April 6, 2026

Data Cutoff: 2:00 PM ET

Kelly Campa, Katherine Wells, Adham Fattah, Avery Borens, Nidal Morrison, and Annika Ganzeveld

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Iran rejected a ceasefire agreement with the United States to pause the war and “reopen” the Strait of Hormuz on April 6. Iran’s rejection of the latest ceasefire proposal reduces the likelihood that the United States and Iran will reach an agreement by US President Donald Trump’s April 7 deadline. The Pakistani-brokered proposal called for an immediate ceasefire followed by several weeks of negotiations to broker a lasting ceasefire and agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran seeks a permanent end to the war rather than a temporary ceasefire, however. Iranian state media reported that Iran’s counterproposal included 10 demands, including a lasting ceasefire in the “region,” a “protocol for safe passage” through the Strait of Hormuz, support for Iran’s reconstruction, and the lifting of sanctions. Trump rejected Iran’s counterproposal as “not good enough” on April 6. A US official similarly described Iran’s demands as “maximalist” to an Axios journalist on April 6. Iran’s demand for a ceasefire across the “region” presumably refers to a ceasefire that also ends Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. It is unclear what Iran is referring to when it calls for a “protocol for safe passage” through the Strait of Hormuz, but it may refer to a mechanism that would enable Iran to regulate traffic through the strait. This demand suggests that Iran is using the strait as a point of leverage to attempt to extract concessions and secure a favorable post-war agreement with the United States.

President Trump has maintained his threat to strike Iranian energy infrastructure and bridges if Iran does not agree to a deal by April 7. Trump said in an April 6 White House press conference that the United States has a plan to render every bridge in Iran “decimated” and put every Iranian power plant “out of business” by midnight on April 8 if Iran does not agree to a deal. US officials said that US forces are preparing to strike Iranian energy infrastructure on April 7 if President Trump orders them to do so. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the United States would conduct its largest volume of strikes on April 6 since the war began and will conduct even more strikes on April 7.

Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis appear to have coordinated an attack targeting Israel on April 6, possibly to try to maximize the psychological effects of Iran’s limited ability to conduct large-scale attacks against Israel. The three attacks triggered Israeli sirens across northern, central, and southern Israel within a roughly ten-minute period and the munitions used in the attacks appeared to reach Israeli airspace around the same time.

• Iran rejected a ceasefire agreement with the United States to pause the war and “reopen” the Strait of Hormuz on April 6. Iran’s rejection of the latest ceasefire proposal reduces the likelihood that the United States and Iran will reach an agreement by US President Donald Trump’s April 7 deadline. Trump has maintained his threat to strike Iranian energy infrastructure and bridges if Iran does not agree to a deal by April 7.

• Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis appear to have coordinated an attack targeting Israel on April 6, possibly to try to maximize the psychological effects of Iran’s limited ability to conduct large-scale attacks against Israel. The timing of these attacks suggests that the attacks were coordinated to some degree, given the vastly different travel times of the munitions fired at Israel by Hezbollah, Iran, and the Houthis.

• The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed on April 6 that it has struck Iran’s two largest petrochemical facilities in the past week that account for 85 percent of Iranian petrochemical exports. The IDF reported that the South Pars Complex contained infrastructure to produce explosives and propellant for ballistic missiles. 

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