US President Donald Trump has said he has ordered the Department of War to postpone strikes on Iranian power plants for five days, following what he claimed were “productive conversations” between Washington and Tehran.
While Iranian media has denied outright that any talks with the American side took place at all, footage has emerged of significant blackouts affecting the Iranian capital on Sunday night.
Trump had upped the ante over the weekend, threatening strikes on Iranian energy facilities if Tehran did not lift its threat to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, to which Iran responded by publishing a list of power stations and energy facilities across the Gulf that it would target.
Iran has kept the vital shipping route closed to most vessels since February 28, when the US and Israel launched the first wave of strikes against the country.
International markets have responded predictably to the first sign of de-escalation in the four-week war.
Meanwhile Israel is expanding ground operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, where the IDF has destroyed several bridges across the strategic Litani River.
At least 1,444 people have been killed and 18,551 injured in US-Israeli attacks on Iran since February 28, the country’s Health Ministry has said.
Iran’s retaliatory strikes killed 15 people in Israel and seven US service members at bases in the region. A further six US service members were killed in a crash involving a refueling aircraft.
Here are the latest developments:
- Trump has announced that he has called off strikes targeting Iranian energy facilities, following alleged "productive conversations" with Tehran.
- Tehran has denied that any conversations have taken place with the US.
- Trump’s announcement coincided with significant losses on European markets and triggered an ongoing bounce, as well as a 10% drop in the price of crude oil.
- Iran has kept the crucial waterway largely closed to vessels linked to the US and Israel since the outbreak of the war. The disruption – affecting a route carrying roughly one-fifth of global oil supplies – has already pushed crude prices higher and heightened concerns over a prolonged global supply shock.
Follow our live coverage below for continuous updates. You can also read our previous updates here.
23 March 2026
The International Committee of the Red Cross has urged an immediate halt to the “war on essential infrastructure” in the Middle East, warning that recent events risk reaching a “point of no return.” ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric said the “potential harm to nuclear facilities” was “most alarming” and could lead to “irreversible consequences.” Iran’s Health Ministry says at least 1,500 people have been killed and 18,551 injured by US‑Israeli attacks on the country since February 28, with victims ranging in age from eight months to 88 years old.
Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf has denied that any negotiations have taken place with the US, after Israeli media claimed he was the official Trump’s envoys had been talking to in recent days. “No negotiations with America have taken place. Fake news is intended to manipulate financial and oil markets and to escape the quagmire in which America and Israel are trapped,” he said in a post on X.
Trump told a roundtable in Memphis, Tennessee that there is a “very good chance” the US will reach a deal with Iran during what he says is a five‑day hold on energy strikes, claiming talks have been “very, very good” and that Tehran now “means business” because of US military pressure.
The US has reportedly set April 9 as a target date for ending the war with Iran, leaving about 21 days left for war and negotiations, an Israeli official has reportedly told Ynet. According to the daily, Washington expects talks with Tehran to take place later this week in Pakistan and has not updated Israel on alleged contacts with Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf. Ending the conflict by that date could clear the way for Trump to visit Israel on Independence Day to receive the Israel Prize, regarded as the country’s highest cultural honor, the official suggested.
The IRGC has branded Trump a “deceitful American president,” saying his “contradictory behavior will not make us lose sight of the battlefront.” The statement comes after Tehran denied any talks with the US, despite Trump’s claims that the two sides reached “major points of agreement.”
RT correspondent Igor Kurashenko is reporting from the upscale Hazmiyeh district in eastern Beirut, Lebanon, where Israel carried out strikes about an hour ago. Israeli authorities claim the target was a member of Iran’s IRGC.
RT has filmed scenes from the site of a reported strike in Beirut’s Hazmiyeh area, where at least one person was reportedly killed.
The US has “achieved none of its overt or covert objectives against Iran” and is in “downfall” even among its own allies, Shakib Mehr also said. According to the envoy, Washington’s partners see a wider war with Iran as “unnecessary, unwise and irrational,” adding that they are “too vigilant to fall into the trap.”
