Beirut/Tel Aviv5:12 p.m. March 25
Tehran6:42 p.m. March 25
Iran War Live Updates: Israel Strikes Tehran After Pakistan Offers to Host U.S.-Iran Talks
The Pentagon said it was sending 2,000 airborne troops to the Middle East, even as President Trump seemed to endorse Pakistan’s offer to broker negotiations. It was unclear whether Iran and Israel supported a U.S. peace plan.
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
- Social media, via Agence France-Presse
- Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
- Agence France-Presse
- Mati Hashemi/Associated Press
Israel’s military said it had launched a new wave of strikes on Iran on Wednesday, even as President Trump appeared to support Pakistan’s offer to broker talks between the United States and Iran.
Pakistan was said to have delivered a 15-point peace plan from the United States to Iran, according to two officials briefed on the matter. But it remained unclear whether Iran would accept the plan or whether Israel supported it. Iran has publicly denied President Trump’s claims that negotiations with the United States were underway.
Washington was also sending mixed signals on de-escalation, as the Pentagon ordered the deployment of about 2,000 more soldiers to the Middle East, two officials said on Tuesday, bringing recent deployments to the region to nearly 7,000.
Last month, Mr. Trump sent troops and military assets to the region while pursuing indirect talks with Iran, before ordering the strikes alongside Israel that started the war on Feb. 28.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, acknowledged in a statement on Tuesday that despite diplomatic efforts, the U.S. operation continued “unabated.”
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, said on social media on Wednesday that Iran was “closely monitoring all U.S. movements in the region, especially troop deployments.” He added, “Do not test our resolve to defend our land.”
Iran’s military said Wednesday that it had fired cruise missiles at the U.S. aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, according to the Iranian semiofficial Mehr news agency, hours after an Iranian naval commander warned it would strike if the vessel came within range. Mr. Trump said Tuesday that more than 100 missiles had been launched at the carrier but that “every single one of them was knocked down.”
The latest fledgling diplomatic efforts came as Israel said on Wednesday that it had hit several targets in Iran, including a production facility for submarines, and was intercepting Iranian missiles launched toward Israel.
In the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted at least 30 drones since Tuesday evening. Kuwait said that at least six drones had been intercepted and that a fire had erupted overnight at Kuwait’s international airport after drones hit a fuel tank. In Bahrain, air-raid sirens sounded early Wednesday.
The prospect of an off-ramp from the war sent oil prices down sharply on Wednesday morning. Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 6 percent, to $94 a barrel. Stocks in Asia, which buys about 80 percent of the oil shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, opened higher as investors reacted to signals of a possible de-escalation. In the United States, the S&P 500 rose 0.6 percent after a modest 0.3 percent fall on Tuesday.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
U.S. proposal: The Trump administration’s peace plan is said to address Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs, which the United States and Israel have targeted, according to two officials.
Strait of Hormuz: The U.S. proposal also discusses maritime routes. Iran has told the United Nations’ maritime organization that “nonhostile” ships — those not supporting aggression against it or belonging to the United States or Israel — may pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz. Shipping analysts said Iran’s offer is unlikely to persuade major tanker operators to enter the waterway.
Fighting in Lebanon: The Israeli military struck the southern outskirts of Beirut, a stronghold of the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah, as well as several towns in the south, Lebanon’s National News Agency said. Israel also said it had targeted gas stations tied to Hezbollah’s financial network.
Tension in Iraq: Iraq’s prime minister instructed the foreign ministry to summon the U.S. Embassy’s chargé d’affaires and deliver a “strongly worded letter of protest.” It came after a strike that the defense ministry said killed seven soldiers and injured 13 on Wednesday at a site in western Iraq belonging to the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella organization for militias that include Iran-backed brigades. It was unclear who was responsible for the attacks, but the groups’ attacks on U.S. forces have prompted retaliatory strikes.
Death tolls: Iran’s U.N. ambassador has said that at least 1,348 civilians have been killed in the country since the war began — a toll that has not been updated since March 11. The Human Rights Activists News Agency has reported that more than 1,440 civilians have been killed in Iran. Almost 1,100 people in Lebanon have been killed, the authorities there said on Wednesday. At least 15 people were killed in Iranian attacks on Israel, officials said. The American death toll stands at 13 service members.
