The agreement that US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian inked this week to stop the larger regional conflict on all fronts, including Lebanon a crucial demand of Tehran’shad already been stretched by the continued hostilities.
Iran’s national military command declared on Saturday “that the Strait of Hormuz will be closed to vessel traffic,” citing a “breach of contract” by the United States and “the Zionist regime’s continuous and relentless violation of the ceasefire in southern Lebanon.”
Iran blockaded the strait, a crucial route for the transportation of gas and oil, for the majority of the conflict, shocking the world’s energy markets. As part of the preliminary agreement with the US, Iran had pledged to reopen it, and in recent days, shipping activity has begun to resume.
After Israel launched a series of deadly attacks in Lebanon following the deaths of four of its troops in fighting, follow-up talks on the US-Iran deal that were scheduled to take place in Switzerland on Friday were permanently postponed.
A new ceasefire between Israel and Hizbollah, mediated by the US and Qatar, was declared by a US official on Friday afternoon. Israel’s ambassador to Washington stated that if Hizbollah respected the ceasefire, it would.
However, an Israeli military official stated on Saturday that it was launching new attacks against the Iran-backed organization, which it claimed had “launched more than 50 projectiles at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon” throughout the night.
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