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Donald Trump’s announcement of a two-week ceasefire paves the way for negotiations on a 10-point plan proposed by Tehran to end the war, which the US president called ‘workable’. Here’s what it involves.

Iranians have commemorated the victims of the US strike on a girls school in Minab, that killed 168 people on the first day of the US-Israeli war on Iran. The vigil was held hours before the US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Israeli prime minister’s office welcomes US decision to suspend attacks on Iran, but says the two-week truce does not apply to Lebanon.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has announced that Israel backs the United States’s decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks, but said the truce “does not include Lebanon”.

In a statement on X on Wednesday, Netanyahu said Israel supported US President Donald Trump’s efforts to ensure “Iran no longer poses a nuclear, missile and terror threat to America, Israel, Iran’s Arab neighbors and the world”.

He said the US has told Israel that it is committed to achieving these goals in the upcoming negotiations in Pakistan’s Islamabad on Friday.

But the two-week ceasefire “does not include Lebanon”, he added.

Netanyahu’s statement comes after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced that the US, Iran and their allies “have agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere”.

Sharif said the move was “effective immediately”.

Lebanon was drawn into the war on March 2 after Iran-aligned Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel.

Hezbollah said the attacks were in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28 as well as its near-daily violations of a ceasefire it agreed in Lebanon in November of 2024.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have since killed more than 1,500 people and displaced more than 1 million people. The Israeli military has also launched an invasion of southern Lebanon and said it aims to seize more territory for what it calls a buffer zone.

There’s been no immediate comment from Hezbollah or Lebanon.

Celebrations have erupted in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, following the announcement of a two-week ceasefire between Iran and the United States. Iraq had been pulled into the war with pro-Iran armed groups and US forces carrying out attacks on each other.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says ‘if attacks against Iran are halted,’ then Iran agrees to the terms of the two-week ceasefire with the US, announced by Donald Trump. Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall explains the response from Tehran and how the Strait of Hormuz will be opened.

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna reports that the White House has confirmed the US has agreed to suspend all bombing and military attacks on Iran for two weeks, provided the Strait of Hormuz re-opens for safe passage. Trump’s announcement came close to an hour before an original threatened deadline, signalling a breakthrough towards diplomacy.

US President Donald Trump says he has agreed to extend his threatened deadline to attack Iran by two weeks, if Iran immediately re-opens the Strait of Hormuz. His Truth Social post came less than two hours before he had said Iran would face widespread attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif says diplomatic efforts to resolve the US-Israeli war on Iran are ‘progressing steadily’ as he urged US President Donald Trump to postpone his threatened deadline for two weeks. Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid explains Islamabad’s ‘last-ditch effort’.

Tehran, Iran – The head of Iran’s top science and engineering university believes that the United States and Israel are targeting symbols of Iran’s progress as a nation, and not merely hitting the governing establishment.

The Sharif University of Technology in Tehran was bombed on Monday, destroying and damaging multiple buildings, including what was described by the authorities as an artificial intelligence centre housing critical databases. The university’s website and other online services went dark.

“We believe the reason the enemy targeted these buildings and destroyed the entire infrastructure is that it did not want us to achieve AI technology,” university President Masoud Tajrishi said, adding that the higher education facility had been working on training AI models in Persian for two years and provided services to hundreds of companies.

“The enemy does not want us to succeed or have development and progress, but all our universities are united now by these attacks,” he said at the site of the bombing on Tuesday. Minutes later, another attack targeted the capital, with low-flying cruise missiles visible over downtown Tehran and air defence guns activated.

Tajrishi also said that no country had been prepared to provide Iran with the knowledge and know-how to work on AI technology due to US sanctions and competitive advantages, so all of the research was done domestically.

The US and Israel have not provided an official reason for targeting Iran’s main higher education hubs or cultural heritage sites, which are considered civilian infrastructure. No casualties were reported inside Sharif since all school and university classes are being taken online, but more than 2,000 people have been killed during the war.

The strike on the top university, which was founded six decades ago, came after a string of similar air raids targeting research centres inside other prominent facilities, including the century-old Pasteur Institute, a photonics lab at Shahid Beheshti University and a satellite development lab at the Science and Technology University.

More than 30 universities have been affected by US and Israeli attacks since the start of the war on February 28, Iran’s minister of science, research and technology, Hossein Simaei Saraf, told Al Jazeera last week.

The attacks prompted the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to declare US and Israeli-affiliated universities “legitimate targets”.

Mohammad Hossein Omid, president of Tehran University, wrote a letter on behalf of 15 top university heads last week, urging the IRGC to refrain from attacking other universities in order to show that Tehran is committed to safeguarding higher education facilities anywhere as “human and global heritage” entities.

However, he has since shifted his position and demanded retaliatory attacks in kind after a huge backlash from local hardline media.

