Closing summary
We’re shutting this live coverage now but you can read a full report here, and below a recap of the latest key developments. Thanks for joining us.
Donald Trump said Iran’s response to the US peace plan was a “stupid proposal” and “a piece of garbage” that he didn’t finish reading it. He still believed a diplomatic solution was possible, he said, but the ceasefire with Iran was “on massive life support”.
Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said his country’s “armed forces are ready to deliver a well-deserved response to any aggression” and that adversaries “will be surprised”.
Iran is ready to support Xi Jinping’s four-point plan for the Gulf region, Tehran’s ambassador to Beijing said, ahead of Trump’s visit to China this week for talks with the Chinese leader. Will the US president seek Xi’s help in ending the war with Iran? See analysis here.
The EU has adopted sanctions on Israeli settlers, with the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas saying: “Extremisms and violence carry consequences.” Israel has condemned the move.
The UK sanctioned 12 individuals and entities linked to Iran, accusing them of involvement in hostile activity including plotting attacks and providing financial services to groups seeking to destabilise the UK and other countries.
The Lebanese health ministry updated its death toll to 2,869 people killed in Israeli attacks that began on 2 March, Lebanese state-run media said. UN humanitarian agency chief Tom Fletcher called for a “genuine ceasefire” as Israel continues its relentless assault on Lebanon.
Israeli lawmakers approved a bill setting up a special tribunal that would try and have the authority to sentence to death Palestinians convicted of taking part in the 2023 Hamas-led attack that triggered the war in Gaza.
Two soldiers photographed desecrating a Christian statue in southern Lebanon were sentenced to military prison, the IDF said. The soldier who stuck a cigarette in the mouth of a statue of Mary received 21 days while the photographer got 14 days.
Iranian authorities on Monday hanged a postgraduate student from a Tehran university on charges of espionage, with the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan Online website accusing him of collaborating with the CIA and the Mossad. Before his execution Erfan Shakourzadeh, 29, rejected the charges as fabricated, a rights group said.
The United Arab Emirates has carried out military strikes on Iran, the Wall Street Journal has reported sources as saying, “casting the Gulf monarchy as an active combatant in a war in which it has been Iran’s biggest target”.
The UK and France will host a multinational meeting of defence ministers on Tuesday to discuss plans to restore trade flows through the strait of Hormuz, the British defence ministry said. The meeting will involve 40 countries and comes a day after Iran threatened to strike British and French warships if they tried to help reopen the waterway.
Trump’s rejection of Iran’s response to the US peace proposal caused a jump in Brent crude oil by as much as 4% on Monday to $105.50 a barrel, before easing back slightly.
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Mass starvation looms if fertilisers can't pass Hormuz strait, UN warns
Tens of millions of people could face hunger and starvation if fertilisers are not soon allowed through the strait of Hormuz, the head of a UN task force aimed at averting a looming humanitarian crisis has said.
About a third of the world’s fertiliser – crucial to growing food crops – usually passes through the waterway that Iran has effectively shut.
“We have a few weeks ahead of us to prevent what will likely be a massive humanitarian crisis,” Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of the UN Office for Project Services and leader of the task force, told Agence France-Presse.
We may witness a crisis that will force 45 million more people into hunger and starvation.”
The World Trade Organisation has said that “fertilisers are the No 1 issue of concern today”. This visual guide explains why:
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The US has announced sanctions against three people and nine companies, including four based in Hong Kong and four in the United Arab Emirates, for aiding Iran’s shipment of oil to China. The ninth company is based in Oman.
The Treasury move follows sanctions announced on Friday on individuals and companies aiding Iranian purchases of weapons and components used to make drones and ballistic missiles.
It comes days before Donald Trump’s planned meeting with Xi Jinping, where he is expected to press the Chinese leader to help resolve the standoff with Iran and reopen the strait of Hormuz.
The Guardian’s Amy Hawkins and David Smith have previewed some of the hazards Trump will face as he meets Xi:
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Oil prices climbed after Donald Trump rejected Iran’s terms for ending the Middle East war, but global stock markets mostly rose.
Oil spiked more than 4% before easing. Brent oil futures finished up almost 3% at $104.21 a barrel.
“The price of oil remains highly reactive to news around the reopening of the strait of Hormuz, both positive and negative,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at trading group XTB, quoted by Agence France-Presse.
But Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare said traders saw Trump as unlikely to aggravate the oil supply situation ahead of his summit meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week.
On Wall Street, after a soft start the three main indices finished a meandering session modestly higher as traders continued to shrug off the war.
“Basically the market has decided that geopolitics are just background noise right now,” said Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers, who characterised the market as “very momentum-driven right now”.
Israeli MPs set up tribunal with death penalty over October 2023 attack
Israeli lawmakers have approved a bill on Monday setting up a special tribunal that would try and have the authority to sentence to death Palestinians convicted of taking part in the 2023 Hamas-led attack that triggered the war in Gaza.
The measure passed 93-0 in the 120-seat Knesset (parliament), reflecting widespread support for punishing those found responsible for what was the deadliest attack in Israel’s history. The remaining 27 lawmakers were absent or abstained from voting.
Rights groups have criticiced the measure, saying it makes the death penalty too easy to impose while also doing away with procedures safeguarding the right to a fair trial, reports the Associated Press.
Defendants can appeal against their sentences but the appeals have to be heard by a separate, special appeals court rather than regular appeals courts.
Because the bill empowers a panel of judges to hand down the death penalty by a majority vote – and requires the trials to be conducted in a live-streamed Jerusalem courtroom – it has drawn comparisons to the 1962 trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, which was broadcast live on television.
Eichmann was executed by hanging, the last time the death penalty was carried out in Israel, though technically capital punishment remains on the books for acts of genocide, espionage during wartime and certain terror offences.
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The Israeli military has said it has intercepted a “suspicious aerial target” that was identified in an area Israeli soldiers are occupying in southern Lebanon.
No sirens were sounded in accordance with protocol, according to a statement released by the Israeli military.
UAE has been secretly carrying out attacks on Iran, WSJ reports
The United Arab Emirates has carried out military strikes on Iran, people familiar with the matter have told the Wall Street Journal, “casting the Gulf monarchy as an active combatant in a war in which it has been Iran’s biggest target”.
Per the WSJ’s report, “the strikes, which the UAE hasn’t publicly acknowledged, have included an attack on a refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island in the Persian Gulf, the people familiar with the matter said. That attack took place in early April around the time President Trump was announcing a cease-fire in the war after a five-week air campaign and sparked a large fire and knocked much of its capacity off line for months.”
Iran said at the time that the refinery had been struck in an “enemy attack” and launched a barrage of missile and drone strikes against the UAE and Kuwait in response.
The UAE has been the target of more than 2,800 Iranian drones and missiles, far more than any country, including Israel.
“It’s significant to have a Gulf Arab country as a warring party that struck Iran directly,” Dina Esfandiary, Middle East analyst and author of a book on the rise of the UAE, told the Wall Street Journal. “Tehran will now aim to further drive a wedge between the UAE and other Gulf Arabs who are trying to mediate an end to the war.”
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UN calls for 'genuine ceasefire' as Israel's assault on Lebanon intensifies
United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator Tom Fletcher has called for a “genuine ceasefire” as Israel continues its relentless assault on Lebanon.
Highlighting the numbers of civilians killed and displaced in the ongoing crisis, Fletcher said in a post on X said aid could only go so far if the violence continues:
100 strikes on Lebanon in 24 hours. Civilians killed. Families displaced.
We are doing everything to get support to those who need it. But what people need most is a genuine ceasefire.
Talks between Israel and Lebanon are due to take place on Thursday in Washington, with the US acting as mediator.
Despite a ceasefire announced more than three weeks ago, the Lebanese army reported multiple violations the next day by Israel. Since then Israel has continued to launch air and artillery strikes across southern Lebanon, vast swathes of which it also continues to occupy, and last week bombed Beirut for the first time since the ceasefire. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has ramped up attacks on Israeli military targets.
Since Israel renewed its offensive on 2 March, at least 2,846 people have been killed, including at least 103 medical workers, and more than a million displaced.
'They will be surprised': Iran ready to respond to any aggression, parliamentary speaker says
Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, has said that his country’s “armed forces are ready to deliver a well-deserved response to any aggression”.
It comes after Donald Trump said the ceasefire with Iran is “on massive life support”, and renewed threats against Tehran if it doesn’t meet his demands.
