U.S., Iran and Israel Agree to Cease-Fire
The deal came shortly before President Trump’s deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face devastation. Israel said the cease-fire did not include Lebanon.
The United States and Iran reached an 11th-hour cease-fire deal on Tuesday evening, hours after President Trump threatened to start wiping out Iran’s “whole civilization” if it did not allow commercial shipping to pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz.
Mr. Trump announced the agreement in a post on social media hours after Pakistan, a mediator in the dispute, urged him to stand down from the 8 p.m. Eastern time deadline he had set for Iran to accede to his demands. Pakistan proposed that each side observe a two-week cease-fire, and that during that time Iran allow oil, gas and other vessels to proceed unmolested through the economically vital waterway.
President Trump said on social media that the United States would be “helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz,” the strategic waterway that Iran has agreed to reopen under threat of devastating U.S. attacks. “We’ll be loading up with supplies of all kinds, and just ‘hangin’ around” in order to make sure that everything goes well,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. He also said Iran could “start the reconstruction process” — a sharp contrast to his earlier threats to wipe out Iranian civilization.
It will take months for global jet fuel supplies to return to normal even after the Strait of Hormuz reopens because of the disruptions to refineries in the Middle East, said Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association, which represents more than 360 airlines. He told reporters in Singapore on Wednesday that because of the refinery issues, he expected crude oil prices to fall but jet fuel costs to remain elevated.
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Oil prices tumbled and stocks in Asia surged on Thursday as investors breathed a sigh of relief after the United States and Iran reached a last-minute cease-fire agreement, temporarily avoiding a worst-case scenario of President Trump following through on his pledge to wipe out Iran.
The cease-fire deal came 90 minutes before a deadline set by Mr. Trump for Iran to accede to his demands or risk widespread devastation, which could have caused even greater disruptions to energy supplies from the Middle East. The deal calls for a two-week period when the United States would suspend strikes on Iran, and Tehran would allow vessels and tankers carrying oil, gas and other commodities to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for transit of oil and gas.
President Trump said the two-week cease-fire will give the United States and Iran time to finalize a peace agreement. This raises the question of where, and when, the two sides could meet for further negotiations. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan — a key mediator — said he had invited U.S. and Iranian delegations for talks in Islamabad on Friday.
Pakistan has been trying for weeks to arrange a meeting. Pakistani officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sharif’s invitation on Tuesday.
Israel supports President Trump’s decision to stop attacking Iran for two weeks subject to the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the cessation of Iran attacks against the United States, Israel and other countries in the region, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. But it said the cease-fire did not include Lebanon, contradicting an earlier statement from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan.
Members of Congress in both parties welcomed President Trump’s announcement Tuesday night of cease-fire between the United States and Iran, but Democrats continued to raise grave questions about the path forward after weeks of war without congressional authorization.
“I’m glad Trump backed off his threat to wipe out a whole civilization and is searching for an offramp from his ridiculous bluster,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said in a statement late Tuesday.
Pope Leo XIV, the first U.S.-born pontiff, issued a rare rebuke of President Trump on Tuesday, saying it was “truly unacceptable” to threaten to wipe out Iran’s “whole civilization.”
He did not mention the president by name, but it was clear whom he was referring to.
Israeli police said that officers in the southern district were working with bomb disposal experts at several sites where interception fragments had fallen and were also searching for any additional fallen parts. The police said damage had been reported but did not provide details.
Perhaps the most prominent television cheerleader of the Iran war, the Fox News personality Mark Levin, voiced doubts about negotiations with the Iranians. “This enemy is still the enemy,” Levin told the host Sean Hannity on Fox. “They’re still surviving.” A deal now would be hard to enforce and could abandon the people of Iran, which would be “morally very difficult,” Levin said. Trump has praised Levin as “brilliant.”
President Trump made two calls shortly before he announced a two-week cease-fire with Iran: one with Asim Munir, the chief of the army staff of Pakistan, and one with Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, two U.S. officials said. The president made the calls after 5 p.m.
Munir has ties to the Iranian military and has been a mediator, passing messages between the warring parties. In a series of meetings and calls over the winter, Netanyahu pushed Trump to attack Iran with Israel.
Israel’s emergency rescue service said that following a missile fired toward the country, its teams were treating two 15-year-old boys with mild blast injuries in Tel Sheva, a Bedouin town in southern Israel, as well as several people suffering from anxiety.
In Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, the authorities said they were dealing with a fire at the Habshan gas facility. The announcement came shortly after the Emirati defense ministry said it was dealing with missile attacks and incoming drones from Iran.
Asian stock markets surged at the open of trade, breathing a sigh of relief from the cease-fire news and the sharp decline in oil prices. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose more than 4 percent in early trading, while South Korea’s benchmark Kospi Index jumped more than 5 percent. In currency markets, the U.S. dollar weakened against both the Japanese yen and the South Korean won.
Countries around the Persian Gulf, including Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, reported missile and drone attacks shortly after Iran and the United States announced the cease-fire deal. The U.A.E. defense ministry and the Israeli military said they were countering attacks from Iran. The Kuwaiti army said its air defenses were detecting missile and drone attacks, while the Qatari defense ministry said it had intercepted a missile attack. It remains unclear if word of a cease-fire deal is taking time to filter down to Iranian forces.
The reaction in oil prices and stock markets picked up speed, responding to news of the cease-fire between the United States, Israel and Iran, even as reports of missile and drone attacks continued. U.S. crude shot down in late trading, falling about 15 percent to about $96 a barrel. Brent, the international benchmark, was also down about 15 percent, hovering at roughly $93 a barrel. Futures on the S&P 500 stock index, which give investors the chance to bet on the market before exchanges open on Wednesday, rose over 2 percent.
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Israeli drones are whirring louder than usual in the early hours of Wednesday morning in the skies above the Lebanese capital, Beirut. The country is on tenterhooks waiting to see if a cease-fire deal will also bring an end to the war in Lebanon, which has been rocked by grinding month-long fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group. Shortly before Trump announced the tentative deal, an Israeli strike on a busy street in the southern Lebanese city of Saida killed at least eight people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. The Israeli military also remains in control of a broad part of southern Lebanon that it has invaded in recent weeks.
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