And asked if Donald Trump is still considering withdrawing the US from Nato, Leavitt says: Its something the president has discussed, and I think its something the president will be discussing in a couple of hours with secretary general [Mark] Rutte. And perhaps you’ll hear directly from the president following that meeting later this afternoon.
The fate of the two-week ceasefire in the Iran conflict looked uncertain on Wednesday as both sides gave divergent versions of what had been agreed, Israel intensified its bombing campaign in Lebanon and Iran halted the passage of oil tankers because of an alleged Israeli ceasefire breach. Iran and Pakistan, which brokered the 11th-hour truce, both asserted that the ceasefire included Lebanon. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, disagreed and Israeli forces unleashed their heaviest attack of the war so far on more than 100 targets and killing at least 254 people. Donald Trump, after initially remaining silent, said Lebanon was “a separate skirmish” and not part of the deal. Iran’s Fars news agency said oil tankers passing through the strait of Hormuz had been stopped as a result of Israel’s “ceasefire breach”. Iran was due to have reopened the strait during the two weeks of the ceasefire, and the oil price had dropped sharply below $100 a barrel in the hours after the truce was announced, prompting a global stock market surge. The news did not bring any immediate relief for the hundreds of laden tankers trapped in the Gulf by the conflict, which were awaiting approval from insurers before beginning to move, and reported continued interference with their satellite navigation systems. The White House called the reports from Iran’s state media about the closure of the strait of Hormuz “false” and said Trump expected it to reopen “immediately, quickly and safely” as the US signaled continued adherence to the ceasefire – even as it threatened to unravel. The United Arab Emirates claimed its air defences had intercepted 17 ballistic missiles and 35 drones, apparently fired by Iran over the course of the day after the ceasefire announcement. Iran was also reported to have attacked a Saudi oil pipeline to the Red Sea hours after the truce was announced. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed on Wednesday to have struck several targets across the region with missiles and drones, including what the IRGC said were oil facilities of US companies in Yanbu, the Saudi Red Sea port and pipeline terminal. Donald Trump conveyed a different version of the agreement in early Wednesday morning social media posts from the one he had suggested as he announced the ceasefire on Tuesday night. In the first version, he referred to Iran’s 10-point proposal as a “workable basis on which to negotiate”, and focused on an agreement to reopen the strait of Hormuz. The statement caused surprise in Washington as Iran’s 10 points differ widely from US objectives and include a right to enrich uranium, the full lifting of sanctions, the payment of war reparations and a scheme giving Iran and Oman joint control of the Hormuz strait. “The Iranians originally put forward a 10-point plan that was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable and completely discarded,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, during a press conference on Wednesday. “The idea that President Trump would ever accept an Iranian wish list as a deal is completely absurd.” On Wednesday morning, Trump implied that the ceasefire was based on an entirely different 15-point proposal from the US, claiming many of the points had “already been agreed to”. He insisted there would be no enrichment of uranium and that the US and Iran would work together to unearth the Iranian stockpile of 440kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which Trump called “nuclear dust”, enough fissile material for a dozen nuclear warheads. A US negotiating team led by the vice-president, JD Vance, as well as Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, would travel to Islamabad in Pakistan for talks set to begin this weekend, Leavitt said. The negotiations with an Iranian delegation expected to include its foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, will begin on Saturday. Trump’s warning that “a whole civilisation” would die if a deal was not agreed by 8pm Washington time on Tuesday had drawn worldwide outrage as a threat to order war crimes. Iran’s published two different versions of its interpretation of the agreement. The Farsi version included an acceptance of Iran’s right to enrich uranium. The English version did not. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, confirmed Trump’s claim that the strait of Hormuz would be reopened during the two weeks of the ceasefire but said shipping would have to apply for safe passage through coordination with Iran’s armed forces. Iran’s military closed the strait – a freely navigable waterway before the war – in retaliation to the US-Israeli attack on Iran on 28 February and is now charging tankers a $2m-a-ship toll to pass through. Tehran’s apparent interpretation of the ceasefire is that it will allow all shipping to pass but keep the toll in place, eventually sharing the income with Oman as a co-custodian of the strait. Pakistan is expecting to host talks on Friday to start to cement the ceasefire into a more durable peace agreement, but on Wednesday the White House had yet to confirm attendance. The gaps to be bridged appeared as broad as ever, and certainly wider than at the last talks before the war, on 26 February in Geneva, where Omani mediators and British observers reported significant progress. During