On the first day of the pause, Iran fired missiles and launched drones in the region. It said an oil refinery on Lavan Island had been attacked. Israel continued its strikes in Lebanon.
A day after a pause in fighting was announced between the United States and Iran, many questions remained, including the status of the Strait of Hormuz.
In a week in which President Trump has veered from threatening to wipe out Iranian civilization to declaring a cease-fire, Congress is out of session and lawmakers with the power to declare war are mostly in the dark.
Analysts said oil and natural gas energy companies would not quickly restore production unless attacks stopped and ships started moving through the Strait of Hormuz.
President Trump knows that even if a cease-fire runs out with no final agreement on the issues dividing Washington and Tehran, the political risk of renewing hostilities is high.
President Trump said that “we have already met and exceeded” his military objectives. But his goals are largely unresolved.
The plan, which reasserts Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz and maintains the country’s right to nuclear enrichment, is not the same as the one President Trump said was a “workable basis” for negotiations.
Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris spent years in a Tehran prison. An Iranian court convicted them of espionage, charges that France said were baseless.