U.S. to Blockade Ships From Iranian Ports

The blockade on ships “entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas” will begin on Monday, U.S. Central Command said. But U.S. forces will not impede vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, a step back from President Trump’s earlier vow.

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The U.S. military said on Sunday that it would blockade any ships “entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas,” but said it would allow other ships to transit the Strait of Hormuz, hours after President Trump had said the United States would fully block the economically vital waterway.

The blockade on Iranian ports would begin on Monday at 10 a.m. Eastern time, U.S. Central Command said in a statement posted on social media, adding that U.S. “forces will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.”

Though the statement said the move was “in accordance with the President’s proclamation,” it appeared to soften Mr. Trump’s earlier vow to block “any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz.” In an interview with Fox News in the morning, the president had reiterated it would be a “complete blockade,” and said traffic through the strait was “all or nothing.”

Mr. Trump’s announcement had plunged an already brittle truce between Iran and the United States into further uncertainty after Saturday’s marathon peace talks between top Iranian and American leaders in Pakistan ended without a breakthrough.

An adviser to Mojtaba Khamenei, the supreme leader, warned that Iran had “large, untouched levers” to counter any naval blockade. Its top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, directly addressed American consumers: “Soon you’ll be nostalgic for $4–$5 gas.”

Iran has choked off shipping in the strait — through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil normally flows — since the war started, allowing through only its own ships and a few others. As a result, global oil prices had soared by more than 50 percent during the conflict, and the United States had demanded that Iran reopen the strait and conditioned the truce on Tehran doing so.

Vice President JD Vance, who led the U.S. negotiating team, said early Sunday that the talks in Islamabad — the highest-level face-to-face encounter between U.S. and Iranian leaders since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution — had ended with Iran choosing “not to accept our terms.” The chief Iranian negotiator, Mr. Ghalibaf, said on social media that the United States had been “unable to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation” in this round of talks.

Analysts said the issues dividing the two countries were so complex — and their differences so entrenched — that cinching a deal in a single round of talks had been highly unlikely. The key differences center on the fate of nearly 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium, frozen Iranian revenues held abroad, and the Strait of Hormuz.

Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Ghalibaf appeared to rule out additional negotiations. Mr. Trump told Fox News that his threats had forced Iran “to the bargaining table and they haven’t left,” adding that he believed the United States would eventually get “everything” it wanted from Iran.

• Economic woes: Oil prices rose on Sunday after the peace talks failed to produce a deal. The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, rose more than 7 percent to around $102 a barrel. Mr. Trump earlier in the day downplayed the economic effects of the war, which have been a political liability. Asked on Fox News if oil and gas prices could fall by the time the midterm elections are held in November, he said they “could be the same or maybe a little bit higher” — an indication that the economic turmoil of the war could linger for months.

• Israel and Lebanon: Israel was not involved in the weekend negotiations and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu avoided mentioning them in an address on Saturday evening as he faces criticism at home over the cease-fire with Iran. Israel has kept up deadly attacks on southern Lebanon, including on Sunday morning, according to Lebanon’s state media. Iran had accused Israel of breaking the cease-fire by continuing to attack in Lebanon, leading Mr. Trump to ask Israel to rein in its assault. The Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the United States are expected to meet in Washington this week for rare direct talks.

• Death tolls: The Human Rights Activists News Agency said at least 1,701 civilians, including 254 children, had been killed in Iran as of Wednesday. Lebanon’s health ministry on Saturday said that 2,020 people had been killed in the latest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, including 357 in a wave of Israeli strikes on Wednesday. In attacks attributed to Iran, at least 32 people have been killed in Gulf nations. At least 22 people had been killed in Israel as of Sunday, as well as 12 Israeli soldiers fighting in Lebanon. The American death toll stands at 13 service members.

President Trump said the cease-fire with Iran was “holding well” and that the blockade he announced earlier on Sunday would go into effect on Monday morning. U.S. Central Command said earlier that it will block all vessels headed in and out of Iranian ports beginning at 10 a.m. Eastern time.

Speaking to reporters, Trump said Iran may yet return to the negotiating table. “I think Iran is in very bad shape,” he said. “I think they’re pretty desperate.” But he claimed not to be bothered either way. “I don’t care if they come back or not,” he said. If they don’t come back, I’m fine.”

President Trump on Sunday night lashed out at Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff, on social media and in a brief exchange with reporters after landing in Washington after a visit to Florida. “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, apparently responding to the religious leader’s rebukes of his policies and rhetoric amid the war with Iran.

