Netanyahu Declares Ceasefire Is “Not the End” as Iran War Spirals

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Wednesday that the U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement is “not the end of the campaign,” as he launched the largest wave of attacks in Lebanon since the start of the war.

“Let me be clear: We still have objectives to complete, and we will achieve them—either through agreement or through renewed fighting,” Netanyahu said in a televised statement. “We are prepared to return to combat at any moment required. Our finger remains on the trigger. This is not the end of the campaign, but a step along the way to achieving all our objectives.”

His statement is sure to assuage the fears of warmongers complaining that the ceasefire will prevent the U.S. from killing more innocent Iranians.

This comes amid Iranian media reports of Iranian air defense activity and explosions in Tehran, Isfahan, and Kerman. Israel also launched an unprecedented wave of attacks in Lebanon, with 100 airstrikes in 10 minutes, injuring nearly 300 people.

“The conditions for a ceasefire between Iran and the United States are clear and explicit: America must choose either a ceasefire or the continuation of war through Israel; both cannot coexist,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on Telegram. “The world is witnessing the killings in Lebanon. Now the ball is in America’s court, and global public opinion is watching to see whether this country will fulfill its commitments or not.”

The White House didn’t have an answer Wednesday to apparent violations of the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran.

At a press conference, Trevor Hunnicutt, White House correspondent for Reuters, pointed out to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt that air defenses in Iran had been activated, with explosions reported in cities across the country, including Isfahan, despite the ceasefire.

“Who is bombing Iran right now?” Hunnicutt asked Leavitt. Caught off guard, she initially stumbled before responding, asking if those reports were “as of a few minutes ago.” Hunnicutt said yes.

“Obviously, I’ll have to go back and check with the national security team. I’m standing out here with all of you. But I will do that, and we will get you an answer, OK?” Leavitt said, adding that while she couldn’t verify those reports, she wanted to check with the experts in the White House.

“I would just say, and I would echo what the vice president said this morning, this is a fragile truce; ceasefires are fragile by nature. We’ve seen this with respect to the 12-day war with Iran and Israel last year,” Leavitt continued, referring to JD Vance’s comments in Hungary earlier in the day. “It takes time sometimes for these ceasefires to be fully effectuated, and one of the results of Operation Epic Fury is that we completely dismantled Iran’s command and control center, which makes it difficult for them to pass messages up and down the chain, and so we understand that.”

But Hunnicut wasn’t asking about Iranian strikes, but rather bombings in Iran, making Leavitt’s point about the Iranian chain of command moot. Israeli and American commanders certainly shouldn’t have communication issues, and the fact that Iran is still being bombed despite a ceasefire raises questions about who is violating it.

Israel continued to bomb Lebanon Wednesday, claiming that the country was not part of the deal (eventually with Trump’s acquiescence) despite Iran and mediator Pakistan saying otherwise. Is Israel still attacking Iran despite the deal, or is Trump promising one thing while doing another?

Official Iranian accounts are taking a victory lap in the wake of Donald Trump’s ceasefire deal.

After Trump agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday evening—one hour before his self-imposed deadline to destroy the country’s “whole civilization”—the details of a 10-point peace plan that the U.S. president called “workable” were revealed.

The peace plan included concessions that some saw as mighty kind to the Islamic regime that Trump has been verbally accosting for years. It includes a provision to lift economic sanctions on the country—not just by the U.S., but worldwide—and a $2 million toll to be imposed by Iran for each ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz. One version of the agreement distributed in Farsi even allows for Iran to continue enriching uranium. It all begs the question of why the hell the U.S. got involved in the expensive and deadly conflict in the first place.

Some of Iran’s foreign embassies took the time to boast about the favorable terms after the peace plan was revealed.

“Say hello to the new world superpower,” the Iranian Embassy in South Africa wrote on X.

“Bow down to the Iranian civilization,” the Iranian Embassy in India added, along with an AI-generated picture of Trump kneeling in front of a stone wall displaying heroes from Iran’s past.

Even some of Trump’s closest allies, such as war hawk Lindsey Graham and conservative commentator Laura Loomer, took to social media to criticize the deal.

“We didn’t really get anything out of it and the terrorists in Iran are celebrating,” Loomer fumed.

Trump’s mishandling of Iran is one for the history books. After the president was bamboozled by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into striking a country that American intelligence officials said posed no threat to us, Trump declared multiple times that the war would be easily won. He also reportedly believed that Iran would not have the military capacity to close the Strait of Hormuz.