Iran’s ambassador to South Africa, Mansour Shakib Mehr, has told RT that Tehran is “neither intimidated by Trump’s threats nor happy” about Washington’s decision to postpone strikes on Iranian energy plants and claims of ongoing talks. He said the current “cycle of ceasefire, negotiation, threat and aggression must end.”
US President Donald Trump’s top envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, negotiated with Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Israeli officials have told Israeli media.
Ghalibaf was close to slain IRGC Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and has emerged as a leading wartime decision-maker after leading Iranian officials were taken out in the Israeli-US campaign against Iran, according to media reports.
Earlier today, Trump claimed that the US was in talks with a respected leader in Iran, while declining to reveal his identity.
“The mediating countries” were trying to convene a meeting in Islamabad between Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, other Iranian officials, Witkoff, Kushner and possibly US Vice President J.D. Vance, Axios correspondent Barak Ravid has also claimed.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei was cited by Al Jazeera as denying that the Islamic Republic had held talks with the US. Tehran’s position on the Strait of Hormuz and conditions for ending the war have not changed, he added.
”Messages have been received from some friendly countries regarding the US request for negotiations to end the war,” he added.
Iran has “new surprises” in store for the US and Israel in the coming days, a military source has told Tasnim News. It comes after Trump said he had ordered the Department of War to postpone strikes on Iranian power plants for five days due to supposed talks, which Tehran denies.
“Trump should lift his head a little from his phone and social networks and from now on keep his eyes only on the sky, stock exchanges, and oil prices,” the Tasnim source added.
The Iran war energy crisis is worse than 1970s oil shocks, the executive director of the International Energy Agency has said.
In each of the two oil crises of 1973 and 1979, the world lost about 5 million barrels of oil per day, Fatih Birol explained. “Today – only as of today – we lost 11 million barrels per day, so more than two major oil shocks put together,” he added.
The current situation is also worse than the crisis after the US and EU imposed sanctions against Russia, which cost the world 75 billion cubic meters of gas per day compared with the 140 billion cubic meters being lost daily now.
”No country will be immune to the effects of this crisis if it continues to go in this direction,” Birol claimed.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, on Monday, Moscow has said. The two diplomats reaffirmed the strong ties between the two sides and condemned the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, especially against the Bushehr nuclear power plant – where Russia’s Rosatom is participating in construction.
Araghchi also reiterated Tehran’s determination to defend its national sovereignty and territorial integrity, according to the IRNA news agency.
RT team in Tehran shows the amount of destruction after the US-Israeli strikes.
Washington is considering “joint control” of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump has said, while Tehran continues to deny that any talks with the US took place.
When asked who could control the strait, Trump said, “Maybe me – me and the ayatollah, whoever the ayatollah is, whoever the next ayatollah.”
Trump also said that there will also be “a very serious form of a regime change” inside Iran.
Trump continues to claim that Iranian authorities called him and pleaded for a deal after his 48-hour ultimatum. “We were expected to blow up their largest electric generating plants… one shot, it’s gone,” he told reporters.
“We have had very, very strong talks,” he added. Meanwhile, Iranian media citing senior officials said that Tehran denies any talks took place during the current hostilities.
“It’s either breakthrough or mockery,” Russian analyst Fyodor Lukyanov, who serves as the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, the chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and as research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club, commented on Trump’s claims regarding his decision to halt strikes against Iran.
Trump has got “cold feet” after Iran warned that it would strike energy infrastructure across the Middle East if the US attacked its power plants, Tehran University Professor Seyed Mohammed Marandi has told RT.
“Now everyone around the globe knows that Donald Trump is not the most truthful person,” he said, adding that – contrary to the US president’s claims – there “had been no direct negotiations and no indirect negotiations” between Tehran and Washington.
Trump is aware that if Iran retaliates, “he will be on the losing end of this conflict,” Marandi stressed.
However, he warned that “this doesn’t mean that this had come to an end,” with US attacks on energy facilities still possible in the coming days or next week. Iran is prepared for them, the professor insisted.
Britain welcomes “any reports of productive talks” on settling the conflict in the Middle East, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said.