Ephrat Livni, Isabella Kwai and Meaghan Tobin contributed reporting.
President Trump says the United States is talking to Iran about ways to end their hostilities, even as he threatens more attacks and the Pentagon dispatches more troops to the Middle East, and as Tehran has publicly denied any diplomatic progress.
Nearly a month after the United States and Israel launched their attack on Feb. 28, the war with Iran has drawn in countries across the region and set off an energy crisis that experts say is worse than the oil shocks of the 1970s. Pakistan has emerged as a interlocutor between Washington and Tehran, and is said to have passed a 15-point U.S. peace plan to Iran.
Here’s what we know about the negotiations so far.
What is the U.S. saying?
President Trump announced on Monday that the United States was negotiating with Iran over a “total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East.”
Speaking just before an initial deadline he had set for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping lane that has largely been closed amid Tehran’s retaliatory strikes, Mr. Trump sounded optimistic, saying, “We have major points of agreement.”
Mr. Trump has said the U.S. demands include an end to Iranian nuclear enrichment, which Tehran has refused in previous rounds of talks.
And the president has sent mixed signals. He has said that if Iran did not end its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by Friday, he would order a massive bombardment of Iranian energy infrastructure. And the Pentagon has dispatched about 2,000 paratroopers to begin moving to the Middle East to give Mr. Trump additional military options.
What is Iran saying?
Iranian officials have downplayed Mr. Trump’s assertions that negotiations with the United States had taken place, although they have acknowledged receiving American messages.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, described Mr. Trump’s announcement as an attempt to bring down runaway oil prices. And he sounded a note of defiance on Wednesday in response to the news of the new U.S. troop deployment, saying, “Do not test our resolve to defend our land.”
But Iran’s Foreign Ministry conceded that there had been what it called regional initiatives aimed at reducing tensions, according to the state-run news agency Mizan.
Iran has been attacked by Israel or the United States twice over the past year. Both assaults followed rounds of intensive negotiations, making Iranian officials suspicious that diplomatic outreach is a ruse ahead of further military action.
What about the Strait of Hormuz?
A critical issue in talks will be securing safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz for oil and gas tankers from U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Iranian stranglehold on the critical waterway has threatened the flow of about one-fifth of the world’s annual oil supplies.
Iran has sent a letter to the United Nations’ maritime organization saying that “nonhostile” ships could pass safely through the strait, meaning vessels that “neither participate in nor support acts of aggression against Iran” nor belong to the United States or Israel.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump said the Iranians had offered him a “very big present” on the strait, without elaborating. It was not clear if Mr. Trump’s comments were referring to the Iranian letter.
Who will negotiate for the U.S.?
Mr. Trump said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance were engaging in the talks with Iran. Steve Witkoff, one of Mr. Trump’s top negotiators, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, were also involved in the effort, he added.
Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff have been central to U.S. efforts to resolve at least two other major conflicts: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. They were also negotiating with Iran before the war began last month; Mr. Witkoff has said that Iranian intransigence in those talks led Mr. Trump to launch the war.
Who will speak for Iran?
It is far less clear who could handle talks on the Iranian side.
Much of Iran’s leadership was killed in the opening blow of the U.S.-Israeli air assault, including the longtime autocratic ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. That has created some confusion about who is calling the shots in the country.
The Pakistani military chief of staff, Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, has discussed peace efforts with Mr. Ghalibaf, the Iranian parliamentary speaker, according to Iranian and Pakistani officials.
But Iran may have trouble responding quickly to American outreach. Senior Iranian officials have been struggling to communicate internally and they worry that Israel could bomb them if they meet in person, the officials added.
Mr. Trump did not identify his Iranian interlocutor except to say that it was a “top guy.” He also said it was not Ayatollah Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father as the supreme leader of Iran but has not shown his face since his ascension earlier this month.
Can they reach a deal?