The US and Israel have continued to attack across Iran, targeting the country’s infrastructure, hours ahead of US President Donald Trump’s deadline for Iran to capitulate to his demands. The Israeli military has already on Tuesday hit Iran’s railway network, but Trump has threatened to bomb critical civilian infrastructure, such as the country’s main power plants and bridges, which would constitute a violation of international law.

Trump said “a whole civilisation will die tonight” in Iran, with the comment coming days after the country’s steel factories and petrochemical manufacturers were extensively targeted in another move that will affect all of Iran’s population of more than 90 million. He boasted that it would take 20 years for Iran to rebuild if Washington were to withdraw today, but it could take 100 years to rebuild if the war continues.

Hitting Iran or the Islamic Republic?

Inside the Sharif University on Tuesday, a mathematics professor held an online class inside the remains of a bombed building as a show of defiance and continuity.

Placards placed nearby by the authorities read, “Trump’s help has arrived.”

This was in reference to repeated claims by the US president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that they wish to “help” the Iranian people overthrow the Islamic Republic, which came to power after a 1979 revolution but has faced nationwide protests in recent years.

But the increasing systematic targeting of civilian infrastructure has caused deep concerns among many Iranians, especially since the country was already dealing with a host of issues before the war, including economic woes and an energy crisis.

“It was a strange feeling waking up in the morning and seeing your university attacked, not to mention the terror of feeling you might not have electricity to check anything tomorrow,” said a Shahid Beheshti student, who asked to remain anonymous.

“If you can justify attacks on power plants, steel, petrochemicals, bridges, universities and science institutes, you can justify anything,” he told Al Jazeera.

The civilian infrastructure attacks have also prompted local media to lash out against foreign-based Iranians, some of whom have supported US and Israeli attacks in the hope that they would lead to the toppling of the governing establishment of military, political, and theocratic leaders.

The Fars news agency, affiliated with the IRGC, claimed on Tuesday that the attack on Sharif University could not have been possible without “betrayal” from dissidents abroad. It accused Ali Sharifi Zarchi, a top former professor-turned-dissident at Sharif, of leaking the coordinates of the bombed centre, without providing evidence.

Sharifi Zarchi pointed out in a tweet in response that the centre was marked on Google Maps, and said that while he unequivocally condemns the targeting of universities and other civilian sites, “the aim of any attacks should be the overthrow of the Islamic Republic regime, which has held the Iranian people hostage through repression, mass killings, and internet shutdowns.”

The professor circulated a letter published in a number of nongovernment student groups on Tuesday, which also condemned the US and Israeli attacks but said that the establishment was responsible for pursuing policies that put it on a collision course with the two countries and their allies.

“Our people want to work, to study, to breathe, to have access to the internet, and to build their own future,” the students wrote. “Minds that leave do not return. A girl who is detained no longer studies. A child whose school is bombed does not grow up. The cost of these losses will be paid by all of our futures – including those who benefit from this divide today.”

Donald Trump warned that “a whole civilisation will die tonight” if Iran does not open the Strait of Hormuz, ahead of a Tuesday night deadline for Tehran to comply. The comments follow a “pretty shocking” silence from US Congress on the US-Israeli war, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett explains.

The US-Israel war on Iran has sparked a global fuel crisis as thousands of tankers carrying crucial deliveries of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) remain stranded on either side of the Strait of Hormuz, currently under a blockade imposed by Iran.

On Saturday, Egypt’s government said it is among the “best-performing” countries in tackling the crisis because of the measures it has implemented to save on fuel.

Here is what we know about the steps Egypt is taking and whether other countries are doing the same.

Why has the Iran war caused an energy crisis?

Pressure on oil and gas markets is mounting due to the almost complete halt to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz as well as air strikes on and around key energy facilities in the Gulf as the United States-Israel war on Iran enters its sixth week.

One-fifth of the world’s oil and LNG is shipped from producers in the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz in peacetime. This is the only route from the Gulf to the open ocean.

On March 2, two days after the US and Israel began strikes on Iran, Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the commander in chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), announced that the strait was “closed”. If any vessels tried to pass through, he said, the IRGC and the navy would “set those ships ablaze”. Since then, traffic through the strait, carrying cargoes including 20 million barrels of oil each day, has plunged by more than 95 percent.

Now, Tehran is allowing just a handful of tankers through after reaching agreements with some countries to do so.

Besides this, energy infrastructure in the Middle East has suffered damage over the course of the war.

On March 24, QatarEnergy declared force majeure on some of ⁠its long-term LNG supply contracts after an Iranian attack on Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG facility – the largest in the world – wiped out about ⁠17 percent of the country’s LNG export capacity, causing an estimated $20bn in lost annual revenue and threatening supplies to Europe and ⁠Asia.