a visit to Hungary, the US vice-president, JD Vance, described the situation in the Gulf as a fragile truce and urged Iran to negotiate in good faith. At the Pentagon, the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, suggested that if there was no agreement on Iran’s HEU stockpile, US forces would “take it out”. Any operation to extract or destroy the uranium, thought to be stored in scuba tank-sized canisters and buried down deep shafts under mountains, would be long, complicated and risky. Trump opted not to pursue such a mission in the course of the five weeks of conflict, ultimately claiming he did not care about the HEU as it could be monitored remotely by satellite. The chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine, said US forces remained poised for a return to combat. “A ceasefire is a pause, and the joint force remains ready if ordered or called upon,” Caine told reporters. He said the US air campaign in Iran had achieved its military objectives, striking more than 13,000 targets, destroying roughly 90% of Iran’s navy and 95% of its naval mines. Hegseth claimed the US and Israel had “finished completely destroying Iran’s industrial base” with a final wave of 800 airstrikes overnight on Tuesday. He listed the Iranian leaders killed in the war, including the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and claimed that his son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei was “wounded and disfigured”. The defence secretary claimed, without evidence, that Iran had “begged for this ceasefire”. The Tehran government portrayed the truce in similarly triumphalist terms to its population. “America was forced to accept a ceasefire,” said Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior politician and foreign policy adviser to the supreme leader, according to official media. “In the new geometry of power in the world, Iran will play a role as the axis of the Islamic pole.”
The UK has a “job” to help reopen the strait of Hormuz, Keir Starmer has said, as Iranian reports said the key shipping route was closed again just hours after a supposed ceasefire. The prime minister met UK and local personnel at an airbase in Taif, Saudi Arabia, at the start of what is expected to be a wider trip to Gulf allies, one billed as a mirror to his efforts to pull together a plan for how a ceasefire might operate in Ukraine. While UK officials portrayed the visit as “complementary” to Pakistan-brokered talks between the US and Iran, Starmer is likely to be viewed in Gulf states as a more predictable and reliable partner than a US led by Donald Trump. The ceasefire was agreed little more than an hour before a deadline set by the US president, who had threatened that Iran’s “whole civilisation” would die if it did not meet US demands. As part of its terms, the strait of Hormuz was intended to be reopened, with Starmer’s trip aimed at building on a UK-led gathering of military planners on Tuesday as to how this could happen in practice. But Iran’s Fars news agency said oil tankers passing through the strait had been blocked again because of what it called a ceasefire breach by Israel, which has intensified its attacks on Lebanon. Starmer was due to talk later on Wednesday with Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, with his discussions in the Gulf expected to cover issues such as dealing with Iranian mines and ensuring the tankers that use the strait as a key transport route can be insured. “There are a lot of practicalities about how this might work, and given the situation, there are a lot of moving parts,” one UK official said. “This isn’t the sort of thing that happens at the flick of a switch.” Speaking to broadcasters at the King Fahd airbase earlier in the day, Starmer said that while there was a sense of relief at the ceasefire, it was “early days” in restoring full shipping traffic. “What people in the United Kingdom want to know, who will share that relief, is that this needs to be permanent, and it’s our job to work with other countries in the region, not only on the cessation of hostilities, but also on opening the strait of Hormuz,” he said. “Because the impact on our energy prices, you can see it on a daily basis over the last 39 days, it’s our job to make sure that the strait is open, that we’re able to get the energy that the world needs out and stabilise the prices back in the United Kingdom.” Starmer has provoked the ire of Trump several times during the conflict by refusing to support the initial US-Israeli attack on Iran, and by only allowing US forces to use UK airbases for missions seen as defensive, for example targeting Iranian missile sites. Speaking on Wednesday, Starmer reiterated his insistence that the UK was not “getting drawn into this war”. He said: “We’ve always acted in collective self-defence, but my job is to protect the UK lives, of course, which is what we’ve been doing here from this place, but also to protect our interests and through our interests, our national interest, to get the strait of Hormuz open.” Starmer’s timetable for the rest of the visit has not been announced, and it is not known which other Gulf countries he will travel to from Saudi Arabia. “The ceasefire is obviously good news, but we need to make sure that the strait of Hormuz is fully open, as this will have the biggest impact on people at home,” one government source said, likening Starmer’s role to that he had in convening the so-called coalition of the willing, the group of countries that offered to help guarantee any peace in Ukraine. “It is also the first opportunity for the PM to visit allies in the region and show that we stand with them.”
