Iran war live: Trump says no ‘early’ end to war, unhappy with Tehran offer

China’s envoy to the United Nations has told reporters that there is no real ceasefire in place between Israel and Lebanon, only a “lesser fire”.

“It is incumbent on Israel to stop this bombardment of Lebanon,” Fu Cong told reporters at the UN’s headquarters in New York on Friday, as China assumed the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council for May.

The number of people killed in Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon has again increased, with at least 44 people killed in the last two days alone, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.

The death toll from Israeli attacks since the start of the renewed war on March 2 has now risen to at least 2,618 people, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said on Friday.

Before her wedding, Huwaida Arraf was on a hunger strike in an Israeli prison.

She made it to the altar and married fellow activist Adam Shapiro.

They spent their youth on the front lines of activism for Palestinian rights, standing in front of tanks and getting shot at by the Israeli military.

Huwaida helped launch the Gaza flotilla movement and has been detained more times than she can count.

Two decades later, she is still attempting to sail to Gaza to break Israel’s siege.

"She personally feels more powerful than any soldier, tank, anything that they can throw at her."

Adam Shapiro speaks on his wife, Huwaida Arraf, who helped launch the Gaza flotilla movement. pic.twitter.com/PpdQkOpQXg

— AJ+ (@ajplus) April 30, 2026

President Trump is absolutely adamant that he has certain red lines, which are not clear.

But we do know that one red line is that Iran must commit to not reaching any form of nuclear weapons status.

And that is forever.

It’s not just a moratorium, which some have suggested.

But, as to the other aspects of what he’s waiting for from Iran, that’s unclear, because he hasn’t publicly given his shopping list, so to speak.

But we do know the nuclear issue is the most fundamental point for President Trump.

US Central Command, which is responsible for the war on Iran, says it has blocked 45 vessels attempting to breach its blockade of Iran’s ports.

“US forces continue to patrol international waters and enforce the ongoing naval blockade against Iran. As of now, 45 commercial vessels have been directed to turn around or return to port to ensure compliance,” CENTCOM said in a post on X.

The US imposed its blockade of Iranian ports on April 13.

The head of the Israeli military, Eyal Zamir, is saying this week that in southern Lebanon, effectively, there is no ceasefire.

They’re still trying to abide by it for the rest of the country.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is coming under intense pressure from all quarters now to abandon the ceasefire.

The majority of the Israeli public is against it.

The opposition is against the ceasefire. And all week, the army has been saying they are ready to reengage, to broaden the conflict if they get the green light.

On Friday, senior officers were telling multiple Israeli media outlets that they were frustrated, that they believe the ceasefire was causing harm for Israeli soldiers, who are seeing daily injuries now from these first-person view fibre-optics cable drones increasingly used by Hezbollah.

The army says that unless they can attack deep into Lebanon to try and particularly target the production facilities of these drones, they don’t really have a defence for them at the moment, so they need to broaden the campaign to do that.

US President Donald Trump repeated his claim that the US has destroyed Iran’s military and that he was unhappy with the state of negotiations with Iran to end the war.

“I would say that I am not happy,” Trump said.

Watch below:

The administration is threatening to impose sanctions on individuals or entities that attempt to get through the Strait of Hormuz by paying the Iranian toll, which the Iranians are demanding for passage.

This is a serious threat because, obviously, the Treasury Department does have the power to impose these sanctions on individuals or on entities.

What the US is suggesting is they form a consortium of shipping companies, essentially, called the Maritime Freedom Construct.

Apparently, this is being set up by the State Department.

It will be operated by the US Central Command, and the idea is that ships wanting to get passage through the Strait of Hormuz liaise with the US Navy – get an escort through it – formalise it with the United States Navy, who would obviously vet each of these individual tankers before allowing them through.

It’s a complicated process and one that will be difficult to see how quickly it can be established and how effectively it can operate.

In a statement, the US Department of State said that the sanctions applied to “several entities, an individual, and a vessel involved in the trade of Iranian petroleum, petroleum products, and petrochemical products”.

The sanctions targeted Qingdao Haiye Oil Terminal Co, Ltd, a China-based petroleum terminal operator that the State Department said “has imported tens of millions of barrels” of crude oil under unilateral US sanctions.

“Haiye has enabled the flow of billions of dollars to Tehran that has relied on sophisticated evasion schemes, accepting cargo from vessels conducting illicit ship-to-ship transfers with sanctioned vessels,” the State Department said.

The spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, told the South China Morning Post on Friday that Beijing opposed “unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction that have no basis in international law”.

The sanctions on Iran’s oil were applied by the US under Trump’s first administration.

Historically, only sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council were considered binding on other UN member states under international law.

The US has also imposed sanctions on Chinese oil refineries and a number of Hong Kong shipping companies it says are trading Iranian oil.

• US President Donald Trump says he is “not satisfied” with the latest Iranian proposal for talks on ending the war, while Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran was ready for diplomacy if the US changes its “expansionist approach, threatening rhetoric”.
• Iran’s IRGC Navy command released a statement saying it will enforce “new rules” over waters near Iran’s coast to make them a “source of security and prosperity for the region”.
• The White House has officially told Congress that hostilities with Iran have been “terminated” despite the continued presence of US forces in the Middle East region.
• President Trump called the War Powers Resolution, under which a US president is required to seek authorisation from Congress within 60 days of the start of military action, “unconstitutional”.
• Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has accused Israel of using the ceasefire as cover to intensify its attacks, with at least 16 people killed in a day of strikes on southern Lebanon.
• Iran’s Fars News Agency reported that 14 members of the IRGC were killed after unexploded ordnance detonated in the northwestern province of Zanjan.
• The ⁠US State Department said it ⁠was approving military sales ⁠worth more than $8.6bn to Middle Eastern ‌allies Israel, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
• US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the withdrawal of 5,000 American troops from Germany, the Pentagon said on Friday, in an apparent rebuke to the NATO ally over its lack of support for Washington’s war on Tehran.

Hello, and welcome to our live coverage of the war between the United States, Israel and Iran.

Stay with us for the latest developments, reactions and analyses from across the Middle East and beyond.

You can find our updates from Friday, May 1, here.