran’s navy on a path toward “irreversible decline” and said the US would keep striking naval targets. Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said Tangsiri had been “directly responsible for the terror operation of mining and blocking the strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic”. Though the US claims to have destroyed most of Iran’s naval capabilities, Tehran has smaller boats capable of laying mines and anti-ship cruise missiles that can be launched from ashore. Either weapon could render the strait impassable to shipping. On Sunday, Trump threated Iran with a massive escalation of the US-Israeli offensive if it did not reopen the strait within 48 hours. Iran retaliated with a threat to launch broad attacks on energy infrastructure in the Gulf and Israel. Trump then extended his ultimatum until Friday or Saturday. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, accused the US of “double standards” and said international law was “not a tool of convenience”. He wrote on X: “The US backed Israel’s Gaza blockade … yet condemns Iran for defending itself in the Strait of Hormuz. Double standard: Israel’s crimes are OK while Iran’s defense against aggressors is condemned.” Israel reportedly removed Araghchi and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a regime veteran who is the speaker of Iran’s parliament, from its hitlist after Pakistan, which is emerging as a key mediator in the conflict, asked Washington to ensure they were not harmed, a Pakistani official said. Ghalibaf is reportedly the “top man” with whom Trump said on Monday he has been indirectly negotiating on terms for ending the conflict. Trump said on Thursday he was seeking an agreement that opened the strait of Hormuz and shut down Tehran’s military and nuclear ambitions but suggested that a deal might not ultimately come together. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to do that,” he said of the prospects for a deal. “I don’t know if we’re willing to do that.” On Thursday, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, said the US had presented a 15-point “action list” to Iran via Pakistan as a framework for a possible peace deal. Speaking at a cabinet meeting in Washington, Witkoff said there were “strong signs” that Tehran was ready to negotiate an end to the fighting A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Thursday that Washington’s proposal for ending nearly four weeks of fighting was “one-sided and unfair” but that diplomacy continued. Iran’s Tasnim news agency, citing an unnamed official, said Iran’s demands included an end to US and Israeli attacks on Iran but also on Tehran-backed groups elsewhere in the region – an implicit reference to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, among others. War reparations should be paid, it said, and Iran’s “sovereignty” over the strait of Hormuz be respected. Analysts said it was very difficult to see any immediate pathway to an agreement given the gap between the two sides and the continuing widening of the conflict, which has directly involved more than a dozen countries from Azerbaijan to Oman. Thousands of US marines and airborne troops have been sent to the region and could be used to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s principal hub for oil exports, or other strategic points in the Gulf. Such a move would mark a significant escalation in the conflict. Ali Bahreini, Iran’s top envoy to UN institutions in Geneva, warned Thursday that any US and Israeli attempt to mount a ground invasion of Iran would be a “big” mistake. The death toll from the war has risen to more than 1,900 people in Iran, according to authorities, and nearly 1,100 people in Lebanon, where more than a million have been displaced. Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed another 22 people and wounded 110 in the past 24 hours, Lebanese officials said. Israel says its invasion of southern Lebanon is aimed at protecting its northern border towns from attacks by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant Islamist movement, and establishing a defensive buffer zone. Eighteen people have been killed in Israel in the new conflict. There are fears that if Trump follows through on threats to deploy troops to seize Kharg Island or elsewhere, Tehran may ask the Yemen-based Houthis, who have close ties with Iran, to strike shipping in the Red Sea, through which about $1tn (£750bn) worth of goods passed each year before the war. Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the Houthis’ leader, did not say whether the armed rebel group would fight alongside Iran if asked to join the conflict.