Jerusalem / Tehran / Beirut – It was supposed to be a pause. A breath. A chance for the world to step back from the edge.
Instead, within hours, the ceasefire began to unravel.
On one side: Iran and Pakistan, the architects of the 11th-hour truce, insisting Lebanon was part of the deal. On the other: Benjamin Netanyahu, stone-faced, declaring it was not. And in between: Israeli warplanes, tearing across Lebanon, striking more than 100 targets in the single heaviest attack of the entire war. At least 254 dead. The streets of Beirut turned to ash and agony.
Donald Trump watched in silence. Then, finally, he spoke. Lebanon, he said, was "a separate skirmish." Not part of the deal. As if the bombs falling on Beirut knew the difference. As if the families digging through rubble cared about diplomatic footnotes.
Meanwhile, Iran moved. Oil tankers ground to a halt in the Strait of Hormuz. The accusation: Israel breached the ceasefire. The implication: all bets are off.
The world held hands and hoped for peace. It lasted less than a day. Now, the ceasefire is gasping for air – and no one is rushing to save it.
Key developments:
- Israel strikes 100+ targets across Lebanon, killing at least 254 people
- Iran halts oil tankers through Strait of Hormuz, citing Israeli "ceasefire breach"
- UN rights chief Volker Turk condemns "horrific carnage" hours after truce
- Iran says US and Israel violated multiple clauses of provisional ceasefire
- Trump administration claims Lebanon was never included in the deal
- Oil price had dropped below $100 after truce; markets now on edge
- US threatens to "take out" Iran's HEU stockpile if no agreement reached
- Trump to discuss possible US withdrawal from NATO with secretary general
Ceasefire Interpretation Splinters Within Hours
The scale of Israel's attacks on Wednesday were condemned as "horrific" by UN rights chief Volker Turk. "Such carnage, within hours of agreeing to a ceasefire with Iran, defies belief. It places enormous pressure on a fragile peace, which is so desperately needed by civilians," he said.
In a sharply worded statement, Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Israel and the US had violated several clauses of the provisional ceasefire, and decried Israel's aggressive bombing of Lebanon and a US demand that Iran should have no right to enrich its own uranium.
"In such [a] situation, a bilateral ceasefire or negotiations is unreasonable," the statement read. While the statement did not announce Iran's formal rejection of the ceasefire, it indicated that tensions were strained less than 24 hours after Trump had announced that a ceasefire agreement had been reached.
Oil Tankers Halted as Strait of Hormuz Closes
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 "false" and said Trump expected it to reopen "immediately, quickly and safely," as the US signalled continued hope in the ceasefire even as it threatened to unravel.
US and Iran Offer Divergent Accounts
Vice-president JD Vance said he believed the differing views on whether the ceasefire included Lebanon came from a "legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn't. We never made that promise."
Israel had offered to "check themselves a little bit in Lebanon" to aid the US negotiations, he added, but would not include it in the ceasefire.
In Israel, opposition politicians led by Yair Lapid have criticised Netanyahu for failing to deliver the conclusive victory he had promised in the war and for delivering instead a "diplomatic disaster" that had eroded the trust between Israel and the United States.
"We still have objectives to complete – and we will achieve them either by agreement or by resuming the fighting," Netanyahu said in a statement on Wednesday evening.
Iran's 10-Point Plan and Nuclear Standoff
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 strait.
Karoline Leavitt, Trump's press secretary, said during a press conference on Wednesday: "The Iranians originally put forward a 10-point plan that was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable and completely discarded. The idea that President Trump would ever accept an Iranian wishlist 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.
Pakistan Talks and NATO Tensions
Leavitt said a US negotiating team led by Vance, as well as Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, would travel to Islamabad in Pakistan for talks set to begin this weekend. The negotiations with an Iranian delegation – expected to include its foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi – will begin on Saturday.
Iran has 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.
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.
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 buried deep under mountains, would be long, complicated and risky.
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.
Trump Threatens NATO Withdrawal
Trump has been angered by the refusal of several western allies to support his war against Iran. Leavitt told reporters that the president planned to discuss the possibility of the US leaving NATO when he met with the alliance's secretary general, Mark Rutte, on Wednesday.
Asked whether the president would raise the prospect of withdrawing from NATO, Leavitt replied: "It's something the president has discussed and I think it's something the president will be discussing in a couple of hours with secretary general Rutte."
After the meeting, Rutte told CNN that he believes some NATO countries were tested and failed through the course of the war, but that the "large majority of European nations has been helpful with basing, with logistics, with overflight."
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