Iran's joint military command warned Thursday that all oil tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz must use its approved routes or face a "forceful response," again ratcheting up tensions over a waterway crucial for international energy supplies.

The strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, has emerged as one of the top issues in negotiations to reach a permanent end to the Iran war. The statement from the Khatam al-Anbiya military command, reported by Iranian state television, comes after both U.S. and Iranian diplomats met with mediators on Wednesday in Qatar.

It was the deadliest reported strike in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Most of the victims were children.

In almost any other conflict, these haunting truths would be seared into national memory. Yet more than 120 days since at least one U.S. missile struck an Iranian primary school, there remains no final accounting of what happened.

Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf called on Thursday for massive turnout at Ali Khamenei's funeral to avenge the supreme leader's death in U.S.-Israeli strikes at the start of the war.

"I invite all the Iranian people... to write a glorious page in the history of Islamic Iran through your presence" at the funeral ceremonies starting Saturday, Ghalibaf said in a statement, adding: "The nation's call for vengeance must ring in the ears of the whole world."

U.S. and Iranian negotiators met separately on Wednesday with Qatari and Pakistani mediators, with "positive progress made," and they agreed to continue discussions, host Qatar said.

The next meeting will be scheduled "at the earliest possible time" after the funeral of Iran's previous supreme leader, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for Qatar's Foreign Ministry, said on X. The funeral is set to start Saturday in Tehran.

It's the 1,000th day of war since a Hamas-led attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Other conflicts have emerged in the region, and fragile ceasefires show scars of persistent attacks. Both Israelis and Palestinians are weary of the strain.

The fate of over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, largely displaced and living amid ruins, remains uncertain. Israeli forces controlled over half of the territory under the ceasefire that took effect on Oct. 10, but Israel's government has expanded that and says it aims to hold 70%.

A ceasefire sounds straightforward: Fighting stops. Negotiations ensue. Ordinary citizens get a break from fighting — and some time to rebuild.

That's not what's happening in the volatile Mideast, where ongoing fighting still resembles a war long after ceasefire agreements were announced and President Donald Trump declared victory.

Iranian state television on Tuesday cut short the broadcast of an interview with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's top negotiator in talks with the United States, drawing criticism from his team.

"This discussion was delivered to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) more than 2 hours before the broadcast time; but unfortunately, the broadcast of this discussion was stopped in the middle of it," said a statement by the parliament media center on Wednesday.

Israel's former army chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot on Tuesday announced the start of his electoral campaign as he bids to take over the seat of prime minister from veteran leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

The United States on Wednesday signed an agreement to build a new embassy compound in Jerusalem, in a move that Israel said reflected the "unbreakable alliance" between the countries.

U.S. President Donald Trump hailed the progress on Wednesday of indirect talks between Iran and the United States, saying there had been "very good meetings" in Doha.

"As far as things are going, the denuclearization of Iran is moving along well. They've had very good meetings, and we'll see," Trump told reporters as he prepared to board his new Qatar-gifted Air Force One plane for a trip to North Dakota.