The day so far
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Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel is “intensifying” its military operations in Lebanon, with the IDF operating with “large forces on the ground” in order to take control of “strategic areas”.Earlier, a military official confirmed to AFP that Israeli forces had begun operating beyond its so-called “yellow line”, which marks the 10km (six miles) area deep inside southern Lebanon which Israel is already occupying. A reminder that these expanded ground operations are all despite a ceasefire that has been in place since 17 April. Israel has continued to intensify its strikes on Lebanon, killing thousands of people while claiming it is acting to remove threats from Hezbollah.
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Meanwhile, the proposed peace agreement between Iran and the US seemed to remain on the table on Tuesday despite US bombings of Iranian targets – the first military action by Washington since the 8 April ceasefire. The Iranian foreign ministry denounced the US attack – aimed at missile launchers and efforts to lay fresh mines in the strait of Hormuz – as “an act of bad faith” and “a definitive violation of the ceasefire” and said it would not leave aggression unanswered. But it did not pull out of the talks that were continuing under the joint mediation of Pakistan and Qatar. Here’s our report.
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US Central Command denied reports that that US navy has “quietly” resumed so-called ‘Project Freedom’ in the strait of Hormuz. “US forces are not currently escorting commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz,” Centcom said in a statement shared on X.It comes after The Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported, citing US military officials, that the US navy “had quietly guided a Greek supertanker laden with two million barrels of crude oil as it crossed the waterway off the Omani coast”.
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Oil rose back above $100 a barrel on Tuesday, after the fresh US strikes on Iran dashed hopes of a breakthrough, with experts saying that whatever the outcome of peace talks, the global energy market may now be past the “point of no return”. Here’s our story.
Donald Trump has found time to attack the US media again, suggesting that the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and CNN have been biased in their coverage of his deeply unpopular war on Iran.
In a post on his Truth Social platform the US president said:
If Iran surrenders, admits their Navy is gone and resting at the bottom of the sea, and their Air Force is no longer with us, and if their entire Military walks out of Tehran, weapons dropped and hands held high, each shouting “I surrender, I surrender” while wildly waving the representative White Flag, and if their entire remaining Leadership signs all necessary “Documents of Surrender,” and admit their defeat to the great power and force of the magnificent U.S.A., The Failing New York Times, The China Street Journal (WSJ!), Corrupt and now Irrelevant CNN, and all other members of the Fake News Media, will headline that Iran had a Masterful and Brilliant Victory over The United States of America, it wasn’t even close. The Dumacrats and Media have totally lost their way. They have gone absolutely CRAZY!!! President DJT
Israel says it targeted new Hamas armed wing chief in Gaza strike
“Under the direction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz, the IDF has just carried out a strike in Gaza targeting Mohammed Odeh – the new commander of the military wing of the Hamas terrorist organisation and one of the architects of the October 7 massacre,” said a joint statement issued by Netanyahu and Katz.
Odeh was appointed as chief of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades after his predecessor Ezzedine Al-Haddad was killed in a strike in Gaza earlier in May.
“Odeh served as head of Hamas intelligence during the October 7 massacre and was appointed approximately one week ago as successor to Ezzedine Al-Haddad,” the statement from Netanyahu and Katz said.
“Odeh was responsible for the murder, abduction, and injury of numerous Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers,” it continued.
Updated
Centcom denies report that it has 'quietly' resumed 'Project Freedom' in strait of Hormuz
US Central Command has denied reports that that United States navy has “quietly” resumed so-called ‘Project Freedom’ in the strait of Hormuz.
“US forces are not currently escorting commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz,” Centcom said in a statement shared on X.
It comes after The Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported, citing US military officials, that the US navy “had quietly guided a Greek supertanker laden with two million barrels of crude oil as it crossed the waterway off the Omani coast”.
Donald Trump announced earlier this month that the US would help guide oil tankers through the strait, but Washington shelved the operation after only 36 hours following a backlash from Gulf allies and Iranian attacks on vessels.
Updated
Here are some images that came out of southern Lebanon, where Israel has intensified and expanded its attacks, on Tuesday.
Updated
Several strikes hit the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh on Tuesday after an Israeli evacuation warning, an AFP correspondent reported.
