Israel’s massive strike on Lebanon strains US and Iran’s uneasy ceasefire

It’s dawn in the Gulf where there have been no reports of drone or missile attacks overnight for the first time since the US and Israel’s attack on Iran sparked widespread retaliatory strikes that have upended the region.

Over the past six weeks, ministry officials in the Gulf states have actively reported attacks from Iran on social media, with near-daily strikes linked to significant US military presence in the region.

The US-Iran ceasefire took several hours to take effect on Wednesday, according to several Gulf nations reporting missile interceptions until that afternoon.

But in recent hours those public channels have now gone unusually quiet - an indication that, at least for now, Iran’s dispersed forces appear to have stopped firing missiles and drones.

Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior issued its latest report on X Wednesday morning local time, stating that several houses in the Sitra area were damaged by shrapnel from an intercepted Iranian drone.

The United Arab Emirates has reported no missile or drone attacks since Wednesday afternoon, when its defense ministry said it had intercepted 17 ballistic missiles and 35 drones from Iran.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defense also noted a period of calm, with no missile or drone attacks reported on X in the past 15 hours.

Qatar’s Ministry of Defense reported no incidents in the last 14 hours, when it said on X that its armed forces intercepted seven ballistic missiles and several drones from Iran.

Defense officials in Kuwait reported no missile or drone incidents in the past 14 hours, following the detection of four ballistic missiles and 42 drones in the previous 24-hour period, according to state news agency KUNA.

Oman’s Ministry of Defense reported no airstrikes in the past 24 hours.

The Iranian delegation will arrive in Islamabad Thursday night for talks with the US, Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan wrote in a post on X.

“Despite skepticism of Iranian public opinion due to repeated ceasefire violations by Israeli regime to sabotage the diplomatic initiative, invited by Hon. PM Shehbaz Sharif, Iranian delegation arrives tonight in Islamabad for serious talks based on 10 points proposed by Iran,” Reza Amiri Moghadam said.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Parliament of Iran attends a funeral in Beirut, Lebanon on February 23, 2025.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker who some media reports say is expected to lead Tehran’s delegation, said on Wednesday that negotiations would be “unreasonable” after accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire by striking Lebanon.

Pakistan and Iran have claimed the truce between the US, Israel and Iran includes Lebanon, while the US and Israel said the ceasefire does not apply to operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The negotiations, led on the US side by Vice President JD Vance, are set to begin Saturday, according to the White House.

Israel’s military hammered Lebanon on Wednesday, targeting more than 100 sites in just 10 minutes in its largest coordinated strikes since the war began, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

At least 182 people were killed in the strikes and nearly 900 wounded, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

A fireball rises from a building hit by an Israeli airstrike in the area of Abbasiyeh, on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, on Wednesday.

Rescue workers are trying to save survivors at the site of the Israeli strike in Tallet al-Khayat, Beirut, on Wednesday April 8.

A rescue worker walks along a damaged building in the Barbour neighbourhood of Beirut after an Israeli strike on Wednesday.

A woman is assisted at the site of an Israeli airstrike that struck an apartment building in Beirut, Lebanon, on Wednesday.

Smoke rises following several Israeli airstrikes in Beirut, Lebanon, on Wednesday.

Pakistan condemned Israel’s latest round of strikes on Lebanon and called on the international community to “take urgent and concrete steps” to stop further attacks in a statement from its Ministry of Foreign Affairs Thursday.

“The Israeli actions undermine international efforts to establish peace and stability in the region and constitute a blatant violation of international law and fundamental humanitarian principles,” the statement said.

Israel said it carried out its largest coordinated strike on Lebanon since the war began Wednesday, killing at least 182 and wounding hundreds more, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

Some context: Pakistan has maintained that Lebanon is included in the ceasefire deal it helped broker between the US, Israel and Iran. However, the Trump administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have said the truce does not apply to operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Iran has warned that the ceasefire could collapse if Israeli attacks on Lebanon continue, underscoring the fragility of the ceasefire.

Pakistan is set to host talks between Iran and the US in Islamabad this weekend, with the world closely watching for whether progress will be made or conflict restarts.

Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, on November 22, 2024.

The world remains “hostage” to the faltering ceasefire between Iran and the United States, Australia’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers warned Thursday, telling journalists the “hefty” price of the war would continue to be paid by consumers.

