Iran war live: Trump cancels Witkoff and Kushner trip to Pakistan for talks
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/4/25/iran-war-live-tehrans-fm-in-islamabad-us-says-envoys-to-travel-for-talks
Iran war live: Trump cancels Witkoff and Kushner trip to Pakistan for talks
Al Jazeera Live
- Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has departed Islamabad, Pakistan, after holding high-level meetings and delivering Tehran’s list of demands for ending the war to Pakistani officials.
- US President Donald Trump later cancelled a planned trip to Pakistan by envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff for peace talks with Iran.
- 15m ago(18:50 GMT)
Trump on ending Iran ceasefire: ‘I haven’t even thought about it’
The US president says he’s ready to make a deal with “whoever is running the show” in Iran.
“They are fighting with each other, there’s tremendous infighting. They’re probably fighting for leadership in many cases. I think they’re fighting not to be leader because we knocked out two levels of leaders,” he told reporters.
“When they want they can call me. We have all the cards, we’ve won everything,” said Trump.
“They gave us a paper that should’ve been better. And, interestingly, immediately when I cancelled it [envoy trip to Pakistan], within 10 minutes we got a new paper that was much better. We talked about they will not have a nuclear weapon, very simple … They offered a lot, but not enough.”
Asked if he’d continue the ceasefire, Trump replied, “I haven’t even thought about it.”
President Trump speaks to journalists before boarding Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida on Saturday [AFP] - 25m ago(18:40 GMT)
‘Too much travelling, takes too long, too expensive’: Trump
US President Trump has addressed the media after cancelling the Pakistan trip by his mediators to discuss the situation with Iran.
“I think Pakistan is terrific, I think the field marshal is fantastic, I think the prime minister is great. And you know they’d like to see something happen, but we’re not going to be travelling for 15 or 16 hours to have a meeting with people nobody has heard of before,” Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One in Florida.
“Too much travelling, takes too long, too expensive. They weren’t meeting with the leader of the country. They were meeting with other people, and I said we’re just not going to do it.”
- 30m ago(18:35 GMT)
Netanyahu orders Israeli army to vigorously attack Hezbollah positions
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered Israel’s military to attack Hezbollah positions in Lebanon, despite a ceasefire formally being in place between the two countries.
“I have ordered the army to launch a strong attack on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon,” Channel 12 quoted the prime minister as saying.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a cabinet meeting [Ronen Zvulun/Reuters] - 45m ago(18:20 GMT)
‘A new puzzling situation for Iranian authorities’
US President Trump’s cancellation of talks in Pakistan shows there is a “lack of willingness of the US administration to initiate and continue serious negotiations with Iran”, an analyst says.
“The US blockade on shipments to and from Iranian ports has been facilitated by UN sanctions reactivated last September, which makes these types of controls on the sea possible. So this is a new puzzling situation for Iranian authorities,” Professor Mohammad Raza Farzanegan, from Marburg University in Germany, told Al Jazeera.
“If the US insists on the enforcement of these blockades of Iranian ports, which is of very serious economic consequences for Iran because 90 percent of Iranian import-export goes through the southern port, Iran would probably try to increase costs for the other exporters from the Strait of Hormuz, from Arab countries, and that would create a substantial cost on the global supply products and oil prices,” said Farzanegan.
How is the US’s naval blockade impacting Iran? - 1h ago(18:05 GMT)
Children, women among a dozen wounded in Israeli attack on south Lebanon
An Israeli air attack has injured at least 12 people in the town of Safad al-Batikh in the Bint Jbeil district of southern Lebanon.
The state-run National News Agency reported that women and children are among the victims of the Israeli bombardment.
The Health Ministry earlier announced the death toll from Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March 2 has risen to 2,496, with 7,719 wounded.
Smoke rises from a village in southern Lebanon as the Israeli army attacks [File: Gil Eliyahu/Reuters] - 1h ago(17:55 GMT)
Israel intensifies military activity in Lebanon despite ceasefire
There seems to have been an increase in military activity today.
We’ve seen a steady drumbeat of Israeli strikes, of Israel demolishing houses in the part of southern Lebanon that it has been occupying, and continued artillery shelling as well.
There is a pattern that we have seen continuing today, as well as fire from Hezbollah, whether through explosive drones or rocket fire, at Israeli troops who are in southern Lebanon or across the border.