Per my last post, this follows Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirming that Israel was “intensifying” its operations in Lebanon, a day after at least 11 people were killed in a strike in eastern Lebanon.
An AFP correspondent in Nabatieh reported airstrikes following the warning and saw plumes of smoke rising from various locations within the city.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said one of the strikes hit the vicinity of a public hospital, causing “significant damage to the hospital’s departments”.
Largely deserted since the start of the war on 2 March, Nabatieh has faced relentless strikes despite a 17 April truce.
Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman said on X on Tuesday that residents of the entire city “must evacuate your homes immediately and move north of the Zahrani River”.
In eastern Lebanon, the health ministry said “yesterday’s Israeli enemy airstrike on the town of Mashghara in West Bekaa resulted in a preliminary toll of 11 martyrs, including two girls and a woman, and 15 wounded, including a child”.
Rescuers were still clearing the rubble in the eastern town, the ministry added.
The Israeli military in a statement said it launched “several strikes ... in the area of Mashghara” on “Hezbollah infrastructure sites where terrorists’ activity was identified”.
Later on Tuesday, it issued an evacuation warning for the town as well as Sohmor near it. It then issued other warnings for several southern towns and villages in the south.
The NNA also reported several Israeli strikes across the south and east.
A strike on Srifa in the south killed a rescuer and wounded two others from the Risala Scouts association, linked to the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement, according to the health ministry, raising the rescuer death toll in the war to 120.
Updated
Netanyahu says Israel ‘intensifying’ military operations to take control of 'strategic areas' in Lebanon
Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel is “intensifying” its military operations in Lebanon, with the IDF operating with “large forces on the ground” in order to take control of “strategic areas”.
Earlier, we reported that a military official confirmed that Israeli forces had begun operating beyond its so-called ‘yellow line’, which marks the 10km (six miles) area deep inside southern Lebanon which Israel is already occupying.
A reminder that these expanded ground operations are all despite a ceasefire that has been in place since 17 April. Israel has continued to intensify its strikes on Lebanon, killing thousands of people while claiming it is acting to remove threats from Hezbollah.
Updated
The day so far
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Iranian supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei said on his Telegram channel that Gulf powers will no longer be a shield for US bases and the US will no longer have a safe haven in the region. The post followe overnight attacks on Iran by the US, testing the ceasefire agreed in April.
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Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it reserved the “legitimate and definite” right to retaliate against any ceasefire violations by the US. It added that its air defence units had shot down a US MQ-9 drone and fired at a fighter jet that had entered Iranian airspace.
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Israeli forces have begun operating beyond its so-called ‘Yellow Line’ in south Lebanon, which runs around 10km (six miles) deep inside Lebanese territory, a military official confirmed to AFP. “The IDF is operating in a targeted manner beyond the Forward Defence Line in order to remove direct threats to the citizens of the State of Israel and IDF troops, in accordance with the directives of the political echelon,” the military official said when asked about reports that the military had begun ground operations beyond its demarcation line.
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Iran’s vice-president said on Tuesday that the government has taken the first steps to restore the internet after a near-total blackout since war with the United States and Israel broke out in late February. “The first step toward free and regulated access to cyberspace has been taken,” vice-president Mohammad Reza Aref said in a post on X, adding that the demands of Iranians “will be fulfilled.”
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Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would continue providing support for peace talks during a phone call with Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian, the Turkish presidency said on Tuesday. Erdogan said the conflicts in the region had cast a shadow over the Muslim Eid holiday period, adding that he believed the Iranian people would overcome the challenges.
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Brent crude oil rose 3% on Tuesday after the news of the US strikes on Iran. The strikes added to uncertainty about whether a deal will be imminently reached to end the war and open up shipping flows through the Strait of Hormuz.
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An Israeli airstrike on a village in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley killed 12 people, AP reports, citing the country’s state-run National News Agency. Rescue workers said a dozen bodies were pulled out of the rubble following an intense wave of overnight strikes targeting swaths of southern and eastern Lebanon.
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Israel’s military has warned residents of the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh to leave ahead of possible airstrikes, Reuters reports. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel would escalate strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, as a US official said the militia had ignored warnings to halt firing at Israel.
