Iran touts video of ship seizures as Trump keeps quiet on his next move

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has released dramatically-edited video of what it claims to be its forces boarding and seizing two of three commercial vessels intercepted in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday.

The U.K. military’s Maritime Trade Operations Center (UKMTO) reported incidents involving three cargo ships in the contested waterway, while the IRGC claimed to have seized two of them.

The strait, a vital conduit for global energy supplies, has been largely blocked for more than seven weeks due to Iran’s threat to ship, which it lifted briefly but then reimposed after President Trump imposed a U.S. military blockade of Iranian ports and ships. Both sides have been intercepting vessels in tit-for-tat brinkmanship in the run-up to a possible second round of direct peace talks in Pakistan.

In the IRGC video posted Wednesday, masked fighters speed toward the colossal container ship MSC-Francesca in a gun boat and climb a ladder – rifles slung over their backs – up its hull.

The video then shows another so-called “fast-boat” laden with soldiers approaching the cargo ship Epaminodes, followed by clips of IRGC fighters on board a ship, opening a door and walking up stairs, rifles raised, though it is not clear which vessel they are on.

Earlier in the week, the U.S. military’s Central Command released two videos of American forces intercepting an Iranian-flagged cargo ship in the region as part of its blockade.

 Ambassadors from Israel and Lebanon are set to meet in Washington on Thursday to hold a second round of peace talks, with their tenuous 10-day ceasefire currently due to expire over the weekend.

The Israeli army and Iran-backed militia Hezbollah have accused each other of breaching the truce almost since it began. The Lebanese national news agency reported Wednesday that Israeli strikes had killed two people, adding to the more than 2,000 killed by Israel since early March, according to health authorities.

Israeli officials say Hezbollah has killed 23 people since the IDF assault on the group intensified in tandem with the war in Iran.

The initial U.S.-brokered ceasefire began on April 16 at 1700ET.

The body of a Lebanese journalist killed in an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon on Wednesday has been pulled from under the rubble hours after the attack.

The daily Al-Akhbar newspaper confirmed that its reporter, Amal Khalil, was killed in the strike on the southern village of al-Tiri.

Information Minister Paul Morcos also confirmed Khalil’s death.

Khalil had been covering the Israel-Hezbollah war since it started in October 2023 and had been reporting from different parts of southern Lebanon on the hostilities.

Earlier on Wednesday, Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, called on the international community to immediately pressure the Israeli army to allow the rescue of Khalil.

Navy Secretary John Phelan is leaving his role effective immediately, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Wednesday.

The Navy’s new acting civilian leader will be Undersecretary of the Navy Hung Cao, according to Parnell. Cao is a Navy veteran who ran for Senate in 2024 as the GOP’s nominee in Virginia, losing to Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine.

The Department of the Navy — which oversees naval forces and the Marine Corps — is losing its top civilian official while the Navy plays a key role in the war with Iran. 

A temporary ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran has been in place for about two weeks, but the U.S. has continued enforcing a naval blockade on Iranian ports at President Trump’s direction. The president and other administration officials have also suggested that the Navy could offer escorts to oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz at some point.

Phelan is the latest high-profile official to depart the federal government in recent months.

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U.S. Central Command said Wednesday night that U.S. forces have directed a total of 31 vessels to turn around or return to port as part of the blockade against Iran. That’s two more from the previous tally CENTCOM had sent out earlier in the day.