“We need to see this ceasefire stick, and we need to see the Strait of Hormuz properly open. There’s a lot of uncertainty about both of those things, and clearly the economic recovery can’t begin until the war properly ends,” Chalmers said.

“Like the rest of the world, the Australian economy, the Australian people, are hostage to developments in the Middle East.”

Australia relies largely on its Asian neighbors for the import of petroleum and diesel.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will fly to Singapore on Friday for a meeting with counterpart Lawrence Wong in the hope of shoring up supply from a crucial fuel exporter.

Even a permanent end to the current conflict “doesn’t mean that Straits of Hormuz reopened and that it’s back to business as usual,” Albanese said of Australia’s need to secure additional fuel supplies.

There is more confusion over the already shaky ceasefire, with Iran accusing Israel of breaking it by launching a massive attack on Lebanon. But Israel and the US insist Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire agreement with Iran.

Here’s the latest:

New satellite imagery shows large plumes of thick black smoke rising at Saudi Aramco’s vital Abqaiq processing facility following earlier reports of an Iranian drone attack on Wednesday.

New satellite imagery provided by the European Space Agency shows large plumes of thick black smoke rising from Saudi Aramco’s vital Abqaiq processing facility following earlier reports of an Iranian attack on Wednesday.

The image was taken on April 8 at around 10:00 a.m. local time (03:00 a.m. ET) just hours after President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran.

Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq facility is the world’s largest crude stabilization plant and provides around 5% of global oil supplies, according to the company. The facility processes sour crude oil and processes it into sweet crude oil before it gets transported to both Saudi Arabia’s east and west coast via the East-West Pipeline.

The pipeline is one of two out of the region that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, where the war in Iran has caused significant trade disruption. Transporting crude across the country connecting Abqaiq, an oil field near the eastern gulf coast, with the Red Sea port of Yanbu, the pipeline has become a crucial part of the nation’s oil export trade since the effective shuttering of Hormuz.

Aramco declined to comment when contacted by CNN.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning holds a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.

Beijing has been tight-lipped about its involvement in the ceasefire agreement reached between Iran and the United States this week, though the White House confirmed “top-level” talks between American and Chinese officials as negotiations were ongoing.

In a regular briefing Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning replied in broad terms to multiple questions about Beijing’s role, telling reporters China has “worked actively to help bring about an end to the conflict” since fighting began.

Hours later at a White House briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed high-level talks took place between the US and China as Iran ceasefire negotiations played out in recent days.

US President Donald Trump had earlier said he believed China played a role in getting Iran to negotiate a ceasefire, when asked during an interview with news agency AFP.

Beijing’s careful handling of messaging around its diplomacy is not out of step with its typical approach, especially at a sensitive time for an apparently fragile ceasefire.

Even still, China has been keen to cast itself as a voice for peace throughout the conflict – part of a broader effort from leader Xi Jinping to increase China’s sway in global security issues and showcase its alternative leadership to the US.

China’s foreign ministry over the past day has circulated a graphic illustrating top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi’s 26 “phone calls for peace” with counterparts in the region and around the world since the conflict began.

Beijing has been widely seen as a potential player in the peace process given its diplomatic and economic ties with Tehran and close ties with Pakistan, which is expected to host peace talks. China elevated those optics last week during a meeting between Wang and his Pakistani counterpart Ishaq Dar in Beijing, where the two sides released a joint five-point initiative for restoring peace.

With a fragile ceasefire in place, US-based Iranians who spoke to CNN voiced relief that strikes had ended, but continuing antipathy toward the government in Tehran.

Los Angeles resident Aeen Aflaatuni, who was born in Iran in 1991 and left at the age of 3, told CNN he’s “very conflicted” about the ceasefire, but happy that there weren’t further attacks on Iranian infrastructure.

“That part of me is happy – we’re not having a lot of the infrastructure destroyed. But part of me is also disappointed because I was hoping that this would lead to the overthrow of the regime and it hasn’t, or at least it doesn’t appear to be,” he said.

And if the regime remains intact, Aflaatuni worries the government later “takes out its anger on the people.” He said his grandfather was a colonel in the military during the reign of Iran’s last shah, who was deposed in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Aflaatuni’s cousin, Vala Biashad, voiced similar views, but hoped the government could be removed without military intervention.

“We should let people to overthrow the government,” Biashad told CNN.

Biashad left Iran as a teenager in 2011 and now lives in San Francisco. Some of his memories of life in Iran include being taught anti-American chants in school and experiencing physical brutality at the hands of the morality police.