The pope on Tuesday condemned the president’s threat to wipe out a “whole civilization” if Iran did not open the Strait of Hormuz ahead of a deadline he had imposed, and he has previously resisted Trump administration officials’ framing of the war in Christian terms. Trump declined to respond to questions from reporters about what prompted his critique of the religious leader.

After weekend peace talks in Pakistan between the United States and Iran ended with no agreement, President Trump on Sunday said the U.S. Navy would impose a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping waterway that Iran has mostly choked off since the war began in late February.

“Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” Mr. Trump said in a post on social media. “At some point, we will reach an ‘ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO IN, ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO OUT’ basis.”

The statement came as traffic in the strait, through which a major portion of the world’s seaborne oil and natural gas passes, has ground to a practical halt for more than a month amid Iranian strikes on commercial vessels in the region.

While Iran has allowed some ships to pass through the waterway — possibly for a fee — it has used control over the strait, including threats that it has been mined, to disrupt the global economy and to pressure the Trump administration.

The United States Central Command, known as CENTCOM, said on Sunday that a blockade would be enforced “impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.”

Here’s what to know about the U.S. plan for a blockade.

How might it be enforced?

American forces will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the strait to and from non-Iranian ports, CENTCOM said. The blockade will begin Monday at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, it said.

Parties at war can exercise the right of “visit and search,” meaning that they can stop and inspect even private vessels in waters that are not neutral and decide whether or not they may pass, said James Kraska, a professor of international maritime law at the U.S. Naval War College and a visiting professor at Harvard Law School.

A U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would mean that any ship that attempts to transit the waterway would have to submit to a search if asked to do so and U.S. forces would be able to determine whether or not to allow it to proceed, he said.

Such a blockade could inflict economic damage on Iran that would undermine its ability to keep fighting over the long term by denying it the ability to export oil and earn revenue. But it could also leave countries that rely on Iranian oil, like China, in a bind, Mr. Kraska said.

But there still may be mines in the strait and Iran maintains the ability to fire missiles and drones, Mr. Kraska noted.

What would a blockade mean for Iran?

A U.S. blockade on Iranian ports would quite likely mean that Iranian vessels, which have been able to transit the Strait of Hormuz amid the war, would no longer be able to do so and that other ships that have been stuck at port or at sea could begin to move supplies in and out through this route.

This would be a reversal of the U.S. approach so far. Even as the United States has been attacking Iran, American officials have taken steps that enabled Iranian oil to flow to limit pressure on energy prices around the world.

Last month, Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, said that the United States was allowing Iranian oil tankers to traverse the strait to keep up global supplies. The United States also temporarily lifted sanctions on Iranian oil at sea, allowing it to be sold to most countries, including the United States, for a month.

Some economic analysts have called on the United States to block the flow of Iranian oil as a means to end its effective control of the strait.

Robin J. Brooks, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has argued that Iran’s dependence on oil exports means it will not be able to afford to keep attacking ships once its own economy takes a hit. On Sunday, he said in a post on social media that a blockade “collapses Iran’s business model.”

But Iranian officials, who have been keenly aware of the pressure on Mr. Trump as a result of spikes in energy prices, appear unconcerned. In a post on social media on Sunday, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament and the country’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, wrote: “Enjoy the current pump figures. With the so-called ‘blockade’, Soon you’ll be nostalgic for $4–$5 gas.”

What would the consequences be for the world?

Normally about 150 vessels transit through the Strait of Hormuz daily. In March, a little more than 150 passed through the waterway all month, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Those that did transit had made arrangements with the Iranian authorities and may have paid a toll or fee for passage, shipping intelligence firms have reported.

The halt in traffic has led to a spike in oil prices. If an American blockade on ships to and from Iran leads to freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the waterway with oil from Persian Gulf countries, it could mean lower prices, though how quickly that could happen is not clear.

Mr. Trump said on Sunday that “any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!”

But much remains unclear. Whether vessel operators will run the risk of transiting the strait at this point could depend on how Iran responds to the blockade. And whether the United States will be able to control vessel passage is also an open question.

After CENTCOM announced that it would not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports, vessel trackers expressed doubts about enforcement, pointing to tricks ships have used, like changing their identification data, to evade notice.

“This will get tricky as a number of Iran-linked tankers make bogus port calls in Saudi Arabia and Iraq with the help of AIS spoofing,” the company Tanker Trackers posted, referring to Automatic Identification Systems. “Good luck with that, CENTCOM.”

A retired Navy admiral, James Stavridis, welcomed the blockade announcement a post on social media on Sunday. “In recent days,” he wrote, “the ONLY people benefiting from Gulf transit were the Iranians,” He said that the United States and its allies “are no worse off than we were after the Iranians started holding the Strait hostage.”

