Trump warns of major war escalation if Iran peace process fails
President Donald Trump arrives from the Blue Room to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. PHOTO: REUTERS
US President Donald Trump vowed to retain military assets in the Middle East until a peace deal with Iran is reached and warned of a major escalation in fighting if it failed to comply, as oil prices rose on concerns over supply and restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump said in a social media post that US ships, aircraft and personnel with additional ammunition and weaponry would remain in place to destroy, if necessary, "a substantially degraded enemy", but expressed confidence that a lasting deal would be agreed and followed.
"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 said, adding that contrary to "fake rhetoric", Iran had agreed not to pursue nuclear weapons and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
"In the meantime, our great Military is Loading Up and Resting, looking forward, actually, to its next Conquest. AMERICA IS BACK!"
However, the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, when speaking about their 10-point plan for peace on X, did not include any clause on nuclear materials or weapons
Full Statement of the Supreme National Security Council :
[PART-1]
Good news to the dear nation of Iran! Nearly all the objectives of the war have been achieved.
The noble people of Iran should know that, thanks to the sacrifices of their children and their historic presence on…Though both the United States and Iran declared victory in a five-week-old war that has killed thousands of civilians, mostly because of Israeli and US strikes in Iran and Lebanon, their core disputes remained unresolved, with each side sticking to competing demands for a deal that could shape the Middle East for generations.
Israeli military says it has killed Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem
Israel said on Thursday it had killed Naim Qassem, the leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, in a strike on Beirut overnight.
His death, if confirmed by Hezbollah, deals another big blow to the armed group and to Tehran as it is one of Iran's main allies in the Middle East.
By retaliating against Israel on March 2 for their strikes and incursions into Lebanon over the past year, Israel forced Hezbollah's hand and it entered the war in the region on Iran's side, two days after the United States and Israel began airstrikes against Iran.
Hezbollah attacked Israel after Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day of the war. Israel said it would respond forcefully and has since carried out airstrikes that have killed more than a thousand people.
Israel had already weakened the group's military capabilities and assaulted it with a series of "assassinations" since the Gaza genocide began on October 7, 2023.
Despite a US-backed ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon in 2024 after more than a year of fighting, Israel has carried out regular strikes against what it has claimed are Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, resulting in mass civilian casualties and deaths.
Hezbollah refused to disarm under a US proposal aimed at extending the ceasefire. Qassem threatened Israel directly, saying missiles would fall on it if it resumed a broad war on Lebanon.
In 2024, Israel killed Qassem's predecessor, veteran leader Hassan Nasrallah, in an airstrike on a Beirut suburb, the climax of a conflict that began when Hezbollah fired at Israeli positions at the border in support of the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas.
Hezbollah named Qassem, who had been a senior figure in the group for more than 30 years, as its new chief a month after Nasrallah's killing.
The group was created in 1982 by Muslim Shi'ite militants in Lebanon and backed by Iran's Revolutionary Guards to fight what was then the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon.
Spain to reopen its embassy in Tehran
Spain is reopening its embassy in Tehran in hopes of achieving peace in the US-Israeli war on Iran, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told reporters on Thursday.
"I've instructed our ambassador in Tehran to return, to take up his post again and reopen our embassy, and for us to join in this effort for peace from every possible quarter, including from the Iranian capital itself," Albares said.
US Chargé d’Affaires in Pakistan reviewed arrangements with Ministry of Interior
The US Chargé d’Affaires in Pakistan visited the Ministry of Interior to review arrangements for the US Vice President's visit to Islamabad.
The Chargé d’Affaires of the United States in Pakistan visited the Ministry of Interior to review plans and arrangements for the visit of the U.S. Vice President to Islamabad.
The Government and Armed Forces of Pakistan have prepared a comprehensive plan to provide foolproof… pic.twitter.com/STRFDnZ5q2Iran says talks 'unreasonable' amid Israeli strikes
Trump's latest post followed the largest attack of the war by Israel on Wednesday that killed more than 250 civilians, including women and children, in Lebanon, prompting a warning from Iran's lead negotiator that Israel's relentlessly attacking Lebanon and Washington's insistence on Tehran abandoning its "nuclear ambitions" could jeopardise talks to forge a permanent peace deal.
Read: Truce under strain as Israel plays spoiler
"In such a situation, a bilateral ceasefire or negotiations were unreasonable," Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammed Bager Qalibaf, said in a statement on Wednesday.
Oil prices climbed on Thursday with investors concerned about the fragility of the truce and elevated geopolitical risks over Middle East supply, with doubts that restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz would soon ease.
Brent crude futures were up $1.96, or 2.07%, at $96.71 a barrel at 0325 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate crude rose $2.6, or 2.75%, to $97.01 a barrel, a day after both benchmarks had fallen sharply on the ceasefire announcement.
Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate remain far above the $70.75 and $65 a barrel before the joint US-Israel onslaught began.
Asian share markets were in a sober mood on Thursday amid unease about the ceasefire, with Japan's Nikkei lingering either side of flat, having jumped 5.4% the previous session and the MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan easing 0.7%.
On Wall Street, S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures were both off 0.2% as Wednesday's surge ended, and in Europe, the 50 futures eased 0.1%, DAX futures fell 0.5%, while FTSE futures were up 0.4%.
Contrasting agendas
Israel's slew of aerial bombardments on Wednesday threw a wrench in regional truce efforts, with conflicting messages from Tehran and Washington on the scope of the ceasefire and sharply contrasting agendas for peace talks set to start on Saturday in Pakistan.
The United States and Israel say Lebanon is not included in the agreement, while Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said a halt in hostilities in Lebanon was an essential condition of Tehran's deal with Washington.
Hezbollah said it fired rockets early on Thursday at the small kibbutz of Manara, citing what it described as Israel's ceasefire violations, warning of more until there was a halt in "Israeli-American aggression".
Pakistan's foreign ministry condemned the Israeli operations on Thursday, which it said "undermine international efforts to establish peace and stability".
French President Emmanuel Macron earlier said Lebanon "must be fully covered" by the ceasefire.
Iran's delegation for the talks is due to arrive in Islamabad on Thursday night.
"Despite scepticism of Iranian public opinion due to repeated ceasefire violations by the Israeli regime ... Iranian delegation arrives tonight in Islamabad for serious talks based on 10 points proposed by Iran," Ambassador Reza Amiri Moghadam said in a post on X on Thursday.
Italy PM Meloni said reopening of Strait of Hormuz is vital
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Thursday that restoring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz is a vital interest for her county and the whole of the European Union.
"We have come within a step of the point of no return, but we now face a fragile prospect of peace that must be pursued with determination,” Meloni told parliament, adding that Italy condemns any violation of the ceasefire and is calling for a permanent halt to hostilities.
Freedom of navigation means navigation must be free
There was scant sign that the Strait of Hormuz was open in any meaningful way since the truce agreement, with Iran still asserting its control over the conduit for a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas supply, and setting tolls for safe passage.
Read more: Strait of Hormuz 'Iran's nuke'
Tehran's newly demonstrated ability to cut off Gulf energy supplies through its grip on the strait, despite decades of massive U.S. military investment in the region, shows how the conflict has already altered power dynamics in the Gulf.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards navy posted a map on Thursday showing alternative shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz to help ships avoid naval mines, the semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA said.
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper will say on Thursday that shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, must be toll-free, countering a push by Iran to control a channel long treated as an international waterway, despite
"The fundamental freedoms of the seas must not be unilaterally withdrawn or sold off to individual bidders. Nor can there be any place for tolls on an international waterway," Cooper will say in an annual foreign policy speech in London, according to advance extracts.
Hezbollah says it hit Israeli forces in southern Lebanon
Al Jazeera reported that Hezbollah said its drone strike targeted and hit an Israeli force inside a house in the Tayyiba Project in south of the country.
Earlier, the group said its missile also targeted and hit a Namer APC – an Israeli armoured personnel carrier – in the town of Al-Tayyiba, in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon
The deal's fractures emerged quickly as Israel carried out the heaviest strikes on its neighbour -- including in densely packed central Beirut, since the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah joined the war in early March.
At least 182 people were killed and nearly 900 wounded on Wednesday, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.
Amnesty International’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Heba Morayef, says that the “nightmare for civilians has become more terrifying” in Lebanon, “just hours after the world cautiously welcomed news of a US-Israeli ceasefire with Iran”.
“Civilians in Lebanon are already paying an unbearable price with children, health workers and journalists amongst those killed – the latest attacks will only escalate this devastating human toll,” Heba said.
Israel said its battle against Hezbollah was not part of the US-Iran truce agreed late Tuesday, an argument echoed by US Vice President JD Vance, days before he is due to lead talks with Tehran in Pakistan.
"If Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart... over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them, and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that's ultimately their choice," he said.
But Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf appeared to threaten the ceasefire, posting on X that the "workable basis on which to negotiate" had already been violated, making further talks "unreasonable".
Read More: How Pakistan brokered a two-week ceasefire deal between US, Iran?
Adding to the fragility of the truce, agreed hours before a deadline set by US President Donald Trump, a senior US official said Iran's 10-point plan was not the same set of conditions the White House had agreed to to pause the war.
In Lebanon, where UN rights chief Volker Turk called the scale of killing "horrific", strikes across the capital, Beirut, without warning triggered scenes of horror and panic.
More than 1,700 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel launched airstrikes and a ground invasion last month.