The Latest: Iran dismisses US ceasefire plan and issues its own counterproposal

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Iran on Wednesday dismissed an American plan to pause the war in the Middle East, issuing its own counterproposal instead, as it launched more attacks on Israel and Gulf Arab countries.

Two officials from Pakistan described the 15-point U.S. proposal broadly, saying it addressed sanctions relief, a rollback of Iran’s nuclear program, limits on missiles and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped.

Iran issued it’s own plan via state TV, which includes a halt to killings of its officials, means to make sure no other war is waged against it, reparations for the war, the end of hostilities and Iran’s “exercise of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.”

The death toll from the war has risen to more than 1,500 people in Iran, nearly 1,100 people in Lebanon, 16 in Israel and 13 U.S. military members, as well as a number of civilians on land and sea in the Gulf region. Millions of people in Lebanon and Iran have been displaced.

Here is the latest:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is expanding an area it controls along southern Lebanon’s border with Israel, as fighting with Hezbollah continues and Israeli troops push through more villages in the area.

Netanyahu made the remarks during a meeting with local leaders from northern Israel, which has seen near-daily rocket fire from Lebanon, according to a statement from his office.

Israel occupied southern Lebanon from 1982 until 2000. Hezbollah was formed in the 1980s as a guerrilla force fighting that occupation.

Israel has moved several thousand troops into southern Lebanon in recent weeks in what it says is a defensive move to protect its northern border communities. Those troops have begun to move further north as Israel expands an operation it says is aimed at removing Hezbollah from southern Lebanon.

People streamed into a fire station in central Israel on Wednesday to donate blood to Israel’s emergency services. Beds lined the room as people lay on their backs for about 15 minutes hooked up to tubes.

“Unfortunately we have a situation that missiles and rockets are falling on top of our heads and part of the people are in a situation that they need the blood,” said Amit Israel who was donating blood.

While Israel’s emergency medical service, Magen David Adom, runs daily blood donations, it said that the number of people coming to donate has increased since the war began.

Gaya Levi Adam, who’s in charge of the donations, said the units of blood that are usually sent to hospitals has increased from about 1,200 units daily pre war time, to up to 1,700 in the last few weeks.

Kuwait’s acting Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz al-Daihani handed a protest note Wednesday to Iran’s ambassador in light of what he said were recurrent attacks against the Gulf country.

Hour earlier, an Iranian drone struck a fuel tank at Kuwait’s international airport, sparking a blaze that fire crews are still trying to contain, according to the country’s Defense Ministry.

This was the third time Kuwait summoned the Iranian ambassador since the war started. Al-Daihani reiterated his country’s condemnation of the Iranian attacks, and called for their immediate halt.

Kuwait has been a staunch U.S. ally since the 1991 Gulf War and hosts the forward headquarters of the U.S. Army in the Middle East.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif spoke by phone with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on Wednesday and briefed him on Pakistan’s diplomatic outreach and ongoing peace efforts, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office.

He emphasized that Pakistan has consistently called on all parties to de-escalate tensions and resolve differences through dialogue and diplomacy.

After Israel attacked Iran’s South Pars natural gas field last week, Iran hit Qatar’s massive natural gas export facility, which QatarGas said caused “extensive” damage that will take years to repair.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said 22 people had been killed over the past 24 hours.

At least 121 children and 81 women were among the dead in Lebanon, the ministry said. It said 153 people were also wounded over the past day, raising the total number of injured to 3,119.

In a strong statement Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres blasted the various factions of the ongoing Middle East conflict, saying the fighting “has broken past limits even leaders thought imaginable.”

He specifically called on the U.S. and Israel, whose joint strikes last month started the war against Iran, to end the fighting as “human suffering deepens, civilian casualties mount, and the global economic impact is increasingly devastating.”

Guterres added, “My message to Iran is to stop attacking their neighbors.”

He also announced the appointment of a personal envoy to the lead the world body’s efforts on the conflict and the recent peace efforts that are underway.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that the war in Iran is “wrapping up” and “the objectives have been met,” even as he described U.S. troop buildup in the Middle East as a warning to Iran.