As this ceasefire takes hold, he hopes there’s no deal between the US and Iran.

“It doesn’t help the Iranian people,” he said. “It only helps the IRGC.”

Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot during a visit to Beirut, Lebanon, on Wednesday.

Belgium’s foreign minister slammed a “massive” Israeli airstrike on Beirut, which he said hit just hundreds of meters from where he was during an official visit.

Maxime Prévot was visiting the Belgian embassy in the Lebanese capital on Wednesday when missiles struck “just a few hundred metres” away, he said on X.

Prévot said he was preparing to commend Lebanon for its offer to negotiate towards a ceasefire with Israel, when “Israel launched, with no previous warning, one of the most massive strikes since the beginning of the hostilities.”

“This must stop. The ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran must include Lebanon,” he added.

Meanwhile the UN secretary-general condemned ongoing military activity in Lebanon following the US-Iran ceasefire, and repeated his call “to all parties to immediately cease hostilities,” a spokesperson said in a statement on Wednesday.

The historic oil crisis is putting a squeeze on jet fuel in South Korea, prompting the country to prioritize domestic supply and impacting exports to other nations including the US, according to refining industry sources.

South Korea is a major global supplier of jet fuel, with its four largest refiners — SK Energy, GS Caltex, S-OIL, and HD Hyundai Oilbank — exporting roughly 86 million barrels of jet fuel last year. According to the US Energy Information Administration, nearly 69% of US jet fuel imports came from South Korea in 2025.

Now the crude shortage caused by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz after the US and Israel bombed Iran is threatening that source of fuel imports.

Two industry sources, who did not want to be named discussing company operations, said some of South Korea’s largest refiners are now focused on ensuring stability in the local market, while paring back operating rates for exports.

South Korean refiners typically export about 60% of their output. But jet fuel is produced in the early stages of the refining process, meaning it is among the most immediately impacted by the energy crisis in Asia.

Still, the government has urged refiners to increase operating rates. Vice Minister Yang Ki-wook of the industry ministry said restrictions on petroleum product exports must be approached cautiously, and said in a press briefing this week that the country was not considering export restrictions.

The post-ceasefire press conference Wednesday from US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine was full of superlatives and large numbers about the Pentagon’s performance in 40 days of combat against Iran.

But it should be noted that context was lacking in some in of what they had to say.

“The numbers are striking. The questions they raise are more interesting,” Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, wrote on X.

Caine said 450 ballistic missile and 800 drone storage facilities were struck. “All of these systems are gone,” the general said.

But he didn’t give an estimate of how many missiles or drones were in those facilities. Nor did he mention whether what was in them could have been moved to an unknown number of remaining facilities.

“Hard to evaluate without the denominator. How many did Iran have to begin with?” Grieco wrote.

“The more useful number is surviving missiles and drones. Unless I missed it, that is exactly what they’re not providing,” she wrote.

Last week CNN reported roughly half of Iran’s missile launchers were still intact and thousands of one-way attack drones remained in its arsenal despite, according to three sources familiar with recent US intelligence assessments.

Caine also said 50% of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small attack boats were destroyed. Pre-war estimates put the number of those boats from the high hundreds to low thousands.

Small boats can carry damaging explosives (see the attack that killed 17 US sailors on the destroyer USS Cole in a Yemen port in 2000). And they can be devastating in a chokepoint like the Strait of Hormuz.

So though Hegseth proclaimed a “decisive military victory” on Wednesday, Iran still has weapons that can do substantial damage and, in the defense secretary’s words “can still shoot.”

Iran hasn’t yet announced who will be representing the country during talks this weekend with the US, led by Vice President JD Vance, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

Many of the regime’s top-ranking officials have been killed by US-Israeli strikes, including those who played a key role in previous negotiations as well as the country’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Here are three officials who could represent Tehran in the talks in Pakistan:

Iranian Parliament Speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaks during a media conference in Tehran, Iran, on December 2, 2025.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament and former Tehran mayor, has emerged as a key interlocutor with the Trump administration throughout the war, and some Iranian media reports have suggested he could be heading this round of talks for Iran.

A regime insider with a reputation for suppressing dissent, Ghalibaf joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a teenager and has devoted his life to the Islamic Republic. He once bragged about beating protestors with “wooden sticks.”