“Mistaken strategy and mistaken decisions will always lead to mistaken results — the whole world has already figured this out. We are prepared for all options; they will be surprised,” Ghalibaf said in his post on X.
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The Qatari foreign minister and his Kuwaiti counterpart spoke on the phone with each other on Monday amid ongoing tensions between the US and Iran.
In a statement released on X, the Qatari foreign ministry said Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani spoke to Kuwaiti foreign minister Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al Ahmad Al Sabah.
Together, the two discussed “developments in the region, particularly those related to the ceasefire between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and efforts aimed at de-escalation in a way that contributes to strengthening security and stability in the region.”
“HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs underlined the necessity for all parties to engage in the ongoing mediation efforts, which would open the way for addressing the root causes of the crisis through peaceful means and dialogue, and lead to a sustainable agreement that prevents renewed escalation,” the statement added.
The EU has agreed sanctions on violent Israeli settlers, ending a years-long deadlock over the issue but still taking only a “baby step” according to one MEP.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said on Monday: “Violence and extremism carry consequences.”
But there was still no consensus among the 27 member states on more hard-hitting trade sanctions.
France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said the EU was “sanctioning the main Israeli organisations guilty of supporting the extremist and violent colonisation of the West Bank, as well as their leaders”.
“These most serious and intolerable acts must cease without delay,” he wrote on social media.
For the full story, click here:
Updated
Donald Trump is meeting with his national security team on Monday to discuss the way forward in his war against Iran, including the possibility of resuming military action, Axios is reporting citing three US officials.
His vice-president JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, secretary of defense Pete Hegseth, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, CIA director John Ratcliffe and other senior officials are expected to participate, per Axios’s report.
It comes as Trump told reporters in the Oval Office earlier that the ceasefire was “on massive life support” and accused Tehran of reneging on an agreement to allow the US to remove its supply of enriched uranium.
It followed his declaration that the latest Iranian proposal to end the war was “unacceptable” and “garbage”. Iran on Sunday rejected the US’s proposal, which it said “meant Iran’s surrender to Trump’s excessive demands”.
But Trump also said in the Oval Office that he thought a diplomatic solution was still “very possible”. He also told reporters he had a plan to end the war.
However, two US officials told Axios that Trump is leaning toward taking some form of military action against Iran to increase pressure on the regime and force concessions on its nuclear program.
“He will tune them up a bit,” said one US official. “I think we all know where this is going,” said the second.
Updated
Today so far
Donald Trump on Monday said that Iran’s response to the US peace plan was a “stupid proposal” and “a piece of garbage” that he didn’t finish reading. He said he still believes a diplomatic solution is possible and that his “best plan ever” is very simple: “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and they won’t have a nuclear weapon”,” Trump said.
Trump also described the current ceasefire as “unbelievably weak”. “I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support, where the doctor walks in and says, ‘Sir, your loved one has approximately a 1% chance of living’,” Trump said.
Iran is ready to support Xi Jinping’s four-point plan for the Gulf region, said Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, Iran’s ambassador to China. The announcement came ahead of Trump’s visit to China this week to meet with Xi.
EU has adopted sanctions on Israeli settlers, with EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, declaring: “Extremisms and violence carry consequences”. Israel has already condemned the move, with foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar saying on X that it was adopted in “an arbitrary and political manner”.
The UK has sanctioned 12 individuals and entities linked to Iran, accusing them of involvement in hostile activity including plotting attacks and providing financial services to groups seeking to destabilise the UK and other countries. The measures include asset freezes, travel bans and director disqualification orders.
The Lebanese health ministry has updated its death toll to 2,869 people killed in Israeli attacks that began on 2 March, Lebanon’s state-run national news agency reports. Many of those killed were women and children and 8,730 have also been injured.
Two soldiers photographed desecrating a Christian statue in southern Lebanon were sentenced to military prison, the IDF said. The soldier who was photographed sticking a cigarette in the mouth of a statue of Mary, was sentenced to 21 days of military prison, the Associated Press reports. The soldier who photographed the incident was sentenced to 14 days, according to the IDF.
Iranian authorities on Monday hanged a postgraduate student from a university in Tehran on charges of espionage, with the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan Online website accusing him of collaborating with the CIA and the Mossad. Erfan Shakourzadeh, 29, was a student at Tehran’s prestigious Iran University of Science and Technology and had written a message before his execution rejecting the charges as fabricated, said the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.