“The buildup of troops is very different than boots on the ground,” said Johnson. “We don’t have boots on the ground. I don’t think that’s the intention, but I think Iran should watch that build up and they need to take note of that.”

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty reacted to Iran’s rejection to the ceasefire, saying Egypt will continue it’s efforts to help bring views from the warring parties closer to reaching a compromise and working out their differences.

Egypt supports President Trump’s peace initiative to open the door with the Iranian side for negotiations and is actively working on achieving a ceasefire in Iran, with Abdelatty saying “there’s no winning party in this dangerous escalation.”

Abdelatty said Egypt is in touch with the Iranians through one channel, which is through the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.

“History taught us that military solutions is not the answer,” he said during a news briefing in Cairo on Wednesday. “We believe with good intention and political will and with seriousness from both sides, they can exchange views and reach compromise.”

Iran’s defiance came as Israel launched airstrikes on Tehran and Washington deployed paratroopers and more Marines to the region.

Iranian state television’s English-language broadcaster, Press TV, quoted an anonymous official as saying Iran rejected America’s ceasefire proposal. Press TV’s report came after Pakistan transmitted the proposal to Iran.

“Iran will end the war when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met,” Press TV quoted the official as saying. The official added Tehran will continue its “heavy blows” across the Mideast.

Press TV, like all of state TV channels controlled by hard-liners, offered its own five-point plan from the official who rejected the US proposal.

It included a halt to killings of its officials, means to make sure no other war is waged against it, reparations for the war, the end of hostilities and Iran’s “exercise of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.”

Those measures, particularly reparations and its continued chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz, likely will be unacceptable to the White House as energy supplies worldwide remain affected by the war.

Iranian state television’s English-language broadcaster quoted an anonymous official Wednesday as saying Iran rejected America’s 15-point ceasefire proposal. Press TV’s report came after Pakistan transmitted the proposal to Iran.

Hope for a possible end to the war in Iran is taking over again on Wall Street, and stocks are back to jumping as oil prices ease.

The S&P 500 rose 1% early Wednesday. The latest flip-flop came after the United States delivered a plan to Iran to pause the war.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 510 points, and the Nasdaq composite added 1.1%. The price for a barrel of Brent crude fell about 5% to just under $95 on hopes that a cooldown could allow oil and natural gas to flow more freely out of the Persian Gulf.

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Conservatives are holding one of their largest annual gatherings at a perilous political moment for President Trump and with open division on the right over the war he launched in Iran.

While Trump maintains broad support among conservatives, the war in Iran is more than a wrinkle for activists drawn to his “America First” campaign pledge against getting involved in foreign conflicts. A new AP-NORC poll shows about 59% of Americans think the military action in Iran is excessive. The debate will be a subtext — and likely flare publicly — as thousands of activists, influencers and Republican lawmakers gather at the Conservative Political Action Conference that begins Wednesday outside Dallas.

The event also comes a day after a Democrat flipped the Florida state legislative seat that’s home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

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Pakistan is working to engage all parties in the conflict to help secure a peaceful resolution amid rising regional tensions, while reaffirming that its “commitment to the security and defense of Saudi Arabia remains unequivocal,” senior Pakistani officials said Wednesday.

It underscore the long-standing strategic partnership between the two countries and come as tensions have escalated following recent attacks on Saudi Arabia. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media on the record.

The officials said Islamabad is encouraging dialogue among the parties to help end the war, and stands ready to host the talks if all parties agree. At the same time, they stressed there’s no ambiguity about Pakistan’s commitment to the Kingdom’s defense, describing ties as rooted in historic and close bilateral relations.

— Munir Ahmed

The Lebanese military said after collecting shrapnel fragments that scattered across several towns north of Beirut that it resembled a Qadr 110, an Iranian-made medium-range ballistic missile that had “smaller rockets attached to it.”