Tanker Trackers, a shipping intelligence company, said on Sunday that a supertanker belonging to the National Iranian Tanker Company had reached India with two million barrels of Iranian crude oil for the first time in seven years, after the United States issued a temporary waiver on sanctions on some Iranian oil sales last month. The arrival of Iranian oil in India came as the U.S. Central Command said it was preparing to impose a blockade on vessels entering and exiting Iranian ports starting on Monday morning.

How much the international benchmark costs

Oil prices rose on Monday after peace talks between the United States and Iran ended without a deal. Hours later, President Trump announced plans to blockade the Strait of Hormuz.

It is not yet clear what that escalation will mean for the fragile cease-fire the countries agreed to last week, leaving no clear path to ending a war that is entering its seventh week. That uncertainty continues to rattle investors eager for a move to unlock the flow of oil and natural gas from the Persian Gulf.

But investors’ concerns seemed assuaged when Mr. Trump told reporters on Monday afternoon that Iran still wanted to achieve a deal “very badly,” leaving open the possibility that the talks with the United States could start again. Mr. Trump’s comments helped drive down oil prices from earlier highs while stock prices ended up on the day.

Oil rises.

• Oil prices surged back above $100 as soon as markets opened on Sunday evening.

• The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, rose more than 7 percent to around $102 a barrel early on Monday, though it later settled at $99.36.

• West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, also rose as high as 7 percent to above $103 a barrel, but the price settled at $99.08.

• Investors and analysts are focused on the continued disruption to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that is a vital trading route for oil and natural gas. As much as one-fifth of the world’s oil supply and substantial amounts of natural gas typically pass through the strait. But few vessels have attempted that trip since the war started out of fear that Iran might attack.

Stocks gain.

• The S&P 500 closed about 1 percent higher on Monday, after rebounding from a small loss earlier in the day. The stock market had stabilized after a fragile cease-fire took hold last week, with the S&P 500 rising 3.6 percent for the week through Friday, its second consecutive week of gains. The index has yet to recover its prewar level.

• Stocks in Asia, where countries import vast quantities of oil and gas, traded lower on Monday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.7 percent and South Korea’s benchmark Kospi fell 0.9 percent.

• Markets across Europe declined but later recovered to end the day with only small losses. The Stoxx 600, a broad index that tracks the region’s largest companies, fell 0.2 percent.

Gasoline prices remain elevated.

• Gas prices were unchanged on Monday, at a national average of about $4.13 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. The increase in prices since the war began has raised the cost of regular gas for drivers 38 percent.

• Gas prices don’t move in lock step with crude, usually trailing increases or drops by a few days.

• Diesel prices have increased more quickly in recent weeks and stood at $5.66 on Sunday, up some 50 percent since the start of the war.

What they are saying: The ‘range of possible outcomes’ remains wide.

• Many investors noted that talks between Iran and the United States have kept hopes of a durable peace deal alive, but uncertainty over what comes next remains. “The range of possible outcomes has not narrowed significantly,” said Peter Tchir, head of macro strategy at Academy Securities. “Anything from a serious deal, to walking away and restarting the attacks seems plausible.”

• Analysts at RBC Capital Markets cautioned that trying to prevent ships from passing through the strait might backfire, prompting Iran to attack more energy assets throughout the Persian Gulf. “It may prove to be a far more challenging undertaking to blockade Iran than Venezuela, and we would anticipate Tehran will increase attacks on regional energy facilities” if Mr. Trump followed through on his blockade threat, the analysts wrote on Sunday.

• “To navigate near-term uncertainty, we continue to advise investors to ensure the resilience of their portfolios by diversifying and hedging,” said Mark Haefele, the chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management.

U.S. forces will begin blockading maritime traffic to and from Iranian ports at 10 a.m. Eastern time Monday, U.S. Central Command announced on Sunday, in what appeared to be a step back from President Trump’s earlier vow to blockade the entire Strait of Hormuz. Trump had declared on social media that the U.S. would be blockading “any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz.” But Central Command said in its statement that U.S. forces “will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.”

Two top Iranian officials directly responded to President Trump’s threat to blockade the Strait of Hormuz on social media on Sunday. Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander who is now a senior adviser to the supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said that Iran had “large, untouched levers” to counter any naval blockade and that the country would not be pressured “with tweets and imaginary plans.” Iran’s top negotiator and the speaker of its Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, separately warned American consumers: “Soon you’ll be nostalgic for $4–$5 gas.”

Israeli soldiers used a tank to ram the vehicles of U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon twice on Sunday, the peacekeeping force said in a statement. The force, known as UNIFIL, said the soldiers had blocked a road used to access peacekeeper positions in southern Lebanon and that they had “continually blocked peacekeepers’ movements” there in recent days.

