Middle East crisis live: US and Iran in blockade stalemate as Washington’s navy secretary leaves office ‘immediately’

Welcome to our live coverage of events in the Middle East.

Iran has seized two ships in the strait of Hormuz a day after Donald Trump announced he was indefinitely calling off US attacks, while there is no sign of peace talks restarting.

The status of a two-week-old ceasefire – due to expire earlier this week – remained unclear. In an about-face hours after threatening renewed violence, Trump made what appeared to be a unilateral announcement on Tuesday that the US would extend the ceasefire with Tehran until it had discussed an Iranian proposal in peace talks to end the two-month war.

But Iranian officials did not say they had agreed to any extension of the truce, and criticised Trump’s decision to maintain the US navy blockade of Iran’s trade by sea. Lead Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said a full ceasefire only made sense if the blockade was lifted.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps seized two vessels on Wednesday for what it called maritime violations and escorted them to Iranian shores, according to statements by the shipping companies and Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency – the first time Iran has seized ships since the war began in late February.

In other key developments:

• Trump was “satisfied” with the US naval blockade and “understands Iran is in a very weak position”, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. The US president had not set a deadline on Iran submitting a peace proposal, she said, after Trump on Tuesday said he was indefinitely extending the ceasefire at the request of mediator Pakistan until Tehran responded to the US’s negotiating positions or until talks were concluded “one way or the other”.
• The Pentagon announced that the US secretary of the navy, John Phelan, would depart the office “effective immediately”, without providing an explanation for his sudden exit. The US army’s top officer, Gen Randy George, and two other senior officers were removed earlier this month amid the continuing war with Iran.
• The US-Israeli war against Iran is “starting to weaken Europe”, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has told his German counterpart. Erdoğan said: “If we do not address this situation with an approach that prioritises peace, the damage caused by the conflict will be far greater.”
• Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed a Lebanese journalist, Amal Khalil, and wounded a photographer accompanying her, a senior Lebanese military official and Khalil’s employer said. The death of Khalil, 43, brought the death toll to five people on Wednesday – the deadliest day since a 10-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah was announced on 16 April. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on Khalil’s death.