Iran Fires on Ships in Strait of Hormuz While U.S. Holds Firm on Blockade

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard fired on three ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, seizing two of them and escorting them toward Iranian territory — a sharp escalation in the maritime standoff that has thrown shipping safety into serious doubt and put nearly all exports through one of the world’s most critical energy corridors at risk. The attacks came one day after U.S. President Donald Trump extended a ceasefire while simultaneously maintaining an American naval blockade of Iranian ports, a contradiction at the heart of stalled negotiations and one that Tehran’s leadership says makes any lasting peace agreement impossible to reach.

Iranian media reported that the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas were being escorted to Iran following Wednesday’s confrontations. The Liberian-registered Epaminondas, managed by shipping firm Technomar, was described as having been “approached and fired upon by a manned gunboat” off the coast of Oman, with its bridge damaged in the assault. A second cargo ship came under fire hours later, with no injuries reported to either crew, though it was stopped in the water. A third vessel, identified as the Euphoria, was attacked after reportedly becoming “stranded” on the Iranian coast, according to Iranian state media, which offered no further elaboration.

The owner of the MSC Francesca could not be immediately reached for comment. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, speaking to Fox News Channel, said the seizures did not violate the terms of the ceasefire because, as she put it, “these were not U.S. or Israeli ships, these were two international vessels.” That characterization drew immediate pushback from analysts and officials who noted that the ceasefire’s maritime provisions remained ambiguous and disputed.

The broader standoff traces back to February 28, when the United States and Israel launched what officials described as a surprise military operation against Iran. In the weeks that followed, Washington imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports on April 13, a move Iran has characterized as a fundamental violation of any legitimate ceasefire. Since then, according to analytics firm Vortexa, 34 movements of sanctioned and Iranian-linked tankers have been recorded moving in and out of the Persian Gulf — 19 outbound and 15 inbound — in just the first week after the blockade was imposed. Six of those outbound movements were confirmed as carrying Iranian crude oil, representing approximately 10.7 million barrels, though it was not immediately clear whether all of those barrels reached buyers on international markets.

Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who met with U.S. Vice President JD Vance in Pakistan earlier this month, said on the social platform X that a complete ceasefire “only makes sense” if it is not violated by a blockade that is, in his words, “taking the world’s economy hostage.” He added bluntly: “Reopening the Strait of Hormuz is impossible with such flagrant breach of the ceasefire.” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told state television that Iran has not yet decided whether to participate in a new round of negotiations with the United States, accusing Washington of a “disregard and lack of good faith” in the talks held so far.

Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, the head of the Iranian mission in Egypt, told the Associated Press that no Iranian delegation would travel to Pakistan for further talks until the United States lifts its blockade. Leavitt, for her part, told reporters that Trump had not set a deadline for receiving any proposal from Iran. “Ultimately, the timeline would be dictated by the commander in chief in the United States,” she said, offering no further specifics on a path forward.

The price of Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, crossed above $100 per barrel — representing a 35 percent increase from prewar levels — as markets processed the latest escalation. European Union energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen warned of lasting consequences for consumers and businesses across the continent, drawing comparisons to the major energy crises of the past half-century, including the 1973 Arab oil embargo and the 1979 Iranian Revolution’s impact on global supply. He said the disruption is already costing Europe approximately 500 million euros — roughly $600 million — every single day. Despite those figures, major stock markets appeared to be absorbing the shock, continuing to trade without the dramatic selloffs some analysts had forecast.

The strait’s strategic importance to the global economy is difficult to overstate. In peacetime, approximately 20 percent of the world’s traded oil — along with significant volumes of liquefied natural gas — passes through the narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the open ocean. With the standoff deterring shipping and putting transit safety in serious doubt, the strain on energy-importing nations is compounding daily. Without a diplomatic agreement capable of reopening the strait, analysts say shipping companies are likely to continue avoiding the waterway altogether, further tightening global energy supplies even as some Iranian tankers appear to be attempting to slip through.

The same day as the Hormuz seizures, three separate Israeli strikes killed at least six people and wounded others in southern Lebanon, according to local authorities. Israel denied carrying out one of the strikes and did not immediately comment on the others. An Israeli drone struck the village of Jabbour, killing one person and wounding two, while two Israeli strikes on al-Tiri village killed three people — including a newspaper correspondent, Amal Khalil, who worked for the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar. Khalil had been covering Israeli-Hezbollah hostilities since October 2023. Lebanon’s health ministry said a rescue team searching for her body was unable to reach the area while Israeli forces fired at an ambulance; her body was eventually pulled from the rubble. Israel’s military alleged that people in al-Tiri had violated ceasefire terms and posed a risk to its troops’ safety, and denied targeting journalists or blocking rescue teams.

A separate Israeli strike on the village of Yohmor killed two more people and injured two others. French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed that a French peacekeeper wounded in a weekend attack in Lebanon had died of his wounds — a second French peacekeeper had been killed in the initial attack on Saturday when the peacekeeping force came under small-arms fire in the south. Macron blamed Hezbollah for the assault; Hezbollah denied involvement. The fragile Lebanon ceasefire, which took effect on April 18, had already been marred by multiple Israeli strikes and a Hezbollah rocket attack before Wednesday’s deaths.

More than 30 attacks on ships in the wider Middle East have been recorded since the conflict began on February 28, and analysts say the pace is accelerating rather than abating. Iran’s ability to threaten and restrict traffic through the strait — a chokepoint with no easy alternative route for supertankers — has proven to be a significant strategic lever, one that Tehran appears unwilling to relinquish while the blockade remains in effect. Without a diplomatic agreement capable of addressing both sides’ core demands simultaneously — Washington’s insistence on maintaining the blockade alongside the ceasefire, and Tehran’s insistence that the blockade itself is the primary obstacle — the standoff is likely to harden further.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Baghaei said Tehran had not yet decided whether to participate in any new round of negotiations, citing what he described as U.S. disregard for good-faith diplomacy. The Iranian mission in Egypt said no delegation would travel to Pakistan until the blockade was lifted. The White House offered no timeline and no concessions. In Tehran, 59-year-old Mashallah Mohammad Sadegh captured the mood on the street: “The way things currently are, one doesn’t know what to do.”

The seizure of the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas marks the most direct challenge yet to the uncertain ceasefire framework both sides nominally accept while operationally undermining — a dynamic that, if left unresolved, risks transforming a temporary pause in airstrikes into a permanent and grinding maritime war with consequences, as the EU energy commissioner has warned, that will reach consumers and economies far beyond the Persian Gulf for years to come.