In response to Hezbollah targeting the Menara, Margaliot and Misgav Am areas with rockets, there has been a sustained campaign of aerial bombardment. There have been multiple strikes on towns north of Bint Jbeil, and one of them killed two people and injured 17.
A couple of hours after that, we heard rounds of artillery shelling on the towns and villages near the city of Tyre coming in every seven to eight seconds. The impact of those was north of what Israel calls the “Yellow Line” or the “forward defence line”, which is the part of southern Lebanon that Israel is seeking to control by firing on anything or anyone that moves.
- 1h ago(17:50 GMT)
US-Israel war on Iran: How did we get here?
Pakistan has been trying to get the US and Iran back to the table since President Trump this week announced an indefinite extension of the ceasefire, honouring Islamabad’s request for more diplomatic outreach.
Even before Saturday’s developments, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said any talks would be indirect and Pakistani officials would convey messages.
Tehran also noted indirect talks with the US last year and early this year over Tehran’s nuclear programme – the issue long at the heart of tensions – ended with it being attacked by the US and Israel, adding to its wariness.
The first round of talks in Pakistan lasted more than 20 hours, the highest-level direct talks between the adversaries since the Islamic revolution in 1979.
Araghchi and Trump’s envoys held hours of indirect talks in Geneva on February 27, but walked away without a deal. The next day, Israel and the United States started the war.
Iran Caught Between Diplomacy and Escalation Amid Rising Regional Tensions - 1h ago(17:40 GMT)
Will claims of clearing mines in Hormuz convince commercial shippers?
President Trump says the US Navy is removing Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz, a process expected to take months despite the ceasefire.
But will US confirmation of a cleared waterway convince commercial freighters and insurers of its safety?
According to Emma Salisbury, a scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s National Security Program, “You don’t have to have laid mines – you just have to make people believe you’ve laid mines.”
So even if the US clears the strait, she told The Associated Press, “all the Iranians have to do is say, ‘well, actually, you haven’t found them all yet.’”
“There’s only so much the US can do to give that confidence back to commercial shipping.”
A satellite image shows the ship movement in the Strait of Hormuz on April 17 [European Union/Copernicus via Reuters] - 1h ago(17:35 GMT)
Dampened hopes for diplomacy as US cancels Pakistan trip
Trump’s announcement that he cancelled a trip of the US delegation to Pakistan essentially pours cold water on hopes that there is a diplomatic way out of this war.
We have heard from the Iranian delegation that they will stand by the 10-points they presented to the United States.
It appears diplomacy is again taking the backseat. We’ll have to wait and see what this actually means, but some of the reporters who were told by the US president to stay in Pakistan have been told to come home.
- 1h ago(17:20 GMT)
Controlling Hormuz is Iran’s ‘definitive strategy’: IRGC
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says controlling the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for global oil and gas supplies, is Iran’s “definitive strategy” in the war with the United States.
“Controlling the Strait of Hormuz and maintaining the shadow of its deterrent effects over America and the White House’s supporters in the region is the definitive strategy of Islamic Iran,” the IRGC said in a statement on its Telegram channel.
- 2h ago(17:05 GMT)
White House confirms US envoy trip to Pakistan for Iran talks cancelled
It’s just been confirmed by the White House to Al Jazeera that the trip to Pakistan for talks with Iran has been cancelled.
It quoted the US president speaking on one of the US television networks earlier about his rationale for cancelling the trip, basically that spending 18 hours in the air is not going to yield the results that the US government wants.
The United States wants Iran to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions and what Washington has called “terrorist activities” in other countries, including threatening its ally Israel.
The US has also said it’s committed to enforcing the US naval blockade on shipping traffic in and out of Iranian ports, and that it feels this blockade is doing a good job of further destabilising the Iranian economy.
The US message has been: If the Iranians want to talk, they should contact the United States, and the US is prepared to listen.
- 2h ago(16:50 GMT)
Araghchi arrives in Oman; questions US’s seriousness about diplomacy
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has arrived in Oman, the second leg of his three-country diplomatic tour, with messages for both Pakistan and the United States.
Posting on X, Araghchi noted he had a “very fruitful visit to Pakistan” over the past day, noting the country’s “brotherly efforts to bring back peace to our region as we very much value”.
He also expressed doubt about Washington’s sincerity in trying to resolve the conflict through talks.
