Live Updates: Iran war continues with U.S. blockade of ports; Lebanon and Israel hold direct talks

Nearly 400 U.S. service members have been wounded during the Iran war. 

As of Tuesday, 399 service members had been wounded in action, according to a U.S. Central Command spokesperson. Of those, 354 have returned to duty. Three are currently considered seriously wounded. 

The military said over a week ago that as of Monday, April 6, 373 service members had been injured. That figure should have been 381, according to the spokesperson, and the increase is because of delayed symptoms and reporting of traumatic brain injuries.

Hezbollah on Tuesday said it targeted 13 northern Israeli towns with rockets shortly after the start of Lebanese-Israeli talks in Washington.

The group said in a statement it targeted Kiryat Shmona, Metula and 11 other towns "with simultaneous rocket salvos" at 6:15 p.m. local time.

The Israeli military had warned it expected a rise in Hezbollah attacks as Washington hosted Israeli and Lebanese officials for their first direct diplomatic talks in decades. 

Further movement on U.S.-Iran peace talks "could be happening over the next two days" in Islamabad, Pakistan, President Trump told the New York Post Tuesday. 

Mr. Trump said in a phone call with the publication that talks were happening "a little bit slow." But the Post reported that the president called back 30 minutes later with an update. 

"You should stay there, really, because something could be happening over the next two days, and we're more inclined to go there," he said of Islamabad. 

A U.S. official says the blockade on Iran's ports is being enforced from the Gulf of Oman, which means ships can get through the Strait of Hormuz but not far past it. 

The Gulf of Oman lies to the east of the Strait and opens to the Arabian Sea.  

Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke briefly at the top of talks Tuesday between Israel and Lebanon, flanked by the meeting participants in the Benjamin Franklin room at the State Department. He framed the talks as going beyond an effort to reach a ceasefire. 

"This is a process, not an event," Rubio said. "This is more than just one day. This will take time, but we believe it is worth this endeavor, and it's a historic gathering that we hope to build on."

"This is a historic opportunity," he said. "We understand we're working against decades of history and the complexities that have led us to this unique moment and the opportunity here."

Rubio was pictured alongside State Department Counselor Mike Needham, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Nada Hamadeh and Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter.  

Lebanon's president expressed hope that direct talks with Israel on Tuesday in Washington would lead to an end of his country's suffering after war erupted again between Israel and Hezbollah last month.

"I hope that the meeting in Washington... will mark the beginning of the end of the suffering of the Lebanese people in general, and those in the south in particular," President Joseph Aoun said in a statement, adding that "stability will not return to the south if Israel continues to occupy its lands".

"The only solution lies in the Lebanese army re-deploying up to the internationally recognized border, and so being solely responsible for the security of the area and the safety of its residents, without the partnership of any other party," Aoun added.

His statement came as Israel's military warned that Hezbollah could increase attacks as talks begin. 

"Following a situational assessment, and as part of recent developments, an increase in fire from Lebanon is possible, likely targeting northern Israel," the Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday.

Over 10,000 U.S. service members are executing the U.S. blockade of Iran's ports, according to U.S. Central Command, which said no ships made it past the blockade in the first 24 hours.

The blockade of Iran's ports and a partial blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for shipments of oil, fertilizer and other vital goods, began at 10 a.m. ET on Monday.

The U.S. military said Tuesday morning that six merchant vessels "complied with direction from U.S. forces to turn around to re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman."

"The blockade is being enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman," CENTCOM said. "U.S. forces are supporting freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports."

The U.S. service members who are carrying out the mission include sailors, Marines and airmen. More than a dozen warships and over 100 surveillance and fighter aircraft are involved, according to the military.

As the Iran war drives up the cost of energy around the world, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told a group of reporters Tuesday that "a small bit of economic pain for a few weeks is worth taking off the incalculable tail risk of either a nuclear Iran or a nuclear Iran that uses that weapon."

Asked about the impact of soaring gas prices on consumers, Bessent said "there is nothing more transient than what we are seeing now."

"So the conflict will end, prices will come down, and then headline inflation will come down, and with that, gasoline prices will come down," Bessent said.

The average price for a regular gallon of gas in the U.S. was $4.12 on Tuesday, according to AAA.

The foreign ministers of the U.K., Australia, France, Sweden and other countries called on Tuesday for Lebanon to be included in regional de-escalation efforts, and said they welcome direct talks between Lebanon and Israel.

"Direct negotiations can pave the way to bring lasting security for Lebanon and Israel as well as the region," the foreign ministers said in a joint statement. "We stand ready to support them. We therefore call upon all parties to urgently deescalate and seize the opportunity offered by the ceasefire between the United States and Iran."

The foreign ministers – also from Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain – condemned Hezbollah's attacks against Israel, as well as the wave of Israeli strikes on Lebanon last Wednesday that killed hundreds of people.

They also said they "commend the decision of the Lebanese government to ban Hezbollah's military activities, as well as its decision to reinforce the full imposition of state authority over Beirut and to have the sole monopoly on weapons, and we encourage full and swift implementation."

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said Tuesday that her government has suspended the automatic renewal of a defense agreement with Israel, citing "the current situation."

The agreement, ratified in 2005, includes ongoing cooperation between the two countries' defense ministries and armed forces. It is automatically renewed every five years.

Meloni and other Italian government officials have strongly condemned Israel's air and bombing campaign in Lebanon, which has hit civilians as well as an Italian convoy that is part of a U.N. peacekeeping force. 

House Republicans on the Armed Services Committee postponed a planned hearing with senior Pentagon officials testifying on the Iran war, pushing the session from April 21 to May 19, a source familiar with the planning confirmed. 

The hearing was set to include Adm. Brad Cooper and Gen. Dagvin R.M. Anderson. 

It is unclear whether a separate Senate hearing scheduled for April 23 with the same officials will take place.

The delay was first reported by The New York Times.

The International Monetary Fund sharply reduced its 2026 growth forecast for the Middle East and North Africa to 1.1% on Tuesday as war chokes Gulf oil and gas exports.

Iran, Iraq and Qatar will be particularly hard-hit, the IMF's World Economic Outlook warned, predicting a 6.1% slide for the Iranian economy. Qatar was tipped to drop 8.6% and Iraq 6.8%.

Growth should rebound next year, as long as energy production and transport are "normalized" over the next few months, the IMF predicted. The region's economies grew 3.2% in 2025, it said. 

Iran's Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said Tuesday that any attempts at sanctions or maritime blockade "will lead nowhere," Iranian state television reported.

Momeni instructed governors of border provinces to make full use of their delegated special powers to "neutralize the threat" of a maritime blockade and ensure that adversaries fail on this front as well.

No further details were provided on how provincial authorities are expected to counter or mitigate the blockade threat.

Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said his country is seeking "peace and normalization" with Lebanon, as the two countries prepared to meet later Tuesday in Washington for their first direct talks in decades.

"We want to reach peace and normalization with the state of Lebanon," Saar said at a press conference. "Israel and Lebanon don't have any major disputes between them. The problem is Hezbollah," the Iran-backed militant group whose opposition is dampening hopes of any breakthrough at the talks.

Israel's ongoing military campaign in Lebanon is threatening to derail the fragile US-Iranian ceasefire agreement announced a week ago.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he spoke with President Trump and Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian on Monday, and "urged the resumption of the negotiations suspended in Islamabad, the clearing up of misunderstandings, and the avoidance of any further escalation."

In a social media post, Macron said he deemed it essential for the ceasefire to include Lebanon and for the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened unconditionally.

"Under these conditions, negotiations should be able to resume quickly, with the support of the key parties concerned," Macron said.

Macron said France and the U.K. would host a conference in Paris on Friday for "non-belligerent countries ready to contribute, alongside us, to a multilateral and purely defensive mission aimed at restoring freedom of navigation in the strait when security conditions allow."

"The Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to continue talks solely within the framework of international laws and regulations and with the aim of protecting the rights of the Iranian people. And Europe can play a constructive role in encouraging the United States to adhere to these frameworks," Pezeshkian told Macron, according to an Iranian readout of the call.

The Israeli military said Tuesday that overnight clashes between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah militants left 10 soldiers wounded in the strategically significant southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, which Israeli forces have encircled.

The escalation of fighting in the town comes as Israeli and Lebanese officials were to hold talks in Washington Tuesday aimed at ending the war.

According to the military, Israeli troops have now fully surrounded the town, marking a notable advance in their ongoing ground offensive in southern Lebanon.

On Monday, the military said its forces killed more than 100 Hezbollah fighters in and around the town over the past few days.

Just three miles from the Israeli border, Bint Jbeil has long been both a symbolic and strategic flashpoint in confrontations between Israeli forces and Hezbollah.

The Israeli military also said Tuesday that a soldier had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon, the first since a U.S.-Iran truce went into effect -- a truce that Israel insists doesn't include the country where it's fighting Tehran-backed Hezbollah.

CBS/AFP

Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told Russian media that one of the topics discussed in talks with the United States in Islamabad last weekend was the issue of war reparations, Iran's state news agency IRNA reports.

She said Iranian economic officials are assessing the extent of the damage from attacks, noting that losses must be evaluated on multiple levels.

According to Mohajrani, some damage is the physical destruction of buildings while other damage stems from the shutdown or disruption of oil and petrochemical production facilities.

Iran has been charging vessels it lets through the Strait of Hormuz a fee as one way of raising revenue.

But now the U.S. is blockading traffic through the strait that comes from Iranian ports, effectively cutting off both oil revenue and transit income.

Tracking data appears to show a number of Iran-linked ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz in the hours after the U.S. blockade of the waterway began on Monday.

The U.S. military said its blockade would apply to "all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports," but that it would "not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports."

One ship that crossed the strait after the blockade began on Monday - the Christianna - had previously been stopped at the Iranian port of Bandar Imam Khomeini, data shows.

Another ship, the Ladonna, had been at Bandar Imam Khomeini for a week before turning on its transponder Tuesday and journeying into the Persian Gulf.

The Murlikishan, which is under U.S. sanctions over its connections to Iran, journeyed west through the strait overnight, tracking data shows, along with another tanker, the Peace Gulf, which is not sanctioned by the U.S. but made a port call in Iran in December 2025.

The Rich Starry, a tanker that is sanctioned by the United States under a different name, sailed through the strait overnight Monday, while the Elpis, another sanctioned tanker, sailed through the strait after the blockade began, having apparently come from the Iranian port of Bushehr, according to tracking data.

CBS News cannot confirm that the ships have not been broadcasting false location reports - called spoofing - to conceal their true whereabouts.

Vice President JD Vance told Fox News in an interview Monday that the U.S. made its red lines clear in talks with Iran, and that it's now up to Tehran to take action. 

"I really think the ball is in the Iranian court, because we put a lot on the table. We actually made very clear what our red lines were," Vance said. 

Vance said the U.S. is willing to be accommodating, but Iran cannot have the ability to enrich uranium and that the "nuclear dust" needs to be removed from Iran, preferably by the U.S. Another red line is nuclear weapons, the vice president said.

"It's one thing for the Iranians to say that they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. It's another thing for us to put in place the mechanism to ensure that's not going to happen," Vance said.

On the Strait of Hormuz, Vance said there's been an "uptick in traffic coming through the strait," but that it hasn't been fully reopened. The vice president added that if the Iranians don't make progress on the vital waterway, it will "change the negotiation." 

Vance also said Iran "tried to move the goalposts" on the strait during the talks in Pakistan. He said the U.S. now has the cards, militarily and economically, in the Strait of Hormuz, and it's up to the Iranians to decide how they're going to move forward.

CBS/AFP

Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be participating in the Israel-Lebanon talks that are scheduled to be held Tuesday in Washington, D.C., CBS News has confirmed.

The Israeli and Lebanese governments are engaging in direct, high-level diplomatic talks – the first such talks since 1993 – brokered by the U.S., a State Department official said.

CBS News previously reported on this upcoming meeting, with two sources familiar with the matter and one Lebanese official saying they'll be led by U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa along with Lebanese Ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad and Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter. The State Department official told CBS News Monday that Issa, Leiter and Hamadeh would be participants in tomorrow's meeting.

Shortly after Israel and the U.S. began the war with Iran, Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in a show of solidarity with Tehran. Israel then launched a new offensive against Hezbollah, and invaded much of southern Lebanon.

The White House and Israel's government say Lebanon was never part of the two-week ceasefire with Iran announced last week.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem on Monday urged Lebanon to cancel a planned meeting with Israel in Washington, reiterating his group's rejection of direct negotiations with Israel.

"We call for a historic and heroic stance by canceling this negotiating meeting," Qassem, whose Iran-backed terrorist group has been at war with Israel since March 2, said in a televised address.

The Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to the United States are scheduled to meet on Tuesday.

Washington's decision to blockade Iranian ports on the Strait of Hormuz is sending tremors through global energy markets, raising fears of a fresh oil shock by threatening supplies to Asia.

Iran had continued to pump crude to Asia since the start of the Middle East war, partly shielded by its elusive "dark fleet."

Roughly one-fifth of the world's oil normally flows through the vital waterway. Iran has already tightened the screws in recent weeks, sharply slowing maritime traffic.

Now, the blockade of Iran's ports ordered Sunday by President Trump threatens to land another blow to global oil and gas supplies after the fighting damaged energy facilities in the Gulf states and blocked their exports through the strait, said Amir Handjani of the U.S.-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

Just days after launching the war against Iran along with Israel on Feb. 28, the U.S. temporarily eased some sanctions on Tehran to prevent an abrupt energy shock — particularly for Asian economies.

Iranian crude had been helping to meet demand so far, Handjani told AFP, but he warned that the blockade now threatens that fragile balance.

"What is the U.S. Navy going to do? They're not going to confront Chinese, Indian and Pakistani merchant ships" loading in Iranian ports, he said. "That's an act of war."

China remains the world's largest importer of Iranian crude, and on Tuesday Beijing called the U.S. blockade "dangerous and irresponsible." 

Oil prices, already climbing, will continue to surge, Handjani predicted.

Russia nearly doubled its earnings from oil exports in March as Moscow was granted sanctions relief in a bid to offset soaring energy prices during the war in the Middle East, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday.

The country earned $19 billion last month as crude and oil product exports rose to 7.1 million barrels per day, an increase of 320 thousand barrels a day from February levels.

The United States eased some restrictions on sales of Russian crude imposed over its war against Ukraine, allowing countries to purchase oil that was already at sea until April 11.

President Trump told CBS News senior correspondent Norah O'Donnell on Monday that Pope Leo is "wrong on the issues" after previously lashing out at the pontiff late Sunday, calling him "WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy" in a lengthy Truth Social post.

In a phone interview, Mr. Trump confirmed that he had watched "60 Minutes," which highlighted Pope Leo's disapproval of mass deportations and the Iran war, before firing off the post. When asked if he plans to call the pope directly, Mr. Trump gave a firm "no."

"He's wrong on the issues," Mr. Trump said of Pope Leo. "I don't think he should be getting into politics. I think he probably learned that from this." 

Mr. Trump also said he wasn't sure whether Pope Leo, the first U.S.-born pontiff, would visit the U.S. during his presidency. "I have no idea," he said. "It's up to him, not up to me."

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-Keith Sharman, Callie Teitelbaum, Roxanne Feitel