Iran…Trump…Evening….4/22/2026….The Iraninan Military Is NOT Giving UP Anything….

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, played down the reported ship seizures, telling Fox News that Mr. Trump did not view them as a violation of the cease-fire as efforts to revive peace talks continued. “These were not U.S. ships,” she said. “These were not Israeli ships.”

Iranian news media reported that the Guards had targeted the two cargo vessels, the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas, a Greek-owned ship, because they did not abide by Iran’s recently imposed rules for passing through the strait. Those rules include securing permits for preapproved routes.

MSC, a global shipping company based in Geneva, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Greece’s foreign minister said that the Greek-owned ship had sustained “extremely wide damage.” Tracking data suggested that both ships were now anchored around eight miles off the Iranian coast.

Several Iranian news media outlets reported earlier that the Guards had fired on a third cargo ship, the Euphoria. Tracking data showed that vessel stopping multiple times and changing directions abruptly as it passed through the strait.

With no clear indication that either Washington or Tehran was willing to back down from its public stances on the strait and other issues, there appeared to be an impasse over the conditions that need to be met before a new round of peace talks.

Here’s what else we are covering:

• War powers vote: For a fifth time since the war began on Feb. 28, Senate Republicans voted on Wednesday to block a resolution to enforce Congress’ war powers, with Democrats failing once again in their effort to constrain Mr. Trump. A decades-old law allowsthe president to wage war without congressional approval for 60 days; that window would expire on May 1.

• Iran border crossing: After entering Turkey, Iranians belonging to different political persuasions and from parts of the country told The Times that they were fleeing a deepening economic crisis at home.

• Navy secretary out: John Phelan was fired after months of Pentagon infighting over how to revive the Navy’s struggling shipbuilding program.

• Lebanon: An exchange of attacks along the Israeli-Lebanese border on Wednesday put pressure on the countries’ already tenuous truce…..

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The Guardian….

• Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed a journalist after rescuers were blocked from accessing the building where she was buried under rubble because of further Israeli fire, according to several witnesses. Amal Khalil was covering developments near the town of al-Tayri with the photographer Zeinab Faraj when an Israeli strike hit the vehicle in front of them. They ran into a nearby house, which was then also targeted by an Israeli strike, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

• Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament and lead negotiator, said that reopening the strait of Hormuz would be “impossible” while the US and Israel committed “flagrant” breaches of the ceasefire, including the US naval blockade, “the hostage-taking of the world’s economy” and “Zionist warmongering”. He added in a post on Xthat the US and Israel “did not achieve their goals through military aggression, nor will they through bullying”.

• Donald Trump is “satisfied” with the naval blockade, and “understands Iran is in a very weak position” – according to the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. She highlighted that reports of a three-to-five-day deadline for the extended ceasefire are “not true”. “The cards are in President Trump’s hands right now,” she told the media during a press conference in Washington.

• Lebanese state media reported that Israeli strikes killed at least four people in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. Hezbollah launched, according to the report, a drone attack against Israeli forces in the region, which further jeopardizes the US-brokered ceasefire. The National News Agency (NNA) said an Israeli strike hit a car in Tayri, a village in south Lebanon, killing two people inside. An Israeli airstrike in the southern town of Yohmor killed another two people, the NNA and Lebanon’s health ministry said.

• Two Palestinians, including a 14-year-old schoolboy, have been killed in the occupied West Bank after Israeli settlers opened fire near a schoolamid mounting assaults on education in the territory, witnesses and local officials have said. The Palestinian health ministry said Aws al-Naasan, 14, and Jihad Abu Naim, 32, were killed in the attack on the village of al-Mughayyir, in which three others were wounded….

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ISW...Iran Update Special Report, April 22, 2026

1. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy attacked and likely redirected two vessels towards Iran on April 22, likely to enforce Iranian claims of sovereignty over the strait to disrupt global shipping and extract US concessions. The IRGC also may have redirected the two vessels in response to the recent US Navy seizure of the Iranian-flagged, US-sanctioned Touska in the Gulf of Oman.
2. The IRGC’s attacks on shipping and IRGC Commander Major General Ahmad Vahidi’s apparent willingness to scrap US-Iran talks indicate that Vahidi is prepared to resume the war if needed. Vahidi appears willing to risk incurring a potential US military response to assert Iranian “control” over the strait.
3. Iranian decision-making remains fragmented and in disarray, which explains Iran’s inability to formulate and communicate a coherent negotiating position. Iranian officials have not reached a unified decision on whether to return to negotiations in recent days, and competing regime power centers appear to be blocking consensus on core issues. The regime’s formal decision-making and coordinating mechanisms are also not functioning effectively.
4. US officials have recently leaked quantitative estimates of the number of different Iranian assets remaining after the ceasefire. It is extremely difficult to deduce the degree of degradation to Iranian forces based on these estimates because the number of remaining systems is only one of many data points required to form a complete evaluation of military strength.

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