Iran on Monday rejected the newest ceasefire proposal and as an alternative said it wants a everlasting end to the war, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s ultimatum loomed inside hours.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said Tehran had conveyed its response through Pakistan, a key mediator.
“We won’t merely accept a ceasefire,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press. “We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again.”
Trump wants Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz or see its power plants and bridges attacked. Ferdousi Pour said Iranian and Omani officials were working on a mechanism for administrating the shipping chokepoint.
The rejection got here as Israel struck a key petrochemical plant in the huge South Pars natural gas field and killed two paramilitary Revolutionary Guard commanders.
The gas field attack geared toward eliminating a significant income for Iran, Israel said. The sector is critical to electricity production, however the strike seemed to be separate from Trump’s threats to focus on power plants and bridges if Tehran doesn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping traffic by Monday night Washington time.
Iran’s grip on the strait has caused oil prices to surge and shaken the world economy.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz called the plant Iran’s largest petrochemical facility. The gas field shared with Qatar is the world’s largest. Iranian state media blamed the U.S. and Israel for the attack.
The White House didn’t immediately comment, though Trump was set to talk to journalists Monday afternoon in his first public appearance since Wednesday. He had been relatively quiet in the course of the rescue of downed U.S. aviators in Iran.
After Israel’s attack on South Pars in March, Trump said Israel wouldn’t attack it again but warned that if Iran continued striking Qatar’s energy infrastructure, america would “massively blow up” the sector.
Israel threatens Iranian officials as mediators try to purchase time
Egyptian, Pakistani and Turkish mediators have sent Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff a proposal calling for a 45-day ceasefire and the reopening of the strait, two Mideast officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to debate the private negotiations.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei earlier told journalists that messages were being exchanged with mediators but “negotiations are entirely incompatible with ultimatums, crimes and threats of war crimes.”
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In Islamabad, two senior officials said Pakistan’s ceasefire efforts are at a complicated stage but “several spoilers and detractors” are attempting to sow confusion. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk publicly in regards to the talks.
Meanwhile, explosions boomed in Tehran and low-flying jets might be heard for hours.
Amongst those killed was the pinnacle of intelligence for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi, in response to Iranian state media and Israel’s defense minister. Israel said it also killed the leader of the Revolutionary Guard’s undercover unit in its expeditionary Quds Force, Asghar Bakeri.
Israel’s defense minister vowed to maintain targeting top-ranking officials. “We’ll proceed to hunt them down one after the other,” Katz said.
Israel’s military later said it struck three Tehran airports overnight — Bahram, Mehrabad and Azmayesh — hitting dozens of helicopters and aircraft it said belonged to the Iranian Air Force.
A Tehran resident said “consistently there may be the sound of bombs, air defenses, drones,” speaking on condition of anonymity for her safety. No less than one recent attack hit near her home, waking her, she said.
Individually, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia activated air defenses to intercept Iranian missiles and drones. Tehran has kept up pressure on Gulf neighbors, which has included strikes against infrastructure like oil fields. In Israel, Iranian missiles hit the northern city of Haifa, where 4 people from one family were found dead within the rubble of a residential constructing.
Oil prices unsettled as pressure grows
Iran’s attacks on regional energy infrastructure and its hold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped in peacetime, have sent global energy prices soaring.
Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose to $109 in early Monday spot trading, about 50% higher than when the war began, then wavered. U.S. stocks were mostly holding regular.
Under pressure at home as consumers worry, Trump has warned Iran that if no deal is reached to reopen the strait, the U.S. would hit power plants and other infrastructure and set the country “back to the stone ages.”
“Tuesday will likely be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in a single,” he threatened Sunday.
Trump has given multiple deadlines to Iran and the could expire Monday night Washington time — though he also posted: “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!” without elaborating.
Former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayatir urged Arab countries to discourage Trump from striking power plants, warning on social media that all the region would go “dark” if that happens.
Following Trump’s expletive-laced post Sunday, Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf called threats of targeting Iran’s infrastructure “reckless.”
Iran has let some vessels through the strait for the reason that war began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Feb. 28, but none belong to those countries or ones perceived as helping them. Some have paid Iran for passage however the flow of traffic is down greater than 90% over the identical period last 12 months.
Airstrikes kill greater than 25 across Iran
Thick smoke rose near Tehran’s Azadi Square after an airstrike hit the grounds of the Sharif University of Technology. Multiple countries have sanctioned the university for its work with the military, particularly on Iran’s ballistic missile program.
Araghchi called university “the MIT of Iran,” posting on social media that “Aggressors will see our might.”
Iranian media reported damage to buildings and a natural gas distribution site next to campus. The university is empty because the war has forced all schools into online classes.
A strike near Eslamshar, southwest of Tehran, killed at the very least 15 people, authorities said. Five were killed in a residential area in Qom, and 6 were killed in strikes on other cities, the state-run IRAN every day newspaper reported. Three people were killed at a house in Tehran, state television reported.
In Lebanon, where Israel has launched air attacks and a ground invasion that it says goal the Iran-linked Hezbollah militia, an airstrike hit an apartment in Ain Saadeh, a predominately Christian town east of Beirut. It killed an official within the Lebanese Forces, a Christian political party strongly against Hezbollah, his wife and one other woman.
“We had at all times felt secure here,” family friend Nadine Naameh said.
Greater than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran for the reason that war began, but the federal government has not updated the toll for days.
Greater than 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon and greater than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there.
In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, greater than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.
Weissert reported from Washington and Magdy from Cairo. Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Isabel DeBre in Ain Saadeh, Lebanon, contributed to this story.