A tentative U.S.-Iran ceasefire is faltering after Israel pounded Beirut and as Iran maintains its grip on the Strait of Hormuz while truce talks remain uncertain.
Both Tehran and Washington are claiming victory and exerting pressure, with talks on a permanent deal set to begin soon in Islamabad and U.S. Vice President JD Vance set to lead the U.S. delegation.
Israeli strikes made Wednesday the deadliest day in Lebanon since the war began, with more than 300 people killed. There are lingering disagreements over whether the ceasefire covers the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Iran is warning of “STRONG responses” if attacks on its militant ally don’t stop.
Israel-Lebanon negotiations are expected next week in Washington, according to a person familiar with the matter. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had approved direct talks, while the Lebanese government did not immediately respond. Netanyahu said there is no ceasefire in Lebanon and his country will keep striking Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, Kuwait accused Iran and its proxies of launching drone attacks targeting it on Thursday despite the two-week ceasefire in the Iran war, as Saudi Arabia said recent attacks damaged a key pipeline in the kingdom. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard denied launching attacks on Persian Gulf states after Kuwait’s announcement.
Here is the latest:
South Korea says senior diplomat Chung Byung-ha will soon depart for Iran as a special envoy to discuss the safety of its citizens and Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Friday that Chung plans to push for the freedom of navigation for all vessels, including South Korean.
The ministry earlier said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi welcomed Seoul’s plan to send a special envoy during a phone call with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun on Thursday.
Kuwait’s National Guard said one of its bases had been hit in the drone attack and sustained damage, though no one was hurt.
Australia’s Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles has rejected former Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s call for the air force to take an offensive role in the Iran war.
Abbott wrote in a newspaper opinion piece Friday that Australia should have offered the United States Air Force support including Australian strike fighters.
Marles, who is defense minister and acting prime minister while Anthony Albanese is overseas, said Australia had sent the United Arab Emirates a surveillance jet but was “not part of this conflict against Iran.”
“We will act in our national interest and we respectfully disagree with the position of Mr. Abbott,” Marles told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Trump has repeatedly criticized Australia for not helping the United States since the Iran war began. Australia says it has received no request for help.
Underlining Iran’s continued control of the Strait of Hormuz, a Botswana-flagged liquefied natural gas tanker called the Nidi attempted to travel out of the Persian Gulf via a route ordered by the Revolutionary Guard but suddenly turned around and headed back early Friday, ship-tracking data showed.
On Thursday, four tankers and three bulk carriers crossed through the Strait of Hormuz, bringing the total number of ships passing through since the ceasefire to at least 12, according to the data firm Kpler. However, other ships not transmitting their locations may have passed through as well. The strait typically saw well over 100 ships passing through it daily in peacetime.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in a statement carried by Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency denied launching attacks on Persian Gulf states on Thursday after Kuwait’s announcement.
“If these reports published by the media are true, without a doubt it is the work of the Zionist enemy or America,” the Guard said.
However, the Guard also launched repeated attacks on civilian targets in the war and also could be using Shiite militias in Iraq to launch assaults, providing deniability for Iran ahead of the talks.
Such an assault would mirror the continuing pressure campaign Tehran is waging on the U.S. and its allies, particularly as it tries to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah after intense Israeli airstrikes blanketed Beirut just after the ceasefire had been reached.
The attack on a pumping station on the East-West pipeline has affected about 700,000 barrels of output through it. Other attacks cut into about 600,000 barrels of crude oil production a day as well, the report said.
Saudi Aramco’s pipeline from the Abqaiq oil processing center near the Persian Gulf to the Yanbu port on the Red Sea circumvents the Hormuz chokepoint and has allowed Saudi Arabia to continue exporting a substantial portion of its oil, as much as 7 million barrels a day in optimal conditions. However, the pipeline lacks the capacity to fully make up for the Hormuz closure.
The Saudi statement did not identify when these attacks happened,(backslash) but stressed the affect they had on global energy markets.
“The continuation of these attacks leads to reduced supply and slows recovery, thereby affecting the security of supply for consuming countries and contributing to increased volatility in oil markets,” it said.
