U.S. Enters Two Week Ceasefire With Iran Following Weeks of Fighting

By Katie Dusza, News Editor 

Following a dramatic week of ultimatums, President Donald Trump has agreed to a two-week ceasefire in the United States and Israel’s war against Iran. 

As of Wednesday, this ceasefire’s terms have proven to be precarious. Following the ceasefire, Israel intensified its attacks on the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, killing at least 182 people on Wednesday in commercial and residential areas in Beirut. This resulted in the highest single-day death toll in the Israel-Hezbollah war. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi insisted an end to the war in Lebanon was part of the ceasefire deal, however, U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed the truce did not cover Lebanon. These claims were made despite Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, who acted as a mediator between the warring parties, saying that the ceasefire applied to “everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere.”

On Tuesday morning…, Trump issued a statement to his social media platform “Truth Social” threatening Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz. It is a critical waterway that is necessary for the transit of over 20 percent of the world's oil, which was effectively closed by Iran after the U.S. started to strike the country in February. This closure has caused global energy prices to skyrocket. Trump threatened violent repercussions if Iran did not agree to reopening the strait by 8 p.m. Tuesday. The post stated “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” he wrote. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”

According to Trump, the war will not end until the Strait of Hormuz is reopened. In a post to Truth Social he stated, “Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!” In a news conference on Monday, Trump threatened to blow up every bridge and power plant in Iran. According to experts, if Trump was to go through with these threats, they could be considered war crimes if they are not considered proportional to the destruction of Iran towards the US or whether civilian casualties were minimized. 

Following this string of threatening posts, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif asked President Trump to postpone his threat to obliterate Iran for another two weeks. Sharif also asked Iran leaders to open the strait for those two weeks. Sharif shared in a post on X, “We also urge all warring parties to observe a ceasefire everywhere for two weeks to allow diplomacy to achieve conclusive termination of war in the interest of long-term peace and stability in the region.”

Many people have spoken out globally against the war. Pope Leo XIV spoke Tuesday outside the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo, urging people of good will to “reject war, especially a war which many people have said is an unjust war, which is continuing to escalate and which is not resolving anything.” Additionally, former Trump enthusiast and Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene urged people in Congress to invoke the 25th Amendment, which allows for a majority of a president’s cabinet to remove the sitting president if deemed unfit. In the same X post she stated, “Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness.”