Pakistani and Saudi mediators conducted back-to-back meetings in Tehran and Jerusalem on Tuesday, pressing a tentative de-escalation framework on both governments as the Iran-Israel war entered its second month with no pause in strikes and a rising civilian toll across four countries.

The shuttle, organized through Islamabad and quietly endorsed by Egypt, marked the most concerted diplomatic push since hostilities began in early March. Officials briefed on the talks described the exchanges as exploratory rather than substantive, but said both Iranian and Israeli interlocutors had, for the first time, engaged with the same written set of “framework principles” — a four-page document covering a phased halt to strikes, the safety of commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and a sequenced exchange of detained foreign nationals.

“We are not close to anything that resembles a ceasefire, but we are closer than we were a week ago to a conversation,” said Tariq Mahmood, a senior adviser to the Pakistani foreign ministry, speaking to reporters in Islamabad after the delegation’s return. “Both capitals received the same paper. Both capitals are reading it. That itself is new.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met the visiting delegation, led by Pakistani special envoy Asif Durrani and Saudi deputy foreign minister Waleed al-Khuraiji, for roughly three hours at the Iranian foreign ministry. State media described the meeting as “constructive” but stressed that Tehran would not entertain proposals that did not include a “verifiable” halt to Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear and industrial sites. Iranian negotiators also raised the question of frozen assets held abroad, an issue the mediators have so far kept out of the draft principles, according to two officials familiar with the document.

Hours later, the same delegation landed at Ben Gurion and met Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi at a hotel in Herzliya. Israeli officials, who declined to characterize the meeting publicly, told local media that the government remained committed to “completing the mission” against Iran’s enrichment capacity but was prepared to discuss “humanitarian arrangements” and the protection of merchant traffic in the Gulf. A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet had not yet authorized any negotiating mandate for the envoys.

The talks unfolded against an unrelenting battlefield backdrop. Overnight, Iran launched a salvo of roughly 80 drones and missiles toward Israel and U.S. bases in Iraq and the Gulf; Israeli and U.S. defenses intercepted most, but at least four service members were wounded at Al-Asad Air Base, according to a U.S. Central Command spokesperson. American casualties since the start of the conflict now stand near 280, defense officials said. Israeli aircraft struck what the military described as a centrifuge fabrication workshop near Karaj and a logistics depot outside Bandar Abbas. Houthi forces in Yemen claimed responsibility for a fresh attack on a Liberian-flagged tanker in the southern Red Sea; Saudi and Emirati interceptors brought down two further drones over the Gulf.

The pace of fighting has lent urgency to a diplomatic track that, until last week, was confined largely to back-channel telephone calls between Islamabad, Riyadh, Doha and Muscat. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi telephoned both Netanyahu and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday and again on Monday, according to a Cairo readout, while Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi has been carrying messages between the two sides since mid-March.

“What’s changed is that the Pakistanis have managed to translate a set of phone-call understandings into a piece of paper, and the paper is now in two capitals at the same time,” said Layla Hassan, a Beirut-based regional analyst at the Levant Policy Forum. “That is not a breakthrough. But in a conflict where neither side has wanted to be seen blinking first, it is the kind of procedural step that can make a breakthrough thinkable.”

Washington’s posture remains cautious. The State Department, briefed on the Islamabad framework by Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar in a call late Monday, has not endorsed the draft. A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States welcomed “any serious diplomacy that does not reward aggression” but warned that any phased halt would have to be accompanied by “credible verification” of Iranian nuclear activity. President Donald Trump, addressing reporters briefly at the White House on Tuesday afternoon, said he had been “kept informed” of the mediation effort and that Iran “knows what it has to do.” He declined to take further questions.

European foreign ministers, meeting in Brussels on the margins of a previously scheduled NATO session, issued a joint statement urging “all parties to consider seriously the principles emerging from Islamabad.” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters that the European Union would support any framework that included a binding halt to attacks on civilian energy infrastructure.

Inside the framework document, according to two diplomats who have read it, the most contentious clause concerns a proposed 72-hour mutual stand-down to allow humanitarian corridors into Iraq and southern Lebanon. Iranian negotiators have signaled they could accept such a pause; Israeli officials have so far resisted, arguing that any halt would allow Iranian forces to reconstitute air defenses. Mediators are exploring a narrower version limited to fixed humanitarian routes overseen by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Pakistani and Saudi envoys are expected to return to Islamabad on Wednesday for a coordination meeting with Egyptian and Omani counterparts, with a follow-up round of shuttle visits tentatively planned for the weekend. Officials said additional confidence-building measures, including a possible exchange of remains of fallen service members, would be raised at the next round.