The 15-point U.S. plan addresses Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs, as well as the Strait of Hormuz, The New York Times has reported.
The Trump administration is eager to find a favorable resolution to the conflict, which has battered the Iranian government but failed to topple it; sent oil and gas prices skyrocketing; and prompted criticism from Mr. Trump’s right-wing base.
But it is still difficult to see a diplomatic offramp without either the United States or Iran backing away from one of their red lines. Iran has long insisted on its sovereign right to enrich uranium to high levels — contradicting a core U.S. demand — even as it has denied seeking a bomb.
What is Israel saying?
It was unclear whether a possible American-Iranian cease-fire would bind Israel, which has been striking Iran alongside the United States and has also escalated attacks against the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said in response to Mr. Trump’s remarks that Israel “will safeguard our vital interests under all circumstances.”
On Wednesday, Israel’s military said that it had launched a new wave of strikes targeting government infrastructure in Tehran and that it was intercepting Iranian missiles launched toward Israel.
Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has called for a vote to subpoena senior Trump administration officials to testify before the panel about the war in Iran. Meeks wants Secretary of State Marco Rubio, along with Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, the two Trump administration advisers leading Middle East negotiations, to testify before the end of April.
“We have many outstanding questions, and if this committee cannot hold hearings on a war involving U.S. forces, the diplomacy around it and its impacts on our allies and partners, then we are not meeting our most basic oversight responsibility,” Meeks said.
Investors are taking the news of possible talks between the United States and Iran, however fraught still, as a welcome sign that the administration is looking to dial down the conflict. Oil prices fell on Wednesday, with Brent crude, the international benchmark, dropping below $100. The S&P 500 rose 0.6 percent after a modest 0.3 percent fall on Tuesday.
Hezbollah has launched more than 3,500 rockets, missiles and drones at Israel since March 2, when the Lebanese group joined the fighting in solidarity with Iran, Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, stated in a letter sent on Wednesday to the president of the U.N. Security Council, Mike Waltz. Saar posted a copy of the letter on social media.
A Hezbollah strike killed an Israeli woman in northern Israel on Tuesday, according to the Israeli authorities. Saar described the attacks as “indiscriminate” and said Hezbollah was “acting at the request and behest of its patrons in Tehran.” The attacks by Hezbollah prompted a renewed Israeli air campaign and ground incursion into Lebanon.
Mark Rutte, the secretary general of NATO, is often called a “Trump whisperer,” able to mix public flattery with private advice to an unpredictable and moody American president whose support is crucial to the alliance and to Ukraine’s war against Russia.
To that end, Mr. Rutte, who took the job in October 2024, has been willing to accept a degree of humiliation for his efforts to keep Mr. Trump sweet and onside, especially on intelligence support for Ukraine. He even called Mr. Trump the alliance’s “Daddy” before last year’s crucial NATO summit meeting.
But Mr. Rutte’s open support for Mr. Trump’s decision to go to war alongside Israel against Iran has brought new, sharper criticism.
The issue is not that he is flattering Mr. Trump. It is that Mr. Rutte is supporting a war of choice that most of the other 31 NATO allies regard as unnecessary and illegal under international law, as President Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany called it on Tuesday.
By supporting the war, which does not involve NATO or collective defense, the critics say, Mr. Rutte has gone beyond his remit as secretary general of the whole alliance to become a cheerleader for an unpopular president and an unpopular war.
On Sunday, on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Mr. Rutte said of Mr. Trump and the war against Iran, “He’s doing this to make the whole world safe.” Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs are also a danger to Europe, Mr. Rutte suggested. “What the president is doing here, which is taking out — degrading Iran’s capability to be, again, an exporter of chaos, sheer chaos to the region, to the world,” he said.
Two European officials expressed unease with Mr. Rutte’s latest statements, saying the war Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel initiated has the potential to make matters worse rather than better. Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters, they said it could lead to a harder-line Iranian regime that could try to build a nuclear weapon and a long period of high energy prices that will damage European and global growth. They expressed fear that the war in Iran would take money and arms away from Ukraine’s battle against Russia, which is also profiting from the resultant high energy prices.
NATO did not make Mr. Rutte available for an interview. But in an interview with Reuters earlier this month, Mr. Rutte said he was aware that the way he treated Mr. Trump was widely frowned upon in Europe.
“I hear the criticism, obviously — I’m not deaf,” he said. But he also credited Mr. Trump for “taking this decisive action, to take out the capability of Iran to pose a threat as an exporter of terrorism and chaos.” He added, “If a president of a country is providing that kind of leadership, some praise is warranted.”
Mr. Rutte’s main task is to keep the 32-nation alliance together and Mr. Trump engaged, supportive and involved. As someone who does not need to face voters, Mr. Rutte appears prepared to swallow some pride in order to please the White House and maintain its willingness to provide crucial intelligence, and to sell vital arms, to Ukraine.
But Ivo Daalder, a former American ambassador to NATO, said that on Iran, “it makes no sense for the NATO secretary-general to support an argument and a war that 31 other countries think is stupid, illegal, unnecessary and deeply destructive of the main goal, to weaken Russia.”
“The number one goal for him,” Mr. Daalder added, “is to keep NATO secure, and right now the biggest threat to NATO is Trump.”
Fabian Zuleeg, chief executive of the European Policy Center, a Brussels research organization, said working to keep the United States involved in NATO was crucial. “But as a European leader with responsibility to other European NATO members, Rutte is over the top, leaning too much in one direction,” he said.
Nathalie Tocci, a former European official who now teaches at Johns Hopkins SAIS, said Mr. Rutte appeared as “Trump’s cheerleader, and it’s not his job description, and I don’t think it’s really effective.” The only times Mr. Trump “has responded positively to Europe is when Europeans have straightened their backs,” she said. “NATO is a defensive alliance and this is not a defensive war,” she said about Iran.
George Robertson, who was NATO secretary-general from 1999 to 2003, during the Iraq war, when NATO was deeply divided, said Mr. Rutte was in a tough spot. The job is tricky, he said, especially “with 32 countries around the table and one of them disproportionately influential.”
The job of the secretary general, he said, “is to build the trust that glues the alliance together, and sometimes that means you have to defer to some countries and people when you don’t particularly want to,” he said, remembering tough times with Donald Rumsfeld, then the U.S. defense secretary. In Mr. Trump, “Rutte has a big figure who is unpredictable and at times capricious, but he has to keep the alliance together.”
Mr. Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister praised for his ability to build political coalitions, has also been criticized, though less harshly, for telling CBS that European allies “needed a couple of weeks to come together,” but that they would in time “answer the president’s call, to make sure that we secure the free sailing through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Some European nations have said they are willing to help maintain navigation there, but only after hostilities end, and discussions have not progressed as far as Mr. Rutte suggested.
Mr. Rutte has been an important voice in Mr. Trump’s ear on Ukraine and on Greenland, when the president threatened to seize the territory of a NATO ally, Denmark. And despite Mr. Trump’s view that Ukraine somehow provoked the Russian invasion of four years ago and should give up unconquered territory to secure peace, Mr. Rutte and other key European leaders have so far persuaded Mr. Trump to continue to provide vital American intelligence to Ukraine.
“I personally think Rutte is doing what he has to do,” said Fernando Adolfo Gutiérrez Díaz de Otazu, a Spanish senator and retired general who is a vice president of NATO’s parliamentary assembly. Some of the European exasperation, he said, is uttered by the same officials who “think — or pretend to think — they can secure the European continent without the cooperation of the United States,” which is not the case, he said.
Many Europeans view Mr. Rutte “as just following President Trump, without any objection and without saying anything that can disturb” him, Mr. Gutiérrez said. “It doesn’t sound very well on this side of the Atlantic, but he has to say it, I believe.”
But then he added, “I wouldn’t say it.”
Americans have mixed views of Mr. Rutte’s effectiveness, largely based on political loyalties, said Matthew Kroenig, a former U.S. defense official under Republican presidents who is at the Atlantic Council, where he studies Mr. Trump’s foreign policy.
While Republicans who support Mr. Trump “see Rutte as a terrific secretary general,” he said, Democrats and independent voters are puzzled, asking, “How can this respected European leader be saying these kinds of glowing things?”
But for Mr. Rutte to openly criticize or attack Mr. Trump, he said, “would ultimately be counterproductive for the alliance.”
Israel’s air defenses have been working to intercept launches of missiles and rockets from Iran and Lebanon over the past few hours. Israel’s ambulance service said on Wednesday afternoon that it was treating two men who had suffered minor blast injuries at a bus stop in the area of Karmiel, in northern Israel.
Volker Türk, the U.N. human rights chief, urged international action to end the war, warning that countries were “flirting with unmitigated catastrophe” with missile strikes near nuclear facilities in Iran and Israel.
The conflict has “an unprecedented power to ensnare countries across borders and around the world” he said Wednesday at the start of a debate in the Human Rights Council on Iran’s attacks across the Persian Gulf.
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, and its military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, have approved additional targets in Iran and Lebanon, Israel’s defense ministry said in statement on Wednesday. The Israeli military has fired more than 15,000 munitions across Iran since the war started on Feb. 28, more than four times the number fired during the 12-day war against Iran in June, the statement added.
The military said after midday on Wednesday that it had completed several waves of strikes against infrastructure in Tehran belonging to the government. The military added that on Tuesday, its warplanes had struck Iranian production industries in Isfahan, including what it said was responsible for the development of submarines and support systems for the Iranian Navy.
Iran’s military said Wednesday that it had fired cruise missiles at the Abraham Lincoln, an American aircraft carrier, according to Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency. Minutes before that was reported, a commander of the Iranian navy warned that the force was monitoring the movements of the U.S. carrier, and would strike if it came within range, comments that were carried by another Iranian news outlet, Fars. President Trump said on Tuesday that Iran had fired more than a hundred missiles at the Abraham Lincoln and that “every single one of them was knocked down.”
In a sign of rising tensions between Iraq and the United States, a spokesman for Iraq’s military said that the country’s prime minister had directed the ministry of foreign affairs to summon the chargé d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and hand over a “strongly worded letter of protest.” The spokesman’s statement was posted on the social media account of Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani of Iraq.
The announcement followed a strike that killed seven soldiers on Wednesday morning at a site belonging to Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces in western Anbar, according to Iraq’s Defense Ministry. It was the second deadly strike in two days on military infrastructure in western Iraq. Iran-aligned groups have been attacking U.S. forces in the region, prompting U.S. retaliatory strikes against the Popular Mobilization Forces, which are nominally under the control of the Iraqi government.
The European Central Bank is prepared to raise interest rates if the energy shock spurred by the war significantly pushes up inflation, its president, Christine Lagarde, said at a conference in Frankfurt. “We will not act before we have sufficient information on the size and persistence of the shock and its propagation,” she said. “But we will not be paralysed by hesitation.” Last week, the central bank held interest rates at 2 percent but warned that higher energy prices would spur inflation. The bank’s next policy meeting is at the end of April.
Shipping analysts said Iran’s offer to let “nonhostile” vessels through the Strait of Hormuz would most likely not persuade established tanker operators to venture into the narrow waterway. Iran made the offer in a letter to the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization.
Dimitris Ampatzidis, a senior risk and compliance analyst at Kpler, a maritime data firm, said the conditional nature of the letter “introduces uncertainty, which is typically enough for operators and insurers to stay cautious.” Still, the price of oil is tumbling in early trading, down more than 5 percent.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament, said on social media that Iran was “closely monitoring all US movements in the region, especially troop deployments.” His comments came after the Pentagon ordered about 2,000 more American soldiers be deployed to the Middle East. “Do not test our resolve to defend our land,” Ghalibaf said.
The Israeli military issued its sixth alert warning of incoming missiles from Iran in the past 12 hours, suggesting an uptick in Iranian attempts to fire across various parts of the country. The launches from Iran on Wednesday have so far caused some property damage but no fatalities, the authorities said.
Persian Gulf countries reported fresh attacks on Wednesday. Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry said shrapnel from an intercepted ballistic missile fell on two houses in the kingdom’s eastern region, resulting in some damage and no injuries. The ministry said at least 30 drones had been intercepted since Tuesday evening.
Kuwait’s defense ministry said it’s national guard had intercepted at least six drones, and in Bahrain, air-raid sirens sounded early Wednesday morning local time.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that strikes hit two empty warehouses in the Alborz province, west of Tehran, on Wednesday morning. A residential building in Karaj, a main city in the province, was also hit, injuring 18 people, according to the agency. No fatalities were reported. The Israeli military said it was unaware of any involvement of its forces.
Seven soldiers were killed and 13 injured in a strike Wednesday morning on a site belonging to Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces near an army medical center in western Anbar, according to a statement from Iraq’s Defense Ministry. It was the second deadly strike in two days on military infrastructure in western Iraq. In the statement, the ministry described the attack as “a dangerous escalation that requires a firm response,” without naming the party responsible.
Israel’s military said on Wednesday that it was intercepting more missiles launched by Iran toward Israel.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it had dismantled Hezbollah command centers in southern Lebanon that were being used to store weapons. Several Hezbollah fighters were killed in a strike on a weapons storage facility, the military said, and troops targeting the command centers killed another armed person in the area.
China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, spoke with his Iranian counterpart on Tuesday in a phone call held at Iran’s request, according to the Chinese foreign ministry’s readout. Wang said on the call that he hoped “all sides will seize every opportunity” for peace and initiate peace talks as soon as possible, the ministry said.
Oil prices dropped and stocks jumped in another volatile trading session on Wednesday, as investors reacted to signals of a possible de-escalation of the war in the Middle East.
President Trump said on Tuesday that negotiations to end the war were taking place and that the Iranians would like “to make a deal.” The United States sent Iran a 15-point plan for ending the war in the Middle East. Despite reports that Iran has already rejected the proposal, the signal to investors was that the U.S. may be looking for an off-ramp.
And in a letter circulated to the United Nations’ maritime organization on Tuesday, Iran said it was willing to let ships not tied to the United States or Israel to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The letter was dated March 22.
Oil reverses price gains.
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, fell to around $99 a barrel on Wednesday, down more than 5 percent. It jumped to $104.49 a barrel on Tuesday.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, fell to $88 a barrel on Wednesday. It settled at $92.35 a barrel on Tuesday.
Investors and analysts are focused on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that is a vital trading route for oil and natural gas that normally carries as much as one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. Shipping traffic exiting the Persian Gulf through the strait has been effectively halted since the war began on Feb. 28. More recently, attacks on energy infrastructure, by both Israel and Iran, have raised concerns about longer-lasting damage to the world’s oil and gas supply.
Price of Brent Crude Oil
Stocks rise.
Stocks were higher on Wednesday. The S&P 500 moved roughly 1 percent higher on Wednesday, after nudging 0.4 percent lower on Tuesday.
In Europe, markets also rallied. The Stoxx 600, a Pan-European index, rose more than 1 percent.
In Asia, the Nikkei 225 in Japan jumped nearly 2.9 percent and the Kospi index in South Korea rose 1.6 percent. Stocks in China were up 1 percent.
S&P 500
Gasoline prices continue to climb.
Gas prices rose slightly on Wednesday, climbing half a cent to a national average of $3.98 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. The increase raised the cost for drivers 34 percent since the war began.
Diesel prices have increased even more quickly, rising to $5.37, up 43 percent since the start of the war.
The Pentagon has ordered about 2,000 soldiers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to begin moving to the Middle East to give President Trump additional military options even as he weighs a new diplomatic initiative with Iran, two Defense Department officials said on Tuesday.
The combat forces would come from the division’s “Immediate Response Force,” a brigade of about 3,000 soldiers capable of deploying anywhere in the world within 18 hours.
The contingent includes Maj. Gen. Brandon R. Tegtmeier, the division commander, and dozens of his staff members, as well as two battalions, each with about 800 soldiers, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. More of the brigade’s soldiers could be sent in the coming days, the officials said.
Taken together with some 4,500 Marines already en route to the region, the deployment of the elite Army forces brings the total number of additional ground troops dispatched to the war zone since the conflict started to nearly 7,000, and marks a new escalation in the conflict.
About 50,000 troops are assigned to the overall operation the Pentagon calls Epic Fury, from across the Middle East, Europe and the United States.
It is unclear where the Army paratroopers will go in the Middle East, but the location would be within striking distance of Iran, the officials said. For instance, the paratroopers could be used to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export hub in the northern Persian Gulf, where U.S. warplanes bombed more than 90 military targets earlier this month.
About 2,300 Marines from the 31st Expeditionary Unit are scheduled to arrive in the Middle East later this week, and U.S. commanders could also use them to seize Kharg Island or to help clear the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has effectively closed the strategic waterway to most commercial traffic. A similar number of Marines from the 11th Expeditionary Unit left Southern California last week, and are expected to arrive in the region by mid-April, Pentagon officials said.
The airfield on Kharg Island was damaged by the recent U.S. strikes, so former U.S. commanders said it was more likely to first bring in the Marines, whose combat engineers could quickly repair airport infrastructure. Once the airfield is repaired, the Air Force could start sending in matériel and troops, if necessary, by C-130 cargo planes.
In that scenario, it is possible that the troops from the 82nd Airborne would augment the Marines. Even though paratroopers can arrive overnight, they do not bring heavy equipment, such as heavily armored vehicles, that would offer protection if Iranian forces counterattacked, current and former officials said.
Iran has told the United Nations’ maritime organization that “non-hostile” ships may pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that has been effectively closed to tankers since the U.S.-Israeli military campaign began last month.
In a letter circulated to members of the International Maritime Organization on Tuesday, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs defined nonhostile vessels as those which “neither participate in nor support acts of aggression against Iran” or belong to the United States or Israel.
Fearing Iran’s attacks on shipping, tanker operators stopped sending their ships into the strait, through which a fifth of the world's oil and gas travels in normal times.
In its letter, dated March 22, Iran said it had taken “necessary and proportionate measures to prevent the aggressors and their supporters from exploiting the Strait of Hormuz.”
It is not clear whether the letter will persuade many shipowners to once again travel through the strait. A widespread return may only happen if there is an agreement between the United States and Israel and Iran to end the war.
The price of oil tumbled on Wednesday, falling more than 5 percent, but remains much higher than it was before the war.
Iran’s letter said “the full restoration of security and sustainable stability in the strait is contingent upon the cessation of military aggression and threats.”
President Trump said on Tuesday that negotiations were underway with Iran to end the war and that Iran would like “to make a deal.” Iran’s public stance is that negotiations are not taking place, but Iranian officials say Tehran and Washington have been exchanging messages through intermediaries about de-escalating the conflict.
Iran’s letter is intended to signal to the I.M.O. that Iran has not imposed a formal blockade of the strait, said Dimitris Ampatzidis, a senior risk and compliance analyst at Kpler, a maritime data firm.
Around 800 tankers are idling on either side of the strait, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. A small number of ships have gone through the waterway in recent days, according to MarineTraffic, a division of Kpler, suggesting Iran is allowing the passage of certain ships.
The drastic reduction in oil and gas shipments out of the Gulf is causing serious economic disruption around the world, and especially in Asia. While many established shipping companies may not risk going through the strait without a peace deal, Asian countries dependent on Middle East oil and gas may send tankers through if they trust Iran’s assurances.
In the letter, Iran said ships going through the strait would have to “fully comply with the declared safety and security regulations,” but it did not detail any rules.
Mr. Ampatzidis, the analyst, said the conditional nature of Iran’s letter “introduces uncertainty, which is typically enough for operators and insurers to stay cautious.”
According to Kpler, 17 ships have been struck in the Middle East since the war began on Feb. 28.
A fire broke out at Kuwait International Airport after drones targeted a fuel tank, according to the country’s civil aviation authority. The authority’s spokesman told Kuwait’s state news agency that firefighters were on the scene and that there was damage but no casualties.