On two occasions today, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers rammed UNIFIL vehicles with a Merkava tank, in one case causing significant damage. The soldiers had blocked a road in Bayada that is used to access UNIFIL positions.

— UNIFIL (@UNIFIL_) April 12, 2026

Israeli soldiers have also fired “warning shots” in the area and hit UNIFIL vehicles over the past week, UNIFIL said, adding that “in one case, a ‘warning shot’ landed a meter away from a peacekeeper who had dismounted his vehicle.” The peacekeeping force said Israeli soldiers had also destroyed cameras and spray-painted windows at a UNIFIL headquarters. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the episodes.

The statement from the peacekeeping force comes less than a month after three U.N. peacekeepers were killed in southern Lebanon. A preliminary U.N. investigation found that one of the peacekeepers was killed by Israeli tank fire and the other two by an improvised explosive device likely placed by Hezbollah, Reuters reported.

Iranian officials on Sunday emphasized a lack of trust in American negotiators but appeared to leave the door open for further diplomacy after marathon peace talks in Pakistan ended without a deal.

Iran’s top negotiator and the speaker of its Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said in a statement on social media that while Iran had approached the negotiations in good faith, the U.S. team had failed to “gain the trust of the Iranian delegation.”

He pointed to the precedent that the United States had set: Over the past year, it has twice attacked Iran in the middle of negotiations. Still, he indicated that future talks were a possibility, saying that it was now time for Washington “to decide whether it can earn our trust or not.”

The remarks from Mr. Ghalibaf, his first since the talks ended, came after defiant statements from the leader of the U.S. delegation, Vice President JD Vance. Before departing Islamabad, Mr. Vance said that the United States had put out its “final and best offer,” and told reporters that Iran had “chosen not to accept our terms.”

Mr. Vance’s posturing did not go unnoticed. Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was the foreign minister of Iran when the country reached a nuclear deal with the United States in 2015, said on social media that Mr. Vance’s comments reflected the reason the latest round of talks had failed. “The U.S. must learn: you can’t dictate terms to Iran,” he said. But it was “not too late to learn,” he added. “Yet.”

The talks were the highest-level face-to-face meeting between American and Iranian leaders since 1979. The three main sticking points, according to two Iranian officials familiar with the talks, were the Strait of Hormuz, the fate of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, and reparations for the damage caused by six weeks of intense U.S.-Israeli strikes.

Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian president, said on social media that a deal could be reached if Washington “abandons its maximalist approach and respects the rights of the Iranian people.” He earlier told President Vladimir Putin of Russia in a phone call that the United States’ “maximalist approach” was the primary obstacle and that if the U.S. “adheres to international legal frameworks,” a deal would not be far off, according to the Iranian state broadcaster IRIB.

Ali Gholhaki, a conservative analyst close to Iranian officials, said that the United States had also refused to commit to stopping Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon, adding that it seemed “the Americans didn’t come to negotiate.” An Iranian state television report similarly said the United States’ “overreach and unreasonable demands” had stymied the talks.

Still, Iranian officials suggested that they were not closed off to future diplomacy. A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, Esmaeil Baqaei, told Iranian state media that Iran would “continue to work to bring the two views of Americans and Iranians closer together.”

The negotiations had taken place “in the aftermath of a 40-day war and in an ambience of mistrust and skepticism,” Mr. Baqaei said. “Naturally, we should have never expected to reach a deal in one session.”

Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan, Reza Amiri Moghadam, said on social media that the talks were “not an event, but a process.” They had “laid the foundation for a diplomatic process that, if trust and will are strengthened, can create a sustainable framework for the interests of all parties,” he wrote.

President Trump said in an interview on Sunday with Maria Bartiromo of Fox News that the Iranians “haven’t left” the bargaining table. He credited his staggering threat to wipe out Iran’s civilization with bringing them to the table in the first place, and he said he felt that the United States would be getting “everything” it wanted from Iran.

Reporting was contributed by Isabel Kershner, Sanam Mahoozi, Farnaz Fassihi and Katie Rogers.

As officials from Israel and Lebanon are set to meet this week in Washington, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday visited Israeli troops deployed in southern Lebanon, according to a statement posted on social media. The Israeli military has amassed forces from five divisions in southern Lebanon since last month in an operation it said was aimed at distancing the threats posed by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia, from Israeli civilians along the border. “The war continues,” Netanyahu said. He did not address the upcoming talks, which he had announced on Thursday. Rocket and drones launches toward northern Israel continued Sunday afternoon, with more than 17 alerts issued across the region warning of incoming fire.

