Ceasefire in the Iran war teeters in the face of disagreements over
Lebanon and the Strait of Hormuz
[April 09, 2026]
By JON GAMBRELL and ELENA BECATOROS
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A tentative ceasefire in the Iran war
staggered Thursday under the weight of Israel’s intense bombardment of
Beirut, Tehran’s continued chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, and
uncertainty over whether negotiators can find common ground on a range
of other differences.
Hours after the ceasefire was announced — amid disagreement over whether
it included a pause in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah — Israel
pounded Beirut with airstrikes, resulting in the deadliest day in the
country since the war began on Feb. 28.
Iran and the U.S. — which both declared victory in the wake of the
ceasefire announcement — appeared to try to pressure each other.
Semiofficial news agencies in Iran suggested forces have mined the
Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for the world’s oil whose closure
has proved Tehran’s greatest strategic advantage in the conflict.
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, warned that U.S. forces would hit
Iran even harder than before if it did not fulfill the agreement.
But what that agreement is remains in deep dispute. Beyond whether
Lebanon is included, there are questions over what will happen to Iran’s
stockpile of enriched uranium, how and when normal traffic will resume
through the strait, and what happens to Iran’s ability to launch missile
attacks in the future.
Israeli strikes on Lebanon threaten the ceasefire
At least 182 people were killed in Lebanon on Wednesday when Israel
intensified its attacks on the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group,
which joined the war in support of Tehran. First responders searched
overnight for missing people still under the rubble after the strikes,
which hit commercial and residential areas of Beirut.
Israel said Thursday it killed Ali Yusuf Harshi, an aide to Hezbollah
leader Naim Kassem. Hezbollah did not immediately respond to a request
for comment.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has insisted that an end to the
war in Lebanon was part of the ceasefire deal, but Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump said it was not.
A New York-based think tank warned the deal “ hovers on the verge of
collapse.”
“Even if Lebanon was formally outside the deal, the scale of Israel’s
strikes was likely to be viewed as escalatory, nonetheless,” the Soufan
Center wrote in an analysis. “Israel’s strikes can be understood both as
an effort to drive a wedge between Iran and its proxies and as a
response to being allegedly sidelined in the original ceasefire
discussions.”
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Thursday that an
Israeli strike overnight had killed at least seven people in southern
Lebanon. The Israeli military did not immediately acknowledge the
strike.
Oil prices remain high amid uncertainty over the Strait of Hormuz
Semiofficial news agencies in Iran published a chart Thursday suggesting
the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard put sea mines into the
strait during the war — a message that may be intended to pressure the
U.S.
The chart, released by the ISNA news agency and Tasnim, showed a large
circle marked “danger zone” in Farsi over the route ships take through
the strait, through which 20% of all traded oil and natural gas once
passed.
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People inspect the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli
airstrike a day earlier in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026.
(AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Only a trickle of ships have passed through the strait since the war
began after a few were attacked and Iran threatened to hit any that
it deemed connected to the U.S. or Israel. Ships appeared to
continue to avoid the strait Wednesday, despite the ceasefire: Data
from Kpler showed only four vessels with their trackers on passed
through.
The chart suggested ships travel through waters closer to Iran’s
mainland near Larak Island, a route that some ships were observed
taking during the war. It was dated from Feb. 28 until April 9, and
it was unclear if the Guard had cleared any mines since then.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh, told the BBC on
Thursday that his country will allow ships to pass through the
strait in accordance with “international norms and international
law” once the United States ends its “aggression” in the Middle East
and Israel stops attacking Lebanon.
The strait’s de facto closure has caused oil prices to skyrocket —
raising, in turn, the cost of gasoline, food and other basics far
beyond the Middle East. Oil prices fell on news of the ceasefire
Wednesday, but began to climb as uncertainty over the deal grew.
The spot price of Brent crude, the international standard, was
around $98 Thursday — up about 35% since the war began.
Trump warned that U.S. warships and troops will remain around Iran
“until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied
with.”
If it is not, “then the ‘Shootin’ Starts,’ bigger, and better,”
Trump wrote in a social media message.
Peace talks expected in Pakistan
The White House said that Vice President JD Vance would lead the
U.S. delegation for talks in Islamabad aimed at ending the war,
which are set to start Saturday.
There appear to be many points of disagreement to address, including
whether Iran will be allowed to formalize a system of charging ships
to use the strait that it has instituted. That would upend decades
of precedent treating it as an international waterway that was free
to transit.
The fate of Iran’s missile and nuclear programs — the elimination of
which were major objectives for the U.S. and Israel in going to war
— also remained unclear. The U.S. insists Iran must never be able to
build nuclear weapons and wants to remove Tehran’s stockpile of
highly enriched uranium, which could be used to build them, should
it choose to pursue the bomb. Iran insists its program is peaceful.
Trump said Wednesday that the U.S. would work with Iran to remove
the buried uranium, though Iran did not confirm that. In one version
of the deal that Iran published, it said it would be allowed to
continue enrichment.
___
Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece. Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong,
Zeke Miller in Washington and Kareem Chehayeb and Hussein Malla in
Beirut contributed to this report.
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