Kuwait accused Iran and its proxies of launching drone attacks targeting it on Thursday despite the two-week ceasefire in the Iran war as Saudi Arabia said recent attacks damaged a key pipeline in the kingdom.
A statement from Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry, carried by the state-run KUNA news agency, put new pressure on the ceasefire ahead of planned talks Saturday between the United States and Iran in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.
Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry said the drone attacks “targeted some vital Kuwaiti facilities Thursday night.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s state-run Saudi Press Agency, quoting an anonymous official, acknowledged a recent attack in the war that damaged its crucial East-West pipeline. That pipeline carries oil out to the Red Sea and avoids the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran maintains a chokehold on despite the pause in the fighting.
Volatile oil and jet fuel prices have been swinging since the war in the Middle East started and fighting near the Strait of Hormuz disrupted global oil shipments.
Airlines around the world are responding by trimming schedules and raising fees and fares, and air travelers are facing higher prices, fewer flights and tough choices about whether a trip is worth the cost.
Experts say budget carriers and the customers who rely on them will feel the pinch first, but even business travelers and front-cabin passengers won’t escape higher costs.
Relief may not come quickly even if oil prices start to drop, experts warn, because airlines can take months to adjust fares while they wait for energy markets to stabilize.
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China is considering its role in helping find a durable endgame to the war.
After prodding China to get involved in reopening the choked-off Strait of Hormuz, Trump told the French news outlet Agence France-Presse this week that he believed China played a part in encouraging Iran to agree to this week’s temporary truce.
Experts say this move could enhance China’s image as a stabilizing force and weaken the U.S. position. Beijing’s involvement also may provide leverage in upcoming trade negotiations when Trump visits next month.
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“Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump wrote on his social media site Thursday evening. “That is not the agreement we have!”
Trump had posted earlier about reports of Iran charging fees on ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz.
“They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!” his post said.
The White House supports reopening the strait as part of the ceasefire deal but says Trump opposes Iran’s military, which continues to control the waterway, from seeking to raise revenue by charging tolls on passing ships.
Trump has not had any public event Thursday.
Israel’s military said the launchers had fired rockets toward northern Israel on Thursday and that it was working to locate and dismantle more.
Throughout Thursday, sirens had repeatedly alerted communities in northern Israel — especially along the border with Lebanon — that Hezbollah was firing in their direction.
A former Iranian foreign minister who once suggested Tehran could seek a nuclear weapon died late Thursday after being wounded in an airstrike last week, Iranian state television reported.
Kamal Kharazi had served as a foreign minister for Iran’s reformist President Mohammad Khatami, then as a foreign affairs adviser to the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In 2022, he told news network Al Jazeera that Tehran has “the technical means to produce a nuclear bomb but there has been no decision by Iran to build one,” sparking concern about Tehran’s intentions.
In a social media post, the president wrote, “There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait — They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!”
He offered no further details. The White House supports Iran reopening the strait as part of a tenuous ceasefire deal but says Trump opposes that country’s military using its continued control of the waterway to raise revenue by charging tolls on passing ships.
Trump has spent much of Thursday in closed-door meetings. He does not have any scheduled public events the rest of the day.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was traveling in Qatar and spoke to Trump about efforts to restore tanker traffic through the waterway, Starmer’s office said in a statement.
Starmer has visited Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in the last two days as he tries to build momentum behind the ceasefire and the reopening of the strait.
Trump has taken repeated potshots at the British leader over Starmer’s reluctance to join the U.S.-Israeli war.
While acknowledging that Iraqi forces have made efforts to respond to these attacks, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said Baghdad had not done enough to prevent them, according to a statement.
He warned Iraq’s envoy that support for militias by “elements associated with the Iraqi government” is harming U.S.-Iraq ties, adding that Washington expects immediate steps to dismantle the groups.
U.S. stocks rose, even though oil prices did too, as financial markets moved more modestly a day after surging on optimism about a ceasefire.