On Saturday, 12 ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz, according to data from Kpler, a global ship-tracking firm. Nine of those ships were oil and gas tankers, and three were bulk vessels, which are designed to carry dry cargo. It was the highest number of crossings in the strait since the cease-fire was announced. But even that small uptick in traffic, still well below prewar levels, could be throttled once more in the wake of President Trump’s threat to blockade the strait with U.S. forces.

By the end of Saturday, about 40 commercial ships had crossed the strait since the cease-fire’s announcement, according to Kpler’s data.

Playback video of the ship traffic in the Strait of #Hormuz since 8 April, when the ceasifire started, till earlier today (12 April - 9am UTC). Data from @Kpler show more than 40 commercial vessels having crossed the Strait within this timeframe.

— Nikos Pothitakis (@nikospoth) April 12, 2026
Video via @MarineTraffic.
. pic.twitter.com/CJJEmMGHpS

In an announcement carried by Iranian state media, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ naval force claimed the Strait of Hormuz remains open for non-military vessels passing under what it described as “special regulations,” but said any military vessel trying to approach the strait “under any title or pretext” would be considered a cease-fire violation and would meet with a “severe response.”

Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, declined to say what assurances Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made to President Trump about Lebanon, where Iran says Israeli air strikes are violating the current U.S. cease-fire agreement with Tehran. Speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Mr. Leiter said that Israel supports and will be “in tandem with the president’s efforts.”

President Trump said on Sunday that the U.S. military would begin destroying underwater mines that Iran had placed in the Strait of Hormuz. This illustrated guide shows the painstaking process of clearing naval mines, and how Iran’s mining arsenal works:

Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, questioned President Trump’s declared intention to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. “I don’t understand how blockading the strait is somehow going to push the Iranians into opening it,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I don’t see the connection there.”

Warner said that all U.S. intelligence he has seen shows that Iran’s current leaders are “even more radical” than their predecessors who were killed during the war.

Asked about the economy, President Trump said that oil and gas price increases had not been as bad as he expected before starting the war. Trump said that he felt the U.S. economy was strong enough to withstand the effects of the war and that he told his economic advisers: “I’m sorry, fellas, we’re in great shape. We have to go and take a little journey to Iran, and we have to stop them from having a nuclear weapon.” Asked if gas and oil prices might be lower by the midterm elections, Trump said prices “could be the same or maybe a little bit higher,” then started complaining again about the news media.

Maria Bartiromo, the Fox News host, asked President Trump about a social media post last week in which he issued a stunning threat to wipe out the Iranian civilization. “I’m fine with it,” he said. “It brought them to the table.” Then he compared his post to the threats some Iranians have made about Americans. “They’re allowed to say ‘death to America, death to this,’” Trump said. “Let me tell you that statement got them to the bargaining table and they haven’t left.”

Trump said he predicts the U.S. will get “everything” it wants from Tehran in the future.

In an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News, President Trump said that negotiations between the U.S. and Iranians got to a “friendly” place but were ultimately scuttled by Tehran’s refusal to give up its nuclear program.

Trump said the decision to blockade the Strait of Hormuz was meant to prevent Iran from selling its own oil. “We’re not going to let Iran make money by selling oil to people that they like,” he said.

Trump added that the United Kingdom and other countries would be sending vessels to the strait to remove mines that might have been placed in the water. Britain has not publicly confirmed that it is sending vessels to the strait, although it has previously offered to help clear mines.

The five-week war with Iran has cost Israel an estimated $11.5 billion, the Israeli finance ministry said on Sunday, providing the first evaluation of the price tag Israelis will pay for the conflict. Most of the money — about $7.2 billion — went to fund military operations, such as munitions and paying the many reserve soldiers who were called up, the ministry said. The rest went to compensating people for damaged buildings, missed days of work and helping local governments provide better shelters, among other costs.

Sultan Al Jaber, the minister of industry and advanced technology for the United Arab Emirates and the managing director of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, said the Strait of Hormuz “has never been Iran’s to close or restrict.” He added in a social media post that the attempt to block shipping is not a regional issue, but a global threat “to the energy, food and health security of every nation.” It is a threat, he said, that the world cannot afford and must not allow.

Earlier Sunday, Ali Akbar Velayati, an advisor to Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, wrote a defiant post on social media suggesting that Iran would not budge on its control of the Strait of Hormuz. He said “the key” to the crucial waterway “is firmly in our hands.”

President Trump accused the Iranians of “world extortion” for closing the strait, and said that the United States Navy would begin its own blockade of the route. His comments signaled an escalation in naval activity around the strait. He said that the Navy would begin stopping ships that had paid a toll to the Iranians for usage of the strait, and that the military would begin destroying underwater mines placed in the waters. “Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!” Trump said.