Instead, Iran shut down the strait immediately after the U.S. began launching missiles in February, leading to the crippling of global trade and a deadly boondoggle that, despite Trump’s peacocking, will only lead to more unrest and death in the Middle East.

Donald Trump is not happy as a ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is on the verge of collapsing.

On Truth Social Wednesday afternoon, Trump expressed frustration that “Numerous Agreements, Lists, and Letters are being sent out by people that have absolutely nothing to do with the U.S.A. / Iran Negotiation, in many cases, they are total Fraudsters, Charlatans, and WORSE.”

“There is only one group of meaningful ‘POINTS’ that are acceptable to the United States, and we will be discussing them behind closed doors during these Negotiations,” Trump continued. “These are the POINTS that are the basis on which we agreed to a CEASEFIRE. It is something that is reasonable, and can easily be dispensed with.”

Meanwhile, Iran announced that it is once again closing the Strait of Hormuz due to Israel continuing to bomb Lebanon, and its Tasnim news agency, citing an unnamed source, said the country would withdraw from the ceasefire if the bombings continue.

Lebanon is a point of contention in the ceasefire, as Iran and mediator Pakistan say that it is included in the deal while Israel and Trump both say otherwise. Israel on Wednesday launched its largest wave of airstrikes on Lebanon since the war began, reportedly killing hundreds of people, even as Hezbollah announced it was halting attacks.

Iran has also included “acceptance of enrichment” for its nuclear program in the Farsi version of the ceasefire deal, but not in its English versions. Trump declared on Truth Social Wednesday morning that there “will be no enrichment of Uranium, and the United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried (B-2 Bombers) Nuclear ‘Dust.’”

All of this threatens to derail negotiations between Iran and the U.S., which are scheduled to begin in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Friday. Israel’s relentless bombing in spite of a ceasefire is not new; they have bombed Gaza at least 2,073 times since a ceasefire was declared for the territory in October. Will Trump, against his own nature, offer some clarity on this ceasefire deal and prevent Israel from sabotaging it?

Up north, Wisconsin Democrats increased their state Supreme Court majority to 5–2 and won a mayoral race in the typically Republican city of Waukesha.

Down south, a Georgia Democrat narrowly lost a house district Donald Trump carried by 34 points in 2024.

In all, Tuesday was an election night that bodes well for Democrats come midterm season.

In Wisconsin—a swing state that Trump won by less than a percentage point in 2024—liberal judge Chris Taylor crushed her GOP-backed opponent, Maria Lazar, by 20 points. It was about double the margin of victory that Susan Crawford, another liberal judge, had attained in a Wisconsin Supreme Court election last year.

Lest one think the Wisconsin Supreme Court is a nothingburger of a political entity, that 2025 race became the most expensive state Supreme Court race in U.S. history after Elon Musk funneled millions into backing the GOP candidate, Brad Schimel, in an attempt to flip what was at the time a 4–3 liberal lean. After Musk’s candidate lost, he quietly moved on to his other passions, such as being racist on social media and tax evasion.

Without a majority on the line this year, it was a less extravagant affair: $6.5 million was spent on advertising, compared to $85 million in 2025. (It should also be noted that Taylor greatly outspent Lazar.) Nonetheless, the margin of victory was surprisingly one-sided. Taylor even won the reliably Republican Ozaukee County.

In Waukesha, after a Republican mayor who declared himself an independent in 2024 decided not to run for reelection, Democrat Alicia Halvensleben bested Republican Scott Allen in a race decided by 2.4 percentage points. Trump had won the city by six points in 2024.

In Georgia, Shawn Harris was not as lucky as those up north; the Democrat lost by 12 points to Republican Clay Fuller for the House seat vacated by Marjorie Taylor Greene. But in some ways, Harris’s performance was the most impressive of all. Trump won rural Chattooga County by 37 points in 2024, meaning Harris shifted the district a stunning 25 points to the left.

“The takeaway is this: If Democrats, independents, and Republicans can do this in a ruby-red district, the Democrats can win anywhere,” Harris said in his concession speech. “Nobody ever thought that we would ever be this close.”

Republicans may let former Attorney General Pam Bondi out of her subpoena to testify before the House Oversight Committee.

In a statement Wednesday, a spokesperson for the committee said, “The Department of Justice has stated Pam Bondi will not appear on April 14 for a deposition since she is no longer Attorney General and was subpoenaed in her capacity as Attorney General. The Committee will contact Pam Bondi’s personal counsel to discuss next steps regarding scheduling her deposition.”

Five Republicans voted with every Democrat on the committee to issue the subpoena last month, only for President Trump to fire Bondi last week. Now her testimony before Congress seems to be in jeopardy. House Oversight Chair James Comer has remained silent on the issue, as others on the committee try to pressure him to still hold Bondi accountable.

“Now that Pam Bondi has been fired, she’s trying to get out of her legal obligation to testify before the Oversight Committee about the Epstein files and the White House cover-up,” said Democratic Representative Robert Garcia, the committee’s ranking member, in a statement. “She must come in to testify immediately, and if she defies the subpoena, we will begin contempt charges in the Congress.”

In a statement Wednesday, Republican Representative Nancy Mace said that Bondi was still required to testify.

“The subpoena requires Pam Bondi to appear for a sworn deposition regarding the Department of Justice’s handling of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and his associates and compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Bondi’s removal as Attorney General doesn’t erase her obligation to testify and does not end Congressional oversight,” Mace posted on X.

Mace and Democratic Representative Ro Khanna sent a letter to Comer Tuesday urging him to reaffirm Bondi’s obligation to testify. But if the statement from the committee’s spokesperson is any indication, Bondi won’t have to answer under oath for how she has handled various scandals within the Department of Justice, including her handling of the Epstein files, the mass resignations, and how the DOJ repeatedly ignored court orders.

On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance declared that it would be “scandalous,” “preposterous,” and “unacceptable” to threaten the leadership of an allied nation—something President Trump has done multiple times in his second term.

Vance was commenting on a flippant remark last month by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy—who is currently beefing with Hungary’s authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán—who suggested Ukrainian soldiers could show up at Orbán’s home to “communicate with him in his own language.”

“I wasn’t even aware that Zelenskiy said that he was gonna send private soldiers to the prime minister’s residence until yesterday.… Almost couldn’t believe it’s true, but it’s true. It’s completely scandalous,” Vance said while speaking at a panel at a Hungarian university as part of his diplomatic support tour for Orbán. “You should never have a foreign ‌head ⁠of government … threatening the head of government of an allied nation.”

This comment is “preposterous.” Trump spent the first months of his second term doing exactly what Vance is warning about, threatening to fold the entire country of Canada—perhaps the closest U.S. ally—into the “fifty-first state.” This threat was so widely detested in Canada that it helped propel current Prime Minister Mark Carney to an election victory off pure spite.

Trump also threatened to annex Greenland for no real reason other than classic Manifest Destiny–style greed, and threatened to both bomb and invade Mexico against the will of President Claudia Sheinbaum, another crucial ally. And both Vance and Trump have threatened Zelenskiy on multiple occasions, even as he fends off an invasion from Russian President Vladimir Putin, an obvious foe.

Orbán, a longtime ally of Trump and the MAGA movement, is also a staunch opponent of Ukraine and Zelenskiy. Orbán is currently blocking a $105 billion European Union loan for Ukraine in response to what it claims was a targeted shutdown of the Druzhba oil pipeline, which carries Russian oil to Hungary and the rest of Europe. That opposition led Zelenskiy to make the private soldiers comment.

Both Orbán and Trump have made much more detestable statements toward allies than Zelenskiy. The vice president is trying to gaslight you.

It doesn’t seem as though any American is satisfied with Donald Trump’s Iran peace plan—not even some of his staunchest congressional allies.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham implored the Trump administration Tuesday to test the merits of the proposal via a congressional review, akin to the handling of the Iranian nuclear deal struck under former President Barack Obama in 2015.

“At this early stage, I am extremely cautious regarding what is fact vs. fiction or misrepresentation,” Graham emphasized, hours after Trump announced he was capitulating to Iranian demands.

In the final hour of Trump’s total annihilation deadline, the U.S. leader posted on Truth Social that the two countries had agreed to a two-week ceasefire and that the White House was amenable to a 10-point peace plan that Iran had offered the day prior.

Those points include various demands for an immediate end to the regional violence, including proposals for a permanent end to the war, guarantees that Iran and its allies would not be attacked again, an end to Israeli strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon, and a halt to all regional attacks.

But the multipoint deal also seeks the lifting of all U.S. and international sanctions on Iran, and the imposition of a new $2 million toll per ship through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil tradeway situated between Iran and Oman.

Versions of the ceasefire plan distributed in Farsi—Iran’s native language—include an additional phrase not included in the English edition, specifying the “acceptance of enrichment” for Iran’s nuclear program.

It’s hard to see how the deal would offer any benefits to the U.S., though the final point undermines Trump’s rationale for the war entirely: The president’s primary interest in fighting Iran was to cripple the country’s nuclear program, stripping any potential for the country to create a nuclear weapon.

“Allowing this regime to enrich in the future would be an affront to all those murdered by the regime since this war started and would be inconsistent with denying Iran a pathway toward a bomb in the future,” Graham continued in a social media post Wednesday morning. “Many countries have peaceful nuclear power but do not enrich uranium. At a minimum, that should be the case for Iran.

“To those who say, Iran needs to save face by having a small enrichment program, I’m not remotely interested in providing face-saving cover to a regime that murders its own people, beats a 16-year-old girl to death for not wearing a headscarf appropriately, and is dripping in American blood,” Graham added.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took questions from the press Wednesday after a two-week ceasefire was agreed in the Iran war, and he was about as whiny as you’d expect from a psychopath who’d just been told he couldn’t destroy all of Iran’s civilian infrastructure.

During the conference, Luis Martinez of ABC News asked Hegseth whether his comments such as saying U.S. forces “will give no quarter” to Iran potentially put American lives at risk.

Thirteen U.S. service members have died since the Trump administration, without congressional approval, began bombing Iran on February 28. A Pentagon spokesperson told Time that 373 service members have been injured in the conflict, with five “seriously wounded.”

But Hegseth bristled at the idea that he might be at all responsible for the suffering.

“No!” he said. “I try to be nice up here, but you did listen to what I said, right? ... Of course, it’s ABC. Not a single thing we’ve done has put an American troop in more of a harm’s way. We’ve only set our troops up to harm Iranian military capabilities, which they’ve done to devastating fashion.”

Of course, starting what has proven to be a completely unnecessary war in the first place should make Hegseth and the rest of Trump’s cronies responsible for everything that happens there. Just as military commanders claim credit for their victories, they must also reconcile for their losses.

But Martinez’s question was about Hegseth’s comments while the war was still ongoing. In this respect, the defense secretary has frightened many with his extremist intonations.

“Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness,” Hegseth said during a March 26 prayer meeting, which he ordered to be held at the Pentagon. “Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”

At other press conferences, Hegseth has gloated that U.S. forces “are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be,” and that under his rule, the military does not fight “with stupid rules of engagement.”

It’s not a stretch to think that Hegseth’s bloodthirsty directives have led troops to be overly aggressive in the region, risking their lives in the process. His blatant dismissal of the rules of war also likely means Iran’s forces feel they have carte blanche to do horrible things to our own troops.

When a jet was downed last week, Iranian state media told civilians that they would receive a “prize” for hunting down the missing crew member and handing them in.

Even some of Hegseth’s fellow right-wing Christians, such as Tucker Carlson, have pushed back on his war of aggression. Carlson told ABC News shortly after the first bombs fell he thought the war was “absolutely disgusting and evil.”

Donald Trump is already running cover for Israel.

The U.S. president agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran Tuesday evening, adding in a Truth Social post that he was amenable to a 10-point peace plan that political strategists have pointed out overwhelmingly benefits Tehran.

One point in the list of demands specifies “an end to attacks on Iran and its allies.” Yet despite the concession, Israeli airstrikes continued to rain on Lebanon overnight, marking the single largest attack on the country’s capital since the beginning of the war.

When asked Wednesday about the continued violence in the region by America’s strongest Middle East ally, Trump suddenly claimed that Lebanon was “not included in the deal.”

“Because of Hezbollah,” Trump told PBS Newshour’s Liz Landers. “They were not included in the deal. That’ll get taken care of too. It’s alright.”

But Iran did not interpret the arrangement the same way. Iranian media reported Wednesday morning that Tehran would pull out of the ceasefire agreement altogether if the attacks on Lebanon did not stop. Minutes earlier, state media had reported that the country was considering deterrence operations against Israel over the ceasefire violation.

When Landers asked Trump whether he was alright with Israel’s actions, the president claimed that “it’s part of the deal” and “everyone knows that.”

“That’s a separate skirmish. OK?” Trump added. “You gotta talk faster.”

The chief executive hung up the phone when asked if he regretted his Truth Social post about wiping out the entire Iranian civilization.

It was the influence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—and a pitch for the war delivered on February 11 in the White House situation room—that thrust America into the conflict, according to a New York Times report published Tuesday. U.S. military commanders advised Trump that components of Netanyahu’s plan to attack Iran were “farcical,” but by that point, Trump had already been inspired to throw over Tehran’s theocratic regime.

It’s likely that Netanyahu continues to hold the reins. Last month, Trump told The Times of Israel that the decision to end the Iran war will be a “mutual” decision he makes with the Israeli leader.