The US naval blockade of Iranian ports entered its fourth operational day on Thursday as CENTCOM confirmed it had turned nine vessels away since Monday, including a Chinese-owned sanctioned tanker that made a U-turn after exiting the Strait and is now stationary off Iran’s Larak Island, Iranian joint military command chief Ali Abdollahi warned in a statement carried on state television that if Washington continues blocking Iranian commercial vessels Tehran’s armed forces “will not allow any exports or imports to continue in the area of the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, and the Red Sea,” satellite imagery reviewed by CNN shows front-end loaders actively excavating rubble from blocked tunnel entrances at two underground missile bases during the ceasefire, Pakistan’s Army Chief Asim Munir arrived in Tehran on Wednesday evening to deliver a message from Washington and met Foreign Minister Araghchi, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah on the first leg of a four-day tour heading to Qatar and then the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey, Israeli forces on Thursday destroyed the Qasmiyeh Bridge connecting Sidon and Tyre, struck Nabatieh and Kfar Rumman and demolished a high school in Marwahin, killed four paramedics in a triple-tap strike in Mayfadoun the day before, and Netanyahu said in a Wednesday address that Israeli forces would “overwhelm” Bint Jbeil and push their security zone further east, the Gaza death toll since October 7, 2023 reached 72,344 identified dead and 172,242 wounded according to Palestinian health sources on Wednesday with 765 killed and 2,400-plus ceasefire violations since October 2025, Sergey Lavrov met Xi Jinping in Beijing on Wednesday and offered to supply China’s energy shortfall while reaffirming Iran’s inalienable right to enrich uranium, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned two Chinese banks of secondary sanctions over Iranian oil purchases, the nuclear gap that broke Islamabad remains fixed at fifteen years: Washington demanded a twenty-year moratorium, Tehran offered five, and the ceasefire expires on April 21.