It said the missile burst at high altitude, suggesting it wasn’t targeting Lebanon.

“As for the cause of its explosion, it was likely either a technical malfunction or an interceptor missile,” the military said. “The military command notes that there are no interceptor missile platforms located within Lebanese territory.”

Qadr 110 missiles are capable of striking any targets in the Mideast, including Israel. The incident horrified Lebanese residents as fragments scattered across towns and villages in the Keserwan district north of Beirut, and far from the epicenter of the conflict.

France’s Finance Minister Roland Lescure said Wednesday that 30% to 40% of refining capacity in the Gulf has been damaged or destroyed, leading to an oil crisis especially in some Asian countries.

“As a result, we are now facing an oil market where 11 million barrels per day are missing,” he said.

Lescure said he had talks with his counterpart in Qatar, where 17% of gas production capacity has now been destroyed as a result of the attacks carried out on the facilities. “It will take year — around three years — to restore them,” Lescure said. In addition, it will take months to relaunch some gas facilities that have been shut down in emergency by Qatar, he said.

France is relatively preserved regarding a shortage of gas supplies, Lescure noted, because the country relies on gas for less than 5% of its electricity, which is mostly produced by nuclear plants.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Wednesday discussed the “trajectory” of the war and efforts to halt attacks during telephone calls with his Syrian, Qatari and Uzbek counterparts, ministry officials said.

Turkey has been holding a series of talks with neighboring and regional countries to push for de‑escalation and to open the way for negotiations to end the conflict.

A Tehran resident says President Trump’s threats to strike Iranian power plants earlier in the week have spread “anger and confusion” in Iran.

“There have been some days when the bombings are so intense you can’t do anything,” the 26-year-old university graduate student said, adding his friends mostly stayed home. He spoke on condition of anonymity out of security fears.

He said the U.S. leader’s comments have deepened fears that the strikes will move toward targeting civilian infrastructure and “innocent civilians.” He described seeing serious damage to residential sites in his area of western Tehran, including an apartment building and pharmacy.

“I wake up sometimes from the sounds of bombardment but I manage to sleep somehow or I immediately text my friends to see if they are ok. It’s stressful,” he said.

Iran’s government has almost entirely cut links with the global internet. The student said he and his friends were relying on the national government-controlled network to use domestic ride hailing and messaging apps, but connections to that system were also not reliable.

— Amir-Hussein Radjy

Mourners gathered Wednesday in the coastal city of Tyre in southern Lebanon to bury a paramedic killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Ahmed Ibrahim Deeb was a first responder with the civil defense team affiliated with the Amal Movement, a Shiite political party allied with Hezbollah.

Amal spokesperson Alwan Sharafeddine said he was killed by a strike in his hometown, Shohour, to the east of Tyre, while on a motorcycle heading to his civil defense post for work.

He was buried in a temporary grave because the fighting has made it too risky to hold funerals in some hometowns.

“He was one of the young men from the town who refused to be displaced and insisted on remaining steadfast on their land,” Sharafeddine said.

Lebanon’s health ministry said Wednesday that Israeli strikes have killed 42 paramedics since the resurgence of war between Israel and Hezbollah on March 2.

Lt. Edgar Blum at the Ramat Gan fire department told The Associated Press that fire fighters have had to adapt their response because Iran is using cluster munitions.

Instead of a team arriving at the site of a missile strike and identifying the most damaged houses, now they must decide which areas across a much larger space have been hardest hit and send separate crews to each spot.

“The challenge is to understand if you have five places that have been hit, which of the scenes needs more attention. You asses by the biggest fire, the biggest threat and where the most amount of people are,” he said.

He also reminds his teams that cluster munitions don’t always explode, so firefighters have to keep their distance, especially at night when it’s hard to see.

Keeping the price at the pump down is a goal uniting Americans in both parties.

About two-thirds of Americans in a new AP-NORC poll say keeping U.S. oil and gas prices from rising should be an “extremely” or “very” important foreign policy goal for the U.S.

