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Just hours after the United States and Iran announced a ceasefire in the war that has dominated news headlines around the world and pushed oil prices to new heights, Israel bombarded Lebanon on Wednesday, killing hundreds, injuring thousands and prompting Iran to reimpose its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

The bone of contention: whether or not Israel’s relentless strikes on Lebanon were included in the ceasefire at all. Pakistan, which brokered the agreement, said they were. Israel said they weren’t.

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Later on Wednesday, the US sided with Israel, with President Donald Trump calling the violence in Lebanon “a separate skirmish” even though Hezbollah had entered the war in defence of Iran.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under intense political pressure since the US and Iran signed the ceasefire, which had little or no active involvement from Israel.

None of Israel’s war aims, which Netanyahu had assured his country were the basis for what he framed as an existential battle with Iran, had been achieved, angering those who supported the war.

Furthermore, under the terms of the truce published yesterday, a 10-point peace plan put forward by Iran has been accepted as a starting point for negotiations due to begin this weekend in Islamabad.

Under early descriptions of the Iranian plan, Iran would retain its nuclear stock and could benefit financially from levies charged on shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and from tariffs and sanctions relief promised by Israel’s ally, US President Donald Trump, on his Truth Social account.

This is far from the 15-point list of demands the US previously put forward to Iran, which would have seen the strait completely reopened without conditions, and Iran giving up its enriched uranium stocks, ending its ballistic missiles programme and promising to stop arming proxy groups in the region, such as the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and a flurry of armed groups in Iraq.

Arguing that Lebanon is exempt from the ceasefire agreement, Israel launched the most extensive bombardment on its neighbour in recent months on Wednesday. In the space of about 10 minutes, the Israeli military carried out more than 100 strikes on what it claimed were Hezbollah targets, hitting Beirut, southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley, killing at least 254 people, 91 of them in the capital, Beirut, alone.

The attacks have been condemned by numerous nations and international organisations, including Spain, France, the United Kingdom, the United Nations and Pakistan, which brokered the ceasefire deal and stated explicitly that Lebanon was included.

Responding to the strikes, Iranian state media announced that its government was now considering walking away from the truce and has already announced that restrictions on the economically vital Strait of Hormuz will be reimposed.

For its part, Israel says it is not trying to kill the ceasefire by launching strikes on Lebanon. Charles Freilich, Israel’s former deputy national security adviser, told Al Jazeera that the motivation for the strikes arose solely from the “opportunity to hit numerous mid to high-level Hezbollah fighters, not spoil the ceasefire, which both the US and Israel maintain does not include Lebanon”.

‘Provocateurs-in-chief’

Some analysts are sceptical, however.

“Israeli officials will no doubt claim that this was a super sophisticated operation against necessary security targets, perhaps embellishing those arguments with claims of deep intel and technological penetration and sophistication, and you will probably have the usual mainstream Western media outlets slavishly parroting the Israeli line,” former Israeli government adviser Daniel Levy told Al Jazeera, before explaining that such operations typically combine two principal features.

“The first is, sadly, an Israeli devotion to death and destruction, largely for its own sake, to spread terror and upend state capacity in various places in the region, and to upend civilian life,” he said. “And, secondly, a very transparent attempt to prolong the broader war against Iran, to collapse any ceasefire prospects, and to act as provocateurs-in-chief.”

Politically, support within Israel for the war may have weakened, however. Many of those who initially supported the war on Iran have been unsparing in their criticism of a potential pause in the conflict negotiated by the other two parties at Israel’s apparent expense.

Posting on X, opposition leader Yair Lapid claimed that Prime Minister “Netanyahu has turned us into a protectorate state that receives instructions over the phone on matters pertaining to the core of our national security”.

Democrats leader Yair Golan was equally scathing. “Netanyahu lied,” he wrote on X. “He promised a ‘historic victory’ and security for generations, and in practice, we got one of the most severe strategic failures Israel has ever known.”

“Netanyahu is in real trouble, and he thinks he has to wreck the ceasefire to get out of it, just as he did previously in Gaza,” Member of the Knesset Aida Touma Sliman of the left-wing Hadash party, which has opposed the war from the start, told Al Jazeera. “The ceasefire has lost him a lot of support, even among those who backed the war. None of his war aims have been achieved and it looks like he is losing control to the Trump administration,” she said.

“Don’t forget, we’re heading towards elections,” she added, referring to the vote currently slated for October, “and Netanyahu’s dropping in the polls. He needs something he can claim is a victory.

“And that’s why he did what he did,” she said, of Wednesday’s barrage on busy Lebanese neighbourhoods that killed hundreds, including women, children and medical workers, according to emergency workers on the ground. “He conducted a massacre in Lebanon.”

As the small East African coastal nation of Djibouti prepares for presidential elections on Friday, longtime leader President Ismail Omar Guelleh is expected to win the polls with little to no challenge.

Djibouti, a country of just about one million people that neighbours Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, is politically relevant in the Horn of Africa region. It is also internationally important due to its strategic location right at the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which provides access to the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden and through which a large portion of global trade between Asia and the West passes.

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Djibouti hosts important military bases for the United States, France, China and other powers, earning it the tag of the country with the most foreign military bases. It is also an important port hub for bigger inland landlocked countries like Ethiopia.

Incumbent candidate Guelleh is running for his sixth term as president. Though originally ineligible due to term limits and age, lawmakers removed age limits last year, paving the way for another term in office.

Formerly named French Somaliland under colonialism, the country continued to maintain large numbers of French troops following independence in 1977, but it was the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US that saw it garner new attention as Washington sought proximity to armed groups in Somalia and Yemen.

