Pakistan says China reaffirmed support for Islamabad

India-Pakistan ceasefire: Timeline of how it happened

April 22, 2025: Terrorists kill 26 people in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, triggering a regional conflict.

April 23, 2025: India downgrades diplomatic ties, closes the border, and suspends key water treaty with Pakistan, blaming it for backing the attack. Pakistan denies the charge.

April 24, 2025: India and Pakistan cancel visas for each other’s nationals. Pakistan shuts its airspace for all Indian-owned or Indian-operated airlines.

April 25, 2025: India says its troops exchanged fire with Pakistani soldiers at the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border dividing the disputed Kashmir region. The exchange of fire continues for several nights.

May 3, 2025: Pakistan test-fires ballistic missile with a range of 450km (280 miles). India bars Pakistani-flagged ships from entering its ports and prohibits Indian-flagged vessels from visiting Pakistani ports.

May 7, 2025: India fires missiles on Pakistan, which calls the strikes an “act of war” and pledges revenge as 31 die in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and the country’s Punjab province. The strikes targeted at least nine sites “where terrorist attacks against India have been planned”, says India’s Defence Ministry. Pakistan claims it downed several Indian fighter jets.

May 8, 2025: India fires attack drones into Pakistan as it accuses Islamabad of targeting its air defence system.

May 9, 2025: India suspends IPL, its biggest domestic cricket tournament, for a week. The G7 nations urge “maximum restraint”.

May 10, 2025: Pakistan says India fired missiles at airbases inside the country and that retaliatory strikes were undertaken. Residents in Indian-administered Kashmir report hearing loud explosions at multiple places in the region. US President Donald Trump posts on social media that India and Pakistan have agreed to a full and immediate ceasefire. Officials from both nations quickly confirm the deal.

Many in Pakistan greet news of the ceasefire with relief, joy

Chanting slogans of “long live Pakistan”, people in many cities welcomed the ceasefire with India, calling it a moment of national pride and relief after days of heightened tension.

“This is a big day for Pakistan,” said Mohammad Fateh, a young man in the city of Lahore. “Our forces responded with strength, and India had no choice but to agree to a ceasefire.”

In Islamabad, Zubaida Bibi, a 45-year-old housewife, expressed joy following the ceasefire, saying: “War brings nothing but suffering. We are happy that calm is returning. It feels like Eid to me. We have won.”

In Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, residents welcomed the ceasefire, saying they hope it will bring long-awaited relief to a region that has borne the brunt of recurring conflict.

“For us, peace means survival,” said Zulfikar Ali, a resident. “We’ve suffered enough. I’m glad that both Pakistan and India have made a sensible decision.”

India, Pakistan and international intervention

Charu Kasturi

This is only the latest instance of the US helping broker an end to a war or a tense standoff between India and Pakistan.

1999: President Bill Clinton convinced Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to pull the country’s troops out of Kargil, after they had entered the Indian-held territory, sparking a nearly three-month war.

2002: After an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001, India mobilised its army along the border with Pakistan. India blamed Pakistan-based armed groups for the attack, a charge Islamabad rejected.

Indian and Pakistani troops were lined up, almost eyeball to eyeball, for seven months. The crisis ended after US Secretary of State Colin Powell and his team convinced Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to formally commit to dismantling armed groups on the country’s soil.

2019: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, during Trump’s first administration, claimed the US helped pull India and Pakistan back from the brink of a potential nuclear war after a suicide bomber killed more than 40 Indian soldiers in Indian-administered Kashmir. India fired missiles across the border, and Pakistan shot down an Indian fighter jet, capturing its pilot before releasing him.

Ceasefire provides ‘mutual face-saving mechanism’

Mohmad Waseem Malla, research fellow at International Centre for Peace Studies, New Delhi, tells Al Jazeera that, given the heightened tensions between India and Pakistan in the last few days and a tangible risk of escalating into “full-spectrum kinetic and non-kinetic engagement”, the ceasefire serves as a “face-saving mechanism”.

“The strategic messaging in the press briefings of the two countries, both putting the onus of de-escalation on the other, signalled it. What this ceasefire agreement does is it provides a mutually face-saving mechanism for de-escalation, allowing both parties to step back from the brink and restore a degree of stability,” Malla said.

More importantly, he said, the announcement would also mean that a window for diplomatic recalibration and the possibility of re-establishing a dialogue, however limited that may be, to discuss mutual issues of concern has opened.

“But simultaneously, how the two sides are able to sell this to their domestic audiences will decide the scope of such diplomatic engagements,” he said.

False videos circulated on India, Pakistan social media amid escalating tensions

A battle of misleading or false narratives was being waged on social media as the two countries launched military attacks on each other.

A video of a purported Pakistani soldier launching a guided missile towards an Indian helicopter and downing it is circulating on Instagram, having already garnered more than a million views.

But an Al Jazeera analysis found the video was filmed in northern Iraq in May 2016.

Another video claimed to show civilian homes and facilities in India on fire as a result of a Pakistani attack. The video is originally from April, while the fire was caused by riots at a pharmaceutical factory in India.

Claims of a female Indian pilot being apprehended by Pakistan after she was forced to eject from her warplane were also found to be false, with images of the purported incident that are currently circulating actually dating back to 2024, when a training aircraft crashed.