Ghalibaf has the “credentials that matter in Tehran — IRGC pedigree, establishment ties, and a pragmatic instinct for regime preservation,” Ali Vaez, Director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, told CNN. But he is allied with the regime, not the US, Vaez said.

“If he rises further, Iran is more likely to become more militarized than moderate.”

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi arrives at the government palace in Beirut on January 9.

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign affairs minister since 2024, is a career diplomat who has become one of the main international voices for Tehran, traveling around the world to negotiate on its behalf. He lived in the UK for three years in the 1990s, where he obtained a PhD in political thought. His supervisor told the Times of London that Aragchi had been “at ease in this country” and got on well with other students.

He is known for being tough yet pragmatic in his extensive engagements with the West, including during the discussions that led to the Iran nuclear deal in 2015. Despite his overtures with the US, Araghchi is a staunch defender of the regime and publicly backed the violent crackdown against protesters earlier this year.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is Tehran’s second-highest ranking official and head of government, though his office’s power has eroded in recent years in a nation where the clerical and military elite hold the true reins of power. A former surgeon, Pezeshkian has advocated for modest political and social reforms in Iran but has maintained loyal to the regime.

Earlier this month he penned an open letter to the American people asking whether the war truly served their interests.

All US ships, aircraft, weapons, military personnel will remain “in place, in and around, Iran” until a full agreement is reached, US President Donald Trump said in a post to Truth Social late Wednesday.

“If for any reason it is not, which is highly unlikely, then the “Shootin’ Starts,” bigger, and better, and stronger than anyone has ever seen before,” Trump wrote.

Iran must have “NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS and, the Strait of Hormuz WILL BE OPEN & SAFE,” Trump added.

Negotiations between the US and Iran are set to take place in Islamabad, Pakistan on Saturday.

Trump finished his post by writing: “In the meantime our great Military is Loading Up and Resting, looking forward, actually, to its next Conquest. AMERICA IS BACK”

Equity markets in Asia are giving up some of their gains made after news of a ceasefire in Iran, as profound uncertainty remains over the future of the agreement and whether ships will be allowed to freely transit the Strait of Hormuz.

On Thursday, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index opened down 0.6% while China’s Shanghai Composite index declined 0.6% as of 10:15 am local time. South Korea’s Kospi also fell 1.11%, while Japan’s benchmark index Nikkei 225 was trading 0.6% down.

Meanwhile, US West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 2.6% to $96.89 a barrel and Brent crude futures, the global benchmark, rose 2.1% to $96.75 a barrel.

Thursday’s moves are a slight reversal from the initial market reaction to the two-week ceasefire that US and Iran announced this week. On Wednesday, US crude prices plunged 16.4%, while the Dow had its best day in a year. The two nations are expected to continue negotiations in Islamabad, Pakistan, starting Saturday.

However, the fragile peace has already encountered some snags. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard said shipping through the Strait of Hormuz had stopped following Israeli strikes in Lebanon, which it considered a violation of the ceasefire agreement.

Historic crisis: The US and Israel’s war against Iran — and the effective closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz — has caused the biggest oil supply shock on record, choking off roughly 12 million to 15 million barrels of crude oil a day.

Analysts have warned that it will take months for the disruption caused by more than a month of fighting to subside. Meanwhile any further conflict could continue to have an inflationary effect on oil prices, if it leads to physical scarcity, high insurance premiums or additional fees to ensure safe passage of vessels.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had a phone call with his Saudi Arabian counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Tehran’s foreign ministry said on Telegram early Thursday.

The ministers “discussed bilateral relations and regional developments,” Tehran said, without specifying when the call took place.

Saudi Arabian state media said bin Farhan received calls from the foreign ministers of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Turkey in a statement Wednesday evening local time, which did not mention Iran.

Some context: Saudi Arabia and Iran are regional powerhouses that have competed for political and economic clout for decades. Underlying that competition are deep divisions among the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam, practiced by the majority of people in Saudi Arabia and Iran respectively.

Iran and Saudi Arabia restored diplomatic relations in 2023 after a seven-year freeze following Riyadh’s execution of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. However, Iran has struck targets in Saudi Arabia, including oil refineries, repeatedly throughout the war.

CNN has reached out to the Saudi foreign affairs ministry for comment.

The shipping industry is trying to glean more details on how vessels can safely transit the critical Strait of Hormuz during the two-week US-Iran ceasefire.