Djibouti was also a strategic military launchpad for naval units during the anti-piracy fights of the mid-2000s when the US, European Union, and other allies sought to battle pirates off the coast of Somalia.

Both French and Arabic are official languages in Djibouti. Somali and Afar are also widely spoken by Somalis, who make up about 60 percent of the population, and people from the Afar group, who comprise about 35 percent.

About 94 percent of people in Djibouti practise Islam. The local currency is the Djiboutian franc.

Here’s what to know about Friday’s election:

Who is eligible to vote?

About a quarter of the population, or 243,471 people, are registered to vote in the polls, according to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems. That’s up from the last presidential election in 2021, when about 215,000 were registered.

Voter turnout on average is about 67 percent.

Polls are expected to open early on April 10 and close in the evening.

Although Djibouti is described by monitors as an “electoral autocracy”, election observers from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an eight-country regional bloc, arrived there on Tuesday.

IGAD said 17 observers from Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda will be deployed across all regions, and will release a statement after the vote on April 12.

Who is running?

Ismail Omar Guelleh: The 78-year-old incumbent, known as “IOG”, is running for his sixth term as president. He was first voted into power in 1999. His party is the ruling People’s Rally for Progress.

Guelleh’s latest bid came after lawmakers in November unanimously amended the constitution to remove a 75-year-old age limit. Back in 2010, parliament had scrapped term limits in a constitutional reform.

Guelleh has been criticised for ruling with an iron fist and holding on to power unconstitutionally. However, he is also credited with maintaining a relatively stable hold in a region that’s usually rife with instability.

Under his rule, Djibouti, which has no natural resources, has signed infrastructure deals with China and lucrative military hosting pacts with Western powers by leveraging its location.

Djibouti Finance Minister Ilyas Dawaleh in 2017 said the country makes $125m a year from hosting US, French, Chinese, Italian and Japanese military bases, with Washington paying almost half of that.

The US base, Camp Lemonnier, is the only permanent US military base in Africa.

Guelleh, donning his party’s leaf-green colours, spoke to hundreds of his supporters during campaign rallies that were held in the capital this month.

In one campaign, he said the elections and the choices available to voters “are consistent with democracy” in the country and promised more “significant success” if elected. His supporters held up banners that read “national unity and social cohesion”.

Mohamed Farah Samatar: Guelleh’s only rival is a former member of the ruling party. He is running under the Unified Democratic Centre party.

Samatar rallied in Tadjourah and Obock regions with his supporters, claiming that “another Djibouti is possible”.

Sonia le Gouriellec, a Horn of Africa expert at Lille Catholic University, told the AFP news agency: “There’s not much at stake [in the election]. It’s just a token competition.”

Omar Ali Ewado, head of the Djibouti League of Human Rights (LDDH), called the vote a “masquerade” and said it is a “foregone conclusion”.

“The person who will challenge President Guelleh is a member of a small party subservient to those in power,” he told AFP.

What are the key issues?

Shrinking democratic freedoms

Guelleh’s critics are increasingly sounding the alarm about the shrinking of civic space in the country.

Elections have been described as merely ritualistic, with Guelleh winning more than 90 percent of votes in the 2021 polls. Since 2016, opposition parties have boycotted elections.

Guelleh’s government is also accused of high levels of corruption and nepotism, with some speculating that his stepson and the secretary-general of the prime minister’s office, Naguib Abdallah Kamil, is being prepared for the top job.

The country is regularly singled out by human rights organisations for its repression of dissenting voices. It is currently ranked 168th out of 180 in the 2025 press freedom index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

One aspiring presidential candidate, Alexis Mohamed, who formerly served as presidential adviser until he resigned in September, told reporters he was “unable” to pursue his candidacy because he had no “security guarantees” if he were to return to the country from his current location abroad.

Mohamed, who served in an official capacity for 10 years, accused Guelleh of “patronage-based management of the state”.

According to the International Federation for Human Rights, elections in Djibouti are “not free”.

Rising debt

Many accuse Guelleh of brandishing shiny infrastructure projects built by China, such as a railway to Ethiopia, but point to the country’s stagnating economy and rising debts to Beijing.

By 2026, the country owed China $1.2bn from loans, as well as several others. The International Monetary Fund said in a report in 2025 that Djibouti’s debt profile is “in distress and unsustainable”.

Some of these costly infrastructure projects have not had an impact on lowering poverty rates. About 73 percent of the country’s young population is unemployed due to a dearth of jobs, for one example.

Meanwhile, a major source of the country’s revenue is under threat: Djibouti’s ports almost entirely handle Addis Ababa’s maritime imports and exports for about $2bn annually.

However, in 2024,  Ethiopia is seeking to reduce that independence. The country signed a port deal with autonomous Somaliland, a case that has caused tensions with Djibouti as well as Somalia, which considers Somaliland part of its own territory.

Following Turkiye-led mediation, Ethiopia and Somalia reached a preliminary understanding in late 2024 to resolve their dispute. Ethiopia has agreed to pivot to “reliable and sustainable” sea access with Somalia rather than with Somaliland.

The Strait of Hormuz, which links the Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, has held global attention since Israel and the US began their war on Iran in February.

Until fighting began, the narrow channel, through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies are shipped from Gulf producers in peacetime, remained toll-free and safe for vessels. The strait is shared by Iran and Oman and does not fall into the category of international waters.

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After the US and Israel began strikes, Iran retaliated by attacking “enemy” merchant ships in the strait, effectively halting passage for all, stranding shipping, and creating one of the worst-ever global energy distribution crises.

Tehran continued to refuse to re-open the strait to all traffic at the start of this week, despite US President Donald Trump’s threats to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges if it did not relent. Trump backed away from his threat on Tuesday night when a two-week ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan, was declared.

