Middle East crisis live: Trump insists ceasefire is intact after Iran and US exchange fire in Hormuz

Fragile ceasefire remains intact despite US trading fire with Iran Morning, and welcome to the Guardian’s Middle East live blog. The US said it carried out strikes on Iranian military targets after an attack on three American destroyers in the strait of Hormuz, while Tehran accused Washington of striking first. The exchange of fire threatens to unravel a fragile ceasefire in effect since 8 April – but Donald Trump insisted the truce remains intact. “The ceasefire is going. It’s in effect,” the US president told ABC News, describing the strikes as “just a love tap”. He repeated this stance when asked during a visit to see renovations of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool whether the ceasefire was still on despite the attacks. “Yeah it is,” he said. “They trifled with us today. We blew them away. They trifled. I call that a trifle.” Writing on his Truth Social platform, he said “there was no damage done” to the US warships “but great damage done to the Iranian attackers”. He added: “We’ll knock them out a lot harder, and a lot more violently, in the future, if they don’t get their Deal signed, FAST!” The deal he was referring to is the one-page proposal from the US that would have both sides reach an agreement to reopen the strait of Hormuz and end fighting for 30 days while they work on a longer term truce, the New York Times reported. Iranian navy fires a missile, at an unknown location, in this image taken from a video. …