All of this disruption has sent energy prices soaring. On Tuesday, global oil benchmark Brent crude was around $109 per barrel, compared to around $65 per barrel right before the war started.

How is Egypt tackling the energy crisis?

Egypt’s Petroleum Ministry has announced rises in fuel prices ranging from 14 percent to 30 percent.

On March 28, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly’s office told a press conference that the country’s energy import bill had increased from $1.2bn in January to $2.5bn in March.

Egypt is both one of the region’s largest energy importers and among its most heavily indebted economies. While domestic gas and oil account for the majority of its total energy supply, the country still relies on imported fuels, especially refined oil products and some natural gas, from Israel and the Gulf states.

Madbouly announced measures Egypt is taking to mitigate this and preserve state energy resources.

• From March 28, shops, malls and restaurants are closing at 9pm (19:00 GMT) every day for one month, except Thursdays and Fridays.
• On Thursdays and Fridays, the closing time will be 10pm (20:00 GMT).
• Fuel allocations for government vehicles will be reduced by 30 percent.
• Street lighting and street advertisement lighting will be cut by 50 percent.
• From April 1, eligible employees will work remotely on Sundays, the first day of the working week. Some essential services, such as pharmacies, grocery stores and tourist facilities, will be exempted from this.

Which other countries have introduced energy conservation measures?

Besides Egypt, other countries are also taking steps to save energy.

Last week, Malaysia ordered civil servants to work from home to save energy in government offices.

In mid-March, it was revealed that government offices in the Philippines had moved to a four-day work week, officials in Thailand and Vietnam were being encouraged to work from home and limit travel, and Myanmar’s government had imposed alternating driving days.

Pakistan, which imports about 80 percent of its energy from the Gulf, announced on Monday of this week that markets and shopping malls would close at 8pm (15:00 GMT) across the country, except in Sindh province. The government’s statement added that food outlets would close at 10pm (17:00 GMT), which is also when marriage ceremonies at private properties and houses must end.

Bangladesh has reduced working hours for government and private workers and banking services hours in a bid to conserve electricity.

In Sri Lanka and Slovenia, authorities have introduced fuel rationing and purchase limits to manage shortages and soaring costs.

The war in Iran has created an energy shock in Africa.

The continent relies heavily on oil and gas imports from the Middle East.

Much of this supply is currently stuck on tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, which is closed.

Countries including Kenya, Ethiopia and Zambia are reporting shortages.

Africa’s largest oil refinery in Nigeria is pumping out crude at maximum capacity, but that’s nowhere near enough to meet the continent’s needs.

In addition, Africa’s energy infrastructure has suffered from years of underinvestment.

So, what choices do governments have to contain the crisis?

Abas Aslani of the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies argues that the US and Israel are playing “Russian roulette” with the Gulf’s environmental security following strikes near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant.

During the first month of the US-Israel war on Iran, the Houthis adopted a cautious approach, even though many expected them to move faster based on the nature of their close relationship with Tehran. This assessment is not wrong — the relationship is indeed strong — but what this view misses is that decision-making within the Yemeni group has increasingly become the product of an extended internal debate.

This debate goes back to the Houthis’ decision to launch military action in support of Gaza after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023. After the United States and Israel launched retaliatory strikes in March 2025, which lasted for two months, an agreement was brokered by Oman in May, bringing the fighting to a halt. This experience had a deep impact on the group.

Some Houthi leaders believe that the cost of that involvement over the past two years was high, not only in terms of military and leadership losses and civilian casualties, but also in terms of draining resources, damaging infrastructure and complicating the political track, especially with Saudi Arabia, which had put forward a roadmap for peace in Yemen in 2022.

This assessment did not remain at the level of abstract analysis; it became the basis for an internal discussion that produced two clear currents.

The first current leans towards caution. It seems that the previous experience proved that direct involvement does not yield strategic gains, but it does open costly fronts. This camp pushes for avoiding open confrontation, preserving existing understandings — especially with Saudi Arabia — and limiting action to political support or small, contained operations that do not drag the group into a large-scale escalation.

In contrast, there is another current that believes the present moment is crucial for the so-called “axis of resistance” created by Iran, and that absence or hesitation could cost the group its place in the post-war equation. For this current, this is a decisive moment to assert the Houthis’ presence, especially amid an expanding conflict and the likelihood of a reshuffling of the regional balance of power.

Two currents have shaped the Houthis’ decision-making over recent weeks. As a result, today the group has embraced neither full-scale engagement nor total absence. This was evident first in the escalation of political rhetoric during the first month of the war, then in the execution of limited, carefully calculated operations that began on March 27. There was a clear declaration of gradual intervention, close monitoring of developments, and a deliberate effort not to cross the red lines identified by the group’s military spokesperson, particularly those related to the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

However, the balance between the two currents may become unstable at some point as the war escalates and widens regionally, and as Iranian and Houthi talk of a “unity of fronts” intensifies. The longer the conflict lasts, the less able the group will be to remain in this grey zone, and the stronger the pressure will be for deeper involvement.