The UK and France will host on Tuesday a multinational meeting of defence ministers to discuss plans to restore trade flows through the strait of Hormuz, the British defence ministry said. The meeting will involve 40 countries and comes one day after Iran threatened to strike British and French warships in the strait if they try to help reopen the strategic waterway.
Trump’s rejection of Tehran’s response to the US’s peace proposal caused a jump in Brent crude by as much as 4% on Monday to $105.50 a barrel, before easing back slightly.
Updated
In the more than two months since fighting began, more than 1.2 million people in southern Lebanon have been forced to flee their homes amid bombings, evacuation orders and demolitions.
The Guardian’s graphics team, alongside William Christou in Beirut, have charted the scope of destruction:
Trump says he still believes the US can negotiate with Iran's leadership
When asked, Donald Trump said he still felt that the US could reach a peace deal with Iran’s current leadership.
“You have the moderates, you have the lunatics. And I think the moderates are more respected. The lunatics want to fight till the end. It’ll be a very quick fight,” Trump said.
He continued: “Just like our country, we have lunatics too. I call them lunatics, I call them stupid people too. In Iran, they have their moderates who are dying to make a deal and then they have the lunatics.”
When pushed further on whether a diplomatic solution was still possible, Trump responded that “it’s very possible”.
“Look, I’ve had to deal with them four or five times,” he said. “They changed their mind. They’re very dishonourable people, the leadership.”
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Ceasefire ‘unbelievably weak’ and on life support, Trump says
When asked about the state of the ceasefire, Donald Trump said it “unbelievably weak”.
“I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support, where the doctor walks in and says, ‘Sir, your loved one has approximately a 1% chance of living’,” Trump said.
Trump calls Iran's response to US peace proposal 'stupid'
Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that Iran’s response to the US peace plan was a “stupid proposal” and “a piece of garbage” that he didn’t finish reading.
He said he has the “best plan ever” and it’s very simple: “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and they won’t have a nuclear weapon”.
“If they did have it, the Middle East would be gone. Israel would be gone. And it would hit Europe probably next. We’re doing a service to the world,” Trump said.
Israel's Iron Dome maker says it has been nearly 99% effective against missiles
Yuval Steinitz, the chairman of the state-owned Iron Dome maker Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd, told a conference on Monday that Israel’s Iron Dome has been nearly 99% effective against missiles from Hamas and Hezbollah militants and has knocked out most missiles from Iran, Reuters reports.
Since the October 2023 Hamas raid on Israel, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon have fired an estimated total of 40,000 rockets at Israel, Steinitz said.
“Iron Dome intercepted most of them with success rates that (are) not 100% but close to 100%. It’s around 98%, even 99%, so it’s not perfect, but almost,” Steinitz said.
Iran has fired about 1,500 ballistic missiles at Israel in two rounds of fighting since 2024 and “only several dozens” were not intercepted, Steinitz said.
Two Israeli soldiers sentenced to military prison for desecrating Christian statue in Lebanon
Two soldiers photographed desecrating a Christian statue in southern Lebanon were sentenced to military prison, the IDF said.
The soldier who was photographed sticking a cigarette in the mouth of a statue of Mary, was sentenced to 21 days of military prison, the Associated Press reports. The soldier who photographed the incident was sentenced to 14 days, according to the IDF.
“The IDF views the incident with great severity and respects freedom of religion and worship, as well as holy sites and religious symbols of all religions and communities,” the IDF said in a statement.
The sentencing comes after soldiers who participated in hacking down a crucifix in southern Lebanon also received time in military prison, according to the Associated Press.
Iran supports China's peace plan, says Iranian ambassador to China
Ahead of Donald Trump’s visit to China this week, in which Iran and the strait of Hormuz will very likely be discussed, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, Iran’s ambassador to China, posted on X that Iran has announced its readiness to support Xi’s four-point plan for the Gulf region.
The plan was discussed during a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries, the post reads.
‘Extremisms and violence carry consequences,’ EU foreign policy chief says as EU adopts sanctions on Israeli settlers
Let’s bring you a bit more on the long-stalled sanctions on Israeli settlers, which have now been approved after the change of government in Hungary.
