President Donald Trump waves after speaking at the National Republican Congressional Committee's (NRCC) annual fundraising dinner, Wednesday, March 25
United States President Donald Trump said late Wednesday, March 25, during a Republican fundraiser that talks were underway with Iran’s leaders, even though Tehran has repeatedly denied the statement.
The White House had warned Iran to accept defeat and threatened to “hit harder” than before if the nation refused to concede.
Earlier, Iran had dismissed the 15-point US ceasefire proposal and issued its own sweeping demands to stop fighting as more attacks were launched on Israel and Gulf Arab countries.
At the fundraiser, Trump said the US is winning the war.
“We’re winning so big. Nobody’s ever seen anything like we’re doing in the Middle East with Iran. And they are negotiating, by the way, and they want to make a deal so badly, but they’re afraid to say it because they figure they’ll be killed by their own people,” he said.
“They’re also afraid they’ll be killed by us. There’s never been a head of a country that wanted that job less than being the head of Iran.”
In the United Arab Emirates, authorities in Abu Dhabi said two people had been killed and three others wounded by shrapnel from a ballistic missile interception.
The airlines said flights across Gulf cities, including Doha, Kuwait, Copenhagen, Baghdad, Dubai and Bahrain will remain cancelled until April 15 with current airspace closures.
Iran allowed India and several other “friendly nations,” including China and Russia to use the Strait of Hormuz for commercial shipping, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi has said.
“We have permitted certain countries that we consider friendly to pass through (Strait of Hormuz). We allowed China, Russia, India, Iraq, and Pakistan to transit,” Araghchi said, according to Iranian State TV.
At the same time, the Iranian Foreign Minister made it clear that ships linked to Iran’s adversaries will not be allowed to transit through the strategic waterway.
“We are in a state of war. The region is a war zone, and there is no reason to allow the ships of our enemies and their allies to pass through. But it remains open to others,” he said.
Sirens were heard in Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, as Israel warned of a fourth barrage of incoming missiles from Iran.
Previously, a blast in Kfar Qasim, north of Tel Aviv, had left two injured. An Israeli paramedic who arrived first at the scene described it as “chaos”.
“We arrived within minutes with intensive care units and ambulances. At the scene there was chaos. We began searching inside the house and saw destruction in the center of the home. Five casualties who were inside were injured by the blast,” said Tomer Gussman, according to a statement released by Israel’s rescue services.
Gussman said the injured were evacuated to the hospital in mild condition.
Hezbollah rocket fire remained constant overnight in northern Israel, and once reached the Tel Aviv area overnight.
Activists in Iran reported heavy strikes early Thursday, March 26, morning around Isfahan, a city some 330 kilometres south of Iran’s capital, Tehran.
The pro-reform newspaper Ham Mihan reported online about strikes in the area.
Isfahan is home to a major Iranian air base and other military sites, as well as one of the nuclear sites bombed by the United States during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June.
The semiofficial Fars news agency, close to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, described the attacks as targeting “two residential areas”, without elaborating.
Earlier, Israel’s military said it had completed “a wide-scale wave of strikes” across Iran, including in Isfahan.
The Russian foreign ministry accused the US and Israel of intentionally sparking a nuclear disaster after a second strike hit near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant.
The attack had forced the country to evacuate its staff from the joint Iranian-Russian site
Iran’s restriction of passage through the Strait of Hormuz is “economic terrorism,” said Sultan al-Jaber, who leads the massive state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADCO), signalling the hardening rhetoric of the UAE as the war nears its one-month mark.
“Weaponizing the Strait of Hormuz is not an act of aggression against one nation,” al-Jaber said in a speech for an event hosted by the Middle East Institute in Washington.
“It is economic terrorism against every consumer, every family that depends on affordable energy and food. When Iran holds Hormuz hostage, every nation pays the ransom, at the gas pump, at the grocery store and at the pharmacy. No country can be allowed to destabilize the global economy in this way. Not now. Not ever.”
The Ministry of Interior, Kuwait, said it apprehended six individuals, five of whom were Kuwaiti nationals and struck a Hezbollah-linked “terrorist” group.
They added that 14 others were identified, including two Lebanese, two Iranians, five Kuwaitis and five other nationals who fled the country.
While interrogating the six arrested, it was revealed that the individuals were planning an assassination operation, aiming at state figures and simultaneously recruiting others for these tasks.
Recent reports of arrests in Gulf countries indicate that authorities in the region are taking security breaches very seriously.
Iran’s parliament is working on a bill to formalize the fees it is reportedly charging on some ships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, local media reported.
The Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both close to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, quoted lawmaker Mohammadreza Rezaei Kouchi as saying that “parliament is pursuing a plan to formally codify Iran’s sovereignty, control and oversight over the Strait of Hormuz, while also creating a source of revenue through the collection of fees.”
“This is entirely natural, just as goods pay transit fees when passing through other corridors, the Strait of Hormuz is also a corridor,” he reportedly said. “We provide its security, and it is natural that ships and oil tankers should pay such fees.”
The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, is considered an international waterway open to all shipping. Imposing fees would end that and likely be strongly opposed by the Gulf Arab states, the United States, and others.
A missile alert sounded on mobile phones in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Thursday morning.
Saudi Arabia’s Defence Ministry said it intercepted multiple drones over its oil-rich Eastern Province on Thursday morning.
Kuwait reported it was working to intercept incoming Iranian fire early Thursday morning.
Bahrain sounded its missile alert sirens early Thursday morning.
The United Arab Emirates air defences early Thursday also worked to intercept incoming fire.
(With inputs from agencies)
This post was last modified on March 26, 2026 1:15 pm