JERUSALEM — A two-week agreement to halt U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran was under threat from multiple directions on Wednesday. Iran accused the United States of violating the ceasefire. Israel carried out widespread strikes in Lebanon. Iran conducted retaliatory attacks in the Persian Gulf region. And traffic in the Strait of Hormuz remained at a standstill.
Iran might withdraw from talks if violations of the ceasefire continued, Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a statement Wednesday, which detailed apparent breaches of the agreement, including Israeli attacks in Lebanon, a drone intercepted in Iran and what he said was President Donald Trump’s denial of Iran’s right to enrich uranium.
Less than 24 hours since Trump announced the ceasefire, its future remains tenuous, with the two sides slated to begin talks in Pakistan on Saturday.
After nearly six weeks of fighting that has destabilized the region and upended the global economy, the agreement raised the prospect of respite. But some of the ceasefire’s key details remain unclear — and gaps between Washington and Tehran, and their respective 10- and 15-point plans, remain large.
One point of divergence remains the war in Lebanon.
In an initial announcement of the deal Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who mediated between the sides, said it included Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Trump made no mention of Lebanon, Hezbollah or Iranian regional proxies in his own ceasefire announcements. Late Tuesday night, Tehran said the cessation of strikes on Hezbollah were included in its demands for the deal.
But the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that attacks in Lebanon were not covered in the agreement. Talking to reporters Wednesday at the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Iran had indicated a willingness to give up uranium as part of an agreement — and that Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire.
Later Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance told reporters in Budapest, where he was visiting: “I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t.”
The status of the Strait of Hormuz, a key choke point for fuel shipments, also remains to be negotiated. Trump demanded in a social media post that Iran agree to its “the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE and SAFE OPENING.”
But traffic in the strait remained at a standstill Wednesday, according to Iran’s state-backed media and marine traffic monitors. While two tankers passed through early in the day with permission, traffic has since stopped, reported Fars, an Iranian state-backed outlet.
The agreed-upon pause came as the war’s economic and political fallout, including a near-doubling of gasoline prices in the United States and a falling approval rating as midterm elections near, had begun to mount. Stock futures surged and oil prices plunged following the ceasefire announcement.
Israel said that it supported Trump’s decision, according to a statement published overnight by the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but that the temporary truce did not extend to its assault on Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group that Israel has been fighting in southern Lebanon with increasing ferocity.
Israel described its attacks in Lebanon Wednesday as the largest yet in its current offensive against Hezbollah. The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least 182 people had been killed in an initial toll from Israeli strikes across the country.
At the Pentagon on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that U.S. military operations against Iran will pause as the ceasefire plays out.
“The joint force remains ready, if ordered or called upon, to resume combat operations,” Caine said.
The war has been devastating for Iran, with more than 15,000 U.S. and Israeli strikes destroying factories, bridges and research facilities in addition to the attacks that hit military installations and government complexes. As of last month, the conflict had killed nearly 15,000 civilians, according to a report from a consortium of human rights groups. Iranian attacks killed 13 U.S. troops in the region and injured more than 380.
Iran’s attacks against its Persian Gulf neighbors continued Wednesday. Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates said they intercepted Iranian drones and missiles. The Iranian state broadcaster said the attacks were in response to a strike on an Iranian refinery in the morning.
Over the course of the war, Iran expanded its control over the Strait of Hormuz, granting passage to a handful of tankers required to coordinate their passage with the military and collecting tolls. Now, Tehran appears to be attempting to formalize that control under the ceasefire.
An Iranian official said Iran and Oman will provide security for the Strait of Hormuz during the ceasefire and tolls collected by Iran will pay for that security. He declined to say how much the tolls would be, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media. It’s unclear if the United States agreed to this arrangement as part of the ceasefire. Iran’s Persian Gulf neighbors have previously voiced strong opposition to any arrangement that allows Tehran to monetize the strait.
Vance is expected to play a prominent role in talks with Iran. After helping boost the reelection campaign of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Budapest Tuesday, Vance repeatedly called the ceasefire with Iran a “fragile truce” on Wednesday and said Trump was “impatient to make progress.”
Vance said Trump had told him, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff to “go and work in good faith to come to an agreement” with the Iranians. But he said Trump also instructed them that if the Iranians “lie” or “cheat” or interfere with the two-week ceasefire, then “they’re not going to be happy” with the outcome of the talks.
Talks in Islamabad are expected to address the highly enriched uranium believed to be buried at one or more of Iran’s nuclear sites attacked by the United States last year. Speaking at the Pentagon on Wednesday, Hegseth said, “On the uranium, we’re watching it.” He said that “we know what they have, and they will give it up, and we’ll get it and take it.”
The Pentagon has military plans in place to seize that uranium, two people familiar with the planning have told The Washington Post. That mission, which would require Special Forces, is highly complex and dangerous and could result in additional troop deaths, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.
As the announcement of a two-week ceasefire in Iran sent oil prices plunging, analysts warned that the relief could be short-lived unless a durable plan for securing the flow of crude through the strait is quickly reached.
Prices for oil dropped more than 15 percent on news of the ceasefire, which includes a provision to allow limited transit of tankers through the narrow strait where they have idled since the war began at the end of February.
Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, was trading at less than $92 Wednesday morning. The drop means the average price for a gallon of gasoline should gradually start to fall by the end of the week, according to analysts.
“Gas prices could start reversing nationally in 48 hours or so — by a few cents every day,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at the price-tracking app Gas Buddy, wrote in a post on X after the ceasefire was announced. “Diesel prices may lag slightly — but where things stand now, diesel is NO longer likely to reach a record. National average gasoline could fall below $4 in ~1-2 weeks, diesel >$5 in 6-8 weeks.”
The average price at the pump had risen to $4.16 nationally by Monday morning, according to AAA, up 40 percent since before the U.S. attacked Iran. It is expected to continue to rise slightly in the next couple of days, as filling stations work through their inventories of gasoline acquired before prices started falling.
Some prices related to the pressures on oil could take much longer to start coming down. The International Air Transport Association warned it could be months before the cost of jet fuel returns to where it was. The firm Capital Economics projects oil prices will average around $95 per barrel into the summer before dropping to $80 by the end of the year. The firm also expects inflation — pushed up by the war — to continue rising in the short term.
Analysts further cautioned that any relief could be short-lived, depending on the outcome of talks.
“Iran’s 10-point plan looks [like] an unacceptable deal for the U.S.,” and others too, said Neil Crosby, head of oil research at Sparta, a market research firm. He said the two countries are so far apart that there is only “a small chance that transits into Hormuz will be allowed to rise to anything substantial enough to make a dent in the problem.”
Leaders across the Middle East, whose countries have been caught up in the destabilizing war, welcomed the pause in fighting Wednesday and thanked Pakistan for its role as a mediator.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, posting on X, lamented Israel’s lack of involvement in Trump’s decision: “There has never been such a political disaster in all of our history.” Lapid said Israel “wasn’t even at the table” when decisions were made about Israel’s national security.
“Netanyahu failed politically, failed strategically, and didn’t meet a single one of the goals that he himself set,” Lapid said.
Allison reported from Budapest. Halper, George and Copp reported from Washington. Isaac Arnsdorf in Washington; Siham Shamalakh and Heba Farouk Mahfouz in Cairo; and Suzan Haidamous, Abbie Cheeseman and Mohamad El Chamaa in Beirut contributed to this report.
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