Iran on Thursday said that massive Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon made peace talks meaningless, and there was no sign Tehran lifted its blockade on the Strait of Hormuz as required under the day-old truce with the US and Israel.

Israel and the US have denied that the two-week ceasefire that was announced Wednesday includes Lebanon, despite statements to the contrary by mediator Pakistan and calls by numerous countries, including European allies, to extend the ceasefire to Lebanon.

Unprecedented Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Wednesday killed over 200 people, according to local authorities, with Israel claiming many of those killed were members of Hezbollah, part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” network of regional proxies.

Writing on X, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said the strikes “signal deception and non-compliance” with the ceasefire, and render negotiations “meaningless.”

“Our hands remain on the trigger. Iran will never forsake its Lebanese brothers and sisters,” he added.

Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on X that “Lebanon and the entire Resistance Axis, as Iran’s allies, form an inseparable part of the ceasefire.”

“Ceasefire violations carry explicit costs and STRONG responses,” said Ghalibaf.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had “publicly and clearly stressed the Lebanon issue,” Ghalibaf noted, adding that “there is no room for denial or backtracking.”

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who declared a day of mourning on Thursday following the Israeli strikes, said he praised Pakistan’s mediation efforts in a phone call with Sharif, and asked him to “confirm that the ceasefire includes Lebanon to prevent a recurrence of the Israeli attacks witnessed yesterday.”

Following the phone call, Sharif condemned Israel’s “ongoing aggression against Lebanon,” ahead of expected US-Iran ceasefire talks in Islamabad on Saturday.

“The prime minister said that Pakistan was engaged in sincere efforts for regional peace and it was in this spirit that the peace talks between Iran and the US were being convened,” Sharif’s office added in a statement.

Meanwhile, a senior White House official cited by NBC News said US President Donald Trump had asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call on Wednesday to scale back attacks on Lebanon to prevent the collapse of the ceasefire. US Vice President JD Vance also claimed on Wednesday that Israel had agreed to “check itself” in Lebanon.

Israel has carried out massive airstrikes and pushed troops farther into Lebanon after Hezbollah, on March 2, launched its first rocket attack on Israel since the November 2024 ceasefire deal. The agreement had ended over a year of conflict initiated by Hezbollah, a day after fellow Iran-backed group Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, sparking the war in Gaza.

Hezbollah has said its renewed attacks were in response both to the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei at the start of the US-Israeli bombing campaign on February 28, and to Israel’s continued attacks and presence in Lebanon since the ceasefire deal.

Iran rejects nuclear restrictions, doesn’t reopen Hormuz

Islamabad is expected to host US-Iran peace talks on Saturday. Ahead of the talks, Sharif and Pakistani army chief Asim Munir, who also helped mediate, said they “appreciated the restraint demonstrated by all sides.”

The US and Israel demand that Iran dismantle its nuclear program, restrict its ballistic missile program, relinquish control of the Strait of Hormuz and end its support for terrorist proxies.

However, the head of Iran’s nuclear energy agency on Thursday ruled out any restrictions on the country’s enrichment of uranium, saying the demand “will not come true.”

“The claims and demands of our enemies to restrict Iran’s enrichment program are merely wishes that will be buried,” Mohammad Eslami was quoted as saying by Iran’s ISNA news agency. “All the conspiracies and actions of our enemies, including this brutal war, have yielded no results. Now they seek to achieve something through negotiations.”

Nor did it appear that Iran had reopened the Strait of Hormuz, even though Trump described such a move as the condition for the two-week halt in the bombing campaign in Iran. The strait carries roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil shipments, as well as other important exports, including fertilizer. Its closure has sent energy prices soaring worldwide and stoked fears of food insecurity.

On Thursday, data from shipping trackers Kpler, Lloyd’s List Intelligence and Signal Ocean indicated that just one oil product tanker and five separate dry bulk carriers had sailed through the strait over the preceding day, despite the ceasefire. That was just a fraction of the 140 vessels that traversed the strait daily on average, according to market estimates.

An unnamed senior Iranian source was cited by Russia’s state news agency TASS on Thursday as saying Iran would let no more than 15 vessels a day pass through the strait under the ceasefire agreement.

Both Iran and the US have suggested Tehran could start collecting a fee from ships traveling through the strait.

The European Union said Thursday that freedom of navigation had to be ensured in the strait, with no payment of any kind.

“International law provides for the freedom of navigation, which means… basically no payment or toll whatsoever,” European Commission spokesman Anouar El Anouni told a press conference in Brussels. “Freedom of navigation is a public good and needs to be ensured.”

Sultan Al Jaber, the CEO of United Arab Emirates state oil giant ADNOC, wrote on social media that “Iran has made clear — through both its statements and actions — that passage is subject to permission, conditions and political leverage.

“That is not freedom of navigation. That is coercion,” wrote Jaber, who is also UAE minister of industry and advanced technology. “Energy producers must be able to swiftly and safely restore production at scale. At ADNOC, we have loaded cargoes and we will expand production within the constraints of the damage we have suffered.”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has briefed some capitals that Trump wants concrete commitments within the next few days for help securing the Strait of Hormuz, three European diplomats told Reuters on Thursday.

Britain is leading a group of around 40 countries seeking to come up with a military and diplomatic plan to reopen and safeguard Hormuz, but there is little indication it will yield any near-term breakthrough. French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that about 15 countries were planning to facilitate ‌the resumption of traffic through the strait.

France’s foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Thursday that Hormuz would not be able to fully reopen until there was a lasting agreement between the US and Iran.

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