However, they are just as likely to say it’s important to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, a juxtaposition that could be difficult for the White House to manage.

About three-quarters of Republicans and about two-thirds of Democrats say it’s highly important to prevent U.S. oil and gas prices from going up.

Slightly fewer than half of U.S. adults, 45%, are “extremely” or “very” concerned about being able to afford gas in the next few months, up from 30% in an AP-NORC poll conducted shortly after Trump won reelection with promises that he would improve the economy and lower the cost of living.

A new AP-NORC poll finds most Americans believe recent U.S. military action against Iran has gone too far and many are worried about affording gasoline.

As the war continues in its fourth week, the survey indicates that while President Donald Trump’s approval rating is holding steady, the conflict could be turning into a major political liability for his Republican administration.

About 59% of Americans say U.S. military action has been excessive.

Meanwhile, 45% are “extremely” or “very” concerned about affording gas in the next few months, up from 30% shortly before Trump took office.

However, there is significant support for Trump’s objective of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

The head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom says more of its workers are being evacuated from Iran’s Russia-built nuclear power plant following another strike on its territory.

Alexei Likhachev said last week that Rosatom had 480 workers at the plant in Bushehr. He announced another group left Wednesday and more will be pulled out later this week.

He said Rosatom will reduce the number of workers to a minimum until the situation normalizes.

Likhachev late Tuesday reported another strike on the plant’s territory close to the working nuclear reactor following an attack last week.

He said there were no injuries, but noted the situation was developing according to a “negative scenario.”

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said there might be talks between Iran and the United States soon in Pakistan.

“I think there could be talks this weekend in Islamabad, Pakistan,” Rafael Mariano Grossi told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera without elaborating.

Khalid al-Yaqoubi, security advisor to Iraq’s prime minister, says his country will file a sovereignty complaint to the United Nations Security Council.

He told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Iraqi security forces have lost 80 members and 150 have been wounded since the Middle East war began Feb. 28.

Al-Yaqoubi said the U.S. has violated Iraq’s airspace, while Iran is to blame for attacks against Kurdish forces in the country’s north.

“We are against the aggression on Iran because it is not justified,” he said about the war that was launched by the U.S. and Israel.

He said the security forces include Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Force, a coalition of Iran-backed militia that is nominally under the control of the Iraqi military.

South Korean trade official Yang Ki-wook said Wednesday his country has likely secured enough gas through the end of the year from alternative sources.

Yang estimated Iran’s recent attacks on two Qatari liquefied natural gas plants damaged about 20% of the country’s capacity andi it may take three to five years to restore affected supply.

Yang says South Korea has not received direct communication from QatarEnergy following media reports it declared force majeure on long-term natural gas contracts with South Korea and other nations.

Israel issued a flurry of alerts around midday Wednesday as Iran targeted large parts of the country with multiple ballistic missiles.

Police and rescue services said they were treating several sites impacted by debris from either missiles or interceptors.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Drone and rocket fire from Lebanon also continued unabated toward communities in northern israel.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty on Wednesday told U.S. envoy Massad Boulos there needs to be “concerted regional and international efforts to de-escalate the situation.”

He warned of the war’s severe economic repercussions. Egypt imposed fuel price hikes in March and has announced measures including reducing official overseas trips and tightening fuel consumption across sectors.

Abdelatty also spoke with European Commission Vice President Kaja Kallas and called for coordination between Egypt and the EU while seeking a diplomatic solution to the war.

European Central Bank head Christine Lagarde said Wednesday that businesses in Europe might be quicker to raise prices in response to the Iran war due to bitter memories of energy price inflation after Russia invaded Ukraine.

She said the inflation that peaked in 2023 in double digits “left a mark” and firms “may be faster than last time” to change price tags.

The last time was 2022, when inflation hit double digits in Europe after Russia cut off most natural gas supplies over the war, sending gas and electricity prices higher.

The Iran war has sharply increased oil prices, raising fuel, travel and manufacturing costs.

Lagarde said the big question is how long the higher oil prices last.