After beginning Thursday with moderate losses following drops for Asian and European stocks, the S&P 500 erased its dip and rose 0.6%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.6%, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.8% after Israel’s prime minister authorized direct negotiations with Lebanon. That eased worries that the two-week ceasefire announced late Tuesday may already be in trouble.
Oil prices pared some of their earlier gains but nevertheless remained higher.
The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 3.7% to settle at $97.87 after briefly nearing $103 in the morning. Brent crude, the international standard, added 1.2% to $95.92 per barrel.
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For the first time, Saudi Arabia laid out the scale of damage to its oil output and exports, although it didn’t specify when the attacks occurred.
The Energy Ministry statement also gave the first public confirmation of Saudi casualties during the war, saying one citizen working as an industrial security guard was killed and seven others wounded.
Thursday’s statement said strikes targeted production, transport and refining sites, as well as petrochemical and power facilities in Riyadh, the Eastern Province, and Yanbu on the Red Sea. The statement didn’t attribute responsibility.
A pumping station on the East-West Pipeline was among the hardest hit, cutting throughput by about 700,000 barrels per day, while outages at Manifa and Khurais reduced output by 600,000 more barrels per day.
Major refineries, including SATORP, Ras Tanura and SAMREF, were also hit, with fires at Ju’aymah disrupting exports of liquefied petroleum gas and natural gas liquids.
A U.S. official is confirming that talks between Israel and Lebanon on ending the current hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah will take place starting next week at the State Department in Washington.
The official offered no other details of the negotiations but a person familiar with the planning for the talks said they would be led on the U.S. side by Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa and on the Israeli side by Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter.
Both the U.S. official and the person familiar with the planning spoke on condition of anonymity due to the delicacy of the matter. It was not immediately clear who would represent Lebanon.
Analysts say the memes appear to be coming from groups linked to the government in Tehran and are part of a strategy of leveraging its limited resources to inflict damage on the U.S., even indirectly.
“Their goal is to sow enough discontent with the conflict as to eventually force the West to cave in, so it is massively important to them,” Neil Lavie-Driver, an AI researcher at the University of Cambridge, said, referring to Iran.
The memes are fluent not just in English but in American culture and trolling. They portray Trump as old, out of step and internationally isolated, and include a series that uses the style of the “Lego” animated movies.
Published on various social platforms, they are racking up millions of views — although it’s not clear how much influence they have had.
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The ongoing war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah is far from the first conflict between them. The two have an enmity that goes back more than four decades, with outbursts of fighting or outright war punctuated by periods of tense calm.
▶ Read a timeline of some significant events in their hostilities
A group of new accounts on the prediction market Polymarket made highly specific, well-timed bets on whether the U.S. and Iran would reach a ceasefire on April 7, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits for these new customers.
Calls are increasing in Congress for investigations into the prediction market platform Polymarket after the latest instance where groups of anonymous traders made strategic, well-timed bets on a major geopolitical event hours before it occurred.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from New York who sits on the House Financial Services Committee as well as the subcommittee on digital assets and financial technology, sent a letter Thursday to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission demanding the regulator review and investigate these well-timed trades.
“This pattern raises serious concerns that certain market participants may have had access to material nonpublic information regarding a market-moving geopolitical event,” Torres wrote. The letter was shared exclusively with the AP.
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The U.S. president said Netanyahu agreed to dial back Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon ahead of peace talks in Pakistan.
“I spoke with Bibi and he’s going to low-key it. I just think we have to be sort of a little more low-key,” Trump told NBC News in a phone interview.
Wednesday was the deadliest day of Israeli strikes in Lebanon since the war began.
Netanyahu on Thursday said there’s no ceasefire in Lebanon, and Israel will keep striking Iran-backed Hezbollah militants there until security is restored in northern Israel. But he said he authorized direct negotiations with Lebanon “as soon as possible” aimed at disarming Hezbollah.
The Israeli military also said it had begun striking Hezbollah launch sites in Lebanon on Thursday evening.
Trump says Iranian leaders are more amendable to dealmaking in private conversations than they are in their public statements.