With each new development on the ground, this internal debate may edge closer to a moment of decision: either entrenching caution as a long-term strategic choice, or shifting to broader involvement that may not be as gradual as was declared in Houthi statements.

What remains constant, however, is that the group has entered this phase with the accumulated experience of past years — a record that has taught it the cost of involvement and made it aware that entering a war is not merely a military decision, but an open-ended political, security, and economic trajectory. It has already paid that price in its previous confrontations with the US and Israel.

Thus, the question is no longer whether the Houthis will enter the war, but how they will enter and at what cost. Will they be able to set and maintain limits on their involvement? Will their calibrated entry avoid paying the full price? The answers to these questions will be made clear in the weeks to come.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

A US-Israeli strike has caused extensive damage to a synagogue in Tehran, according to a video published by Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency. Footage shows civil defence workers amid the rubble, with Hebrew-language books scattered on the ground.

US President Donald Trump said ‘Tuesday will be power plant day’ in a vulgar post on social media. He says the US plans to start bombing electricity infrastructure unless Iran opens the Strait of Hormuz. Al Jazeera’s Hala Al Shami looks at Iran’s power plants and the dangers of potential attacks.

Political analyst Trita Parsi says no one should be surprised that Iran has rejected the idea of a ceasefire deal with the US and Israel, given their history of violating previous agreements.

Around two dozen protesters gathered outside the US embassy in Tel Aviv, calling for an end to the war with Iran and Lebanon. Police ordered the protest to disperse within minutes as tensions rose and members of the public confronted demonstrators.

Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant has been targeted four times since the United States-Israel war on Iran began more than a month ago.

And the World Health Organization (WHO has warned of “catastrophic” risks if a radioactive release occurs.

Tehran has accused the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog of inaction – an allegation that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) rejects. But it does acknowledge that the situation is of deep concern.

Why are the attacks happening, and what risks do they pose?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Tariq Rauf – Former head of verification and security policy coordination at the IAEA

Abas Aslani – Senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies

Alicia Sanders-Zakre – Head of policy at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says US forces are carrying out more strikes on Iran than any day since the start of war.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Monday will be the “largest volume of strikes” on Iran since the US-Israeli war began, adding that tomorrow could be even worse if Iran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Seoul says Pyongyang has not been supplying Iran with weapons in the hopes of being able to reopen diplomatic dialogue with the US.

North Korea appears to be distancing itself from longtime partner Iran in the hopes of forming a new relationship with the United States, South Korean intelligence believes.

Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) sees no signs that North Korea has sent weapons or supplies to Tehran since the US-Israel war on Iran began at the end of February, lawmaker Park Sun-won, who attended a closed-door briefing held by the NIS, said on Sunday.

While Iran’s other allies China and Russia have frequently issued statements on the US-Israel war on Iran, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry has only issued two toned-down statements so far, said the NIS.

While Pyongyang did condemn the US and Israeli attacks on Iran as illegal, it did not issue public condolences after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death or send a congratulatory message when Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, succeeded him.

The spy agency said Pyongyang is likely adopting this cautious approach to position it for a new diplomatic chapter with the US once the Middle East conflict subsides, said Park.

The NIS also told lawmakers that it now believes Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un is grooming his teenage daughter as his successor, citing a recent public display of her driving a tank.

The NIS said the imagery was intended to highlight the supposed military aptitude of the youngster, who is believed to be around 13 and named Ju Ae.

Such scenes are intended to pay “homage” to Kim’s own public military appearances during the early 2010s, when he was being prepared to succeed his father, Park said.

Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, was earlier thought to be a leading candidate to succeed her brother.

On Monday, she was in North Korean headlines as she welcomed an apology issued by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Sunday over a January drone incursion.

“The ROK [Republic of Korea] president personally expressed regret and talked about a measure for preventing recurrence. Our government appreciated it as very fortunate and wise behaviour for its own sake,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Seoul initially denied any official role in the January drone incursion, with authorities suggesting it was the work of civilians, but Lee said a probe had revealed government officials had been involved.

“We express regret to the North over the unnecessary military tensions caused by the irresponsible and reckless actions of some individuals,” Lee said.

Lee has sought to repair ties with North Korea since taking office last year, criticising his predecessor for allegedly sending drones to scatter propaganda over Pyongyang.

His repeated overtures, however, have gone unanswered by the North until now.

Lee’s expression of regret follows Kim’s labelling of Seoul as the “most hostile state” in a policy address in March in which he vowed to “thoroughly reject and disregard it”.