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Israel has issued an expropriation order for land in the occupied West Bank near the site of a Biblical prophet’s grave north of Jerusalem, an Israeli NGO reported on Tuesday. The site, known as Nabi Samuel, is believed in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim tradition to include the grave of the Biblical figure of prophet Samuel, and includes a mosque owned by Palestinian religious authorities, the Waqf.
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United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said that a tanker had reported an external explosion on the vessel’s port side, 60 nautical miles off Oman’s capital Muscat. In a post on X, UKMTO said the vessel and its crew were safe, although the tanker reported that some bunker fuel was discharged into the sea. UKMTO urged vessels to transit with caution and report suspicious activity.
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Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man inside the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said on Tuesday. “A citizen... was killed by Israeli fire in the Jenin camp, and ambulance crews transported his body to Jenin Government Hospital,” the Ramallah-based ministry said in a statement, without specifying when he was killed.
Israel on Tuesday accused French-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri of organising and directing a “terrorist cell” from Europe composed of Palestinians from East Jerusalem that was dismantled in late 2025.
In a joint statement, police and the domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet said that “five residents of East Jerusalem, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), were arrested and interrogated by the Shin Bet during November and December 2025.”
“The Shin Bet investigation revealed that during 2024 and 2025, Hamouri met members of the cell – all residents of East Jerusalem – in several European countries and recruited them to establish an infrastructure intended to carry out terrorist activities in Israel,” the statement said.
“To this end, he allegedly supplied them with phones enabling encrypted communications.”
Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man inside the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said on Tuesday.
“A citizen... was killed by Israeli fire in the Jenin camp, and ambulance crews transported his body to Jenin Government Hospital,” the Ramallah-based ministry said in a statement, without specifying when he was killed.
Contacted by AFP, Israel’s military said it was “checking” reports of the man’s killing.
The director of Jenin’s Government Hospital, Wissam Baker, identified the victim as Nasser al-Saadi, noting that “he arrived dead at the hospital after being shot in the thigh”.
“It appears he bled heavily after being injured before an ambulance was called to transport him to the hospital,” Baker told AFP.
The Palestinian Red Crescent had earlier announced that Israeli forces handed over the body of a 30-year-old from inside the Jenin refugee camp, which is adjacent to the city of Jenin.
The US has launched fresh strikes on Iran despite suggestions that a peace deal could be within reach.
Donald Trump faces growing criticism from Republicans over the proposed plan to end the war, which reportedly contained major concessions from Washington. But could an agreement still be imminent?
Lucy Hough speaks to diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour…
Updated
Israel has issued an expropriation order for land in the occupied West Bank near the site of a Biblical prophet’s grave north of Jerusalem, an Israeli NGO reported on Tuesday.
The site, known as Nabi Samuel, is believed in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim tradition to include the grave of the Biblical figure of prophet Samuel, and includes a mosque owned by Palestinian religious authorities, the Waqf.
“This marks the first time that the [Israeli] Civil Administration has expropriated a holy site owned by the Muslim Waqf in the occupied West Bank”, Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said in a statement.
According to the Israeli order, dated 9 May but published this week, the area for expropriation will include 109.79 dunams (roughly 11 hectares), including access roads, agricultural land, and a mosque.
Updated
Israeli forces have begun operating beyond its so-called ‘Yellow Line’ in south Lebanon, which runs around 10km (six miles) deep inside Lebanese territory, a military official confirmed to AFP on Tuesday.
“The IDF is operating in a targeted manner beyond the Forward Defence Line in order to remove direct threats to the citizens of the State of Israel and IDF troops, in accordance with the directives of the political echelon,” the military official said when asked about reports that the military had begun ground operations beyond its demarcation line.
“Specific details regarding soldiers’ locations cannot be provided,” the official added.
Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would continue providing support for peace talks during a phone call with Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian, the Turkish presidency said on Tuesday.
Erdogan said the conflicts in the region had cast a shadow over the Muslim Eid holiday period, adding that he believed the Iranian people would overcome the challenges.
Iran’s vice-president said on Tuesday that the government has taken the first steps to restore the internet after a near-total blackout since war with the United States and Israel broke out in late February.
“The first step toward free and regulated access to cyberspace has been taken,” vice-president Mohammad Reza Aref said in a post on X, adding that the demands of Iranians “will be fulfilled.”