French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot was the first to break the news, but we now also heard from the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who said:
EU foreign ministers just gave the go-ahead to sanction Israeli settlers over violence against Palestinians. They also agreed new sanctions on leading Hamas figures. It was high time we move from deadlock to delivery. Extremisms and violence carry consequences.”
But Israel has already condemned the move, saying it was adopted in “an arbitrary and political manner.”
Equally outrageous is the unacceptable comparison the European Union has chosen to make between Israeli citizens and Hamas terrorists. This is a completely distorted moral equivalence.”
“Israel has stood, stands, and will continue to stand for the right of Jews to settle in the heart of our homeland,” foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar said on X.
Kallas will be speaking at a press conference following the ministerial meeting in the next half hour and I will bring you the key lines here:
Updated
The UK has sanctioned 12 individuals and entities linked to Iran, accusing them of involvement in hostile activity including plotting attacks and providing financial services to groups seeking to destabilise the UK and other countries. The measures include asset freezes, travel bans and director disqualification orders.
The renewed Israeli war on Lebanon started when Hezbollah launched missiles at Israel on 2 March after the US-Israeli bombing of Iran in late February.
In its latest update shared by Lebanon’s state-run national news agency, the Lebanese health ministry said since 2 March Israeli attacks have killed at least 2,869 people, including many women and children, and injured 8,730 others.
Here are some images coming out of Lebanon today:
Today so far
Trump rejected Iran’s response to a US peace proposal, calling it “totally unacceptable” and raising the possibility of fresh conflict. Iran then warned that it would not hold back from retaliating against any new US strikes or permit more foreign warships in the strait of Hormuz.
The UK and France will host on Tuesday a multinational meeting of defence ministers to discuss plans to restore trade flows through the strait of Hormuz, the British defence ministry said. The meeting will involve 40 countries and comes one day after Iran threatened to strike British and French warships in the strait if they try to help reopen the strategic waterway.
There are have been reports of more deadly Israeli attacks in Lebanon despite a ceasefire, with Lebanon’s state-run national news agency (NNA) reporting that two people were killed and five others injured in an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese town of Abba this morning.
Trump’s rejection of Tehran’s response to the US’s peace proposal caused a jump in Brent crude by as much as 4% on Monday to $105.50 a barrel, before easing back slightly. Follow our live business updates here.
Iranian authorities on Monday hanged a postgraduate student from a university in Tehran on charges of espionage, with the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan Online website accusing him of collaborating with the CIA and the Mossad. Erfan Shakourzadeh, 29, was a student at Tehran’s prestigious Iran University of Science and Technology and had written a message before his execution rejecting the charges as fabricated, said the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.
South Korea has condemned an attack against a cargo ship operated by a Korean shipper on 4 May in the strait of Hormuz and said it plans to respond once the source of the attack is identified. South Korea’s defence minister Ahn Gyu-back is due in Washington for talks with the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday.
Japan’s industry ministry said a tanker carrying Azerbaijani crude oil was set to arrive as early as tomorrow with the first cargo of oil received from Central Asia since the US-Israeli war on Iran began in February.
Japan relied on the Middle East for about 95% of its crude oil imports before the war. Iran’s retaliatory shutting of most traffic through the strait of Hormuz has curtailed those shipments, meaning Tokyo has had to turn to alternative supplies, including the US.
Donald Trump’s rejection of Tehran’s response to the US’s peace proposal caused a jump in Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, by as much as 4% on Monday to $105.50 a barrel, before easing back slightly. You can see more of the market reaction to the US-Israel war on Iran in our business live blog here:
The IDF has said Sergeant Major (res.) Alexander Glovanyov, 47, died “in battle near the Lebanese border”. He was a lead vehicle driver in the Transport Center’s 6924th Battalion, from the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva. Glovanyov was reportedly killed in a Hezbollah drone attack in northern Israel, which took place at about 4pm on Sunday.
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Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, will visit Qatar later today for talks on the war, its impact on the region and efforts to ensure navigational safety in the strait of Hormuz is resumed, a Turkish diplomatic source told the Reuters news agency.
Turkey, which neighbours Iran, has been in close contact with the US, Iran and mediator Pakistan since the start of the conflict. It condemnded the US and Israel for launching the war, widely seen to have been done illegally, but also criticised Iran’s counter strikes on Gulf states.
Despite these attacks, Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, is engaging in diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the Israeli war on his country.
