The United States launched airstrikes on multiple locations in southern Iran on Wednesday, hours after revoking a sanctions waiver that had briefly allowed Iranian oil exports. The targets included the port city of Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, and the coastal town of Sirik, all strategically positioned along the Strait of Hormuz.
Explosions were reported across Hormozgan province. Iranian state media confirmed air defense systems had been activated. US Central Command said the strikes were a response to Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels in the strait.
The bombing represents a sharp escalation in a conflict that had seen a fragile, months-long ceasefire, one that Washington now appears to have abandoned.
Iran calls it a violation
Tehran responded by accusing the United States of violating the peace agreement that had paused hostilities since April. The memorandum of understanding, signed in late June, had suspended US oil sanctions and called for restoring maritime traffic through the strait. It lasted two weeks.
“Iran accuses US of violating peace agreement after strikes target sites around strait of Hormuz,” The Guardian reported. The Iranian government said the strikes prove Washington cannot be trusted to honor its own diplomatic commitments.
The accusation carries weight. The agreement was supposed to create space for negotiations on a permanent end to the US-Iran war. Instead, the US revoked its oil sanctions waiver on Tuesday, then bombed Iranian territory on Wednesday.
The funeral promise that wasn’t kept
The strikes carry an additional layer of significance. President Trump had promised to pause attacks during the seven-day funeral of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the opening US-Israeli strikes on February 28.
The funeral, which began July 4, has drawn millions of mourners to the streets of Tehran. Trump had publicly said both sides had agreed to a week of calm. “We gave them a week off for a funeral,” he said in a speech in South Dakota.
But the strikes on Wednesday, targeting Sirik, Qeshm, and Bandar Abbas, broke that promise. The White House said the response was triggered by Iranian attacks on commercial shipping, arguing that Iran violated the truce first.
Iranian officials say the attacks on tankers were themselves provoked by the US revocation of the oil sanctions waiver. The sequence is disputed, but the result is not: the ceasefire is effectively dead.
What was hit
The strikes focused on Iran’s southern coastline along the Strait of Hormuz. Sirik is a coastal port. Qeshm Island is the largest island in the Persian Gulf and hosts Iranian military installations. Bandar Abbas is a major port city and the base of Iran’s navy.
Collectively, the targets represent the infrastructure Iran uses to monitor and control traffic through the strait, the waterway through which 20 percent of the world’s oil passes.
“The actions of Iran in the strait are totally unacceptable to the United States and will not go unpunished,” a US official told CNN.
But the punishment has now gone beyond proportionate response. The US has revoked a diplomatic agreement, bombed Iranian territory, and broken a funeral truce, all in a 48-hour window.
What happens next
Iran has vowed to respond. The question is whether it will retaliate against US bases in the Gulf, as it did in June after the Apache helicopter incident, or attempt to escalate further by targeting shipping more aggressively.
Oil markets are already reacting. The revocation of the sanctions waiver pushed prices up on Tuesday. The strikes add a military risk premium.
The diplomatic path, already narrow, now appears closed. With Iran accusing the US of bad faith and the US insisting it acted in self-defense, the Strait of Hormuz remains a war zone, not a negotiation table.
Sources: Al Jazeera (July 8, 2026), The Guardian (July 8, 2026), CNN