LIVE: Iran shuts Hormuz after Israel kills 182 in Lebanon, media hints at sea mines

Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanon, Iranian-state media reported.

“Aggression towards Lebanon is aggression towards Iran,” Gen. Seyed Majid Mousavi, Iran's Revolutionary Guard aerospace commander, wrote on X. He warned that Iranian forces were preparing a “heavy response” without revealing details.

Lebanon's health ministry said that Israeli strikes on Wednesday killed 182 people, the highest single-day death toll in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Israel launched a barrage of strikes in central Beirut and elsewhere in the country as a shaky ceasefire took effect between the US and Iran.

Iranian officials have maintained that the deal was supposed to include Lebanon, while Israel and the US have insisted that it does not.

Another 890 people were wounded in the strikes, the ministry said. Altogether, 1,739 people have been killed and 5,873 wounded in Lebanon in just over five weeks since the outbreak of the war.

Worried about surging oil prices and surprised by a resilient Iranian regime, the White House pushed Pakistan to broker a temporary ceasefire with Tehran, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

For weeks the Trump administration was leaning on Islamabad to convince the Iranians to agree to a pause in fighting where it would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the newspaper said, quoting “people familiar with the talks”.

“Pakistan’s crucial role, as a Muslim-majority neighbour and intermediary, was to sell it to Tehran,” the report said.

US President Donald Trump, worried about surging oil prices and surprised by a resilient Iranian regime, was eager for a ceasefire since at least his first threat on March 21 to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants, according to five people familiar with the Pakistan-led back channel, the Times reported.

It said Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir and other senior Pakistani officials began passing messages between Iranian political and military figures and the White House soon after Trump issued his first ultimatum to open the strait.

The FT report said that Munir embarked on a flurry of calls to top US officials, including Trump, Vice President J D Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff as Trump ratcheted up pressure to “obliterate” Iran and set April 7 as the deadline.

“The US and Pakistan believed Iran was more likely to accept the US-backed offer if it was delivered by a Muslim-majority neighbour state that had emphasised its neutrality throughout the conflict,” the report said.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif made the two-week proposal public on social media after Munir spoke with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Sharif, who framed the deal as Pakistan’s initiative, mistakenly included a subject line at the top of his post: “draft — Pakistan’s PM message on X”, it said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday said the two-week ceasefire in the fight against Iran was "not the end of the war" but a "stop on the way", as he vowed to achieve all war objectives, including the issue of Tehran's enriched uranium.

"If we had not launched Operation Gideon's Sword and Operation Lion's Roar against Iran, it would have long ago had nuclear weapons and thousands of missiles to destroy Israel and threaten the existence of us all," Netanyahu said in a video statement to the press.

"We have set the terror regime back years. The enriched material will leave Iran – through agreement or through renewed combat. Israel and the US see eye to eye on this issue," Netanyahu said.

Emphasising that Israel "is ready to return to fighting at any time”, the Israeli prime minister warned that “the finger is on the trigger”.

The United States and Iran both claimed victory Wednesday after the two countries and Israel agreed to a two-week ceasefire that halted more than a month of war, and world leaders expressed relief, even as more drones and missiles hit the Islamic Republic and Gulf Arab states.

Pakistan authorities on Wednesday announced a two-day holiday in the national capital ahead of the planned peace talks between the US and Iran on Friday.

The Islamabad district administration announced local holidays in the capital on April 9 (Thursday) and 10 (Friday), Deputy Commissioner Irfan Nawaz Memon said.

"Local Holidays Announced in Islamabad – 9th & 10th April,” he said in a post on X.

He also shared the notification by the office of the Islamabad district magistrate.

However, the deputy commissioner added that essential services will remain operational, which include the Capital Development Authority, the Islamabad Capital Territory Administration, Islamabad police, the Islamabad Electric Supply Company, the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd and hospitals.