The Iranians “talk much differently when you’re at a meeting than they do to the press. They’re much more reasonable,” Trump told NBC News during a phone interview. “They’re agreeing to all the things that they have to agree to. Remember, they’ve been conquered. They have no military.”
He added: “If they don’t make a deal, it’s going to be very painful.”
The president also said he’s “very optimistic” about the prospects of reaching a peace deal during talks in Pakistan.
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei says the Iranian people are the “definitive victors” in the conflict.
“Today, it is clear before everyone’s eyes, the dawn of the Islamic Republic’s emergence as a great power while the evil is facing the downhill slope of weakness,” he said in a statement read by an anchor on state TV.
Khamenei has not been seen or heard in public since he replaced his father, Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the first day of the war.
The younger Khamenei also mentioned the upcoming ceasefire talks with the U.S. and pledged there would be a “new era” in the Strait of Hormuz.
The U.S. has demanded that Iran reopen the strategic waterway as part of the ceasefire.
Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, speaking to troops inside Lebanon, said the army’s mission is to “continue deepening the damage and to continue weakening Hezbollah.” He said the objective is to remove the direct threat to residents of northern Israel.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, issued a statement Thursday outlining the dire access issues for medical assistance in Beirut’s Jnah area after a series of deadly Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours.
He said that the Israeli military evacuation order covers two major hospitals including Rafik Hariri, the main public hospital in Beirut. These facilities, according to Ghebreyesus, have been crucial for the hundreds of civilians who need assistance. The order also includes five shelters that are currently accommodating more than 5,000 people.
“At this time, no alternative medical facilities are available to receive approximately 450 patients from the two hospitals (including 40 patients in the ICU), rendering their evacuation operationally unfeasible,” he posted on X. “Both facilities are operating at full capacity, including treating the injured from the strikes of 8 April.”
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and welcomed potential Israel-Lebanon talks, saying there is “no military solution” to the conflict, according to his spokesman.
Ongoing Israeli military activity jeopardizes the U.S.-Iran ceasefire, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, adding that Israeli evacuation orders in Beirut’s southern suburbs cover U.N. sites, refugee camps, aid hubs, a major public hospital, and 13 shelters hosting over 6,000 displaced people.
Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Islamabad’s representative at the U.N., told a group of reporters Thursday that he doesn’t know why there was confusion about Lebanon being included in the ceasefire deal agreed to by U.S., Israel and Iran, when it was “clearly” cited in the prime minister’s statement.
“I believe this will be addressed also as part of these discussions, because there are many points on the agenda,” Ahmad said about the planned talks in Islamabad this weekend. “I think we should not let anything come in the way of these talks, which are very important.”
Increased risks to shipping in the Mideast have forced vessels to change their routes, making trips 14 days longer on average, according to ALIS, an Italy-based logistics services association of 2,500 companies globally.
The ordinary insurance costs related to a ship’s value have also gone up by about 10% during the war, ALIS vice president Marcello Di Caterina told The Associated Press.
He warned that the Iran crisis could have a more devastating impact on the shipping industry than the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a video statement, the Israeli leader says his country will keep striking Hezbollah until security is restored in northern Israel.
He confirmed that he is opening direct negotiations with Lebanon, the aim or which are Hezbollah’s disarmament and a sustainable peace agreement.
Jean Arnault, the U.N. secretary-general’s personal envoy for the Iran war, met Thursday with an Iranian deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, as the diplomat makes his way through countries impacted by the conflict.
Stephane Dujarric, the U.N. spokesperson, said Arnault heard Iranian officials’ “views on the way forward” as a shaky day-old ceasefire holds. He also met with representatives from the Iranian Red Crescent, who took him on a tour of some of the sites damaged by weeks of U.S.-Israeli strikes, including a university that was destroyed and an apartment block.
Asked if Arnault or any U.N. personnel will be playing a role in the upcoming negotiations in Pakistan, Dujarric said that world body is currently discussing with all parties “the structural role that we can play” in bringing an end to this conflict.