Israeli media reported on Tuesday that the military had expanded its ground operations in southern Lebanon beyond the ‘Yellow Line’, an Israeli-drawn demarcation line near the border, though the reports gave no further details on the extent of the advance.
Cross-border fighting has been escalating between Israel and Hezbollah, despite the declaration of a ceasefire several weeks ago.
As part of the peace deal with Iran – which could now be on the rocks – Donald Trump has made a push for Gulf states to sign up to his Abraham Accords and recognise the state of Israel. AFP has spoken to some analysts that see these demands as unrealistic.
“For most of the states named, the political cost of signing up under current conditions would be prohibitive,” HA Hellyer, senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and Center for American Progress said.
“Gaza is ongoing, annexation of the West Bank is accelerating, Israeli forces remain in southern Lebanon, the Golan is occupied.”
Yossi Mekelberg, a Middle East expert at London-based think-tank Chatham House, said it was “no more than a sweetener for Israel, and most likely won’t happen”.
“Why would these countries reward (Benjamin) Netanyahu after so much destruction in the region and to their interests?” he asked.
In 2023, Saudi Arabia was engaged in tentative talks on normalisation, but it abruptly pulled out as the Israel-Gaza war erupted. It later said it would not recognise Israel without an independent Palestinian state.
“For Saudia Arabia there is no incentive to join the Abraham Accords, in the current circumstances,” said Hellyer.
“If they decide about normalisation, they would like to do it on their own accord, not the Abraham Accords.”
Former US diplomat Barbara A. Leaf, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs under Joe Biden, told AFP: “I do not expect any of the Arab/Muslim states whose leaders spoke to President Trump on May 23 to move towards normalisation with Israel right now.”
The internet monitoring group Netblocks said in a post on X on Tuesday that live data showed partial restoration of internet connectivity in Iran.
Iranian state media reported on Monday that Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian had issued an order to reopen international internet access, after a near-90-day blackout in the wake of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Afternoon summary
Iran’s foreign ministry has accused the US of violating the ceasefire after overnight strikes by the US military on targets in the southern coastal province of Hormozgan, next to the strait of Hormuz.
Here’s a round-up of the other key events so far today:
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Iranian supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei said on his Telegram channel that Gulf powers will no longer be a shield for US bases and the US will no longer have a safe haven in the region. The post followe overnight attacks on Iran by the US, testing the ceasefire agreed in April.
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Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it reserved the “legitimate and definite” right to retaliate against any ceasefire violations by the US. It added that its air defence units had shot down a US MQ-9 drone and fired at a fighter jet that had entered Iranian airspace.
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Brent crude oil rose 3% on Tuesday after the news of the US strikes on Iran. The strikes added to uncertainty about whether a deal will be imminently reached to end the war and open up shipping flows through the Strait of Hormuz.
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An Israeli airstrike on a village in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley killed 12 people, AP reports, citing the country’s state-run National News Agency. Rescue workers said a dozen bodies were pulled out of the rubble following an intense wave of overnight strikes targeting swaths of southern and eastern Lebanon.
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Israel’s military has warned residents of the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh to leave ahead of possible airstrikes, Reuters reports. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel would escalate strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, as a US official said the militia had ignored warnings to halt firing at Israel.
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United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said that a tanker had reported an external explosion on the vessel’s port side, 60 nautical miles off Oman’s capital Muscat. In a post on X, UKMTO said the vessel and its crew were safe, although the tanker reported that some bunker fuel was discharged into the sea. UKMTO urged vessels to transit with caution and report suspicious activity.
I’m clocking off, but my colleague Tom Ambrose will continue to bring you the latest updates from the crisis in the Middle East.
Iran’s judiciary has suspended a presidential body that had ordered the restoration of internet access, AFP reports.
Iranian authorities first imposed sweeping internet restrictions during large-scale anti-government protests that peaked in early January, before shutting access down again on 28 February at the start of the war.
The judicial decision targeted the “Special Headquarters for Organising and Governing the Country’s Cyberspace”, a body formed on 12 May by president Masoud Pezeshkian.
The body had on Monday reached a decision to “restore the internet” in Iran, according to government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani, after local media reported that Pezeshkian had decreed the measure.