If the US-Israeli ceasefire with Iran holds, it could offer the clearest hope of an end to the energy crisis since Iran’s Revolutionary Guards assumed control of the strait of Hormuz after the conflict began 40 days ago. The deal is already looking shaky, with Iran arguing late on Wednesday that Israel’s attacks on Lebanon breach it and state media claiming that the key waterway had again been closed. Even if the temporary detente between White House and Tehran manages to hold and hundreds of tankers stranded in the Gulf start to transit once more, analysts fear that will not be enough to return the flow of oil, gas, chemicals and other vital items to pre-crisis levels. How many ships remain in the Gulf? An estimated 2,000 vessels – with about 20,000 seafarers onboard – have been trapped in the Gulf since the outbreak of the conflict, according to the UN. They include oil and gas tankers, bulk carriers and cargo ships as well as six tourist cruise liners. Unable to pass through the strait to continue their journeys, most have remained anchored for almost six weeks, in some cases with dwindling supplies of food and water for their crews. When will ship transits through the strait of Hormuz resume? In the hours after the ceasefire announcement, there was not an immediate increase in the number of vessels passing through the strait. A trickle of traffic has passed through in recent weeks – on most days only single digits, a tiny percentage of the average of 140 ships each day before the war. Shipping analysts and owners have cautioned that even a temporary ceasefire does not provide a sufficient guarantee that it is safe to make the passage, particularly because Iran’s foreign minister has stated that transit will be under Iranian military management. What needs to happen for more ships to start using the strait? Many questions remain for shipowners and their captains over whether it is safe. Iran has indicated it intends to continue operating the traffic control system it has put in place in the strait in recent weeks. This has included granting approval to “non-hostile vessels” – those determined as not having links to the US or Israel – and has required the sharing of large amounts of information on ownership, operator, cargo and previous voyages. As part of a clearance process described by analysts as “fairly unsophisticated”, Iranian officials standing on Larak Island in the north of the strait have used binoculars to check the names of passing ships and give approval to proceed. To allow for visual verification, Tehran has tried to reroute ships to a more northerly corridor close to its coastline and away from traditional shipping lanes. However, this new route places even more constraints on an already congested waterway and could make it difficult for high numbers of ships to pass. A successful ceasefire could allow Iran and Oman to charge fees of up to $2m (£1.5m) a ship to pass through the strait. The requirement has been labelled “Tehran’s tollbooth” by shipping analysts at Lloyd’s List. It would allow Iran to continue to exercise control but it is unclear whether all shipowners would be willing to pay. Fully loaded vessels are expected to be among the first to leave, rather than those that are empty and have not been able to reload. Shipping analysts predict operators will gain confidence once a ship owned by a large European company has safely made the crossing. However, they caution that it is a different matter for empty ships to decide to enter the strait to load up at the region’s ports, and it is unclear when this may start to happen. What does this mean for global energy supplies? Energy markets have fallen sharply on the hope that millions of barrels of crude oil and gas trapped in the Gulf could soon help to relieve a crisis that the International Energy Agency has said is more serious than the energy flashpoints in 1973, 1979 and 2022 combined. But the disruption has been compounded by the forced shutdown