U.S. pauses strikes on Iranian targets for a second day

By Mike Glenn - The Washington Times - Sunday, July 26, 2026

The White House paused strikes on Iranian targets for a second straight day Sunday, creating space for diplomatic efforts even as the U.S. maintains its blockade on Iranian ports.

U.S. military strikes on Friday capped a sequence of 13 consecutive nights of bombings. U.S. Central Command said U.S. forces targeted Iranian military command centers, drone storage facilities, communication networks and naval capabilities to “further diminish the threat Iran poses to civilian mariners and commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”

Iran has held off retaliatory attacks around the Middle East since the pause began.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he supported President Trump’s attempts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. He was a strong supporter of the U.S.-led Operation Epic Fury and Israel’s parallel Operation Roaring Lion. These coordinated campaigns targeted the regime’s military leadership and security infrastructure.

“If he can do so without returning to intense military fighting, that’s fine,” Mr. Netanyahu said Sunday on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “But one way or the other, they have to end their nuclear program. With a deal or without a deal, that has to come to an end.”

Mr. Netanyahu said U.S. and Israeli strikes during Epic Fury killed at least 20 of Iran’s top atomic scientists and gutted large sections of the country’s nuclear infrastructure.

“It doesn’t mean they can’t try to reconstruct it, but we pushed them back a good few years,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “We have to be on constant watch so it doesn’t happen again.”

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said military action against Iran remains a possibility for the White House and that Mr. Trump is keeping all options on the table. Mr. Waltz made the remarks Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“What the president is doing right now, as we’ve seen all along, is giving the talks some space,” Mr. Waltz said. “Talks are ongoing. They’re happening at every level, from the more technical aspects of it all the way to the highest levels.”

Some factions in Iran are pushing for more aggressive actions against the U.S. and its allies, while others angle to give negotiations a chance, Mr. Waltz said.

“That makes it hugely challenging from a diplomatic standpoint to get to some reasonable resolution,” he said.

Concerns about dwindling stockpiles of munitions, including interceptors needed to shoot down Iranian missiles, also factored into Mr. Trump’s decision to hold off on plans for further escalation, according to a report in The New York Times.

Mr. Waltz pushed back on reports that the U.S. stockpile of military hardware and munitions is running dry. Any claims that the U.S. does not have enough firepower in the Middle East were “nonsense,” Mr. Waltz said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”

“Not only do we have what we need in the theater, there are more [weapons and munitions] moving into the theater,” he said.

Iranian Foreign Ministry officials said Iran and Oman held several rounds of “technical and political consultations” in Tehran on Friday and Saturday.

“During these meetings, the two sides exchanged views on common principles and operational mechanisms for managing the safe passage of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, while respecting the sovereign rights of the two coastal states,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said, according to Iran’s state-controlled Tasnim News Agency.

A struggle for control over the Strait of Hormuz erupted between the U.S. and Iran even after the signing of an interim ceasefire deal in June. Tehran demanded that all commercial ships going through the strategic choke point use a route near its coastline and said they may be assessed a passage fee.

An oil tanker exploded in the Strait of Hormuz after it struck a naval mine, Iranian officials said Sunday.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran had repeatedly warned earlier that if ships deviate from the route announced by Iran, they will be responsible for the consequences,” they said.

The ship had not been identified by late Sunday, and it was not clear whether any injuries occurred.

Sen. Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, said the White House is failing in Iran because the Trump administration began the mission without a strategic goal.

“At first … this was about regime change. Then it became about nuclear weapons, then about ballistic missiles, then about the [Iranian] navy,” Mr. Kelly said Sunday on “Meet the Press.” “This thing has been a disaster. It’s been a disaster for the American people.”

He said the Pentagon is rapidly burning through its critical missile and ordnance stockpiles because of the conflict with Iran.

“This thing has been a disaster, and they do not know what to do,” Mr. Kelly said.

While attention remained focused on the Strait of Hormuz, Yemen’s Houthi rebels declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia, closing off the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a critical naval choke point connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

The Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of launching a series of airstrikes on Yemen’s coastal city of Hodeidah. They said they responded by targeting facilities controlled by the state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co. On Thursday, Mr. Trump said he would hold Iran responsible for the Houthis’ actions.

“The Houthis are a surrogate and/or proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis themselves. I am very disappointed with [the Houthis] in that they have, until now, acted very professionally and smart,” Mr. Trump said on Truth Social.

The regional crisis is also spilling into the war between Ukraine and Russia. On Sunday, Tehran summoned Ukraine’s diplomatic envoy to protest a long-range drone strike early Saturday on an Iranian merchant vessel operating in the Caspian Sea. The blast killed an Iranian merchant sailor and wounded another, officials said.

“The Ukrainian government must be held accountable for the incident and punish those responsible,” officials in Tehran said, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.

Kyiv said the ship was shuttling military cargo between Iran and Russia and was near a Russian warship when it was attacked.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine has evidence that Russian satellites are being used to conduct surveillance of the Persian Gulf states and U.S. military facilities based in the Middle East.

“There is a clear correlation between Russia’s satellite imagery of these sites and Iranian strikes — both before the attacks, in preparation for them, and afterwards to assess the damage inflicted,” Mr. Zelenskyy wrote Saturday on his Telegram channel.