That followed a 10-point peace proposal from Iran that Trump described as a “workable” basis on which to negotiate a permanent end to hostilities.

As part of the truce, Tehran has now issued official terms it says will guide its control of the Strait going forward. The US has not directly acknowledged the terms ahead of talks set to begin in Islamabad on Friday. However, analysts say Tehran’s continued control will be unpopular with Washington, as well as other countries.

During the crisis, only a few ships from specific countries deemed friendly to Iran and those which pay a toll have been granted safe passage. At least two tolls for ships are believed to have been paid in Chinese yuan, in what appears to be a strategy to weaken the US dollar, but also to avoid US sanctions. China, which buys 80 percent of Iran’s oil, already pays Tehran in yuan.

Here’s what we know about how shipments will work from now on:

Who is controlling the strait now?

On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi said Iran would grant safe passage through the strait during the ceasefire in “coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces and with due consideration of technical limitations”.

On Wednesday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) released a map of the strait showing a safe route for ships to follow. The map appears to direct ships further north towards the Iranian coast and away from the traditional route closer to the coast of Oman.

In a statement, the IRGC said all vessels must use the new map for navigation due to “the likelihood of the presence of various types of anti-ship mines in the main traffic zone”.

It is unclear whether Iran is collecting toll fees during the ceasefire period.

However, Trump said on Tuesday the US would be “helping with the traffic buildup” in the strait and that the US army would be “hanging around” as the negotiations go on.

The Strait will be “OPEN & SAFE” he posted on his Truth Social media site on Thursday, adding that US troops would not leave the area, and threatening to resume attacks if the talks don’t go well.

It’s not known to what extent US troops are directing what happens in the strait now.

Delhi-based maritime analyst C Uday Bhaskar told Al Jazeera that there is a lot of “uncertainty” about who can sail through the strait, and that only between three and five ships have transited since the war was paused.

How does Iran’s 10-point plan affect the Strait?

Among Tehran’s main demands listed on its 10-point plan are that the US and Israel permanently cease all attacks on Iran and its allies – particularly Lebanon – lift all sanctions, and allow Iran to retain control over Hormuz. The plan has not been fully published but is understood to be a starting point for talks.

Iranian media say Iran is considering a plan to charge up to $2m per vessel to be shared with Oman on the opposite side of the strait. Other reports suggest Iran could charge $1 per barrel of oil being shipped.

Revenues raised would be used to rebuild military and civilian infrastructure damaged by US-Israeli strikes, Tehran said.

Oman has rejected the idea. Transport minister Said Al-Maawali said on Wednesday that the Omanis previously “signed all international maritime transport agreements” which bar taking fees.

What does international law say about tolls on shipping?

Critics of Iran’s plan to charge tolls say it violates international law guiding safe maritime passage, and should not be part of a final ceasefire agreement.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) says levies cannot be charged on ships sailing through international straits or territorial seas.

The law allows coastal states to collect fees for services rendered, such as navigation assistance or port use, but not for passage itself.

Neither the US nor Iran has ratified that particular convention, however.

Even if they had, there could be ways to get around this law anyway. Analyst Bhaskar told Al Jazeera that if Iran instead charged fees to de-mine the strait and make it safe for passage again, that could be allowable under maritime laws.

There is no precedent in recent history of countries officially taxing passage through international straits or waterways.

In October 2024, a United Nations Security Council report alleged that the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen were collecting “illegal fees” from shipping companies to allow vessels to pass through the Red Sea and the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, where it was targeting ships linked to Israel during the Gaza war.

Last week, a top adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei suggested the Houthis could shut the Bab al-Mandeb shipping route again in light of the war on Iran.

How might countries react to a Hormuz toll?

Tolls for passage through the Strait of Hormuz would likely most affect oil and gas-producing countries in the Gulf, but ripple effects will spread to others as well, as the current supply shocks have shown.

Gulf countries, which issued statements calling for the reopening of the passage and praising the ceasefire on Wednesday, would also face a continuing degree of uncertainty, analysts say, as Iran could again disrupt flows in the future.

Before the ceasefire was announced, Bahrain had already proposed a resolution at the UN Security Council calling on member states to coordinate and jointly reopen the passage by “all necessary means”. It was backed by Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan. On April 7, 11 of 15 UNSC members voted in favour of that resolution.

But Russia and China vetoed the resolution, saying it was biased against Iran and did not address the initial strikes on Iran by the US and Israel.

Beyond the region, observers say the US is unlikely to accept indefinite toll demands by Iran as part of the negotiations expected to begin on Friday.

A toll to pass through the Strait of Hormuz “is not going to go down well with President Trump and his expectations that the strait should be open for everyone”, Amin Saikal, a professor at the Australian National University, said.

Other major powers have also voiced opposition. Ahead of the ceasefire, Britain had begun discussions with 40 other countries to find a way to reopen the strait.

Practical realities in the strait might see a different scenario play out with ship owners losing millions each day their vessels remain stranded seeking to get them out quickly and undamaged experts say. They are more likely to comply with Iran, at least for now.

“If I were the owner of a VLCC [very large crude carrier] which weighs about 300,000 tonnes, whose value could be a quarter billion dollars…I would believe the Iranians if they said we have laid mines,” Bhaskar said.

US vice president in Hungary calls Ukrainian leader’s ‘threatening’ remarks ‘completely scandalous’.

US Vice President JD Vance has said Ukraine’s prime minister made “scandalous” comments about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, as he echoed Budapest’s accusations that Kyiv is trying to influence the upcoming elections there.

Vance’s remarks on Wednesday came during a visit to Budapest days before the far-right Orban, a Trump ally, faces the toughest challenge of his 16-year rule in an election on April 12.

