The Latest: Iran and US receive proposal for 45-day ceasefire and reopening of Strait of Hormuz

Iran and the United States received a draft proposal late Sunday calling for a 45-day ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, two Mideast officials speaking condition of anonymity told The Associated Press.

The proposal comes from Egyptian, Pakistani and Turkish mediators hoping the 45-day window would provide enough time for talks to reach a permanent ceasefire. Iran and the U.S. have not responded to the proposal, which was sent to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, the officials said.

The head of intelligence for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard was killed Monday in an attack targeting him, Iranian state media said.

Strikes on cities across Iran have killed more than 25 people Sunday into Monday, while in Israel's Haifa two people were found dead and two others were missing in rubble a day after an Iranian attack.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday stepped up his threat to hit Iran's critical infrastructure hard if the country's government doesn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz by his Tuesday deadline.

Trump punctuated his threat with profanity in a social media post, saying Tuesday will be “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran.”

The war began with joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Feb. 28 and has killed thousands, shaken global markets, cut off key shipping routes and spiked fuel prices. Both sides have threatened and hit civilian targets, bringing warnings of possible war crimes from the United Nations and international law experts.

Here is the latest:

The death toll in an airstrike on a Iranian residential building has risen to at least 15 people, authorities said Monday

The strike hit near Eslamshar, a city southwest of Iran’s capital Tehran.

An airstrike hit an information and communication technology building at Tehran’s Sharif University of Technology on Monday morning, according to Mohammed Vesal, an economics professor at the university.

Vesal, who spoke to a team from The Associated Press that had traveled to Iran from abroad to report there, said the attack disrupted online learning for the university.

All students have left the campus because of the war.

“All web services of the university are down now because of this violent attack on our infrastructure,” Vesal said. “This is a purely academic institution.”

Sharif University of Technology is considered Iran’s top engineering school.

Multiple countries over the years have sanctioned the university for its work with the military, particularly on Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is controlled by the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

Israel claimed the killing of the intelligence chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on Monday.

Defense Minister Israel Katz made the announcement.

“The Revolutionary Guard are shooting at civilians and we are eliminating the leaders of the terrorists,” Katz said. “Iran’s leaders live with a sense of being targeted. We will continue to hunt them down one by one.”

Katz added Israel had “severely damaged” Iran’s steel and petrochemical industries, as well.

“We will continue to crush the Iranian national infrastructure and lead to the erosion and collapse of the terrorist regime, and its capabilities to promote terror and fire at the state of Israel,” he said.

The head of intelligence for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard was killed Monday in an attack targeting him, Iranian state media said.

Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi died in the attack, which the Guard blamed on the United States and Israel.

It did not elaborate on where Khademi was killed. However, multiple airstrikes targeted residential areas around Iran’s capital, Tehran, early Monday morning.

Khademi took over for Gen. Mohammad Kazemi, who Israel killed in the 12-day war in June.

The Guard’s intelligence organization wields vast powers within Iran and answers only to the country’s supreme leader. It often has been linked to the detention of Western nationals or those with ties abroad. It also has been accused of carrying out extraterritorial killings and attacks targeting opponents of the country’s theocracy.

Iran and the United States have received a draft proposal that calls for a 45-day ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz as a possible way to end the war, two Mideast officials told The Associated Press.

The proposal comes from Egyptian, Pakistani and Turkish mediators working to halt the fighting, according to two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.

They hope the 45-day window would provide enough time for extensive talks between the countries to reach a permanent ceasefire.

Iran and the U.S. have not responded to the proposal, which was sent late Sunday night to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, the officials said.

It remains unclear whether the sides would agree to such terms. Iran has insisted it will keep fighting until it receives financial reparations and a promise it won’t be attacked again. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to bomb Iranian bridges and power stations this week.

The news website Axios first reported terms of the proposal.

An Iranian drone attack damaged a telecommunications building in Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates on Monday, the state-run WAM news agency reported.

The attack targeted a building of the state-funded du telecom company.

No one was injured, WAM reported, quoting officials in Fujairah.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service says there are no signs North Korea is providing Iran with weapons or other war-related supplies.

The spy agency’s officials told lawmakers Monday that North Korea may be taking a cautious approach to preserve the possibility of dialogue with the Trump administration, according to two lawmakers who attended the closed-door briefing.

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry has condemned the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran as illegal, but the NIS said Pyongyang has not sent an official condolence message over the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s late supreme leader.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in recent years has embraced the idea of a “new Cold War” and attempted to expand cooperation with countries confronting the U.S., including an economic delegation sent to Iran in April 2024.

South Korea plans to send at least five ships to Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu port in the coming weeks to establish new oil transport routes in the Red Sea.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources said Monday the ships will be deployed in phases beginning in mid-April and the number of vessels could increase depending on contracts with Saudi partners.