of oil and gas production across the Gulf as storage facilities reached capacity. In addition, many key energy production sites have been damaged by drone attacks. Experts have said it could take months or years to fully restore the Gulf’s energy production. Qatar has said the significant damage sustained at its main production hub for liquified natural gas (LNG) after an Iranian strike reduced its capacity by 17%. Officials predicted it could take between three and five years to repair. Wood Mackenzie, an international oil consultancy, assumes that if Qatar begins restarting its remaining LNG capacity next month, it would take until the end of August for its undamaged capacity to return to service. “It is unclear if QatarEnergy would consider doing this during a ceasefire, however,” said Tom Marzec-Manser, a gas analyst at the company. The Gulf refineries that provide more than half of Europe’s jet fuel have also been damaged, and could take months to return to normal. Willie Walsh, the director general of Iata, which represents the airline industry, told reporters in Singapore that even if the strait of Hormuz were to remain open, “it will still take a period of months to get back to where supply needs to be, given the disruption to the refining capacity in the Middle East”. So can we expect energy market prices to fall? Only if the ceasefire holds, and even then not by much, and perhaps not for long. Oil and gas markets reacted with relief to initial reports of a ceasefire, with a sharp slump in global wholesale prices. But analysts have predicted prices could begin to drift higher again as the global energy supply squeeze intensifies in May and June. The international crude benchmark opened at just below $95 (£71) a barrel on Wednesday morning, down from about $110 a barrel the day before, while European gas prices opened almost 20% lower at under €43 (£37) per MWh. These prices are still well above pre-crisis levels, meaning higher costs in the global economy. There are particular concerns about jet fuel prices that normally move in tandem with oil prices, but which have more than doubled since the Iran conflict. Traders are also expected to price in a continuing “geopolitical risk premium” to reflect uncertainty over whether the ceasefire will hold. This will keep energy market prices significantly higher than before the conflict, according to Tamas Varga, an analyst at PVM Oil, part of the Icap group. “Consequently, a return to sub-$70 levels is highly improbable, at least over the next year or two,” he said. When will the Gulf’s oil and gas exports return to normal? Maybe never. Even if the strait remains open and production and refining capacity is restored to normal, many countries will be rethinking their approach to energy because of the crisis. In Asia, in particular, the Gulf crisis has exposed many countries to the risk of relying too heavily on a single region for energy supplies, with many likely to diversify their sources in the future. For those relying on the Gulf for future energy supplies, there could be higher costs if Iran extracts transit fees from tankers over the long term, and a greater risk premium to pay tanker operators to use this route. This means Gulf imports may be reduced in favour of oil and gas producers in the Americas, for example. There is likely to be a greater interest in nuclear power and renewable energy sources too, which, combined with a shift to electrified transport and greener industry, could help countries to cut their reliance on fossil fuels entirely. Shipping analysts caution that it can take a long time for maritime companies to regain the confidence to return to dangerous routes. Few commercial shipping operators had returned to the Red Sea by January, a year after Houthi rebels in Yemen said they had stopped targeting ships. They have preferred the longer and more expensive – but more predictable – route around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa.
JD Vance has pushed back against claims that the US is interfering in Hungarian politics, describing the accusations as “darkly ironic”, as a set of polls suggested the opposition Tisza party could win a supermajority in the forthcoming elections. After spending his first day in Budapest excoriating the EU and accusing it of being behind one of the “worst examples” of foreign interference, the US vice-president spent part of Wednesday morning speaking at a thinktank and educational institution linked to Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orbán. With four days to go until Hungarians cast their ballots – and with Orbán trailing the opposition in most polls – Vance acknowledged the singular nature of his visit. “It’s unprecedented for an American vice-president to come the week before an election,” he said. But he said he had decided to come because of what he described as the “garbage happening against” Orbán in the election. “We had to show that there are actually lots of friends across the world who recognise that Viktor and his government are doing a good job and they’re important partners for peace,” he said. Vance insisted, however, that his efforts to bolster the lagging campaign of the rightwing, populist leader – whose “illiberal democracy” has long been seen as an inspiration for the Maga movement – did not constitute foreign interference. “I find it darkly ironic that people are accusing me of engaging in some kind of foreign influence,” he said. On Wednesday, the German government shot back at Vance’s claims, rejecting the claim that the EU was interfering in Hungary’s election. The fact that Vance was in Hungary “already shows, or speaks for itself, who is interfering in what”, said a government spokesperson. While the EU was reluctant to discuss the matter, a spokesperson said the bloc would use diplomatic channels to convey its concerns to Washington. One day earlier, as Vance and his wife, Usha, landed in the capital, Péter Magyar, the leading opposition candidate, issued a pointed statement. “No foreign country may interfere in Hungarian elections,” he said. “This is our country. Hungarian history is not written in Washington, Moscow or Brussels – it is written in Hungary’s streets and squares.” Magyar, a former member of the Fidesz party’s inner circle, burst into public view two years ago after he broke ranks to accuse Orbán’s party of rampant corruption. The claims snowballed into a campaign that has steadily swelled, transforming the election into one of the most consequential of recent times, as it galvanised voters’ frustration over issues such as deteriorating public services, soaring housing prices and economic stagnation. The result has been a deeply polarising campaign in which Orbán and Fidesz have sought to argue that the EU and Ukraine represent the gravest threats to Hungary, portraying the election as a stark choice between war and peace, while Magyar has focused on domestic issues. On Wednesday, a projection from the polling agency Median suggested that Tisza could win a two-thirds majority in the country’s 199-seat parliament. While accusations of vote-buying and gerrymandering make the outcome of the election incredibly difficult to predict, a Tisza supermajority would give the party enough power to amend the constitution and key laws, meaning they could unlock EU funds. As Vance waded into the Hungarian election, he appeared to have been drawn into Orbán’s strategy. The US vice-president laid the blame for Hungary’s ills on the EU, even as research showed the country had received more in EU funding than any other major post-communist EU country, both as a share of GDP and per capita, and that Orbán’s time in power had correlated with the country becoming the most corrupt in the EU. Vance also took aim at Volodymyr Zelenskyy, describing comments by the Ukrainian leader as “completely scandalous”, and accused Kyiv of using energy supplies to influence Hungary. It was a reference to controversial comments Zelenskyy made after Orbán vetoed further EU sanctions on Russia, as well as an additional €90bn (£78bn) loan for Ukraine. Zelenskyy was prompted to say he could give the address of whoever was responsible to the Ukrainian army. The comment reportedly led European allies to ask Zelenskyy to tone down his rhetoric. Vance said he was “disappointed” by Europe’s political leadership as it appeared to him that they were not “particularly interested” in solving the conflict. He contrasted that with Orbán – who has broken with most EU countries by refusing to help Ukraine financially or with weapons – and who, he said, had been “the one who encouraged us to truly understand” the perspective of both the Ukrainians and Russians. The US vice-president made no mention of the series of recent scandals that had laid bare the extent of Russia’s influence over Orbán’s government, from allegations that Russian intelligence agencies and disinformation networks linked to Moscow were working to sway the election in his favour, to the October call in which Orbán reportedly told Vladimir Putin: “I am at your service.” After Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, was accused of regularly sharing the details of confidential EU meetings with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, leaked audio appeared to capture Szijjártó telling Lavrov that he would work to amend the EU sanctions list to Russia’s liking. On Wednesday there were more revelations, as Szijjártó appeared to offer to send Lavrov a document about Ukraine’s EU accession, in leaked recordings obtained by a consortium of investigative reporters. “I will send it to you. It’s not a problem,” Szijjártó reportedly said, after Lavrov said that Moscow was trying to get a document about the role of minority languages in Ukraine’s EU accession talks. The revelations were published hours after Vance appeared to imply that the resolution to the Russian invasion of Ukraine hinged on Kyiv making territorial concessions. “We’re talking about haggling at this point over a few square kilometres of territory in one direction or another,” he said. As Vance landed in Budapest to rally behind Orbán, Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee in the US, pointed to what Vance had failed to mention about the relationship between Hungary and Russia. A report last month showed that Hungary’s reliance on Russia had increased since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with Russia now accounting for 93% of the country’s crude oil imports compared with 61% in 2021. This reliance had led to broad consequences for the war in Ukraine, said Shaheen. “Orbán has repeatedly hampered Europe’s ability to defend against Russian aggression while providing billions in energy payments to boost Putin’s war chest.”