Israel launched new attacks on Lebanon on Sunday after the United States and Iran failed to reach a quick peace deal over the weekend.

Last week, President Trump asked Israel to scale back its attacks on Lebanon. The fighting in recent days, which Israel says is targeting the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, appears to be focused on southern Lebanon; Israel has not bombed the capital, Beirut, since an onslaught on Wednesday.

Israeli and Lebanese officials plan to meet for rare talks in Washington this coming week.

On Sunday, two Israeli attacks on towns in southern Lebanon killed at least 11 people, according to Lebanon’s official news agency.

Also on Sunday, the Israeli military said its ground forces had carried out a raid on what it described as a Hezbollah infrastructure site in southern Lebanon and that they had killed an armed militant in close combat.

Local media in Israel and Lebanon reported fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in and around the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil. The military said that, in recent days, its ground forces had killed more than 20 Hezbollah militants who had been operating out of a hospital compound in the town.

The Lebanese ministry of health denied Israel’s claims about the hospital in Bint Jbeil, saying that Israel had attacked civilians and medical crews.

Hezbollah issued a series of statements on Sunday saying that it had attacked Israeli military targets in Bint Jbeil and nearby villages, and that it had fired rockets, artillery and drones into northern Israel over the weekend.

The Israeli military said that it had struck a rocket launcher in southern Lebanon overnight that was poised to fire toward Israel.

Israel’s ongoing invasion of Lebanon has been a source of tension in the cease-fire with Iran. Iran had demanded that the truce extend to Lebanon as well. But Israel and the United States said it was not part of their agreement.

Hours after the cease-fire was announced, Israel bombarded Beirut and other parts of Lebanon on Wednesday. That wave of Israeli strikes killed more than 300 people, according to the Lebanese authorities. It was the deadliest day of fighting since Hezbollah joined the fray in early March by firing rockets at Israel in solidarity with Tehran. Israeli officials said that about 200 of those killed in Lebanon on Wednesday belonged to Hezbollah, without providing any evidence.

One person familiar with Israeli policy decisions said on Sunday that Israel’s ongoing campaign was focused on southern Lebanon, and it was holding back from targeting Beirut and the city’s outskirts. The Israeli military declined to comment.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday night that Israel was “still active” on the Lebanese front.

“We are fighting Hezbollah and we are determined, I am determined, to return security to the residents” of northern Israel, he said.

On Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu visited the strip of southern Lebanon now occupied by Israeli forces together with his defense minister, Israel Katz; the military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir; and other military officials.

“There is more to do,” Mr. Netanyahu said after the visit.

He added that the preparatory talks expected between Israel and Lebanon would focus on the disarmament of Hezbollah and efforts to reach a lasting peace between the two countries. The Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the United States are expected to meet in Washington on Tuesday.

Differences have already emerged over the scope of that meeting.

The office of President Joseph Aoun of Lebanon said on Friday that the parties agreed to discuss a cease-fire announcement and the setting of a date for the start of negotiations between Lebanon and Israel under U.S. auspices.

Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, said Israel had “agreed to begin formal peace negotiations this coming Tuesday,” but that it “refused to discuss a cease-fire” with Hezbollah.

The Israeli authorities appear to be bracing for the possibility of more fighting and Hezbollah fire in the lead-up to the meeting planned for Tuesday. Restrictions limiting public gatherings were tightened in the northern border areas of Israel, and a decision to reopen schools there on Sunday was reversed.

Hwaida Saad and Reham Mourshed contributed reporting.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel sought to mollify criticism at home that the war with Iran failed to achieve its goals in a televised address on Saturday, even as he pointedly avoided discussing the weekend negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.

Last week, President Trump announced a two-week cease-fire in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran to discuss a diplomatic settlement. In U.S.-Iran talks on Saturday in Pakistan, which failed to yield an immediate end to the war, Iran’s leaders showed little sign of bending on U.S. demands to open the strategic Strait of Hormuz waterway and to rein in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.

Mr. Netanyahu has openly called for the downfall of Iran’s authoritarian clerical rulers.

In a 13-minute address on Saturday night, Mr. Netanyahu told the Israeli public that “the battle is not yet over,” without elaborating. He then argued that Israel had already achieved “historic accomplishments” in the fighting.

Vice President JD Vance left the Pakistani capital of Islamabad at around dawn local time on Sunday without a breakthrough in talks with Iranian negotiators. Before leaving, he told reporters that the United States was still seeking assurances that Iran would not “seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon.”