Officials did not disclose the companies involved but said some domestic refiners may use non-Korean shipping firms.

South Korea also plans to send special envoys to Saudi Arabia, Oman and Algeria to step up diplomatic efforts to secure alternative fuel supplies, ruling party lawmaker Ahn Do-geol said.

The foreign ministry did not immediately reveal when the envoys would be sent.

Iran has executed another man convicted over charges stemming from the nationwide protests that swept Iran in January.

The judiciary’s Mizan news agency identified the man hanged as Ali Fahim in a report Monday.

It was unclear when he was executed.

Fahim had been convicted of allegedly storming a military base to seize weapons.

Amnesty International said Fahim and others convicted in the case “were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment in detention, including beatings, floggings, prolonged solitary confinement, and death threats at gunpoint before being convicted in grossly unfair trials that relied on forced ‘confessions’ extracted under torture and lasted only a few hours.”

The Human Rights Activist News Agency had said Fahim and others had entered a Tehran base of the all-volunteer Basij militia, an arm of the Revolutionary Guard, after it had been burned, then had been forced into confessions.

Israel rescue services reported Monday morning several sites were hit by missiles launched from Iran toward multiple cities in the center of Israel.

In Petah Tikva, paramedics provided medical treatment to an injured woman in serious condition with a chest injury from shrapnel and evacuated her to the Beilinson Hospital.

Fire fighters in that city are handling cars on fire and continue searching to ensure there are no people trapped in the rubble.

In Tel Aviv, a man slightly injured by glass shrapnel was evacuated to the Ichilov Hospital.

Footage provided by rescue service Magen David Adom shows damage to residential buildings due to the attack.

Meanwhile, Israel’s military warned the public Monday morning of another missile barrage coming from Iran, the fourth-such alert of the day.

Israel’s Magen David Adom and Fire and Rescue services said early Monday that there are several reported sites of Iranian missile hits in the northern city of Haifa.

In one site, four people were slightly injured, including two children.

The missile attacks hit residential areas and a factory in the city.

The factory was hit by shrapnel from an interception.

It is unclear if all the reported hits were caused by shrapnel from interception or direct hits.

Video footage provided by Magen David Adom of the affected sites show active fire and bombed cars in what appears to be a residential area.

The missile strikes come a day after another attack from Iran also hit a Haifa residential area, killing two people and injuring others.

Two other people remain missing under the rubble caused by Sunday's strike and their fate is still unknown.

In the United Arab Emirates’ capital of Abu Dhabi, authorities said a Ghanaian man suffered wounds from shrapnel after the interception of an Iranian missile over the city’s Musaffah neighborhood.

That’s near Al Dhafra Air Base, which hosts U.S. forces and has been repeatedly targeted by Iran in the war.

Women hold Iranian flags during a pro-government gathering in a square in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

A picture of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hangs on the side of the road in the outskirts of Tehran, Iran, early Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Rescue workers search for victims at the site of an Israeli airstrike that hit a crowded neighbourhood south of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A commercial plane is preparing to land at Beirut Airport as smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Israeli security forces and rescue teams work amid the rubble of a residential building struck by an Iranian missile in Haifa, Israel, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

SIDON, Lebanon (AP) — Two years ago, Dr. Mohammed Ziara watched Israel ravage Gaza's health care system, shelling hospitals, striking ambulances and forcing patients to evacuate.

Now Ziara — along with many other medical workers, human rights groups and civilians — warns that the same scenario is unfolding in Lebanon.

Israel is pushing deep into the southern part of the country in its campaign against the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, a powerful militant force and political party that long has exercised de facto control over much of Lebanon’s Shiite community.

To describe its strategy in this war, the Israeli military has invoked the devastation it wrought in Gaza after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. At one point last month, Israeli warplanes even dropped leaflets over Beirut warning that after “great success in Gaza, a new reality is coming to Lebanon, too.”

“I've lived this before,” Ziara, a surgeon from Gaza City who specializes in burns, told The Associated Press on Thursday at the government hospital in the Lebanese port city of Sidon.

"I cannot go back to Gaza now,” Ziara said. “But I can be here, in Lebanon.”

As it did with Hamas in Gaza, Israel accuses Hezbollah of hiding in and operating from civilian areas, and using hospitals and ambulances for military purposes. Israel has increasingly targeted Lebanese first responders and medical centers, forcing several hospitals to evacuate.

“I was besieged in a hospital,” Ziara said of his time at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, where he worked before evacuating to Egypt with his family. He then joined the U.K.-based nonprofit Interburns, which sent him to Lebanon in 2024 to respond to the outbreak of the previous Israel-Hezbollah war. “I feel what these people feel.”

Since the war between Israel and Hezbollah reignited on March 2, Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 54 health professionals as of Sunday, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Israel has carried out 152 attacks against emergency medical workers and ambulances, and forced the closure of six hospitals and 49 health clinics through attacks or threats, the ministry says.