"We’ve always said that swift resolution to the war is in global interests and the Strait of Hormuz specifically needs to be reopened,” the spokesperson noted.
Iran has rejected Donald Trump’s claims that “constructive conversations” have been underway between Washington and Tehran.
The IDF has announced a new wave of strikes against infrastructure in Tehran, shortly after Donald Trump said US attacks on Iranian power plants will be postponed for five days after “constructive” talks with the Iranian authorities.
Israel has not yet commented on Trump’s statement, while Tehran has denied having any contact Washington.
Donald Trump has doubled down on his claim that talks have been underway between Washington and Tehran in a phone interview with CNBC.
“We are very intent on making a deal with Iran,” the US president insisted, adding that the discussions with the Iranian authorities had been “very intense.”
He couldn’t name the exact people in Tehran with whom the Americans have been negotiating, only saying “they have representatives.”
Trump also suggested that what is currently happening in Iran can be best described as a regime change.
“The battle continues,” Iran’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission spokesman, Ebrahim Rezaei, has said.
US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he is postponing strikes on Iranian power plants and his claim of talks between Washington and Teheran is “another defeat for the devil. Trump and the US have once again been defeated,” Rezaei insisted.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has turned down claims by US President Donald Trump that Tehran and Washington have been having “constructive conversations” in recent days.
The statement by the US leader was an attempt to reduce energy prices and buy time to implement Washington's military plans, it said.
Iran is not talking to the US either directly or through mediators, the ministry added.
A high-ranking Iranian official has rejected Donald Trump’s claim that Tehran is having “constructive conversations” with the US, state-run Fars news agency has reported.
“There is no direct contact with Trump, not even through intermediaries,” the sources said.
The official suggested that the US president “backed off after hearing that our targets would be all power plants in West Asia.”
Trump warned on Saturday that the US would hit Iranian energy facilities if it didn’t unblock the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours.
Iran’s Mehr news agency has published a video showing what it says is a damaged US fighter jet falling from the skies in Kuwait.
Donald Trump has announced that he has instructed the US Department of War “to postpone any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five-day period.”
The US president claimed that he made the decision after “very good and productive conversations” with Iranian officials over the past two days “regarding a complete and total resolution of the hostilities in the Middle East.”
Trump had issued an ultimatum to Tehran on Saturday, saying that the US would hit Iranian power plants if it didn’t unblock the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours.
Major European stock market indices have dropped sharply on Monday, with most key benchmarks decreasing by some 2% or more. The downturn is primarily driven by the continued escalation of the US-Israeli war against Iran and a surge in crude oil prices, which have climbed above $113 per barrel.
Euro Stoxx 50 fell by 1.92% to 5,395.78 points, DAX (Germany) by 2.02% to 21,927.72 points, CAC 40 (France) by 1.90% to 7,520.25 points, FTSE MIB (Italy) slipped 2.59% to 41,730.99 points, and IBEX 35 (Spain) by 2.54% to 16,289.20 points.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is “wounded, isolated, and not responding to messages being relayed to him,” the Washington Post has reported, citing US and Israeli security officials.
Tehran insists that Khamenei, who was chosen as supreme leader after his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was assassinated in US-Israeli strikes in late February, remains in good health and is in control of the country.
Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen in public during the conflict but has issued several written statements. In the latest one on Friday, he congratulated Iranians on their New Year, the Nowruz, and stressed that US-Israeli efforts to bring down the government in Tehran through the use of force were “a gross miscalculation.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has rejected claims by Politico that Moscow offered to cut Russian intelligence sharing with Iran if Washington agreed not to provide data to Ukraine.
"We’ve certainly seen this report. It falls into the category of false, or more accurately, deceitful reports,” he said.
Moscow has not confirmed supplying intelligence to Tehran during its conflict with the US and Israel.
All sides in the Middle East conflict should engage in dialogue instead of taking increasingly escalatory steps, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said when asked to comment on Donald Trump’s warning that the US will hit Iranian power plants if it doesn't unblock the Strait of Hormuz.
"The situation should have transitioned to a political and diplomatic settlement already. This is the only thing that can help ease the catastrophic tensions that have developed in the region,” Peskov said.