Some of Mr. Netanyahu’s allies have said that Mr. Vance’s statement indicated that the United States and Israel were closely aligned on their conditions for a cease-fire.

“The American insistence on preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons proves the complete coordination between the countries,” Miki Zohar, a government minister who belongs to Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, wrote on social media.

Opinion polls show many Israelis opposed the cease-fire with Iran, which they saw as imposed by Mr. Trump against Israel’s wishes. Opponents of Mr. Netanyahu argued that he failed to achieve the campaign’s main goals — such as destroying Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Former Israeli security officials say that the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, which lasted more than a month, made impressive tactical achievements. But some were skeptical that the war dealt a decisive strategic blow to Iran.

Iran’s ruling system, while battered, is still very much in control, and the country retains large stockpiles of enriched uranium, which it could someday use to build a nuclear weapon.

In his remarks on Saturday night, Mr. Netanyahu ticked off a list of top Iranian leaders killed in the U.S.-Israeli air campaign, including the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Gesturing at a map of the Middle East, he noted the blows Israel had dealt to Iran’s network of proxy militias like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon over the past two and a half years. Israel has continued to strike targets in Lebanon, which it says is not included in the cease-fire.

“There are massive achievements here.” Mr. Netanyahu said of the war in Iran. “This is a historic change. We crushed the nuclear program. We crushed the missiles, and we crushed the regime.”

American intelligence, however, has cast doubt on the notion that Iran’s missile capabilities have been badly damaged. U.S. intelligence reports have indicated that Iran has been quickly digging up underground missile storage sites buried by American or Israeli attacks.

Iranian forces managed to fire volleys of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel and across parts of the Middle East over more than a month of war, depleting supplies of vital interceptors in a number of countries on the receiving end.

When talks between the United States and Iran ended just before dawn on Sunday morning without a permanent cease-fire, the Americans said they had made their final best offer and that Iran had not accepted.

“We’ve made very clear what our red lines are, what things we’re willing to accommodate them on, and what things we’re not willing to accommodate them on,” Vice President JD Vance said after 21 hours of meetings with top Iranian officials at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Mr. Vance did not say what those red lines were. In the days leading up to the talks, both sides had issued public statements suggesting they remained far apart on several critical issues. They did not even agree on whether the two-week truce they reached on Tuesday applied to fighting in Lebanon, a dispute that nearly derailed the meeting.

By early Sunday, three main sticking points remained, according to two Iranian officials familiar with the talks: the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz; the fate of nearly 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium; and Iran’s demand that about $27 billion in frozen revenues held abroad be released.

The United States had demanded that Iran immediately reopen the strait to all maritime traffic. But Iran refused to relinquish leverage over the critical choke point for oil tankers, saying it would do so only after a final peace deal, according to the two Iranian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic negotiations.

Iran also sought reparations for damage from six weeks of airstrikes and asked for frozen oil revenues held in Iraq, Luxembourg, Bahrain, Japan, Qatar, Turkey and Germany to be released for reconstruction, the officials said. The Americans rejected those requests.

Another point of contention was President Trump’s demand that Iran hand over or sell its entire stockpile of near-bomb-grade enriched uranium. Iran made a counterproposal, but the sides were unable to reach a compromise, the officials said.

“When two serious teams with an intention for a deal come to the table, it has to be a win-win for both. It is unrealistic to think we can come out of this without making any serious concessions; the same holds true for the Americans,” said Mehdi Rahmati, an analyst in Tehran, in a telephone interview.

Even though the meetings ended without an agreement, the fact that they took place at all was a sign of progress. Just six weeks earlier, the United States and Israel had killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in an airstrike, and Iranian officials vowed to avenge his death. At the time, the prospect of any high-level meeting between Iranian and American officials seemed remote.

Still, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the head of Iran’s Parliament and an influential military commander, led the Iranian delegation and met face to face with Mr. Vance. The two men shook hands, and the negotiations were described as cordial and calm, the two senior Iranian officials familiar with the talks said. While no diplomatic breakthrough was reached, a taboo — shaped by decades of hostility, sharp rhetoric and chants in Iran of “death to America” — was broken.

The meeting between Mr. Vance and Mr. Ghalibaf was the highest-level face-to-face engagement between representatives of Iran and the United States since diplomatic relations were severed in 1979 after the Islamic Revolution. Shortly afterward, Iran’s new leaders stormed the U.S. Embassy and took American diplomats hostage.

Vali Nasr, a professor and Iran expert at Johns Hopkins University, said these were “the most serious and sustained direct talks between the U.S. and Iran,” and that they reflected the intentions of both sides to end the war.

