An Iranian woman stands near a heavy machine gun mounted on the back of a vehicle as she takes part in a gathering entitled « The Sacrificed Girls, » organized in tribute to women killed during the war in the Middle East, in Tehran, on April 17, 2026. (Credit: AFP Photo)
Iran announced on Saturday that it was regaining "strict control" of the Strait of Hormuz in response to the continued U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, reversing its decision the previous day to reopen this strategic waterway.
Tehran had "agreed in good faith to allow the passage of a limited number of oil tankers and commercial vessels," but the Americans, violating their commitment, "continue to engage in acts of piracy under the cover of the so-called blockade," denounced the Iranian armed forces command. "The Americans cannot impose their will to lay siege to Iran," insisted Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh.
The British maritime security agency UKMTO later revealed that Iranian vessels had opened fire on an oil tanker in the strait, without apparently causing any injuries. At the same time, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has remained out of the public eye since his appointment, warned in a written message that the navy was "ready to make the enemy taste the bitterness of further defeats."
This hardening of positions comes amid a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at ending the war in the Middle East, beyond the two-week cease-fire that came into effect on April 8 between Iran and the United States.
23 ships blocked
During the brief reopening of the strait, at least eight oil tankers and LNG carriers transited the strait early Saturday, according to data from the maritime tracking company Kpler. The MarineTraffic website showed more than a dozen vessels in transit, including several oil tankers, some of which appeared to be turning back.
Following Tehran's announcement of the strait's reopening on Friday,U.S. President Donald Trump stated that the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports would remain "fully in place" until the end of negotiations. “Since the start of the blockade, 23 ships have complied with directives from U.S. forces ordering them to turn back and return to Iran,” the U.S. Central Command stated in a new update on Saturday.
The announcement of the resumption of traffic through the Strait of Gibraltar gave a boost to financial markets on Friday and triggered a sharp drop in oil prices, as a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas usually transit through it.
Trump 'talks a lot'
On Friday, Trump told AFP that a peace agreement was “very close” and claimed that Iran had agreed to hand over its enriched uranium, a key point in the negotiations as the United States and Israel accuse the Islamic Republic of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons — which it denies.
But Tehran has denied agreeing to the transfer of these stockpiles of fissile material. Trump “tweets and talks a lot.” “It’s sometimes confusing, contradictory,” Khatibzadeh remarked ironically from the diplomatic forum in Antalya, Turkey.
Behind the scenes, negotiations continue: the army chief and the prime minister of Pakistan, one of the mediating countries, have completed diplomatic visits, one to Iran and the other to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, also present in Antalya, said he was “working tirelessly” alongside Pakistan for a “final agreement” hoped for “in the very near future.” Direct talks between Iran and the United States, the first in-person meetings at such a level since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, were held on April 11 in Islamabad but failed.
According to the Iranian deputy foreign minister on Saturday, no date has been set for further discussions. In a rare sign of a return to normalcy, Iran announced the partial reopening on Saturday of its airspace, closed since the Israeli-American offensive against its territory on Feb. 28, as well as several airports, including Tehran's two largest.
'Not safe'
In Lebanon, the other front in the war, the Israeli army announced it had established a "yellow line" of demarcation in the south of the country, similar to the one in Gaza, and had struck suspects approaching it.
The Israeli army remains present in Lebanon in a ten-kilometer-deep strip of land along the border, following the cease-fire that came into effect on Friday with the pro-Iranian movement Hezbollah, and while awaiting discussions aimed at a permanent agreement between Lebanon and Israel, which have been at war since 1948.
Since it began in early March, the war has claimed nearly 2,300 lives on the Lebanese side and displaced more than a million people. Many of these displaced people have begun to return to their homes, either in the south of the country or in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold.
“The situation is still not stable,” explains Samah Hjoul, a mother of four, displaced from the southern suburbs and living in a tent on the Beirut seafront, where she prefers to stay for the time being. “We don’t feel safe; I’m always afraid that something happens at night that prevents me from taking my children and fleeing with them.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel had “not yet finished” the work to secure Hezbollah’s disarmament. Trump, who brokered this ten-day truce, raised his voice, telling Israel that it was now “forbidden” from bombing Lebanon. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam also announced on Saturday that French peacekeepers had been attacked and said he had ordered an investigation.
