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21-04-2026
TEHRAN/ WASHINGTON: Iran says it will not open the Strait of Hormuz unless the US stops blockading its ports.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh says no date has been set for a new round of face-to-face talks with the US and slams Washington’s refusal to abandon its “maximalist” demands.
US President Donald Trump says the naval blockade on Iranian ports will remain in force until there is a deal and warns that Washington will not be blackmailed by Tehran.
Israel launches attacks on southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire, and says it has established what it calls a “yellow line” similar to the one it imposed in Gaza.
French President Emmanuel Macron has blamed Hezbollah for an attack that killed a French peacekeeping soldier in Lebanon. The armed group denied the claim.
Visit our live tracker for the latest casualty figures from across the region.
Pressure on Iran over Hormuz as end of ceasefire nears
Simon Mabon, professor at Lancaster University in England, says two things are worth bearing in mind as Iran appears to be heightening its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by going after civilian vessels.
“First, there’s a question mark over whether this marks a more forceful, more coercive effort to control what’s happening in the Strait of Hormuz or whether it’s a broader issue of power structures within the Islamic Republic more broadly,” Mabon told media.
“We’re hearing lots of mixed messages,” so questions remain over who is making the decisions within the Iranian government, he added.
This could be part of a deliberate strategy, or it could be “a reflection of a broader uncertainty in terms of who is taking these decisions over what to do diplomatically, politically and strategically in the strait,” said Mabon.
Secondly, “things are going to get more and more heated when you have essentially two different blockading forces competing for control over the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.
“I think that really ratchets up the tensions, and in light of that with the unknowns, the pressures of the ceasefire looming, it makes it a really precarious moment.”
The ceasefire with the United States is set to expire on Wednesday.
Traffic at a standstill in Hormuz after Iran fires at vessels
Lloyd’s List, a maritime firm, says traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has come to a halt after Iranian forces fired on several ships on Saturday.
It said there had been a brief flurry of activity during the day, but traffic was back to a standstill by Saturday evening after radio transmissions warned ships that the strait had gone back to “strict management and control by the (Iranian) armed forces”.
“While several ships made it through the strait before the latest incidents, the vast majority of owners with ships stuck in the Middle East Gulf were on Saturday returning their ships to previous positions,” it said.
‘Utter confusion’ in Strait of Hormuz
Traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has pretty much come to a stop.
We haven’t seen much movement in the last couple of hours. There was a few cruise passenger vessels that crossed through Oman’s territorial waters, and one of them reported an incident while it was making that crossing.
There was confusion on Saturday. You could see it live on these marine tracker websites. A number of vessels passed Larak Island, where the IRGC is monitoring the passage and then, all of a sudden, they turned back and started moving west. We saw the Indian tanker, the Sanmar Herald, which according to its audio recording, received permission to pass the strait. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
