Trump extends deadline for Iran to open strait of Hormuz by 10 days | US-Israel war on Iran

After saying that the talks were “going very well”, Donald Trump extended the deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz by 10 days until April 6.

The President made the following statement in a social media post on Thursday: Trump said on the Truth Social platform: “Per the request of the Government of Iran, please allow this statement to represent that I am pausing Power Plant demolition for 10 days until 8:00 PM on Monday, April 6, 2026.”

“Talks are ongoing and going very well, despite inaccurate statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media and others.”

Previously, the US president had called on Iranian leaders to negotiate an end to the nearly month-long war, otherwise they would face new assassinations of senior officials amid intense actions by the US and Israel.

The threat came as Israel said it “blown up and eliminated” the Revolutionary Guard’s naval commander Alireza Tangsiri and several of his senior officers in an attack on Iran’s Bandar Abbas port.

Israeli or US warplanes have also reportedly launched heavy attacks around Iran’s Isfahan, which hosts a major air base and other military facilities, as well as one of the nuclear sites bombed by the US during the 12-day war in June.

Iran vehemently denied “begging for a deal” as Trump claimed and continued retaliatory strikes across a wide swath of the Middle East on Thursday.

While Israel’s air defenses were trying to shoot down incoming missiles, loud explosions were reported in Tel Aviv, Israel’s central city Modi’in and Jerusalem throughout the day. Iran’s attacks in the Gulf were also stopped.

Trump’s new threat was among a series of statements the US president made in Washington and on social media on Thursday; Trump again criticized NATO allies, describing Iran as “great negotiators” but “bad warriors” and repeating his claim that the war he launched last month had already been won.

“They now have a chance to permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions and embark on a new path,” Trump said at a cabinet meeting at the White House. “We’ll see if they want to do it. If they don’t, we’ll be their worst nightmare. In the meantime, we’ll keep blowing them up.”

Trump later added: “They want to make a deal. The reason they want to make a deal is because they just got beat up.”

He claimed that Tehran allowed 10 oil tankers, including Pakistan-flagged ships, to pass through the Strait of Hormuz as a sign of goodwill in negotiations.

Since the war began with an Israeli airstrike that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dozens of senior Iranian security and military officials have been killed by the United States and Israel, as well as political leaders such as Ali Larijani, senior chairman of the national security council. It is thought that the new religious leader Mojtaba Khamenei was probably seriously injured in the attack in which his father was killed.

Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, said Thursday that Tangsiri’s killing put Iran’s navy on a path of “irreversible decline” and that the United States would continue to strike naval targets. Israeli defense minister Israel Katz said Tangsiri was “directly responsible for the terrorist operation aimed at mining and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic.”

In fact, Iran closed the strait, a critical waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas passes, to almost all shipping in the early days of the conflict. The blockade caused oil prices to soar, hitting global stock markets and threatening a global economic crisis.

While the United States claims to have destroyed most of Iran’s naval forces, Tehran has both smaller boats capable of laying mines and land-launched anti-ship cruise missiles. Both weapons could make the strait impassable for shipping.

On Sunday, Trump threatened Iran with a major escalation of the US-Israeli offensive if it did not reopen the strait within 48 hours. Iran retaliated by threatening to launch widespread attacks on energy infrastructure in the Gulf and Israel. Trump later extended his ultimatum until Friday or Saturday.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi accused the US of “double standards” and said international law was “not a tool of convenience”.

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Israel reportedly removed Araghchi and regime veteran Mohammad Bagher Galibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament, from its target list after Pakistan, which has emerged as an important mediator in the conflict, asked Washington to ensure they were not harmed, a Pakistani official said. Ghalibaf is reportedly the “top man” with whom Trump said Monday he was indirectly negotiating terms to end the conflict.

Trump said Thursday he was seeking a deal that would open the Strait of Hormuz and end Tehran’s military and nuclear ambitions, but suggested a deal may not ultimately materialize. “I don’t know if we can do it,” he said of his hopes for a deal. “I don’t know if we’re willing to do that.”

On Thursday, Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said the United States had presented a 15-point “action list” to Iran through Pakistan as the framework for a possible peace deal.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting in Washington, Witkoff said there were “strong signs” that Tehran was ready to negotiate to end the conflict and said: “If a deal comes through, it would be great for the country of Iran, the whole region and the world in general.”

A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Thursday that Washington’s proposal to end nearly four weeks of fighting was “one-sided and unfair” but diplomacy was continuing.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency, citing an unnamed official, said Iran’s demands include an end to US and Israeli attacks on Iran as well as Tehran-backed groups in the region; this was a veiled reference to the Lebanese Hezbollah, among others. It was stated that war reparations should be paid and Iran’s “sovereignty” over the Strait of Hormuz should be respected.

Analysts said it was very difficult to see any immediate path to agreement, given the rift between the two sides and the widening of the conflict that directly involves more than a dozen countries from Azerbaijan to Oman.

Thousands of US marines and airborne troops have been deployed to the region and could be used to capture Kharg Island, the main hub of Iran’s oil exports, or other strategic points in the Gulf. Such a move indicates a serious escalation of the conflict.

Iran’s top envoy to UN agencies in Geneva, Ali Bahraini, warned on Thursday that any attempt by the US and Israel to launch a ground attack on Iran would be a “big” mistake.

The death toll from the war has risen to more than 1,900 people in Iran and nearly 1,100 people in Lebanon, where more than a million people have been displaced, according to officials. Lebanese officials said that 22 more people died and 110 people were injured in Israel’s attacks in Lebanon in the last 24 hours.

Israel says its invasion of southern Lebanon is aimed at protecting northern border towns from attacks by the Iran-backed militant Islamist movement Hezbollah and creating a defensive buffer zone. 18 people were killed in new clashes in Israel.

There are fears that if Trump follows through on his threat to send troops to capture Kharg Island or elsewhere, Tehran could ask the Yemen-based Houthis, who have close ties to Iran, to attack shipping in the Red Sea, through which around $1 trillion (£750bn) worth of goods passed each year before the war.

The Houthis’ leader, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, on Friday reiterated the group’s condemnation of the US-Israeli war with Iran, calling it “unfair.” He called for solidarity protests in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.

Al-Houthi did not say whether the armed rebel group would fight alongside Iran if asked to join the conflict.