“Have yet to see if the US is truly serious about diplomacy,” Araghchi wrote.
- 2h ago(16:37 GMT)
Trump says ‘too much time wasted on traveling’ after cancellation
The US president has weighed in on his Truth Social platform to explain why he called off the planned trip to Pakistan by his envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff for Iran peace talks.
“I just cancelled the trip of my representatives going is Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet with the Iranians. Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work!” wrote Trump.
“Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their ‘leadership’. Nobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, we have all the cards, they have none!”
- 2h ago(16:30 GMT)
US trip cancellation reflects Iran’s mixed messaging
Mark Kimmitt, former US assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, has told Al Jazeera that the announcement that a US delegation would not be travelling to Pakistan reflects the existence of “different power centres inside of Iran”.
“There’s nobody to make the ultimate decision,” Kimmitt said.
“I suspect that it was communicated to the White House that there would be somebody there [in Islamabad] to talk to, but it’s clear that Araghchi had a different view on this,” he said, noting Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s departure today from Islamabad.
Kimmitt added that it was unclear whether the US had communicated with other power centres within Iran, such as the IRGC or parliament.
The former US official added that there was also the possibility that this was “done intentionally to embarrass the Americans”.
- 2h ago(16:27 GMT)
Trump: ‘They can call us anytime they want’
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner reportedly will not be going to Pakistan’s capital to attempt to revive ceasefire negotiations with Iran.
The cancellation of the envoys’ trip does not mean the US will resume war on Iran, President Trump told US news outlet Axios, adding, “We haven’t thought about it yet.”
Trump told Fox News: “They can call us any time they want.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi left Islamabad on Saturday evening after meetings with Pakistani officials.
- 3h ago(16:05 GMT)
Three Israeli raids hit Lebanon’s Kunin
Israeli warplanes have launched three consecutive air strikes on the town of Kunin, in the Bint Jbeil district of southern Lebanon, according to the National News Agency.
Lebanon’s official state-run news agency says Israeli air raids have continued to hit southern Lebanon, despite a 10-day ceasefire having been extended for another three weeks.
- 3h ago(16:01 GMT)
Trump says he canceled US negotiators’ trip to Pakistan for Iran talks: US media
US President Donald Trump has cancelled a planned trip to Pakistan by envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff for peace talks with Iran, media reports say.
Trump told Fox News about the trip’s cancellation, the Reuters news agency said.
- 3h ago(15:55 GMT)
Iran sends diplomatic and military messages to US to seek permanent ceasefire
The Iranians are dealing with a situation where they’re feeling that this could, at any time, get out of hand. The more there are incidents in the sea, the more there are negative signals, the more this ceasefire is going to prove to be fragile, with big potential to fall, and the more there’s a possibility that something could happen.
That’s why they’ve been seeking a permanent ceasefire, a permanent end of war, and then getting into talks after.
Since we’re not at an end to war yet, the Iranians are sending multiple messages. One through diplomacy, such as the prime minister and other officials taking part in talks. And the other is military – that they are ready for any kind of miscalculation from the enemy.
- 3h ago(15:50 GMT)
Pakistani mediators ‘hopeful’ some progress can be achieved
The Pakistani and Iranian delegations have held a meeting that lasted almost the whole day. They’ve been discussing in detail what the Iranian red lines are, and where there is room for compromise.
What officials have been telling us is they still have hope. They’ve heard the Iranian position and they see there’s been movement on some issues.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi has not concluded his tour yet and there is hope he might come back if the Pakistanis manage to convince the Americans of what the Iranians have told them.
But we’re still waiting to see if the Americans will leave the United States at all, given it would not be the first time President Trump said he’ll send envoys and that doesn’t happen.
War on Iran: US and Iran return to Islamabad - 3h ago(15:35 GMT)
Hezbollah says Israeli vehicle hit in southern Lebanon
Hezbollah has issued a statement saying it targeted and hit an Israeli vehicle in the town of Qantara.
The news comes as clashes between Israel and the Lebanese armed group continue despite a three-week ceasefire extension.
- 3h ago(15:20 GMT)
Purpose of US visit to Islamabad remains unclear amid speculation on concessions
There hasn’t been any confirmation on what the US delegation is supposed to take to Islamabad, but on Friday, the US administration was very adamant on two points.
