Updated on April 8, 2026, 7:05 pm EST
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Wednesday that a ceasefire deal with the US must include a halt to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, which have dramatically escalated since President Trump announced the truce on Tuesday night.
“The Iran-US Ceasefire terms are clear and explicit: the US must choose—ceasefire or continued war via Israel. It cannot have both,” Araghchi wrote on X. “The world sees the massacres in Lebanon. The ball is in the US court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments.”
Iranian media reported that Iran has halted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israel’s continued bombing campaign in Lebanon.
“The passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz has been halted following Israel’s attacks on Lebanon,” Iran’s Fars news agency has reported.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who mediated the US-Iran ceasefire deal, said in his initial announcement of the agreement that it would also include a ceasefire in Lebanon, a point reaffirmed by Iranian officials. But it has since been denied by both the US and Israel that Lebanon was part of the deal.
“The two-week ceasefire does not include Lebanon,” the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on X. On Wednesday morning, Israel launched a massive bombardment across Lebanon, killing and injuring hundreds of people, as part of a new escalation it dubbed “Operation Eternal Darkness.”
President Trump was asked if the ceasefire included Lebanon and called it a “separate skirmish” that was “not included” in the deal. “Yeah, they were not included in the deal,” he said. “Because of Hezbollah. They were not included in the deal. That’ll get taken care of, too. It’s alright.”
Later on Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance claimed that it appeared to be a “misunderstanding” on Iran’s part that Lebanon was part of the ceasefire, making no mention of the fact that Lebanon was included in Pakistan’s announcement. Vance said it would be “dumb” for Iran to end negotiations over Israel’s bombardment in Lebanon while also saying that the US wanted Iran to halt attacks on Israel and the Gulf Arab states.
According to Israeli media, Trump didn’t express opposition to Israel continuing its war in Lebanon when he spoke with Netanyahu to inform him of the ceasefire in Iran.
The US and Iran may hold talks in Islamabad this Friday, but according to Iran’s Tasnim news agency, Iran may withdraw from the process if the Israeli war in Lebanon continues.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has also said it would respond if Israel didn’t halt its attacks on Lebanon. “If the aggressions against our beloved Lebanon are not stopped immediately, we will give a regretful response to the evil aggressors in the region,” the IRGC said.
Missile and drone attacks were also reported across the Gulf Arab states after Trump’s ceasefire announcement, and Iran said that one of its oil facilities was targeted hours after the declaration.