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Hungary’s strained relations with Ukraine have taken centre stage in the election campaign, with Budapest’s government accusing Kyiv of deliberately stopping flows of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline in an effort to sway the ballot.

Kyiv says the pipeline was damaged by a Russian drone attack in late January, and it is fixing it as quickly as it can.

Hungary responded by blocking a 90-billion-euro ($105bn) EU loan for Ukraine, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to say he could give the address of whoever was responsible to the Ukrainian army, who could “speak with him in their own language”.

‘Completely scandalous’

Speaking at a Hungarian university, Vance said Orban had told him about Zelenskyy’s remarks.

“It’s completely scandalous,” Vance said. “You should never have a foreign head of government … threatening the head of government of an allied nation.”

Vance then accused the media of double standards in their coverage of alleged foreign interference in the 2016 US presidential election and in the Hungarian vote.

“You saw this back in 2016 where a lot of the American media said that it was a true scandal that the Russian government bought like $500,000 of Facebook advertisements … That’s foreign influence,” he said.

“But what’s not foreign influence is when the European Union threatens billions of dollars withheld from Hungary because you guys protect your borders… What’s not foreign influence is when the Ukrainians shut down pipelines, causing suffering among the Hungarian people in an effort to influence an election.”

Budapest has been embroiled in a long‑running dispute with the European Union over issues ranging from judicial independence to the treatment of migrants.

Vance had already lambasted what he said was EU meddling in the Hungarian vote at a news conference on Tuesday.

A European Commission spokesperson said on Wednesday Brussels would use diplomatic channels “to convey our concerns to our US counterparts” following those comments, according to the Reuters news agency.

As Israel contemplates a two-week ceasefire announced by United States President Donald Trump in the war on Iran on Tuesday night, it appears weakened in the eyes of its opponents and critics. Its arch-nemesis, Iran, is still standing; Israel’s defensive stock of missiles is depleted and its prime minister is facing a political backlash.

Following news of the Pakistan-brokered truce, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement in English, saying that the PM supports the US decision and claiming that “Iran no longer poses a nuclear, missile and terror threat to America, Israel, Iran’s Arab neighbours and the world.”

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But there was a caveat. While mediator Pakistan had announced that Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon would also cease, Netanyahu added that he does not regard the ceasefire as extending to Israel’s war on Lebanon, which, for now at least, the US appears willing to allow to continue, subject to its peace negotiations with Iran.

Responding to Netanyahu’s announcement, Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, who had strongly supported his country’s attack on regional nemesis Iran, called the ceasefire one of the greatest “political disasters in all of our history”. Israel had not even been involved in negotiations, he said, adding that, despite its military successes, the prime minister had “failed politically, failed strategically, and didn’t meet a single one of the goals that he himself set”, adding that it would take years to repair the damage inflicted upon the country through the prime minister’s “arrogance”.

Others were swift to join in the bashing. “I wasn’t surprised that the announcement was in English,” Ofer Cassif of the left-wing Hadash party said. “Netanyahu has no interest in talking to the people of Israel. He rarely does and almost never enters the [television or radio] studio,” he said of the prime minister, who waited two weeks to spell out his war aims to the Israeli public in a televised address after the start of the war on Iran.

“He knows, probably correctly, that those who support him will do so anyway, and those who oppose him will continue to do so, so when he speaks, it’s to the international media and to reassure his base,” Cassif said.

Netanyahu’s war aims

Those war aims, as stated by Netanyahu, of preventing “Iran from developing nuclear weapons” and of creating ” the conditions for the Iranian people so they can remove the cruel regime of tyranny”, were merely the latest iteration of Israel’s longstanding strategic goals. Indeed, Netanyahu has been claiming Iran’s potential to develop a nuclear weapon was imminent since the 1990s.

But, despite significant military successes over the past 40 days of attacks on Iran, neither of those goals has been achieved.

“The Israelis are deeply disappointed with the ceasefire as none of the original aims of the war have been achieved,” Ahron Bregman, a senior teaching fellow at the Department for War Studies at King’s College London, who has recently returned from Israel, said. “The Iranian regime is still in place, its ballistic missile programme could be rebuilt very quickly, and it’s still got 440kg of enriched uranium at 60 percent purity, enough for 10 bombs.”

In fact, according to many observers, despite significant military defeats, including the loss of control over its airspace, the assassination of much of its leadership – including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war, as well as many of Iran’s key military figures – Iran has, counterintuitively, emerged stronger as a result, analysts say.

“Israel and the US had many tactical gains. They won militarily, but, strategically, Iran is the clear victor,” Bregman said.

A strategic blunder?

Key among its victories was not just the Iranian government’s survival in the face of relentless Israeli and US military strikes, but also its decision to close the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s key energy arteries and, according to current negotiations, one where safe passage for international shipping is now entirely under the control of Iran and its neighbour Oman.

Iran has been struggling under increased US sanctions after Trump, with Netanyahu’s encouragement, unilaterally withdrew from an international deal to limit its nuclear programme in return for reduced economic sanctions in 2018. However, many observers now expect Iran to continue with newly imposed levies on ships for safe passage through the Strait. Also supporting the Iranian economy are Trump’s promises, posted on Truth Social on Wednesday, of future sanctions and tariff relief as part of the ceasefire arrangement.

“Iran’s decision to block the Hormuz pushed Trump off balance, and he never recovered,” Bregman said. “Future historians will regard this Iranian decision as the turning point in the war.”

According to some observers, Israel’s conduct during the war has also served to strengthen the Iranian government. Some centres of opposition, such as Tehran’s Sharif University, which had been a focal point of antigovernment protests in January, have been destroyed in Israeli attacks. Donald Trump’s 11th-hour threat to wipe out Iranian civilisation also allowed the Iranian government to beam out rallying images of citizens forming human chains around critical infrastructure.

“Please understand, I despise the Iranian regime; it’s murderous,” Cassif told Al Jazeera on Wednesday. “But we [Hadash] had warned from second number one that we didn’t have the right, or the ability, to change it. Instead, we’ve strengthened the support for that regime at the expense of the opposition,” he said of reports of the surge in support for the Iranian government in the face of US and Israeli attacks.

Israel and the US had, he said, “given operational control of the Strait of Hormuz to Iran, which had never been an issue before, and, with the first aggressions coming while negotiations were under way, signalled to the entire world that they can’t trust the US and Israel”.

‘Israel has achieved nothing tangible’

Then there is Israel’s assault on southern and eastern Lebanon, where it claims it is targeting Hezbollah strongholds. Whether it will continue with these attacks remains to be seen.

For now, Israel is not expected to attend peace talks in Pakistan on Friday. But that is where, according to Bregman, its freedom to continue attacks on Lebanon may be determined by the US and Hezbollah’s allies in Tehran.

“Assuming the ceasefire holds beyond the two-week period, Israel achieved almost nothing tangible,” Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli ambassador and consul general in New York, told Al Jazeera of its war on Iran. “Iran upended the strategic asymmetry by both attacking the Arab Gulf states and, crucially, shutting the Strait of Hormuz with almost no pushback from China. Israel is increasingly perceived as a destabilising force and, arguably, strained the US relationship since all promises Netanyahu made to Trump unravelled,” he said, referring to reported assurances of swift regime change in Iran that Israel made.

Cassif was more succinct: “It’s crazy.”

In the final hours before a United States-Iran ceasefire was reached early on Wednesday in the Middle East, the war that had shaken the world for nearly six weeks had threatened to explode to even more prolonged and devastating levels.

US President Donald Trump issued increasingly apocalyptic warnings, including threats deemed genocidal, that he would obliterate Iran’s infrastructure and a “whole civilisation” would die if his deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by 8pm Washington, DC, time on Tuesday (midnight GMT) was not heeded by Tehran.

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A day earlier, Trump had also threatened to bomb Iran back to the “Stone Ages”.

World leaders expressed horror over his language, global markets tanked and some started pondering whether the Trump White House was perhaps even contemplating the use of nuclear weapons.

Eventually, over the course of a tense Tuesday, last‑minute diplomacy mediated by Pakistan culminated in a two‑week ceasefire less than 90 minutes before Trump’s self‑imposed deadline to carry out large-scale, devastating attacks on Iran. Israel also agreed to halt its attacks but said Lebanon was not included in the deal.

The truce was announced after both sides agreed to stop all attacks and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Talks in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Friday are slated to restart negotiations for a permanent settlement.

On Wednesday, Trump suggested in a Truth Social post that the ceasefire could usher in a “Golden Age for the Middle East”.

But through Tuesday as Trump’s self-imposed deadline approached, the region and the world were on edge as threats, counterthreats, escalatory attacks from both sides and diplomatic efforts intensified all at once, and it was unclear which would triumph – negotiations or further devastation.

Here are the key moments of the tense final hours leading up to this fragile ceasefire:

12:06 GMT, Tuesday – Trump’s threat to Iran’s civilisation

On Tuesday morning, Trump warned in a post on his social media platform Truth Social that Washington would unleash devastating strikes on Iranian bridges, power plants and other civilian infrastructure.

Trump even declared that “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again” – a phrase that legal and human rights experts said was akin to a “genocidal” threat.

“We have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated … where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again,” he said.

15:21 GMT, Tuesday – US strikes hit Kharg Island

Iran’s semiautonomous Mehr news agency confirmed reports that Kharg Island, where Iran’s main oil exporting facilities are based, had been hit but added that there had been no damage to infrastructure and the situation was under control.

15:40 GMT, Tuesday – China, Russia Security Council veto on Strait of Hormuz

⁠During ⁠⁠⁠⁠a vote in the United Nations Security Council, China and Russia vetoed ⁠⁠a Bahraini resolution encouraging states to coordinate efforts to protect commercial shipping ‌‌‌‌in the Strait of Hormuz.

Eleven countries on the 15-member council voted in favour of the resolution, two abstained and ⁠⁠⁠⁠two voted against it – China ⁠⁠⁠⁠and Russia, which, as permanent members, have veto power in the UN’s highest decision-making body.

Moscow and Beijing argued the draft was one‑sided and unfair to Tehran. China’s UN ambassador, Fu Cong, said moving ahead with the proposal while the US was issuing threats about the possible destruction of an entire civilisation would have conveyed the wrong signal.

16:54 GMT, Tuesday – Qatar and UAE send elevated alerts

Qatar’s Ministry of Defence said it “successfully intercepted a missile attack” targeting the country.

This followed an “elevated” threat alert that was sent out and subsequent sounds of missile interception over the capital, Doha.

Nearly half an hour earlier, the United Arab Emirates also reported a barrage of missile and drone attacks on its territory.

18:23 GMT, Tuesday – Iran’s envoy to Pakistan reports ‘step forward’ after ‘sensitive stage’

Reza Amiri Moghadam said in a post on X that “as of now”, there has been “a step forward from [a] critical, sensitive stage”.

“In the next stage, respect and comity should replace rhetoric and redundancy. Stay more tuned,” the Iranian ambassador to Pakistan added.

Moghadam earlier in the day had referred to Pakistan’s “positive and productive endeavours” towards peace and said talks had entered a “critical” stage – the first official confirmation from Iran that it was engaged in formal negotiations with the US.

19:17 GMT, Tuesday – Pakistan’s PM asks Trump to extend deadline

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif appealed to Trump to push back his deadline for an Iran deal by two weeks and for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz during the same period, saying ongoing diplomatic efforts were promising and should be given a chance.

“Diplomatic efforts for [a] peaceful settlement of the ongoing war in the Middle East are progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully with the potential to lead to substantive results in [the] near future,” Sharif wrote in a post on X. “To allow diplomacy to run its course, I earnestly request President Trump to extend the deadline for two weeks.”

Sharif also called on Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz for the same two weeks “as a goodwill gesture”.

20:25 GMT, Tuesday – Iran threatens to block regional oil and gas

A spokesperson for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, Ebrahim Zolfaghari, warned the country would target the energy infrastructure of the US and its Gulf allies in the region, Fars news agency reported.

The official said Iran would seek to deprive the region of oil and gas for years with the aim of forcing US forces and their partners to withdraw.

20:41 GMT, Tuesday – US and Israeli air strikes on energy plant in southwest Iran

The deputy security officer of Khuzestan province announced that the Amirkabir Petrochemical Plant in the port city of Mahshahr was struck in an air strike, Mehr reported, adding that local authorities were assessing the extent of the damage and potential casualties.

22:45 GMT, Tuesday – Trump announces temporary ceasefire

With less than an hour and a half to go to his deadline for the destruction of Iranian “civilisation”, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran after talks with Sharif and Pakistan’s military chief, Asim Munir.

He said the ceasefire would be “double-sided” and Washington had received a “workable” 10-point proposal from Iran.

Twenty-five minutes later, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed Trump’s announcement and added that Tehran would abide by the temporary truce if attacks on its territory were halted.

In a post on X, Sharif invited Iranian and US delegations to Islamabad on Friday “to further negotiate for a conclusive agreement to settle all disputes”.

04:01 GMT, Wednesday – Trump says ceasefire could lead to ‘Golden Age’ for Middle East

A week earlier, Trump had threatened to bomb Iran back to the “Stone Ages”. Hours after he announced the two-week ceasefire with Iran, his tone had changed.

“A big day for World Peace! Iran wants it to happen, they’ve had enough! Likewise, so has everyone else!” he wrote on Truth Social. “Just like we are experiencing in the U.S., this could be the Golden Age of the Middle East!!!”

Washington, DC – Politicians in the United States have largely welcomed the truce with Iran, with some of President Donald Trump’s Republican allies voicing scepticism about a possible deal, as Democrats renewed calls for accountability over an “illegal war”.

Trump announced the ceasefire on Tuesday, about 10 hours after proclaiming that a “whole civilization will die tonight”. The two-week truce will see Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz as Tehran and Washington negotiate a lasting end to the war.

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Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally and one of the most vocal Iran hawks in Congress, said he preferred diplomacy and appreciated “the hard work of all involved in trying to find a diplomatic solution”.

But he said he was “extremely cautious” about reports surrounding the ceasefire agreement.

Trump had said in his ceasefire announcement that the US and Iran were “very far along with a definitive” agreement and described a 10-point plan proposed by Tehran as a “workable basis on which to negotiate”.

While the content of any future agreement remains unclear, Iranian officials say the 10-point plan includes sanctions relief for Iran and allows the country to retain control over the Strait of Hormuz. The proposal also says the US would accept Iran’s domestic uranium enrichment, according to Iranian media reports.

Graham, however, stressed that lawmakers would review any deal with Iran.

“We must remember that the Strait of Hormuz was attacked by Iran after the start of the war, destroying freedom of navigation,” he wrote on X. “Going forward, it is imperative Iran is not rewarded for this hostile act against the world.”

The senator added that Iran must not be allowed to return to the uranium enrichment “business”.

“Time will tell,” he wrote.

Democrats – who have been calling for Trump’s removal from office after he threatened to bomb civilian infrastructure in Iran in attacks that would amount to war crimes – lauded the two-week ceasefire.

“Stopping war is good,” Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego wrote on X. “I am glad our men and women in uniform will be out of danger. We can criticize why we got into this war, the illegality of it and holding the Trump admin accountable. But right now I am relieved.”

Iran hawks predict war will resume

Trump’s allies in Congress, including the leaders of the House of Representatives and the Senate, have not commented on the ceasefire in its immediate aftermath.

But some of the war’s supporters underscored that Trump had not agreed to the Iranian plan, arguing that the truce is only a temporary pause to hostilities.

Laura Loomer, a far-right activist close to Trump, predicted that the ceasefire “will fail”.

“The negotiation is a negative for our country. We didn’t really get anything out of it and the terrorists in Iran are celebrating,” she wrote on X.

“I don’t know why people are acting like this is a win.”

Mark Levin, another pro-Israel commentator with ties to Trump, said that while he trusts the US president’s “instincts”, the war is not over.

“This enemy is still the enemy; they’re still surviving,” he said of Iran.

Trump launched the war on February 28 without congressional authorisation. US and Israeli strikes killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the conflict.

Another attack hit a girls’ school in the southern city of Minab, killing more than 170 people, mostly children.

Iran responded with drone and missile attacks against Israel and the entire region.

The Iranian military also closed the Strait of Hormuz – a vital waterway for energy products – sending oil and gas prices soaring.

On Tuesday, Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, said allowing Iran to control the strait would be a “history-changing win” for Tehran.

“The level of incompetence is both stunning and heartbreaking,” he said on X.

‘Ceasefire is not a clean slate’

Other Democrats called for accountability against Trump for launching the war.

“I’m glad there is a reported ceasefire deal with Iran. But we shouldn’t be in this illegal war in the first place,” said Senator Ed Markey.