The two countries have formally been in a state of war since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. They held their first diplomatic talks in over three decades last month.
Ahead of the third round of talks scheduled between representatives from Israel and Lebanon on 14 and 15 May in Washington, Aoun stressed the need to urge Israel to stop its ceasefire violations and demolition of homes in a conversation with the US ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa, according to Lebanon’s national news agency.
Hezbollah has rejected the premise of direct talks with Israel, seeing them as a capitulation.
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Hezbollah started firing at Israel shortly after the US and Israel launched its war on Iran by killing the country’s former supreme leader on 28 February. Israel responded with airstrikes and launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military now occupies a strip of Lebanese land along the border. Officials claim they want to create a ‘security zone’ to protect Israel’s northern communities from Hezbollah attacks. But this has stoked fears of a long-term occupation.
Sweeping evacuation orders have forced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese people to flee and many fear they won’t be able to return as homes are demolished and Israeli attacks across southern Lebanon continue without any rebuke from the US, which brokered the ceasefire agreement between the Lebanese government and Israel last month.
Israel is pushing for the disarmament of Hezbollah, something the militant group has rejected. Hezbollah, which is not part of the Lebanese government’s security apparatus, has been targeting Israeli troops in Lebanon.
It said it will not cease its attacks on Israeli troops inside Lebanon and on towns in northern Israel as long as Israel continued its ceasefire violations. Under the agreement’s terms, Israel retains a “right to take all necessary measures in self-defence, at any time, against planned, imminent, or ongoing attacks”.
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Reports of more deadly Israeli attacks on Lebanon despite ceasefire
Two people were killed and five others injured in an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese town of Abba this morning, according to Lebanon’s state-run national news agency (NNA), which has reported muttiple Israeli attacks across the country today.
The NNA also reported that Israeli warplanes launched a series of airstrikes this morning on the towns of Yahmar al-Shaqif and Kfar Tebnit, and shellilng on the towns of Yahmar Arnoun, Nabatieh al-Fawqa and Mayfadoun.
Despite a US brokered ceasefire agreement, Israel and Hezbollah have continued with their attacks, accusing each other of violations.
Israel has been accused of violating the ceasefire agreement many times, with strikes killing civilians and homes continuing to be demolished despite the military claiming it is only targeting Hezbollah sites.
Hezbollah, the Iranian backed Lebanese militant group, reportedly said earlier that its fighters had targeted an Israeli military position in the village of Taybeh along the Israel-Lebanon border, forcing its troops to retreat.
Iranian authorities on Monday hanged a postgraduate student from a university in Tehran on charges of espionage. Erfan Shakourzadeh, 29, was hanged after being convicted for collaborating with the CIA and the Mossad, the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan Online website said.
Norway-based rights groups Iran Human Rights and Hengaw said that Shakourzadeh was a student at Tehran’s prestigious Iran University of Science and Technology and had written a message before his execution rejecting the charges as fabricated.
Describing him as an “elite student”, IHR said he was held “in solitary confinement and subjected to torture and forced to give false confessions”. He is the fifth person to be executed on espionage charges since the beginning of the US-Israeli war on Iran in late February.
The UK and France will host a multinational meeting of defence ministers involving 40 countries tomorrow to discuss military plans to restore trade flows through the strait of Hormuz, the British defence ministry said.
The UK’s defence secretary John Healey and his French counterpart Catherine Vautrin will co-chair the meeting. Healey said:
When I co-chair this meeting of nations from around the world, our job will be to make sure we are not just talking, we are ready to act.
That is why I have directed HMS Dragon to the Middle East, so Britain is in position to support this mission the moment it is needed.
This government will not stand by when instability drives up costs for British families and businesses.
The UK has already announced the deployment of HMS Dragon to the region so the destroyer can play a role in a multinational mission should the conditions allow after the US-Israel war on Iran is over.
Iran on Sunday threatened to strike British and French warships in the strait if they try to help reopen the strategic waterway.
French President Emmanuel Macron subsequently clarified that France had “never envisaged” a naval deployment but rather a security mission that would be done in coordination with Tehran.
South Korea condemns attack on cargo ship in strait of Hormuz
South Korea has condemned an attack against a cargo ship operated by a Korean shipper on 4 May in the strait of Hormuz and said it plans to respond once the source of the attack is identified.
