US military announces another wave of strikes against Iran as Trump says ‘they better behave’ – Middle East crisis live

Iran’s top negotiator ⁠Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Wednesday that ⁠if Iran ⁠did ​not benefit from its memorandum of ⁠understanding with the United States, “We have no reason ⁠to adhere to such an ​understanding.”

Iran has “never welcomed war, nor do we now”, he said in a statement posted on Telegram.

He said Iran’s ‌approach to the war ​and negotiations to end it should be based on national interests, national ⁠security and a long-term ​perspective, ​adding that Tehran ​had no choice ​but ‌to rely ​on ​its own strength.

“We must always be prepared for battle and stand firm to protect our national security and interests,” he said.

The country’s ‌national security ‌depends on maintaining “Iranian arrangements” ‌in the strait of Hormuz, Ghalibaf said, adding that in order to do so, “Iranian armed forces have complete freedom of action as always to confront the enemy’s aggression.”

Iran’s education ministry has delayed exams for students across six provinces in light of the renewed US attacks, