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The fragile US-Iran ceasefire collapsed in spectacular fashion overnight Sunday into Monday, as Washington launched its most punishing strike package of the war — hitting some 140 Iranian military targets in a single night — and Tehran responded by expanding its retaliatory attacks to include Qatar, a Gulf state that had been serving as a ceasefire mediator and had not come under Iranian fire since April.
The trigger, according to US Central Command, was Iran striking a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Oman on Sunday. CENTCOM described hitting air defense systems, radar sites, missile and drone launch facilities, ammunition dumps, communication equipment, and small boats. “We bombed the hell out of them last night,” President Trump told NBC’s Meet the Press. “The Strait of Hormuz is a vital maritime corridor for global trade,” CENTCOM said in a statement. “Iran does not control it.”
Iran’s response was a barrage that stretched across Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, and even Oman — whose territorial waters form part of the strait itself. Oman, long Washington’s back-channel to Tehran, summoned an Iranian diplomat to register its objection. Qatar’s inclusion in the strikes is the sharpest escalation signal yet: Doha has hosted negotiations aimed at producing a permanent end to the war, and hitting a mediator is a message that Tehran considers diplomacy itself a target.
“The era of one-sided deals is OVER,” wrote Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, speaker of Iran’s parliament and one of its lead negotiators. “We told you: keep your word or pay the price. Reality is knocking.” Iran’s foreign ministry said US attacks had “caused the return of insecurity in the Strait of Hormuz” and “rendered futile all efforts” at peacemaking.
Ship traffic through Hormuz has fallen to its lowest level in five weeks, according to data firm Kpler — just six vessels crossed on Sunday, including one Very Large Crude Carrier. Oil prices jumped on the news, according to Euronews. Both the US and Iran are now claiming control of the world’s most important energy chokepoint.
Mediators — Pakistan, Qatar, and Egypt — have not abandoned the field. UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued an emergency statement warning that “a return to full-scale hostilities would have catastrophic consequences.” Pakistan’s foreign office expressed “deep concern at escalation in regional tensions.” But with the interim 60-day deal now in tatters and Trump having declared it “over” last week, the diplomatic runway is very short. The sides are nearly at the midpoint of the period that was supposed to build toward a permanent agreement — and instead have been trading the heaviest blows of the war, per reporting by The Guardian, CNN, and AP.
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