In recent weeks, Iran introduced a tiered internet system known as “Pro Internet”, which, according to Iranian media, granted broader access to selected groups of professionals for higher fees.
By 5 April, internet monitor NetBlocks said the shutdown imposed after the outbreak of war was “the longest nation-scale internet shutdown on record in any country”.
United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said that a tanker had reported an external explosion on the vessel’s port side, 60 nautical miles off Oman’s capital Muscat.
In a post on X, UKMTO said the vessel and its crew were safe, although the tanker reported that some bunker fuel was discharged into the sea. UKMTO urged vessels to transit with caution and report suspicious activity.
Iran’s foreign ministry says US broke ceasefire with overnight strikes
Iran’s foreign ministry has said the US broke the ceasefire in the Hormozgan region close to the strait of Hormuz, Reuters reports.
The ministry said Iran will respond and will not hesitate in defending itself.
The US military carried out strikes on Monday in southern Iran against targets including boats attempting to lay mines and missile launch sites, in what it described as defensive actions.
“The United States committed a gross violation of the ceasefire in the Hormozgan region in the past 48 hours ... Iran holds the US regime responsible for all the consequences resulting from these aggressive and unjustified actions,” the Iran foreign ministry statement said.
Photos show the aftermath of an Israeli strike on al-Hosh, near the city of Tyre in southern Lebanon.
Israel targeted southern and eastern Lebanon in a series of overnight strikes.
Pictures showed Lebanese civil defence workers searching through the rubble in the aftermath of the strikes.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he had ordered the military to intensify its offensive in Lebanon in an effort to “crush” Hezbollah, accusing the group of targeting Israeli forces with drone attacks.
One major sticking point in the negotiations for a peace deal in the US-Israel war with Iran involves the unfreezing of Iranian funds frozen overseas.
Around $24bn (£18bn) of frozen funds must be released under a memorandum of understanding being negotiated with the US a source close to Tehran’s negotiation team said, according to report by Iran’s Tasnim news agency on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
The Iranian agency said Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Baqr Qalibaf, had travelled to Qatar to reach agreement on a mechanism to implement this demand.
Beijing has urged Iran and the US to observe the ceasefire in the US-Israeli war on Iran.
“We urge the parties concerned to fulfil their ceasefire commitments, resolve disputes through peaceful means … and promote the early restoration of peace,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a news briefing.
The US struck targets in Iran overnight and Iran said it shot down a US drone.
Updated
Israel’s military has warned residents of the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh to leave ahead of possible airstrikes, Reuters reports.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel would escalate strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, as a US official said the militia had ignored warnings to halt firing at Israel.
Earlier today an Israeli airstrike on a village in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley killed 12 people.
Brent crude oil rose 3% on Tuesday after the US military carried out strikes in Iran, adding to uncertainty on whether a deal will be imminently reached to end the war and open up shipping flows through the Strait of Hormuz.
“While differences between the parties have narrowed, any eventual peace deal would likely lead only to a gradual reopening [of the strait of Hormuz], meaning the current tight supply outlook could take months to normalise,” Ole Hansen at Saxo Bank told Reuters.
Iran has executed a man for alleged espionage and intelligence cooperation with Israel, the semi-official Tasnim news agency said.
The agency identified the individual as Gholamreza Khani Shekarab.
According to the Iran Human Rights NGO (IHRNGO), Gholamreza was arrested on 24 September 2025 and charged with “collaboration with the Zionist regime and specifically the Mossad intelligence agency”.
At least ten people have been executed for espionage charges in 2026. Eight were accused of espionage for Israel and the US, and two Iraqi nationals were accused of espionage for an unknown Arab country. According to IHRNGO’s 2025 Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran, at least 13 people were executed for charges related to espionage for Israel.
Updated
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it reserved the “legitimate and definite” right to retaliate against any ceasefire violations by the US, adding that its air defence units had shot down a US MQ-9 drone and fired at a fighter jet that had entered Iranian airspace, state media reported.
US will no longer have a safe haven in the region, Iran's supreme leader says
Iranian supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei said on his Telegram channel that Gulf powers will no longer be a shield for US bases and the US will no longer have a safe haven in the region, as Tehran and Washington discuss a framework to end their three-month-old war, Reuters reports.