Namu, the vessel operated by the shipper HMM Co., was not in violation of any rules in effect at the time in the waters off the UAE and it was a case of an attack against a commercial vessel that cannot be justified, the official said.
“We condemn this in the strongest terms,” Wi Sung-lac, the South Korean presidential national security adviser, told reporters.
“We’ll seek through further investigation to identify the party responsible for the attack, the exact type of projectile and its physical size.”
South Korea’s defence minister Ahn Gyu-back is due in Washington for talks with the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday.
They could possibly discuss cooperation to restore freedom of navigation through the strait of Hormuz with its effective closure raising concerns about a looming energy crisis in South Korea’s trade-dependent economy. Washington has urged its allies to help unblock the strait but has so far been met with a wall of resistance.
In response to US-Israeli attacks, Iran has effectively closed the strait to most traffic, inflicting severe economic damage around the world as the waterway usually carries about 20% of global oil shipments and significant amounts of gas and products including fertiliser.
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Al Jazeera is carrying some comments from the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei, who is speaking about the Iranian proposal to end the war that the US has emphatically rejected.
“Demanding an end to the war, lifting the (US) blockade and piracy, and releasing Iranian assets that have been unjustly frozen in banks due to US pressure,” Baghaei was quoted as having said.
“Safe passage through the strait of Hormuz and establishing security in the region and Lebanon were other demands of Iran, which are considered a generous and responsible offer for regional security,” he added.
“Whenever we are forced to fight, we will fight, and whenever there is room for diplomacy, we will seize that opportunity,” Baghaei was also quoted as having told a news briefing earlier.
He said the US’s demands were “unreasonable” and suggested that stability in the region had been undermined by Trump’s rejection of Iran’s response to Washington’s peace proposal.
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The US parameters for nuclear talks reportedly included a moratorium on Iranian nuclear enrichment for up to 20 years; the transfer overseas, possibly to the US, of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which could be used to make nuclear warheads; and the dismantling of Iranian nuclear facilities.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Iranian counter-proposal suggested a shorter moratorium, the export of part of the HEU stockpile and the dilution of the rest, and refusal to accept the dismantling of facilities.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had earlier warned the war would continue as long as Iran had a stockpile of HEU.
“It’s not over, because there’s still nuclear material – enriched uranium – that has to be taken out of Iran. There’s still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled,” he told the CBS programme 60 Minutes, according an excerpt published before its broadcast.
Asked how the HEU should be removed, Netanyahu said: “You go in and you take it out,” adding that the best way would be to enter Iran to secure the fissile material as part of an agreement. He said Donald Trump had told him he wants “to go in there”.
In a separate interview, Trump appeared to take a more relaxed view of the HEU stockpile, which the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, says is buried deep under mountains in central Iran. The US president suggested that for the time being, satellite surveillance was sufficient to guarantee no one had access to it.
Trump rejects Iran response to US peace proposal as Tehran warns it is prepared to retaliate against US strikes
We are restarting our live coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran after Donald Trump described Tehran’s response to Washington’s peace proposal as “totally unacceptable”, raising the possibility of fresh conflict.
Iran warned it would not hold back from retaliating against any new US strikes or permit more foreign warships in the strait of Hormuz.
A ceasefire meant to facilitate peace talks came into effect in April. It has been largely observed, despite exchanges of fire and reports of strikes in the strategic strait of Hormuz, which Iran has continued to effectively block in response to being attacked by the US and Israel in February.
The US military in turn has blockaded Iranian ports since 13 April, claiming it has turned back 61 commercial vessels and disabled four.
According to Iranian state media, Tehran’s proposal included demands that the US lift its sanctions, end its naval blockade and called for an immediate end to the war with guarantees against any renewed attack on the country.
Posting on Truth Social, Trump said: “I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘representatives’. I don’t like it – totally unacceptable.”
The US had presented a peace proposal a week ago, which, as my colleague Julian Borger notes here, was reported to consist of a one-page, 14-point memorandum of understanding that would reopen the strait while setting a framework for further talks on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Trump told US outlet Axios he’d discussed the Iranian response in a phone call with his close ally, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “It was a very nice call. We have a good relationship,” he said, before stressing that the Iran negotiations are “my situation, not everybody else’s.”
Netanyahu warned the war would continue as long as Iran had a stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which could be used to make nuclear warheads.
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