Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday that Islamabad would host delegations from the United States and Iran later this week following their ceasefire announcement.

‘I... extend deepest gratitude to the leadership of both the countries and invite their delegations to Islamabad on Friday, 10th April 2026, to further negotiate for a conclusive agreement to settle all disputes,’ he said in a post on X.

Pakistan, which has forged a close relationship with US president Donald Trump and is sensitive to developments in neighbouring Iran, has emerged as a channel for messaging between Tehran and Washington in recent weeks.

‘We earnestly hope, that the ‘Islamabad Talks’ succeed in achieving sustainable peace and wish to share more good news in coming days,’ Sharif said.

Both Tehran and Washington said they had agreed to a two-week ceasefire barely an hour before Trump’s deadline to obliterate Iran was set to expire.

Tehran and Washington both claimed to have won the war which began on February 28 after US-Israeli airstrikes killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and kicked off a regional war.

Lebanon has also been drawn into the conflict after Iran-backed group Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel, which has since carried out strikes, including on the capital, and launched a ground operation in the south of the country.

Sharif said the ceasefire applied ‘everywhere’ including Lebanon, though Israel later said it would not stop its aerial and ground operations there against Hezbollah members.

The temporary ceasefire came after a down-to-the-wire bid by Pakistan and other mediators to avert Trump’s threat to destroy all power plants and bridges across Iran, a move that legal experts said could constitute a war crime.

Turkey and Egypt had also been helping mediate in recent days. China helped get Iran to the negotiating table, Trump said on Wednesday.

Sharif, in a separate X post, said China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Qatar had all provided ‘support towards reaching the ceasefire and giving peaceful diplomatic efforts a chance’.

The Pakistani leader also thanked Arab Gulf nations for their ‘commitment to peace and stability in the region’.

Despite trading missile fire with Iran two years ago and holding an at-times rocky relationship with the United States, Pakistan currently shares warm ties with both countries.

That helped boost its moderating credentials, burnished by its strong bonds with heavyweight regional players, including Saudi Arabia and Beijing.

Meanwhile, Iran launched missile and drone attacks on Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain after airstrikes against oil facilities on its Lavan island on Wednesday morning, state television reported.

‘Missile and drone attacks on the Emirates and Kuwait have taken place a few hours after the targeting of Lavan island oil facilities in Iran,’ IRIB said.

It quoted the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company as saying the Lavan Oil Refinery facility on the island ‘was subjected to a cowardly attack’ at 10:00am (0630 GMT) despite a ceasefire deal announced late Tuesday.

‘Safety and firefighting teams are controlling and extinguishing the fire and securing the facility,’ the company was quoted as saying.

‘Fortunately, with the timely evacuation of employees, no casualties have been reported so far.’

The Lavan refinery on the small Gulf island processes crude extracted from a nearby oilfield which supplies Iran’s highest quality oil for export, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Other Iranian islands in the Gulf were attacked during the war, notably the key oil export hub of Kharg where military installations were hit twice by US airstrikes.

The United Arab Emirates on Wednesday said its air defences ‘are actively engaging’ incoming missiles and drones from Iran, , reports AL Jazeera..

The UAE’s defence ministry said in a statement that the sounds of explosions heard in different areas across the country were caused by air defence systems intercepting ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles.

‘The air defences are currently dealing with missiles and drones coming from Iran,’ the ministry said.

Kuwait also said its air defences were intercepting a wave of Iranian drones ‌launched since 8:00am (05:00 GMT), according to its army.

The Kuwaiti army said some drones targeted vital oil facilities, power stations and water desalination plants, causing ‌serious infrastructure damage.

Kuwait’s defence ministry said in a statement that its air defence systems responded to ‘intense hostile Iranian attacks,’ adding that a total of 28 drones were dealt with.

‘Kuwaiti armed forces intercepted a large number of drones, some of which targeted vital oil installations and power stations in the south of the country,’ it added.

Bahrain’s ministry of interior also reported alleged Iranian attacks, which injured two people, hours after the US announced the ceasefire with Iran.

‘Two citizens sustained minor injuries and a number of houses were damaged in the Sitra area as a result of shrapnel falling from the interception of an Iranian drone,’ the ministry said in a statement.

Explosions were heard in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, in the morning, the AFP news agency reported. It said its journalist saw smoke rising from an area on Sitra Island that hosts Bahrain’s principal energy facilities.

In an earlier statement, the interior ministry said civil defence crews had succeeded in controlling a fire that broke out in a facility ‘targeted by the Iranian aggression’, without elaborating on the location of the facility.

Trump said the deal was a ‘total and complete victory’. Iran also hailed it as a win but warned it would enter talks with the US on Friday in Pakistan with ‘complete distrust’.

The ceasefire ‘does not mean the end of the war’ and Iran would only accept a lasting truce if its terms were met, said the Iranian National Security Council in a statement carried on state media.

There was no let-up to fighting in Lebanon, however, where Israel renewed its strikes against Hezbollah on Wednesday despite the Iran-backed armed group not claiming any operations since 1:00am (Tuesday 2200 GMT).

A large wave of Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed at least 89 people and wounded 722 others on Wednesday, health minister Rakan Nassereddine told Al Jazeera.

‘The initial and non-final toll... we have more than 89 martyrs and more than 722 wounded as of 5:00pm (1400 GMT),’ he said.

The White House said Israel had also agreed to the ceasefire, but prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it does not include Lebanon, where Israel’s operation has killed more than 1,500 people, according to local authorities.

Israel had encouraged Trump to launch the war against Iran, its arch-foe, according to a report in The New York Times.

A peace agreement would leave in place the Islamic republic despite US and Israeli hopes of toppling it. The United States and Israel said that they attacked Iran to degrade its military capacity.

Trump had earlier warned a ‘whole civilisation will die’ in Iran if the Strait of Hormuz was not opened by midnight GMT but said he had spoken to Pakistan’s leaders who requested he hold off.

He later said he believed China had helped get Tehran to negotiate.

‘Subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks,’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed safe passage for two weeks for ships through the strait, which Tehran sealed off in retaliation for the war, sending global energy prices soaring.

‘If attacks against Iran are halted, our Powerful Armed Forces will cease their defensive operations,’ Araghchi said.

Later on Wednesday, Trump posted on social media that the US would ‘be helping with the traffic build-up in the Strait of Hormuz’.

Oil prices plunged by more than 17 per cent after the ceasefire announcement, while European natural gas dropped 20 per cent. Stock prices also soared in early trading on Wednesday in Asia.

British prime minister Keir Starmer arrived Wednesday in Saudi Arabia, on the first stop of a Gulf tour aimed at bolstering the ceasefire in the Middle East war, Downing Street said.