The post follows overnight attacks on Iran by the US, testing the ceasefire agreed in April. The strikes came as Iran’s top negotiator and its foreign minister were in Qatar for talks with Qatar’s prime minister over the potential deal to end the war.
An Israeli airstrike on a village in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley killed 12 people, AP reports, citing the country’s state-run National News Agency.
Rescue workers say that a dozen bodies were pulled out of the rubble following an intense wave of overnight strikes targeting swaths of southern and eastern Lebanon.
The intensified attacks come three days before Lebanese and Israeli military delegations are set to meet in Washington for direct talks. Last night Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he had authorised more intensive strikes targeting the Hezbollah militant group across Lebanon.
Earlier this month, Lebanon and Israel agreed to extend a 45-day ceasefire, though some fighting has continued. Hezbollah is attacking Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and northern Israeli towns.
Huge numbers of Muslims prayed on Mount Arafat at the climax of the hajj pilgrimage, despite punishing desert temperatures and the crisis in the Middle East, AFP reports.
From daybreak, thousands of white-robed worshippers recited Quranic verses on the rocky hill near Mecca, where the Prophet Mohammed is believed to have delivered his last sermon.
More than 1.5 million people have joined the hajj this year despite the US-Israel war with Iran.
During the fighting, Tehran retaliated with waves of drone and ballistic missile strikes, hitting major infrastructure and energy installations across the Gulf, including in Saudi Arabia.
More than 30,000 Iranians have made the journey, about a third of the 86,000 originally expected. Iran’s IRNA state news agency said the “wartime situation” explained the drop. Despite the war, Saudi officials said over the weekend that more pilgrims had travelled from abroad this year than in 2025.
The US and Israel are “actively working” to strip Jordan of its historic custodianship of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque complex, according to a report by Middle East Eye, citing multiple unnamed sources.
US, Jordanian and Palestinian officials, as well as western and Gulf Arab sources, told MEE that under the plan, championed by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and the US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, the authority of Jordan over the site would end and a new body created by the Israeli government would declare the al-Aqsa Mosque a “multi-faith centre”.
Two US officials told MEE that Washington had drafted a paper on how they envisaged the mosque’s future. The officials said that the Trump administration would like to see the al-Aqsa Mosque stripped of its Muslim identity, with the site turned into a landmark tourist attraction that hosts all three Abrahamic religions.
Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, al-Aqsa is often a flashpoint and disagreements over access and its management have lead to unrest.
Updated
In Doha, the Qatari talks with Iran’s top negotiator and its foreign minister focused on the strait of Hormuz and Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, Reuters quoted an official as saying.
Iran’s central bank governor also attended to discuss the potential release of frozen Iranian funds as part of a final deal, said the unnamed official, who the news agency said was briefed on the trip.
The visit came after Washington and Tehran played down hopes for an imminent breakthrough on a peace deal to end the three-month-old war.
An Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson said earlier that nuclear issues would be negotiated only after the framework accord was agreed.
Updated
Returning to the Abraham Accords, Donald Trump’s call for other Middle Eastern countries to join the agreements aimed at normalising relations with Israel comes as the emerging Iran deal faces criticism from fellow Republicans who favour a harder line on Iran – and it could add new diplomatic complications to the negotiations.
Trump pointed to Saudi Arabia and Qatar as countries that should “immediately” sign up, followed by Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Pakistan, saying that “after all the work done by the United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together, it should be mandatory”.
In 2020 the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed the US-brokered agreements to establish formal relations with Israel, ending a decades-old taboo in Arab diplomacy.
The Associated Press reports that Trump has long wanted Saudi Arabia to join, but the kingdom maintains that any normalisation deal first requires establishing a clear path for Palestinian statehood. That’s also key for Pakistan, a key mediator between the US and Iran.
Islamabad-based analyst Syed Mohammad Ali said Pakistan’s position on Israel remained unchanged despite Trump’s proposal.
Masood Khan, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, said it remained to be seen how workable the proposal might be for the countries on Trump’s list, saying:
The invocation of the Abraham Accords at this stage gives an altogether new dimension to the diplomatic and mediatory processes because this issue was not on the agenda.”
