Firefighters hose down buildings hit in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut. Marwan Naamani/dpa/ZUMA Press
A two-week cease-fire between the U.S. and Iran was on tenterhooks Wednesday, as Israel launched massive attacks on Lebanon and Iran threatened to reverse its plan to open the Strait of Hormuz to traffic.
Both the U.S. and Iran claimed victory on Wednesday after the two countries agreed to a cease-fire to end the war that began in late February, but Iran continued to fire missiles and drones at Arab countries in the Persian Gulf and Israel unleashed a barrage of deadly strikes against Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
Iran's parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, accused the U.S. on X of several key violations of his country's 10-point framework to end the war. These breaches, he wrote, make both the cease-fire and negotiations for a long-term peace agreement effectively meaningless.
"From the outset, we followed the ongoing process with distrust, and as expected, the United States once again violated its commitments even before negotiations began," he wrote on Wednesday.
President Trump said on Tuesday that the U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week pause in fighting, conditional on the immediate reopening of the strait, while pointing to progress on a 10-point proposal from Tehran. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said reports on Wednesday that Iran had closed the strait in response to Israel's strikes in Lebanon were false.
A closed strait is "completely unacceptable" to Trump, Leavitt said.
Four ships were allowed to pass on Wednesday, the fewest so far in April, according S&P Global Market Intelligence, down from more than 100 a day before the war. Iran is requiring ships to work out toll arrangements ahead of time and then pay the fees in cryptocurrency or yuan, mediators and ship brokers said.
Leavitt said it wasn't a "definitively accepted" policy position that Iran would be allowed to charge tolls on ships moving through the strait.
Israel, which wasn't formally part of the Iran negotiations, expressed unhappiness after learning that a deal was completed without its consultation. It said it had halted attacks on Iran but was continuing military operations in Lebanon against Hezbollah, prompting protests from Iran.
The White House said on Wednesday that Israel's conflict with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon wasn't part of the cease-fire deal.
The extent of the consultation was Trump calling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel shortly before the cease-fire was announced, a White House official said. Netanyahu agreed to participate in the cease-fire, the official said.
Mediators said Israeli officials weren't happy with the terms, including the planned inclusion of Lebanon in the agreement, as Israel considers Iran and Lebanon separate arenas. Netanyahu said Wednesday morning that the deal didn't include Lebanon, contradicting an earlier statement by Pakistan, which is mediating the talks.
Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to lead a team of negotiators in weekend talks in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, the White House said. He is to be joined by special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Leavitt said on Wednesday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the cease-fire with the U.S. must include a pause in Israel's conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
"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," Araghchi wrote 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."
The Israeli airstrikes killed dozens of people and injured hundreds more, Lebanon's Health Ministry said, adding that rescue efforts were under way to find others still trapped under rubble. The ministry didn't say how many were civilians or combatants.
Israel's military said it carried out strikes on more than 100 targets within a span of minutes against the Iran-backed militant group. Some of the strikes targeted Hezbollah hide-outs in densely populated areas in the capital Beirut. Israel said militants are moving from their traditional stronghold in the city's southern suburbs toward civilian areas farther north for refuge.
In addition to Israel's attacks in Lebanon, Ghalibaf said on X that there were other violations to the cease-fire deal, including the incursion of a hostile drone into Iranian airspace over Fars Province and the denial of Iran's right to uranium enrichment.
Iran continued to attack U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf.
Netanyahu said Israel was the winning side in the war and that it had set back the Iranian regime many years in his first speech to the Israeli public since the two-week cease-fire went into effect.
The prime minister said Israel had severely damaged Iran's nuclear program, its ability to produce ballistic missiles, damaged its industrial and military base and killed senior Iranian leadership.
Earlier Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared "decisive military victory" over Iran, saying the country's missile program was functionally destroyed. "They can no longer build missiles" and the U.S. has destroyed Iran's military industrial base, he said.