Mideast Live Updates: Strait of Hormuz Re-emerges as Point of Tension After Iran Says It’s Closed

Mideast Live Updates: Strait of Hormuz Re-emerges as Point of Tension After Iran Says It’s Closed

 

Iran’s military command said it had closed the waterway over the continued fighting in Lebanon. But the U.S. military said traffic continued to flow. Still, the next phase of talks between Washington and Tehran appeared ready to start on Sunday.

 

Abdi Latif Dahir Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Alan Yuhas

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/06/20/world/iran-trump-israel-lebanon

 

Here’s the latest.

The status of the Strait of Hormuz was thrown into confusion on Saturday, as Iran’s military said that it had again closed the critical waterway to maritime traffic and the U.S. military said ships were still passing through it, leaving a key element of the preliminary U.S.-Iran peace deal in limbo.

 

The Iranian military, justifying its action, accused the United States of breaching its commitments in the agreement by failing to rein in hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group, which exchanged fire again on Saturday. The naval arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps warned that ships that approached the strait would put their own security at risk.

 

But Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, later said: “Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz. Traffic continues to flow, and U.S. forces are monitoring the situation to ensure this remains the case.”

 

Fifty-five commercial ships traveled through the strait on Saturday, according to the U.S. Central Command, the largest number of ships in a single day since early in the war, though still far below the 130 daily prewar average. It was not clear whether traffic had changed after Iran’s warnings.

 

Despite the fighting in Lebanon and the renewed Iranian threats to shipping, the next stage of U.S.-Iran talks appeared ready to start. Pakistan, which has served as an intermediary in talks, said on Saturday that “technical talks” would begin Sunday in Switzerland.

 

President Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, are already in Switzerland and ready to negotiate, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on Saturday. A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry said that an Iranian delegation was on its way.

 

The war in Lebanon between a U.S. ally, Israel, and an Iranian one, Hezbollah, has threatened to upend the fragile agreement. The first paragraph of the initial agreement calls for a cease-fire on all fronts, including Lebanon, but neither Israel nor Hezbollah have signed on to the pact. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has indicated that he is not bound by the agreement, drawing rebukes from the White House.

 

On Friday, Israel and Hezbollah had reached a new cease-fire, diplomats and officials said, but that seemed to evaporate on Saturday. Lebanese state media reported Israeli airstrikes on towns and cities in southern Lebanon, and the country’s civil defense agency reported at least 16 people were killed.

 

The Israeli military said that Hezbollah had fired more than 50 projectiles at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon overnight, prompting Israeli strikes on what the military described as Hezbollah targets in the region.

 

In a statement on Saturday, Hezbollah maintained it was adhering to the cease-fire, but acknowledged its fighters had ambushed Israeli infantry attempting to advance overnight on a strategic ridge overlooking the city of Nabatieh, about 45 miles south of Beirut.

 

Here’s what else we’re covering.

 

Lebanon strikes: The diplomatic breakdown on Friday was the second time in recent weeks that the conflict in Lebanon has upended talks between the United States and Iran.

 

Supreme leader: Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, distanced himself from the agreement with the United States.

 

Economic repercussions: If the deal holds, billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets could be released.