TEHRAN:The United States demanded today that Iran immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz after the Islamic Republic closed the waterway in response to Israeli attacks against the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon.

Iran’s move cast doubt over whether an already precarious ceasefire to end more than a month of war would hold.

The United States and Iran both claimed victory after reaching the agreement, and world leaders expressed relief, even as more drones and missiles hit Iran and Gulf Arab countries.

Israel also intensified its attacks in Lebanon, hitting several commercial and residential areas in Beirut without warning. At least 112 people were killed and hundreds were wounded in one of the deadliest days in the latest Israel-Hezbollah war.

The fresh violence threatened to scuttle what US Vice President JD Vance called a “fragile” deal.

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

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi insisted that an end to the war in Lebanon was part of the ceasefire agreement with the US.

“The world sees the massacres in Lebanon,” he said in a post on X. “The ball is in the US court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments.”US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said American and Israeli forces had achieved a “capital V military victory” and that the Iranian military no longer posed a significant threat to US forces or the region. The Iranian military said the country forced Israel and the US to accept its “proposed conditions and surrender.”Much about the agreement was unclear as the........

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