Correction: This post has been updated to correct that the U.N. misidentified one of Iran’s deputy foreign ministers. He is Kazem Gharibabadi, not Majid Takht-Ravanchi.
President Masoud Pezeshkian said the decision to accept a ceasefire was made unanimously by top officials and approved by the supreme leader.
In a statement posted Thursday on the Telegram messaging app, he said the ceasefire “is not a sign of weakness but a way to solidify Iran’s proud victories,” adding that the pause in fighting followed more than a month of Iranian public resilience and support.
House Democrats gathered at the U.S. Capitol and lambasted the Trump administration’s ceasefire negotiations with Iran as chaotic and unworkable, and characterized the president’s threats about wiping out a civilization as the musings of madness.
The lawmakers warned they would keep proposing resolutions to end the war, and use their votes to block any requests from the administration for more money to fund it.
“It’s clear that their ability to negotiate with Iran is nonexistent,” said Rep. Glenn Ivey of Maryland.
He called Trump’s plans for tolls on the strait particularly outrageous.
“How did we end up at a point where he’s talking about a joint venture with Iran with respect to charging tolls at the Strait of Hormuz?” he asked.
Rep. Madeleine Dean from Pennsylvania, who supports efforts to force Trump to step aside under the Constitution’s 25th Amendment, pointed back to the president’s days of escalatory rhetoric.
“The president brought the entire globe to watch his madness,” she said.
Israel said it launched 100 strikes in 10 minutes across Lebanon on Wednesday, targeting what they said were Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure. The strikes hit busy residential and commercial areas without warning.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said the death toll is likely to rise as search and rescue teams continue to find remains under the rubble, and as more people identify dozens of bodies at hospitals.
It was the deadliest day in over a month of war between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group. Around 1,150 people were wounded.
Israel-Lebanon negotiations are expected to begin next week at the State Department in Washington, according to a person familiar with the plans.
The talks are expected to be handled on the American side by U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, and on the Israeli side by Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the delicacy of the situation.
It was not immediately clear whom Lebanon was sending.
Axios first reported the timing and location of the talks.
— By Matthew Lee
Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives made a quick but unsuccessful effort Thursday to pass a bill that would force Trump to get congressional approval before carrying out any more attacks on Iran.
The effort had no chance of passage during a short, minutes-long “pro forma session” of the House during which legislative business is rarely conducted.
But that didn’t stop Democrats from trying to make the point that they oppose the war in Iran.
Rep. Glenn Ivey, a Democrat from Maryland, tried to force a vote on the resolution, but Rep. Christopher Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, declared the House was adjourned.
“Let us vote!” yelled Rep. James Walkinshaw, a Democrat from Virginia.
“The time has come. The time has come,” Ivey said.
Democrats will look to force a vote on the measure again next week.
Men inspect the damage to their home destroyed in an Israeli airstrike a day earlier in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A rescue worker holds money recovered from the rubble of a destroyed building that was hit a day ahead in an Israeli airstrike in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
People play on the beachfront in Tel Aviv, Israel, after the announcement of a two-week ceasefire with Iran, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
A rescue worker extinguishes burning cars at the site of an Israeli airstrike in central Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A woman holds her dog as she walks past burned cars a day after an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Women mourn during a ceremony marking the 40th day since the killing of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the cement barricades are placed on the street leading to his residence in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A government supporter weeps during a mourning ceremony marking the 40th day since the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S. and Israel strikes in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A damaged car is seen in an area as Lebanese civil defense workers search for victims in the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike a day earlier in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A man reacts as he watches an excavator remove debris at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A man stands next to an apartment building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike a day earlier in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
FILE - Two police officers walk in front of an anti-U.S. billboard depicting American aircraft being caught by Iranian armed forces in a fishing net beneath the words in Farsi, "The Strait of Hormuz will remain closed, The entire Persian Gulf is our hunting ground," in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
Ali, 4, holds a toy horse next to the tent his family uses as a shelter after fleeing Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Smoke rises following several Israeli airstrikes in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Firefighters, first responders, and volunteers work on smoldering debris at the site of an Israeli airstrike that struck an apartment building in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
