Iran sent its response to the latest U.S. ceasefire proposal via Pakistani mediators and wants negotiations to focus on permanently ending the war, but President Donald Trump quickly rejected it as “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” with no details.

Iran seeks to end the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, and to ensure the security of shipping, state TV said.

Washington’s latest proposal addressed a deal to end the war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and roll back Iran’s nuclear program.

Mr. Trump earlier on social media accused Tehran of “playing games” with the United States for nearly 50 years, adding: “They will be laughing no longer!”

Mr. Trump is giving diplomacy “every chance we possibly can before going back to hostilities”, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, told ABC earlier.

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen or heard publicly since the war began, “issued new and decisive directives for the continuation of operations and the powerful confrontation with the enemies” while meeting with the head of the joint military command, the state broadcaster reported, with no details.

Drone attacks target Gulf Arab nations

The fragile ceasefire was tested when a drone ignited a small fire on a ship off Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait reported drones entering their airspace. The UAE said it shot down two drones and blamed Iran. No casualties were reported, and no one immediately claimed responsibility.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry called the ship attack a “dangerous and unacceptable escalation that threatens the security and safety of maritime trade routes and vital supplies in the region.” The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre gave no details about the ship’s owner or origin.

Kuwait Defence Ministry spokesperson Brig. Gen. Saud Abdulaziz Al Otaibi said forces responded to drones but did not say where they came from.

Iran and armed allied groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon have used drones to carry out hundreds of strikes since the war began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on February 28.

Iran says it’s on full readiness’ to protect nuclear sites

Mr. Trump has reiterated threats to resume full-scale bombing if Iran does not accept an agreement to reopen the strait and roll back its nuclear program. Iran has largely blocked the strategic waterway that’s key to the global flow of oil, natural gas and fertilizer since the war began, rattling world markets.

The U.S. military in turn has blockaded Iranian ports since April 13, saying it has turned back 61 commercial vessels and disabled four. On Friday, it struck two Iranian oil tankers it said were trying to breach the blockade.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard navy says any attack on Iranian oil tankers or commercial vessels would be met with a “heavy assault” on U.S. bases in the region and enemy ships.

Another sticking point in negotiations is Iran’s highly enriched uranium. The UN nuclear agency says Iran has more than 440 kilograms (970 pounds) enriched up to 60 per cent purity, a short, technical step from weapons grade.

In an interview posted late on Saturday (May 9, 2026), an Iranian military spokesperson said forces were on “full readiness” to protect sites where uranium is stored.

“We considered it possible that they might intend to steal it through infiltration operations or heli-borne operations,” Brig. Gen. Akrami Nia told the IRNA news agency.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an excerpt of an interview with CBS airing Sunday (May 10, 2026), said the war isn’t over because the enriched uranium needs to be taken out of Iran. “Trump has said to me, I want to go in there,’ and I think it can be done physically,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday (May 9, 2026) that Moscow’s proposal to take enriched uranium from Iran to help negotiate a settlement remains on the table.

The majority of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is likely at its Isfahan nuclear complex, the International Atomic Energy Agency director-general told The Associated Press last month. The facility was hit by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes in the 12-day war last year and faced less intense attacks this year.

Iran on Wednesday (March 25, 2026) dismissed a U.S. proposal to end the war and set out its own terms for peace, even as it continued trading fire with Israel.

The U.S. proposal offered a ceasefire and sanctions relief in return for Tehran abandoning its nuclear programme and reopening the Strait of Hormuz. According to state-run Press TV, Iran has laid down five conditions to end the war, which the U.S. and Israel launched on February 28 with the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other leaders. Tehran is seeking: “a complete halt to aggression and assassinations; “concrete mechanisms” to prevent future attacks; payment of war damages and reparations; an end to fighting on “all fronts”; and recognition of its “exercise of sovereignty” over the Strait of Hormuz, which it calls its “natural and legal right”.

Iran-Israel war updates on March 25, 2026

“Iran will end the war when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met,” a senior security official said, according to Press TV. The official, who is not named in the report, said Washington has put forward proposals through various diplomatic channels that are “excessive” and “disconnected from reality” on the battlefield.

The Associated Press earlier cited two Pakistani officials as saying that Islamabad had delivered the U.S. plan to Tehran. The proposal addresses sanctions relief, a rollback of Iran’s nuclear programme, limits on its missile programme, reopening the Strait of Hormuz and restrictions on Iran’s support for non-state militias in West Asia such as Hezbollah and Hamas, said the officials.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who on Monday (March 23, 2026) backed off from an earlier threat to attack Iran’s power infrastructure claiming that Washington and Tehran were in talks, said on Tuesday (March 24, 20260 at the Oval Office that Iran had given him “a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money”, adding that “we are dealing with the right people”. Without elaborating on the “present”, Mr. Trump, who had earlier claimed the U.S. had “productive talks” with Iran, said: I think we’re going to end [the war].”

The comments from Mr. Trump, who has put off his threatened strikes until Friday, came amid reports that the Pentagon was planning to deploy thousands of troops from the elite 82nd Airborne Division to West Asia.

“We are closely monitoring all U.S. movements in the region, especially troop deployments,” Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said on Wednesday in a social media post. “What the generals have broke[n], the soldiers can’t fix; instead, they will fall victim to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s delusions. Do not test our resolve to defend our land,” he added.

Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters on Wednesday dismissed reports about talks between Washington and Tehran, adding that the U.S. is calling its “defeat” an agreement. “If the self-proclaimed superpower of the world could have escaped this predicament, it would have done so by now. Do not call your defeat an agreement,” Central Headquarters spokesperson Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaqari said in a video statement. “Has the level of your infighting reached the point of negotiating with yourselves?” he asked, sarcastically.

While the U.S. and Iran issued contradicting claims about talks, Tehran and Tel Aviv continued to attack each other on Wednesday. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said that it targeted Iran’s “sole facility” for the development of submarines, and other weapons manufacturing sites in Isfahan. The IDF also hit Iranian air defence systems, the military added. Since the beginning of the war, Israel has dropped more than 15,000 bombs across Iran, according to Defence Minister Israel Katz. Iran fired at least 13 salvos of missiles at Israel on Tuesday (March 24, 2026), in which nine people were wounded.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement on Wednesday (March 25, 2026) that it launched missiles at central and northern Israel as well as U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf region. “Strategic points and military centers located in the northern occupied territories were smashed under the heavy and sustained missile attacks of the IRGC’s Aerospace Force,” the Guards said.

U.S. military bases of Ali al-Salem and Arifjan in Kuwait, al-Azraq in Jordan, and Sheikh Isa in Bahrain, were also struck with “liquid- and solid-fuel precision missiles and attack drones”, the IRGC claimed.