Pakistan’s defence minister says military brought ‘happiness, pride and respect’ to nation

In a post on X, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has “congratulated” Pakistan’s ministry.

He thanked the military for bringing “happiness, pride, and respect to the nation”.

The chief minister of Pakistan’s Punjab, Maryam Nawaz, also weighed in.

She said the fighting “made the world understand that Pakistan’s defence is invincible”, according to a statement carried by state broadcaster PTV news.

Indian politicians welcome ceasefire agreement with Pakistan

Indian ministers and lawmakers have backed the cessation of fighting with Pakistan, with Congress MP Shashi Tharoor saying, “Peace is essential”.

“India never wanted a long-term war. India wanted war to teach terrorists a lesson, and that lesson has been taught,” he told reporters.

From Delhi, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal congratulated both sides on the ceasefire.

“Now we won’t see the loss of innocent lives who have nothing to do with the war,” he said, but warned that the war will continue if Pakistan becomes a “hotbed of terrorism”.

Ravinder Raina, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regional leader in Indian-administered Kashmir, said the Indian army made Pakistan pay “for every nefarious act”.

“Pakistan has fallen to its knees and is crawling at the feet of America and PM Modi,” he claimed.

Leader of the People’s Democratic Party in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Srinagar, Mehbooba Mufti, thanked Trump for intervening.

“Military solution is not a solution, political intervention is always needed,” she said.

Why was Trump first to announce the ceasefire?

Mike Hanna, Reporting from Washington, DC

Trump was the first to announce the deal via that social media post by President Trump. Observers asking why that was the case, there may be a very simple answer, and that is, he was the first to get onto social media, as he is indeed most day.

But there are questions about why the US did announce first. What sort of leverage does it have over India and Pakistan?

We do know that it was a multilateral attempt to get a ceasefire. We do know, as well, that the United Kingdom has just signed a major trade deal with India, so it would also have great sway in this.

Still, the US appears to be taking it further. The media message from the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is also very significant.

Not only does he confirm the ceasefire, but he also says that there’s an agreement to have talks at a neutral site. In other words, the US is saying that this is just the beginning.

Pakistan International Airlines flights to resume by 10pm

The announcement comes soon after Pakistan announced it re-opened its airspace as the ceasefire went into effect.

Grounded international flights will resume at 10pm local (17:00 GMT), according to the spokesman for Pakistan’s flagship carrier.

Navigational data on Wednesday indicated the airspace over northern India and southern Pakistan had been completely cleared. Pakistan’s entire airspace was nearly free of civilian aircraft, barring a few flights.

Water flow could become a more serious issue soon

This is a moment of the United States stepping in and claiming a more direct mediatory role than in other confrontations between India and Pakistan, says Elizabeth Threlkeld, director of the South Asia programme at the Stimson Center.

“I think it’s important to recognise that the ceasefire was no sure thing, particularly as things escalated quite significantly in the past 24 hours. This was arguably the most serious crisis between the two sides since they got nuclear weapons,” she told Al Jazeera from Washington, DC.

But how to avoid getting to this point again becomes the next question, said the former US State Department official who worked in Pakistan.

“There are real fundamental political issues that need to be addressed so we don’t find ourselves again in a militarised crisis,” Threlkeld said.

“The timing is significant since there is significant water flow between India and Pakistan because of the season at the moment. But in a few months’ time, that will start to dry up. India does not necessarily have the infrastructure to meaningfully divert water right now, but it will gain that capacity when there’s less flow. So, that will have to be on the agenda of the talks if the two sides are to come together.”

UK says India, Pakistan ceasefire ‘hugely welcome’

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy posted on X social media platform that the de-escalation between the South Asian neighbours was in “everybody’s interest”.

“Today’s ceasefire between India and Pakistan is hugely welcome. I urge both parties to sustain this,” he wrote.

Third parties must push India, Pakistan to ‘resolve’ disputes: Ex-Pakistan NSA

Abid Hussain, Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan

Pakistan’s former National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf has welcomed the ceasefire, calling it a “big relief” for a region of nearly two billion people.

“I think this should be a lesson to everybody involved. A war under nuclear umbrella, any kind of war, ultimately will lead you to depend on good fortune than strategy to extract yourself from being sucked into a catastrophic end,” Yusuf told Al Jazeera.

He said the only way to truly avoid escalation in a nuclear environment is to “prevent crises rather than manage them”, adding that prevention of crises requires dispute resolution.

For third parties, such as the US, coming in to deal with the situation is not a new thing, he said. But once the crisis is managed, everybody goes on their “merry ways and forgets the fact that the reasons for crisis still exist,” he added.

“It is critical that third parties push Pakistan and India to sit down and resolve, or at least work towards resolving their differences and disputes over time, so that, at the very least, they do not (end) up in a crisis every so often.”

Pakistan says China reaffirmed support for Islamabad

Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar had a phone call with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, according to the ministry.

“Foreign Minister Wang Yi acknowledged Pakistan’s restraint and appreciated its responsible approach under challenging circumstances,” a statement on X said.

The ministry said China’s top diplomat reaffirmed that Beijing “will continue to stand firmly by Pakistan in upholding its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national independence”.

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