LIVE UPDATES: Conflict in the Middle East (May 8, 2026)

WASHINGTON/DUBAI — The United States and Iran exchanged fire on Thursday in the most serious test yet of their month-long ceasefire, but Iran said the situation returned to normal while the US said it did not want to escalate.

Iran's military said the US targeted two ships entering the Strait of Hormuz and carried out strikes on Iranian territory. The US military said it fired in response to Iranian attacks.

Trump told an ABC reporter that the ceasefire was still in effect and sought to play down the exchange. "It's just a love tap," Trump told the reporter, according to her social media post.

Iran accused the United States of violating a ceasefire by targeting two ships at the Strait of Hormuz and attacking civilian areas, the country's top joint military command said early on Friday.

The U.S. targeted "an Iranian oil tanker traveling from Iran's coastal waters near Jask toward the Strait of Hormuz, as well as another vessel entering the Strait of Hormuz near the Emirati port of Fujairah," a spokesperson for Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said in a statement carried by state media.