Ziara and his team from Interburns, which trains medics around the world in burn care, have set up the Lebanese public health system's first specialized burn unit — a critical resource in this crisis-stricken country where the war has killed 1,461 people and wounded 4,430, according to the ministry. Israel claims to have killed hundreds of Hezbollah operatives in the latest bombardment and ground invasion.

The Israeli military argues that Hezbollah’s use of medical facilities makes them legitimate military targets under international law. It does not offer evidence to support its claims.

Hezbollah denies conducting militant activities within civilian sites. Although the group's presence in residential areas is well-documented, there has been no independent verification of its use of hospitals for military purposes.

Based in the first city just north of Israel’s evacuation zone that covers nearly all southern Lebanon, Sidon Government Hospital takes more wounded people every day.

Kamal Fakih, 27, hates when people ask him what happened on March 17.

It’s not that it pains him to recall the Israeli airstrike. It’s that he doesn’t remember anything at all. He regained consciousness a day later at the hospital in Sidon, his body burned and cut by shrapnel.

Once stabilized, Fakih tried to connect with the paramedic who pulled him and his friend Hassan from the burning rubble, hoping to hear his account and thank him for saving their lives. But by the time Fakih got his contact, Muhammad Tafili was already dead, killed with a fellow paramedic in an Israeli airstrike on ambulances in the southeastern village of Kfar Tebnit on March 28, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

That same day, Israeli attacks killed seven other medics across four additional villages, the World Health Organization said. Among the dead was a medic targeted while responding to an Israeli airstrike that killed three journalists working for pro-Hezbollah TV channels. Footage of the incident shows two strikes in quick succession — the first hitting journalists in their car, the second crashing into paramedics as they rushed to the rescue.

Israel's military accused the two medics, and two of the three journalists killed, of being Hezbollah operatives. Its claim alarmed watchdogs that witnessed similar justifications for killing more than 260 journalists and 1,700 health workers in Gaza, according to figures from the United Nations humanitarian agency.

Although Lebanese medical workers and journalists were killed during the 2024 war with Hezbollah, “this time is different,” said Ramzi Kaiss, the Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch.

He pointed to a startling promise by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz last week that Israel would flatten all the houses in southern Lebanon to protect its border towns from Hezbollah rockets “in accordance with the model used in Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza” — two cities that Israel almost entirely razed in its offensive against Hamas.

“There’s a new kind of brazenness in declaring an intent to commit unlawful attacks,” Kaiss said. “It appears impunity has emboldened the Israeli military.”

Sweeping Israeli evacuation orders in recent weeks have sent over 1 million Lebanese flocking north. As the south came under heavy bombardment, clinics shuttered or suspended operations. Nabih Berri Hospital was swamped by an influx of casualties. To make room, it evacuated dozens of patients.

Such transfers involve coordination with the Lebanese army, Health Ministry and U.N. peacekeeping force — a game of telephone, doctors say, that creates potentially life-threatening delays. Admitting patients isn’t easy either; the Sidon burn unit must discharge a patient to free up a bed.

But the referrals keep coming, straining a health system already crippled by economic collapse.

“The health system is on its knees,” Ziara said, as the hospital was plunged into darkness until backup generators kicked in 10 minutes later, a result of Lebanon’s long-running electricity crisis. “Now front-line hospitals are lacking staff and supplies. They're overwhelmed.”

Lebanese civilians say that Israeli bombs often come without warning and hit indiscriminately, feeding a growing feeling that Palestinians in Gaza know well — that nowhere is safe.

Mohammad Qubaisi, 53, said his neighborhood of Zuqaq al-Blat in central Beirut had not received Israeli evacuation guidance before March 18, when Israeli munitions slammed into his seventh-floor apartment.

Carrying his wife from the smoldering ruins, he shouted for his sons. His eldest, Adam, called to him. But he couldn’t hear Jad.

Qubaisi ran back into the skin-searing steam to search for his 15-year-old. When he woke up at the hospital hours later, his face raw with second-degree burns, he knew his son was gone.

The Israeli military said it was targeting Hezbollah. Qubaisi pushed back.

“These are civilian buildings, not military targets. They hit us and we still don’t know why,” he said from the Sidon hospital. “We were sleeping safely in our home, and look what happened to us.”

Displaced people who fled Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon sit inside tents used as shelters as a rainbow breaks through the rain in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, March 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A man with burn wounds from an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon lying in bed at the Sidon Government Hospital in Sidon, Lebanon, Thursday, April 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A man with burn wounds from an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon lying in bed at the Sidon Government Hospital in Sidon, Lebanon, Thursday, April 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Mohammad Qubaisi, 53, with burn wounds from an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon, undergoes surgery by Dr. Mohammed Ziara, left, and his team, at the Sidon Government Hospital, in Sidon, Lebanon, Thursday, April 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)