The video from the streets of Tehran shows crowds gathering in small groups, some waving Iranian flags while others wear them draped over their backs. In Enghelab Square, a centre for pro-regime rallies throughout the 40-day war, people are holding heated discussions. It is clear there are mixed feelings. Footage captured by a pro-regime figure and posted online offers a peek inside the domestic reaction to a two-week ceasefire announced overnight. It was filmed by Majid Nouri, the son of an infamous former Iranian prison official, and he provides a running commentary on the disagreements, which he said started overnight and stretched into Wednesday morning. It provides rare insight into disquiet among the pro-regime camp in Iran, which agreed to a ceasefire after weeks of riling up the nation with promises of a total win over the US and Israel. “Around 3am in the morning after the news [of the ceasefire] came out, there were debates and arguments between people,” he tells the camera. “Still they are talking in groups and some good debates have formed between people. Mainly they are shocked, they are upset.” The pro-regime activist’s father, Hamid Nouri, was convicted in a Swedish court for ordering the execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 but was sent back to Tehran in a 2024 prisoner exchange. The crowds, said Nouri, did not expect a ceasefire and had been debating for hours. “The initial fever and anger will calm down and I think the atmosphere will become much better. In no way do we trust America. I don’t think there is one Iranian who trusts America. And God willing victory is ours.” Later reports by news agencies said pro-government demonstrators chanted: “Death to America, death to Israel, death to compromisers!” Organisers tried at one point to calm demonstrators, but they continued the chants, the Associated Press reported. People also burned US and Israeli flags in the street. The scenes show the ongoing anger from hardliners, who had been preparing for what many assumed would be a decisive battle as Donald Trump threatened a “whole civilisation will die”, but instead found a sudden pause in a destructive war. At least 1,900 people have been killed in Iran. With widespread internet blackouts, it is hard to assess the general mood in Iran, where anti-regime voices are violently suppressed. But in other parts of Tehran, there were a few cautious celebrations in the dark early morning hours on Wednesday. As the sun rose over the Iranian capital, however, life largely returned to normal, without any sense of grand euphoria. Instead, the mood was marked by a mix of exhaustion, cautious optimism and mistrust. “Most people here don’t trust the US and still don’t know exactly what is going to happen, so they are unsure whether they should be happy or worried,” said Ali, a 31-year-old man in Tehran. “People want the war to end for good, and with the conditions that Iran has set, but there’s no guarantee these will be secured. There’s also no guarantee the ceasefire will last beyond the two weeks. For now, we have to wait and see.” There was more life out on the streets of Tehran on Wednesday, with more shops open, more cars on the streets, and more people venturing out to check on family members and friends. In official channels, Iran has presented the ceasefire – and the war – as a win, elevating Tehran’s position on the world stage and showcasing its ability to in effect shut down a vital global shipping route. Iranian leaders attempted to capitalise on the failings of the war, which has been criticised even by the US’s closest allies as illegal, having ill-defined objectives and creating geopolitical and economic chaos that Trump cannot control. The former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati said on X the war had engineered “a new global power structure and the orientation toward a multipolar system” in which Iran plays a greater role. The president, Masoud Pezeshkian, meanwhile, said the ceasefire “was the fruit of the blood of our great martyred leader [Ali] Khamenei and the achievement of the presence of all the people on the scene”. For some Iranians, the ceasefire was a chance to try to earn a living again. “Today feels like there is no war,” said Hamid, a 43-year-old owner of a small grocery and cleaning supplies shop that had been closed since Tehran was first bombed in February. “I decided to open again because I feel safe,” he said. “The last weeks have been very difficult for my business and my family. So many people have lost their incomes. Now we need to make up for the time we lost.”