“And Donald Trump can’t simply threaten war crimes with impunity. Congress needs to get back in session now to stop this war and remove Donald Trump.”

Under the US Constitution, only Congress has the authority to declare war, and international law prohibits targeting civilian infrastructure as a form of collective punishment.

Progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the truce “changes nothing”, stressing that Trump should still be impeached and removed from office over the war.

“The President has threatened a genocide against the Iranian people, and is continuing to leverage that threat,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X. “He has launched a massive war of enormous risk and of catastrophic consequence without reason, rationale, nor Congressional authorization – which is as clear a violation of the Constitution as any.”

Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at the rights group DAWN, also said US legislators should question Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran.

“Congress must open an immediate investigation into how this war started, who authorised it, who profited from it, and who will be held accountable for every civilian killed,” Jarrar told Al Jazeera.

“This ceasefire is not a clean slate. It should be the beginning of accountability.”

For much of Tuesday, it was unclear whether the United States would be launching a full-scale attack on Iran’s civilian infrastructure.

But US President Donald Trump’s threat against Iran – that “a whole civilization will die tonight” – prompted condemnation from one of Generation Z’s most prominent activists.

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Swedish advocate Greta Thunberg expressed dismay at what she described as a muted public reaction to Trump’s threat.

Known for her activism on issues such as climate change and Gaza, Thunberg linked Trump’s comments to wider questions of passivity in the face of war crimes.

“The president of the United States just said that a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Thunberg said in an Instagram video on Tuesday, shortly before a ceasefire was announced.

“And no one is reacting. This speaks for itself. What the f*** is anyone even doing at this point?”

She called on her viewers to stop such rhetoric from becoming the status quo.

“We have normalised genocide, total annihilation of entire people, the systematic destruction of the biosphere which we are all depending on to survive, and that corrupt, racist war criminals can act with complete impunity,” she said.

“But even though we have allowed far too much so far, it is not too late to say stop.”

Experts have noted a generational divide among perspectives about the US and Israeli war against Iran.

In the US, polls have found that young people are more likely to express scepticism about the war, as well as support for Israel and US intervention more broadly.

Scepticism about intervention

Gen Z would not be the first generation to oppose a war that their elders had a greater tolerance for.

Similar divides have been chronicled throughout US history, including during the Vietnam War in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.

But recent polls have suggested pronounced opposition among young people to the current war against Iran.

A poll released on Tuesday from the Pew Research Center found that young people across the political spectrum were more sceptical about the war’s prospects for success.

That was even true among Trump’s right-wing base. While 67 percent of Republicans over the age of 65 believed that the war would make Iran less likely to develop a nuclear weapon, just 25 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 29 said the same.

When asked about the effect the war might have on the Iranian people, just 7 percent of older Republican voters responded that they would be worse off. That percentage was dwarfed by the nearly 28 percent of younger voters who believed the same thing.

Democratic-leaning voters were not as widely divided by age, though younger voters did tend to be more pessimistic about the war, according to Pew.

Some 60 percent of young Democratic respondents aged 18 to 29 felt the war would leave Iranians worse off, compared with only 48 percent of Democrats over age 65.

Similar trends have been documented by other pollsters since the outbreak of the war on February 28.

On March 20, Emerson College also released a survey that found young people in the US tend to fear the outbreak of war more than older respondents. Nearly 75 percent of people under 50 thought a new world war was on the horizon in the next four years, but 54 percent of those over age 50 shared that belief.

The publication Politico, meanwhile, found disparities in its poll of men who identified as “MAGA Republicans”, part of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” political movement.

Only 49 percent of the respondents in that category, under age 35, believed Trump had a plan for the war on Iran. That was a far smaller ratio than the 70 percent over 35 who felt the same way.

A continuing trend

The generational divide has been reflected in public opinion surveys about other recent conflicts as well.

Polls have found pronounced opposition among young people in the US to foreign intervention, a trend some critics have tied to the historical context of their upbringing.

Many in Gen Z grew up in the shadow of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, part of the broader “war on terror” launched after the attacks on September 11, 2001.

A separate Pew Research Center poll from December 2025 suggests an isolationist streak among young people.

It found that only 39 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 believed it was important for the US to take an active role in world affairs, compared with 73 percent for those aged 65 and older.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has also prompted a Gen Z pushback, according to polling firms.

Since the war began in October 2023, human rights experts have documented multiple violations of international law and grave human rights abuses, including forced starvation, the mass killing of civilians and the withholding of humanitarian aid.

Tuesday’s poll suggested that 84 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans between the ages of 18 and 29 held an unfavourable view of Israel.

For those over the age of 50, the figure was significantly lower: 76 percent and 24 percent, respectively.

Thunberg has been outspoken about the atrocities unfolding in Gaza as well.

Last year, she took part in a humanitarian aid flotilla that set out to deliver assistance to Gaza. That October, she was detained and deported by Israeli forces.

Tehran says the negotiations will be based on its 10-point proposal, which calls for control over Strait of Hormuz and lifting of all sanctions.

Iran has agreed to a two-week ceasefire with the United States, with its National Security Council saying talks with Washington will begin in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Friday, based on Tehran’s 10-point proposal.

The statement on Wednesday came after US President Donald Trump said he was holding off on a threat to end Iranian civilisation and would “suspend” attacks on the country for two weeks.

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Trump said the truce was contingent on Iran agreeing to the “complete, immediate and safe opening” of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea and through which a fifth of the global oil supply passes.

Iran’s partial blockade of the strait – imposed in the aftermath of the US and Israel’s attacks on February 28 – has disrupted global trade, driving up oil prices and causing fuel shortages across the world.

