US-Iran War News Live Update: Iran fired on at least three ships in the Strait of Hormuz and has seized two of them, intensifying its assault on the trade done through the key waterway. The attacks came just hours after US President Donald Trump extended a ceasefire in Iran while also maintaining an American blockade of Iranian ports. The White House, however, quickly said the action was not a deal breaker for potential peace negotiations between the two nations.
“These were not US ships. These were not Israeli ships,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told Fox News. Therefore, she claimed the Iranians had not violated a cease-fire with the United States that Trump has extended indefinitely.
She warned media against “blowing this out of proportion”.
The standoff between the US and Iran has effectively choked off nearly all exports through the strait — where 20 per cent of the world’s traded oil passes in peacetime — with no end in sight. Iranian media said the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard was bringing the two ships to Iran, marking a further escalation, though the White House said the seizures didn’t violate ceasefire terms. The conflict has already sent gas prices skyrocketing far beyond the region and raised the cost of food and a wide array of other products. The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, nosed over $100 per barrel, marking a 35 per cent increase from prewar levels, but stock markets still appear to be shrugging it off.