“It’s too early to tell,” said Mandarin Shipping Chairman Tim Huxley after the ceasefire was announced. “For sure, some ships will now exit the area but it’s still tense.”

Roberto Giannetta, Chairman of the Hong Kong Liner Shipping Association, is wary of strait crossings because of a lack of security certainty.

“If I were a shipowner or operator stuck in the Persian Gulf, I would wait a few days to see how the US, Israel, and Iran respond to this planned ceasefire. If it looks likely to be sticking, I may try moving my vessels out in the second week, or in a cluster or convoy together with other ships,” he said.

Insurance for the sector remains high. Underwriters see the truce as a positive development overall, but one that carries a number of risks including a lack of clarity over which Iranian authority is in charge of approving the transits, and which ships will cross first in a narrow window of time.

“This is very much a watch and wait situation,” said Simon Kaye, Global Director of Reinsurance for NorthStandard, which provides liability insurance for much of the world’s shipping fleet.

“It can’t be a complete rush to the exits. Each ship needs to get special dispensation to transit the strait. As a result of that, will there be preference for Gulf states, US ships, or anyone else who back-channeled through Tehran?”

“And getting the ships out during a two week period will be very difficult indeed,” Kaye added.

Only three vessels were tracked crossing the strait on Wednesday, according to Lloyd’s List.

According to Marine Traffic data, hundreds of vessels remain trapped in the region including 426 tankers, 34 LPG carriers and 19 LNG ships.

“I do see it as a ‘potential’ good opportunity to get ships OUT of the Persian Gulf,” Giannetta added about the two-week ceasefire deal.

“I’m not so sure that shipping lines will be queuing up to send ships back in.”

Smoke rises following several Israeli airstrikes in Beirut, Lebanon, on Wednesday.

Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy militia in Lebanon, said early Thursday it fired rockets at northern Israel in response to Israeli ceasefire violations, in its first attack since the deal was reached, Reuters news agency reported.

Israel’s military hammered Lebanon on Wednesday, targeting more than 100 sites in just 10 minutes in its largest coordinated strikes since the war began, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

At least 182 people were killed in the strikes and nearly 900 wounded, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

The Trump administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the ceasefire between the US and Iran does not include operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

However, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed shipping through the critical Strait of Hormuz stopped following what it said was an Israeli ceasefire violation in Lebanon.

This image shows bulk carrier Mayuree Naree in the Strait of Hormuz on March 11.

Three crew members of a Thai-flagged vessel that came under attack in the Strait of Hormuz last month have been confirmed dead, the country’s foreign minister said.

The 180-meter-long bulk carrier, Mayuree Naree, was struck on March 11 with 23 crewmen aboard while traveling through the waterway, triggering a rescue mission by the Oman authorities that saved 20 of the crew.

“Unfortunately, the three remaining crew members we found eventually, they lost their lives in the incident,” Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said in a press conference on Wednesday.

He said he would visit Oman later this month to thank authorities for their rescue efforts and to seek assistance from authorities, who have been in touch with Tehran, in securing safe passage for nine Thai ships still stranded in the strait.

CNN has spoken to a surviving member and the wife of one of the missing sailors.

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NATO chief says he understands Trump’s “disappointment” with allies over Iran

00:39 • Source: CNN

NATO chief says he understands Trump’s “disappointment” with allies over Iran

00:39

US President Donald Trump is “clearly disappointed” with many NATO allies for not supporting the US and Israel’s war on Iran to the extent he wanted, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said after meeting with Trump on Wednesday.

Rutte, who described the meeting as a frank and open discussion between “two good friends,” told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he understood the president’s disappointment. But he said he pointed out to Trump that many European nations helped in other ways, including by providing logistics, overflights, basing and other support.

The president, however, continued to lash out at NATO allies following the meeting.

“NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.“REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!”

Asked ahead of the meeting if the US was still considering withdrawing from NATO, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would likely discuss the matter with Rutte.

Rutte declined to answer whether the president said he would attempt a withdrawal.

“Well, as I said, there is a disappointment, clearly, but at the same time, he was also listening (carefully) to my arguments of what is happening,” Rutte said when pressed on the matter.

Rutte insisted that much of Europe supports the president when it comes to taking out Iran’s capacity to “export chaos.”

In a statement released earlier today, the leaders of a host of European countries welcomed the announcement of a two-week ceasefire between Iran and the United States and said “our governments will contribute to ensuring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.”