One, that Iran is not going to develop a nuclear programme and certainly not a nuclear weapons arsenal. Two, that the US is not going to end its blockade of Iranian ports, even on the high seas.
There is speculation and some reporting that, in order to break the impasse, the Trump administration may have to go back to the contours of the 2015 nuclear deal that was achieved by the Obama administration, to end this war.
This might involve releasing billions of dollars in sanctions revenues that should have gone to the Iranian government – which has been sanctioned by the US and the UN – to persuade the Iranians to give up on their nuclear ambitions.
- 3h ago(15:05 GMT)
Lebanon death toll from Israeli attacks rises to 2,496 since March 2
Lebanon’s Ministry of Health announced on Saturday that the death toll from Israeli attacks has risen to 2,496, with 7,725 people injured since the escalation of this latest war on March 2.
In its daily report, it said the total number of displaced people sheltering in evacuation centres has exceeded 120,000, while the number of displaced families in these centres has reached about 31,000.
- 4h ago(15:05 GMT)
Lebanon ceasefire ‘only for some’, as exchange of attacks between Israeli forces and Hezbollah continues
There has been continued rocket fire from Hezbollah towards Israeli troops who are occupying southern Lebanon and sometimes across the border as well.
They frame that as being in response to continued violations of the ceasefire by Israel. We’ve been hearing almost continuously here in Tyre the sound of explosions in the distance, the thud of demolitions being carried out inside what Israel has called its “forward defence line” – the “Yellow Line” they’re occupying in southern Lebanon, where they are shooting at anyone or anything that moves, and systematically demolishing civilian houses and structures in that area.
This ceasefire, which seems to have been extended for another three weeks, is a cessation of Israeli attacks on Beirut and its suburbs, and a decrease in the frequency and severity of air strikes, but it’s allowed Israel to continue operating inside southern Lebanon, whether that is through demolitions, air strikes, or artillery fire, which has been confirmed in three locations today already.
When we talk about whether this ceasefire will hold, yes, it’s a ceasefire for some, but many in southern Lebanon are unable to return to their homes because they’re occupied by the Israeli military, or they’re in this zone where Israeli troops might not be present on the ground, but they’re not allowing Lebanese civilians to go back, either.
- 4h ago(14:50 GMT)
Israeli army claims four Hezbollah fighters killed in southern Lebanon
The Israeli military has issued a statement saying it “eliminated” four Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon, despite a ceasefire between the two countries having been extended for three weeks.
Earlier, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said four people were killed in an Israeli attack on the town of Yohmor al-Shaqif. It is unclear at this time if Lebanon and Israel are referring to the same attack.
The army claimed three fighters were “driving in a vehicle loaded with weapons” in southern Lebanon, while another one was driving a motorcycle beyond the so-called “forward defence line”, where Israeli ground troops are stationed along the border.
The statement added that 15 Hezbollah members were killed since the beginning of the weekend, which runs from Friday to Saturday in Israel.
- 4h ago(14:35 GMT)
Palestinians ‘want to be able to choose their own leaders’, despite low turnout in local elections
The Palestinian Authority wants to tell the public and the world that it’s committed to reforms, that it is enacting those reforms. They’ve changed the election law, to the dislike of most Palestinians, but, to the cheering of the international committee, they’re holding these elections, and they’re committed to holding legislative elections, which haven’t been held since 2005 – and that’s where the key is.
People want to be able to choose their own leaders, not just at the local level. For Palestinians, what they’ve seen this time around, especially here in the occupied West Bank, are independent lists. They’re not promising a lot of things because there’s very little they can do.
The reality of occupation is crushing. Crushing to those who are elected and those who are not, so the scope of what these councils can deliver is really quite limited. But still, people want to make sure that at least those claiming to have their votes have earned them.
- 4h ago(14:30 GMT)
Pakistan’s Sharif lauds ‘warm’ meeting with Iran’s Araghchi
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has hailed the meeting with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as the “most warm, cordial exchange of views on the current regional situation”.
“We also discussed matters of mutual interest, including the further strengthening of Pakistan–Iran bilateral relations,” he said on X.
- 4h ago(14:24 GMT)
Iranian delegation departs Islamabad
Iran’s delegation, which includes FM Abbas Araghchi, has departed Islamabad after holding high-level meetings all day, Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javiad reports.
The delegation delivered its official list of demands for ending the US-Israeli war to Pakistani leaders before departing, he said.
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