Iran Ceasefire Is Looking Shaky

The Iran ceasefire deal appeared shaky on Wednesday as Iranian state media said the Strait of Hormuz was closed and Iran's Revolutionary Guard claimed missile and drone strikes on multiple regional targets, including oil facilities. The Telegraph reports that Saudi Arabia's crucial east-west oil pipeline was hit by an Iranian drone attack, as were energy facilities in Kuwait. The UAE says it intercepted 17 missiles and 35 drones, apparently launched by Iran after the truce announcement. The White House called the closure reports "false" and said Trump expects the strait to open "immediately, quickly and safely," even as hundreds of tankers remain stuck and report interference with navigation systems, the Guardian reports.

Lebanon is a major point of disagreement. Iran and Pakistan, which helped broker the last-minute deal, say the two-week ceasefire covers the country. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says it doesn't. Israeli forces carried out their most intense strikes of the war there on Wednesday, hitting more than 100 targets and killing at least 254 people, according to local authorities. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that President Trump doesn't believe the ceasefire covers Lebanon and that position has been "conveyed to all sides," the BBC reports.

• "The Iran–U.S. Ceasefire terms are clear and explicit: the U.S. must choose—ceasefire or continued war via Israel. It cannot have both," Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, said on X. "The world sees the massacres in Lebanon. The ball is in the U.S. court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments."

• Trump, who first presented Iran's 10-point proposal as a "workable basis" for talks, now calls Lebanon "a separate skirmish" and insists the real deal is a tougher 15-point US plan that bars uranium enrichment and promises joint efforts to locate Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
• Leavitt said Wednesday that the Iranian plan was "fundamentally unserious, unacceptable and completely discarded," adding, "The idea that President Trump would ever accept an Iranian wishlist as a deal is completely absurd." She claimed the Iranian plan was "literally thrown in the garbage" by Trump, the AP reports.
• Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, meanwhile, said three of the 10 points had been "openly and clearly violated," meaning abilateral ceasefire or negotiations" would be "unreasonable."
• Leavitt said Trump is sending a negotiating team including Vice President JD Vance, Trump adviser Steve Witkoff, and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner to Pakistan for negotiations expected to begin Saturday morning local time, the BBC reports. The Iranian team is expected to include Araghchi.