Any attempt to attack the Iranian coast or its islands will cause “all communication lines in the Persian Gulf... to be mined with various types of sea mines, including floating mines that can be released from the coast,” Tehran’s National Defense Council has warned.
“In this case, the entire Gulf will practically be in a situation similar to the Strait of Hormuz for a long time… One should not forget the failure of more than 100 minesweepers in the 1980s in removing a few sea mines,” it said.
The statement follows reports that the US is considering the seizure of Iran’s key Kharg Island oil hub, in order to force it to unblock the Strait of Hormuz.
The main meteorological office in the Iranian province of Bushehr was struck in US-Israeli attacks on Monday morning, the Pars Today news agency has reported.
The attacks, which killed the head of the Bushehr Airport Meteorological Office, Yousef Sobhani-Nasab, coincided with World Meteorological Day, the agency said. It stressed that the meteorological office is located in a civilian area and that many of its employees were at their work places during the strike.
Iran’s military has put stickers with photos of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on its missiles as a show of gratitude for his reluctance to support the US and Israeli military operation against the country, Tasnim has reported.
"Of course, this war is not only illegal, but also inhuman. Thank you, Prime Minister,” the caption on the stickers read.
The government in Madrid condemned the strikes on Iran and refused to allow the US to use its bases to carry them out. Sanchez has insisted that he will not change his stance despite threats by Donald Trump to cut trade ties with Spain.
An Israeli farmer who was killed in the northern border community of Misgav Am on Sunday was hit by Israeli artillery, not Hezbollah fire, the Kan broadcaster has reported.
A probe by the IDF has established that troops had mistakenly targeted an Israeli settlement instead of south Lebanon, according to the broadcaster. The family of 60-year-old Ofer Moskovitz have been informed by the Israeli military about the development, it added.
Anthony Aguilar
The war against Iran has become “an abysmal failure” for the administration of US President Donald Trump, Anthony Aguilar, retired American lieutenant colonel and special forces officer turned whistleblower has told RT.
Washington went into the conflict without clear objectives and without allies, with the exception of Israel, which “is not providing much support directly,” he said.
Over the past week, it became clear that “the conditions on which this war will end are no longer up to Donald Trump. This war will end on Iran’s terms,” Aguilar stressed.
A possible US ground offensive into Iran would also become “an absolute disaster” as “they will decimate any US ground force… airborne troops would be shot out of the sky,” he warned.
The head of US Central Command (CENTCOM), Brad Cooper, has accused Iran of hitting “civilian targets very deliberately, more than 300 times” since the start of the conflict. “They’re operating in a sign of desperation,” he added.
According to Cooper, the scale of strikes by Tehran has also reduced significantly in recent days. “At the beginning of the conflict, you saw large volumes in the dozens of drones and missiles. You no longer see that. It’s all one or two at a time,” he said.
The US campaign against Iran is “ahead or on plan,” the CENTCOM chief insisted.
Tehran maintains that it doesn’t attack civilian targets. According to Iranian data, more than 1,500 people have been killed in the country by American and Israeli strikes over the past three weeks.
Lebanese-based armed group Hezbollah has said its fighters carried out 63 military operations against the IDF in Israel and southern Lebanon on Sunday, deploying rockets, drones, and artillery fire.
According to the Israeli military, seven of its troops suffered lightly injuries in southern Lebanon and northern Israel on Sunday. Two soldiers were hurt in an explosion caused by a UAV, while the others were injured in safety and work-related incidents, it said.
The number of airstrikes launched by US and Israeli warplanes has decreased since an American F-35 fighter jet was hit by Iranian forces last week, an intelligence source has told Press TV.
“Multiple strikes by Iran's integrated air defense system against... invading aircraft have led to a significant reduction in military operations by American and Israeli fighter jets in the central regions of the country,” the source said.
However, the aircraft and drones “are still being used for reconnaissance purposes” by Washington and West Jerusalem, the broadcaster's interlocutor added.
The US military has published a clip which it said shows the aftermath of airstrikes on a drone and aircraft turbine engine production facility in Iran’s north-central Qom province.