Iran’s retaliatory attacks have also reverberated across the Gulf and drawn in Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis, both of which have launched attacks on Israel, significantly widening the conflict.

Trump said in his Truth Social statement that the US has already “met and exceeded” all of its military objectives and “are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran”.

He said the US has received a 10-point proposal from Iran, “and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate”. The US and Iran have agreed on “almost all of the various points of contention”, he said, and that the two-week period will allow the agreement to be “finalised and consummated”.

Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi, speaking on behalf of the Iranian National Security Council, confirmed Tehran’s agreement.

“If attacks against Iran are halted, our powerful armed forces will cease their defensive operations,” he said in a post on X.

Araghchi said that safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be possible in coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces, and that the decision was taken in light of Trump’s acceptance “of the general framework of Iran’s 10-point proposal as a basis for negotiations”.

For his part, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the warring sides had agreed to an “immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere”.

The move is “EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY”, he wrote on X.

Sharif thanked the US and Iran and extended an invitation to “their delegations to Islamabad on Friday, 10th April 2026, to further negotiate for a conclusive agreement to settle all disputes”.

According to Iran’s National Security Council, its 10-point proposal calls for Iranian dominance and oversight of the Strait of Hormuz, which it said would grant it a “unique economic and geopolitical position”.

The proposal also calls for the withdrawal of all “US combat forces” from bases in the Middle East and a halt to military operations against allied armed groups across the region. It goes on to demand “full compensation” for war damages, as well as the lifting of all sanctions by the US, the United Nations Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The proposal also calls for the release of frozen Iranian assets abroad and the ratification of any final agreement in a binding UN Security Council resolution.

The council said that while Tehran has agreed to talks, it does so “with complete distrust of the American side”.

It said Iran will allocate two weeks for these negotiations and that the time period “can be extended by agreement of the parties”.

The council added that Iran stood ready to respond with “full force” as soon as “the slightest mistake by the enemy is made”.

There has been no comment from Israel.

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square has proposed a takeover of Universal Music Group in a $64bn deal, the latest twist in his nearly five-year quest for the music label giant.

Pershing Square proposed a cash-and-shares offer on Tuesday through its acquisition vehicle that values Universal Music at about 30.40 euros ($35) per share, a 78 percent premium to the last closing price of 17.10 euros ($20), making the deal worth 55.75 billion euros ($64.31bn).

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Universal Music Group (UMG) – the company behind international superstars, including Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Kendrick Lamar – is expected to move its listing to New York from Amsterdam, paving the way for more investors, including index funds, to own the company and ultimately lead to more robust earnings and a higher valuation.

Universal Music declined a Reuters news agency request for comment.

For Ackman, one of the world’s most voluble investors, who cemented his fame and fortune as an activist investor, forcefully pushing corporate America to adopt changes, this is a far friendlier approach, investors and industry analysts said.

Even as the music industry is flourishing, UMG’s share price has lagged, something Ackman is pledging to fix with this proposed deal.

Ackman’s letter to Universal Music Group’s board carried a mixed tone, at times complimentary of current management, led by chairman and chief executive Lucian Grainge, and critical of the company’s “underutilized balance sheet” and handling of its 2.7 billion euro ($3.1bn) investment in Spotify Technology.

Fears of AI disrupting the music industry have played a role in UMG’s lacklustre performance. Its share of the music market has been sliding, and streaming growth is decelerating, Wells Fargo analysts noted. In March, UMG delayed its plans for a US listing.

Nonetheless, Ackman will need the support of UMG’s top shareholders – Bollore Group, which holds an 18.5 percent stake, and Vivendi, which owns 13.4 percent – to push through any transaction. China’s Tencent is a significant shareholder. French billionaire Vincent Bollore’s family controls 80 percent of UMG’s voting rights.

Old target

Ackman first flirted with Universal Music Group in 2021, when his Pershing Square Tontine Holdings, a shell corporation created to take a private company public, zeroed in on its target. But Ackman shelved the complex deal in the wake of heavy US regulatory scrutiny. Instead, Pershing Square became one of UMG’s biggest investors in 2021, and Ackman sat on its board until last year.

Post transaction, Ackman said Grainge should remain Universal Music’s chief executive.

Ackman said he and former Hollywood super-agent Michael Ovitz met with Grainge over dinner “a couple of weeks ago” to discuss the potential merger.

“Lucian encouraged us to send it in,” Ackman said.

Ackman proposed adding new directors, including Ovitz – who shepherded the careers of Madonna and Michael Jackson – who would become the board chair. Additionally, two representatives from Pershing Square would get seats, he said, not saying yet whether he would be one of the directors.

Shares of UMG, which is listed in Amsterdam, were up 13 percent on Tuesday, while Bollore Group climbed 5 percent. Shares in Vivendi were up more than 10 percent.

Pershing bought a 10 percent stake in UMG from Vivendi ahead of its 2021 Amsterdam IPO and has since repeatedly pressed for a New York listing, arguing it would boost UMG’s share price and liquidity.

Pershing currently has a 4.7 percent stake, making it UMG’s fourth-biggest shareholder.

UMG’s shares have lost almost a third of their value since its IPO.

Even as global music revenues grow year after year, UMG and other major labels, like Sony and Warner Music, are scrambling to stay competitive as streaming services from Spotify, Amazon, Apple and Deezer take an ever greater share.

They are now also contending with disruptions brought on by the expansion of AI – from copyright disputes to the advent of song-generating AI tools – that threaten to upend how music is created, consumed and monetised.

One survey last year found that a staggering 97 percent of listeners could distinguish between AI-generated and human-composed songs.

Under Tuesday’s proposal, Pershing’s SPARC Holdings would merge with UMG, and the new entity would become a Nevada corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange.