The United States and Israel will pause plans for additional strikes on Iran, provided negotiators can quickly hammer out a deal to end the months-long conflict, President Donald Trump announced Saturday.
Trump posted that the emerging agreement “would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat,” and said he had agreed to cancel an attack so long as a deal could be reached rapidly. He added that Israel had agreed to join U.S. efforts to complete the pact. Tehran offered no immediate public response to the announcement.
The pause follows a high-stakes regional diplomatic backchannel, including a phone call in which Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urged Trump not to broaden the war with Tehran, a person familiar with the discussion told reporters. That person, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the call, said Riyadh is worried that major U.S. strikes on Iran’s energy or other critical infrastructure could prompt Tehran to retaliate against Saudi and other Gulf energy targets.
The announcement arrived amid continuing violence in Gaza. Civil defence officials in Gaza reported that overnight Israeli strikes hit multiple residential buildings and killed at least eight people. In one strike near the central Gaza Strip a man and his wife were killed and several others wounded when an Israeli military helicopter struck an apartment, according to a civil defence spokesman. An elderly man and a child were killed in a separate attack on an apartment west of Gaza City, and three people, including a child, were killed when a strike hit an apartment northwest of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Authorities also said earlier Saturday that another eight people had been killed in strikes that damaged a hospital’s medical supplies and targeted a rooftop.
The violence in Gaza came despite statements from Hamas that it had accepted a U.S.-backed plan that includes handing over weapons and the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territory, a framework Trump has championed. The plan and the proposed Hormuz terms together frame a narrow window in which Washington and Tel Aviv are willing to step back from immediate military action in Iran.
What happens next will hinge on the speed of diplomacy. Trump has tied any further de-escalation to rapidly concluding a deal that secures the Strait of Hormuz and addresses Tehran’s nuclear threat. Regional actors such as Saudi Arabia, which has warned against wider strikes, are watching closely. If negotiators fail to produce swift progress, the temporary restraint on strikes could collapse, reviving the risk of broader military confrontation even as Gaza remains under fire.
