Iran’s government flatly denied Wednesday that President Masoud Pezeshkian had sought a truce with Washington, after President Donald Trump publicly claimed the Iranian leader had requested a ceasefire — a dispute that unfolded even as both countries continued exchanging strikes.
Trump stated the claim on Truth Social, but made clear the US had no intention of standing down regardless. “The United States will consider a ceasefire when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!” he wrote.
Tehran rejected the characterization outright. Iranian officials said no such request had been made, and the country’s Revolutionary Guards underscored the point by announcing a fresh wave of missile and drone attacks targeting Israeli cities and US military bases across the Gulf.
Pezeshkian had previously said Iran possessed the “necessary will” for a ceasefire — but conditioned it on guarantees that hostilities would not resume. On Wednesday, he directed remarks at the American public, questioning whether the war was genuinely putting “America First” and accusing Washington of war crimes and of acting under Israeli influence.
The competing claims came hours before Trump’s scheduled 9:00 pm televised address — his first since US-Israeli strikes on February 28 ignited the war. His posture has shifted repeatedly throughout the conflict. A day earlier, he suggested the fighting could be over in “two weeks, maybe three.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed to the country’s “enemies.” One-fifth of global oil normally transits the narrow waterway, and its effective closure has driven energy prices sharply higher. US gasoline prices topped $4 per gallon for the first time in four years, European inflation spiked, and governments began rolling out economic support measures. In Toulouse, truck driver Nicolas Barthes joined a fuel-price protest, saying his diesel costs had climbed €15,000 in a single month. “We’re not managing to pass all of that on,” he said.
Iranian forces said their latest strikes hit Tel Aviv and Eilat as well as US installations in Bahrain and Kuwait. The Guards also confirmed hitting a tanker in the Gulf they identified as Israeli-owned; a British maritime security agency placed the strike off Qatar and reported damage but no casualties. Kuwait’s international airport sustained a large fire, Bahrain reported a fire at a business facility, and Saudi Arabia said it intercepted several drones. A Bangladeshi national was killed by shrapnel from an intercepted drone in the UAE.
AFP journalists reported massive explosions in Tehran on Wednesday, including near the former US embassy. Iranian media said a passenger airport in Isfahan province and steel complexes elsewhere in the country were damaged in strikes. Former foreign minister Kamal Kharazi was reported seriously wounded in an attack that also killed his wife.
Israel confirmed striking Tehran and said a missile attack Wednesday morning wounded 14 people, including an 11-year-old girl. As Passover began at sunset, air-raid sirens sounded repeatedly across the Tel Aviv area. In Lebanon, the health ministry said Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,300 people since fighting with Hezbollah erupted March 2, with seven more killed Wednesday in strikes near south Beirut.
Thousands gathered in the Iranian capital for the funeral of the Guards’ naval commander, killed in an Israeli airstrike. “We will resist until the end,” said Moussa Nowruzi, a 57-year-old mourner. Supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, absent from public view since his father was killed on the war’s first day, said “the cruel and ruthless American and Zionist enemy knows no human, moral or vital limits.”
Near Erbil in Iraq, truck driver Waad Abdulrazaq described the grinding toll of the conflict. “Every day, we hear the sound of drones. We hear them in the morning, and we hear them at night. We can no longer sleep or live in peace,” he said.
Trump’s ceasefire claim — and Tehran’s swift denial — leaves the diplomatic path forward no clearer, even as markets responded to his earlier timeline remarks with cautious optimism, oil prices dipping and stocks rallying across Europe, Asia, and the US.