Updated
Analysis: Trump’s deal outline sparks alarm in Israel
At the beginning of the war Israel’s security elite warned that Benjamin Netanyahu risked sacrificing the country’s most vital foreign policy asset, bi-partisan support in the United States, in pursuit of regime change in Iran and possibly a boost in an election due by October.
Almost three months on, US opinion polls indicate that a body blow to a decades-old legacy may be the conflict’s most enduring legacy for Israel.
Israel has been not only locked out of negotiations with Iran, it has not even been updated on their progress, according to the New York Times. Its government has been forced to resort to drawing on regional allies and their espionage networks surveilling Iran’s leadership.
The deal that Donald Trump’s team is negotiating may put some constraints on Iran’s nuclear programme, but there was broad consensus they would be less restrictive than an agreement reached by Barack Obama’s administration in 2015.
Netanyahu criticised that deal, officially known as the joint comprehensive plan of action, in Washington DC at the time.
“The emerging agreement is far worse than the previous one,” Ben Caspit wrote in Ma’ariv, highlighting the risk that fallout from the war and ceasefire deal could accelerate Iran’s nuclear programme, rather than destroying it as Netanyahu had promised. “If they [Iran] do come to possess a nuclear bomb, it will be Bibi’s bomb.”
The full analysis is here:
Updated
Markets have remained mixed in Asia, after the US said it carried out strikes in southern Iran, with traders appearing to shrug off any suggestion that the attack could usher in a return to all out war.
Benchmark US crude oil declined more than 4% to $91.59 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained $1.57 to $94.99 a barrel after falling nearly $5 on Monday.
With the status of peace talks with Iran unclear, markets have been swayed by various developments and comments made by Donald Trump.
“Markets are behaving as though a full Iran breakthrough already exists, even though the hardest parts of the negotiation remain unresolved,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management wrote in a commentary.
Washington continues to signal optimism, while Tehran insists no agreement is imminent.”
Updated
More here from Marco Rubio saying he anticipates that progress over a potential US-Iran deal will “take a few days” amid discussions over the language in the agreement.
“There were some talks going on in Qatar today, so we’ll see if we can make progress,” the US secretary of state was quoted as saying in India during an official visit.
I think it’s a lot of talking back and forth going on about specific language in the initial document, so it’ll take a few days.
The president’s expressed his desire to make it. He’s either going to make a good deal or no deal.”
As just mentioned Rubio also said the strait of Hormuz must opened.
The straits have to be open they’re going to be open one way or the other, so they need to be open.”
Opening summary: US attacks Iranian missile sites and boats
Welcome to the Guardian’s continuing live coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
US forces attacked missile sites in southern Iran and boats trying to lay mines on Monday, US Central Command said, as top Iranian negotiators arrived in Doha for talks to end the war.
“US forces conducted self-defence strikes in southern Iran today to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces,” a Centcom spokesperson said. The statement gave no details of the attacks and said only that the targets included missile launch sites and boats trying to “emplace mines”.
The strikes threatened an already fragile ceasefire that began on 8 April and came as Iran’s top negotiator and its foreign minister were in Doha for talks with Qatar’s prime minister over the potential deal to end the war, Reuters quoted an official as saying.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump said talks with Iran were going “nicely” but warned of fresh attacks if they failed. It “will only be a Great Deal for all, or no Deal at all”, the US president said on social media.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who is in India, said on Tuesday that the strait of Hormuz had to be opened “one way or the other”.
“What’s happening there is unlawful, it’s illegal, it’s unsustainable for the world, it’s unacceptable,” he was quoted as telling reporters. Rubio said the negotiating language of the deal with Iran could “take a few days”.
In other developments:
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Trump said the enriched uranium held by Iran could be destroyed inside the country, in a process overseen by an international nuclear agency. Experts said his announcement could amount to a major concession to Tehran.
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Trump also said any deal to end the war with Iran should require certain countries in the region – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Pakistan – to sign up to the Abraham accords. The agreements aimed at normalising relations with Israel were brokered by the US during Trump’s first term.
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Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “crush” Hezbollah in Lebanon, dealing another blow to hopes for a US-Iran deal. Tehran has demanded that any peace accord apply to the fighting in Lebanon as well.
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Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi praised Hezbollah for the Tehran-backed militant group’s ongoing resistance in Lebanon against Israel.
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