President Donald Trump ordered a temporary pause in “Project Freedom” in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, halting the operation after less than 24 hours and citing progress on a peace deal with Iran.
The pause came after U.S. forces intercepted multiple Iranian cruise missiles and drones aimed at commercial ships earlier this week, with U.S. Central Command saying there was zero damage to U.S.-flagged vessels. The latest move followed the U.S. sending its newest draft of a peace proposal to Iran.
Project Freedom had put the Strait of Hormuz back at the center of the confrontation between Washington and Tehran. A U.S. military blockade on Iranian ports remains in effect, even as officials said the reported strikes on Qeshm Port, Bandar Abbas and Bandar Kargan did not signal a restart of the war or the end of the ceasefire.
That restraint sits uneasily beside the fighting on the ground. A U.S. strike on Iran’s Qeshm Port in the Strait of Hormuz was reported on Thursday, along with a strike on Bandar Abbas and an attack on Iran’s Bandar Kargan naval checkpoint in Minab. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported air defense activity in western Tehran, while two other loud explosions were heard on Thursday night and eyewitnesses told Iran International they heard multiple blasts in Chitgar.
Iran’s state-run Mehr News Agency said attacks and exchanges of fire were reported across Hormozgan province near Bandar Abbas, Bandar Khamir, Sirik and Qeshm Island. Thursday’s strike on Iran’s major port came two days after Iran fired 15 ballistic and cruise missiles at the UAE’s Fujairah Port, a sequence that officials said sparked anger among Gulf countries.
On May 5, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine said at a Pentagon briefing that the attacks did not amount to a violation of the ceasefire, describing them as low-level incidents that did not rise to that threshold. For now, Trump has chosen to slow the U.S. campaign rather than widen it, but the blockade and the fresh strikes leave the region on edge and the next move in the peace push still unresolved.