Israel has carried out its largest attack on Lebanon since its war with Hezbollah began, killing at least 254 people and wounding 837, an assault that prompted Iranian officials to warn Tehran could withdraw from the ceasefire agreed with the US overnight. Warplanes levelled several buildings in the centre of Beirut, filling the skies with smoke in what Israel’s defence minister said was “a surprise strike” on the pro-Iranian group Hezbollah. The Lebanese capital was filled with cars crumpled by the blasts and the flaming wreckage of buildings that first responders struggled to extinguish, as Israel bombed more than 100 Hezbollah military sites around the country. The office of Israel’s prime minister said the two-week Middle East ceasefire did not include Lebanon, contrary to a statement made by mediator Pakistan – while Trump, after initially remaining silent, said Lebanon was “a separate skirmish” and not part of the deal. Hospitals in Lebanon put out urgent calls for blood donations , while the ministry of health urged people to “clear the streets” so ambulances could reach the injured. People rushed home to check on their families. A man was filmed as he ran towards a struck building in the Chiyah neighbourhood, screaming: “There are people inside!” Pictures of rubble-covered children circulated on social media as people tried to find their parents. “I have a friend in this building, Mahmoud. I don’t know where he is. He’s not answering his phone. We need to stop this war, it’s getting ridiculous,” said Shaden Fakih, a 24-year-old calisthenics trainer who was present when an Israeli strike brought down a building in the Barbour neighbourhood of central Beirut. Iranian sources told the country’s Tasnim news agency that Iran was ready to exit the ceasefire agreement if Israel “persists in violating the truce in Lebanon”, and the crisis was discussed by Iran’s foreign minister and his Pakistani counterpart. Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, said the two theatres – Iran and Lebanon – were separate and said the aim was to “change the reality in Lebanon and remove threats from the residents of the north”. The Israeli politician went on to directly threaten Hezbollah’s leader. “We warned Naim Qassem that Hezbollah will pay a very heavy price for attacking Israel on Iran’s behalf – and Naim Qassem’s personal turn will come too,” he said. The Israeli military’s Arabic language spokesperson suggested Israel would begin striking deeper in Beirut, having previously confined most of its strikes to the southern suburbs, where support for Hezbollah is common. The spokesperson said Hezbollah was “repositioning itself” in mixed neighbourhoods of the city and vowed to pursue Hezbollah fighters no matter their location. Shortly after the statement, Israel brought down another building in the Tallet al-Khayet neighbourhood of west Beirut, which had not yet been hit in this war. The suggestion that strikes could hit anywhere in Beirut terrified the city’s residents. “Where can I go? All of Lebanon is being struck. [Israel] finished with Iran and now they want to start with us,” a resident present at the time of the Barbour strike said, asking not to be identified. Trump said he was aware of the Israeli bombing, and said that Lebanon was “not included in the deal” because of Hezbollah. Asked if the Israeli attacks were acceptable to him, the US president said it was “a separate skirmish”. Until the wave of airstrikes by Israel across Lebanon on Wednesday, Hezbollah had not announced any attacks against Israel since the ceasefire announcement – a first since the war between it and Israel began on 2 March. Initially Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, said Iran, the US and their allies had “agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere” as he announced the ceasefire overnight. Highways leading south in Lebanon were choked with traffic as dawn broke. Residents were attempting to return to their homes, though Hezbollah urged people not to return to certain villages because Israeli troops remained there. Iran’s 10-point peace plan, nominally accepted as a basis for negotiations by Trump, called for an end of the war against “all components of the ‘axis of resistance’”, which, for Tehran, includes Hezbollah. There were signs on Tuesday that the wider diplomatic conversation, mediated in Pakistan between the US and Iran, had come to a conclusion without Israel’s immediate input. Trump called Netanyahu to inform the Israeli leader of his decision shortly before making his ceasefire announcement. The Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said Netanyahu had failed politically and strategically. “There has never been such a political disaster in all of our history. Israel wasn’t even at the table when decisions were made concerning the core of our national security,” he posted in the morning. The five-week war in Lebanon has brought the country to breaking point. More than 1.1 million people have been forcibly displaced, many of whom left living on the streets. More than 1,530 people had been killed and 4,812 wounded by Israeli airstrikes, Lebanon’s ministry of health said on Tuesday. Several air raids on Israel took place in the first part of the night but stopped shortly before 3.30am, about 40 minutes after the Pakistani prime minister’s ceasefire announcement. No incoming attacks have been reported since.