Vice President JD Vance’s failure to win the concessions the United States sought from Iran in a single, marathon negotiating session over its nuclear program was no surprise.

The failure leaves the Trump administration facing several unpalatable options: A lengthy negotiation with Tehran over the future of its nuclear program, or a resumption of a war that has already created the largest energy disruption in modern times, and the prospect of a long struggle over who controls the Strait of Hormuz.

White House officials said they would defer to President Trump, who traveled to Florida for the weekend to attend an Ultimate Fighting Championship match, to announce the administration’s next move. But each of those paths carries significant strategic and political downsides.

Mr. Vance said little about what took place during more than 21 hours of negotiations, suggesting he had handed the Iranians a take-it-or-leave-it proposal to forever terminate their nuclear program, and they left it.

“We’ve made very clear what our red lines are,” Mr. Vance told reporters, “what things we’re willing to accommodate them on.” He added, “They have chosen not to accept our terms.”

In that respect, this negotiation appears to have differed little from the one that ended in deadlock in Geneva in late February, leading Mr. Trump to order what became 38 days of missile and bombing attacks across Iran, aimed at its missile stockpiles, its military bases and the industrial base inside Iran that produces new weaponry.

But Mr. Trump’s bet, one he described several times over the past month, was that Iran would change its mind once faced with a huge demonstration of American military prowess, with more than 13,000 targets hit, according to the Pentagon. The Iranians, for their part, were determined to show that no amount of American ordnance would force them to give way.

“The heavy loss of our great elders, dear ones, and fellow countrymen has made our response to pursue the Iranian nation’s interests and rights firmer than ever before,” the Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement as Mr. Vance headed to a military airfield to leave for home, empty-handed for now.

Perhaps that will change. But the administration’s fear of being sucked into a complex, lengthy conversation with Iran is palpable. Mr. Trump believes that he emerged the victor of the conflict, and therefore, as the special envoy Steve Witkoff puts it, Iran should simply “capitulate.”

That is not how it happened in the past. The last major agreement between Tehran and Washington, reached during the Obama administration, took two years to negotiate. And it was full of compromises, including allowing Iran to retain a small amount of its nuclear stockpile, and gradually lifting the restrictions on its nuclear activities until 2030, when Iran would be permitted to conduct any nuclear activity permissible under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

But the deadlock Mr. Vance ran into was essentially the same as the ones that derailed negotiations in late February, and prompted Mr. Trump to order the attack. (That negotiation was run by Mr. Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who were present in Islamabad during the more than 20 hours of negotiations.)

Back then, the Iranians offered to “suspend” their nuclear operations for a few years, but not to give up their stockpiles of near-bomb-grade uranium or permanently surrender the capability to enrich uranium on their own soil. To the Iranians, that is their right as a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which commits them to never making a nuclear weapon. To the Americans, it is what Mr. Witkoff called “a tell” that Iran always wants a ready option to build a nuclear weapon, even if it never exercises that option.

Thirty-eight days of war appear to have hardened that view, not loosened it.

Mr. Trump’s chief leverage now comes in his ability to threaten to resume major combat operations. After all, the fragile two-week cease-fire ends on April 21. But while the threat of resuming combat operations may be invoked in coming days, it is not a particularly viable political choice for Mr. Trump — and the Iranians know it.

Mr. Trump declared the cease-fire last week in large part to stem the pain from the loss of 20 percent of the world’s oil supplies, which was sending the price of gasoline soaring, and creating shortages of fertilizer and, among other critical supplies, helium for the production of semiconductors. Markets rose on the prospect of an agreement, even an incomplete or unsatisfactory one. Should the war resume, the markets would most likely decline, the shortages would worsen and inflation — already up to 3.3 percent — would almost inevitably rise.

And that leaves the most urgent issue: the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians, in their own description of the meeting, put it first among their list of issues discussed. “In the past 24 hours, discussions were held on various dimensions of the main topics, including the Strait of Hormuz, the nuclear issue, war reparations, lifting of sanctions and the complete end to the war against Iran,” the Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement.

It was a notable list, since the closing of the strait was not an issue until after the war started and the Iranians decided to make use of their most potent weapon of economic chaos.

Now control of the waterway is wrapped in Iran’s other demands, including that the United States pay for damage done to Iran in the course of the bombing and missile strikes, and that it lift more than two decades of sanctions against the country. The United States has rejected the first idea, and said the second could happen only slowly, as the Iranians put in place their part of a deal.

What Mr. Vance’s trip made clear is that both sides think they emerged as the victor of the first round: the United States by dropping so much ordnance on Iran, the Iranians by surviving. Neither seems in the mood for compromise.