The global economy is facing a “major threat” as a result of the US-Israeli war against Iran, the head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, has warned.
“This crisis, as things stand, is now two oil crises and one gas crash put all together,” he said, adding that at least 40 energy assets in nine countries in the Middle Eastern region have been “severely or very severely damaged.”
“No country will be immune to the effects of this crisis if it continues to go in this direction. So there is a need for global efforts” to stop the fighting, Birol stressed.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has mocked US President Donald Trump, using his own catchphrase from his time at ‘The Apprentice’, a reality TV series.
"Hey Trump, you’re fired. You are familiar with this sentence. Thank you for your attention to this matter,” an IRGC spokesman said in a video.
The jab followed the US leader’s ultimatum to Iran to unblock the Strait of Hormuz in 48 hours or face attacks on its power plants.
US President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer “agreed that reopening the Strait of Hormuz was essential to ensure stability in the global energy market” during a phone call on Sunday, according to Downing Street.
Trump previously scolded Starmer for initially not allowing the US to use UK bases for strikes on Iran and for refusing to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz. “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump said of Starmer this month.
Israeli military spokesman Effie Defrin has told citizens to prepare for “more weeks of fighting against Iran and Hezbollah.”
The statement came as Israel carried out new strikes on Tehran overnight and sent additional troops and armor to expand its area of control in southern Lebanon.
Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan said the country “will never be blackmailed by terrorists.”
He made the comment on X in response to former French diplomat and UN envoy Gerard Araud, who argued that “dependence” on the US had led the UAE “into a disastrous conflict without caring about your interests.”
Like other Arab states hosting US bases, the UAE has been hit by Iranian missile and drone strikes.
Powerful explosions have been reported across Tehran, shortly after Israel said it had launched a “wave of extensive strikes” targeting government infrastructure in the city.
Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Suhaib al-Asa described the scale and intensity of the blasts in the eastern part of the Iranian capital as “unprecedented.”
Airstrikes were also reported in the southern city of Bushehr, home to Iran’s only nuclear power plant.
An airstrike damaged a residential building in Urmia in northwestern Iran, near the border with Iraq and Türkiye, Iranian media reported.
A US-operated Patriot interceptor missile malfunctioned and crashed into a residential neighborhood in Bahrain on March 9, injuring dozens, a visual analysis by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies suggests, according to Reuters.
Bahrain acknowledged for the first time on Saturday that a US missile was involved in the blast over the Mahazza neighborhood on Sitra Island, near the capital, Manama, Reuters reported.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told CBS News that members of the military bloc were working together to “secure free navigation” through the Strait of Hormuz.
Rutte downplayed US President Donald Trump’s remarks calling NATO “a paper tiger” and labeling European countries that declined his call to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz “cowards.” He said member state were working with the US behind the scenes and “needed a couple of weeks to come together.”
New Iranian missile strikes were reported in central Israel.
The barrage came after around 180 people were injured in earlier attacks on Arad and Dimona, which prompted the Israeli military to launch an investigation into a failure of its air defense systems.
US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz has refused to rule out potential strikes on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant.
When asked by CBS whether President Donald Trump’s threats meant he was “going to bomb a nuclear power plant,” Waltz replied: “Well, I would never take anything off the table for the president, certainly not on national television.”
22 March 2026
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) has released footage showing strikes on drones and vehicles in Iran.
CENTCOM also denied Iranian claims that an F-15 fighter jet was shot down near the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday.
New CCTV footage shows the moment an Iranian missile struck Arad in southern Israel on Saturday evening.
The Israeli Health Ministry said 180 people were injured in Arad and Dimona, which hosts Israel’s main nuclear facility.
Iran’s military spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaghari said the Strait of Hormuz would be “completely closed” to all vessels, not just “enemy ships,” if the US carries out its threat to bomb Iranian power plants.
Zolfaghari added that Iran would strike energy and communications infrastructure in Israel, including “all power plants,” and target US companies in the region. He reiterated that power plants in countries hosting US bases would be “legitimate targets.”