After 40 days and 40 nights of war, Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, on Wednesday pointed to divine providence while telling reporters that Iran’s weapons factories had been reduced to rubble, its military rendered ineffective for years and its supreme leader left wounded and disfigured, all for a temporary ceasefire. “Iran begged for this ceasefire, and we all know it,” Hegseth said at the Pentagon’s first press briefing since Donald Trump announced a two-week pause in hostilities on Tuesday night. “Operation Epic Fury decimated Iran’s military and rendered it combat ineffective for years to come.” Standing alongside the chair of the joint chiefs, Dan Caine, Hegseth said strikes carried out in the final wave before Trump’s self-imposed deadline had “completely destroyed Iran’s defense industrial base”. Iran could still fire what it had stockpiled – he acknowledged “they can still shoot” – but it could no longer manufacture the weapons to replace them. Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday night that he agreed to suspend military operations – less than two hours before his own apocalyptic deadline to decimate the entirety of Iranian civilization – after a last-minute intervention by Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, and army chief, Gen Asim Munir. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, confirmed acceptance shortly after. Iran’s supreme national security council said it would send a delegation to Islamabad for formal talks beginning on Friday. Iran, for its part, also declared victory. Its security council announced that “nearly all the objectives of the war have been achieved”. The ceasefire temporarily ends over five weeks of war that began on 28 February when the US and Israel launched nearly 900 strikes in 12 hours against Iranian military infrastructure, missile facilities and leadership. Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, was killed on the first day, and his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was designated his successor on 8 March. What kept Iran at the table, Hegseth insisted, was the threat of what came next. Had Tehran not accepted, the US had prepared strikes on power plants, bridges and energy infrastructure – “targets they could not defend, and could not realistically rebuild. It would have taken them decades.” Caine confirmed 13 US service members were killed during the war. Total deaths across the region stand at more than 5,000, including over 1,600 Iranian civilians and at least 1,497 people in Lebanon. The US military had spent roughly $12.7bn by day six, with a $200bn supplemental request pending before Congress. The terms of any lasting deal remain openly contradictory. Trump posted on Wednesday morning that Iran would hand over its enriched uranium and there would be “no enrichment” going forward. Iran’s 10-point counter-proposal, published by its own supreme national security council, explicitly demands the right to enrich. The ceasefire itself is also in dispute. Israel said it does not cover Lebanon, where ground and airstrike campaigns are at the largest they have been since Israel’s invasion north. Pakistan and Iran have both said a ceasefire would include Lebanon. Israel also took Iranian missile file after the ceasefire was announced, and Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates reported Iranian missile and drone attacks. State media in Iran had separately reported strikes against the oil infrastructure on its Lavan Island. Iran’s supreme national security council warned that “our hands are on the trigger, and the moment the enemy makes the slightest mistake, it will be met with full force”. Hegseth also had a similar choice of words. Asked how long US forces would remain in the region, he said: “We’re not going anywhere.”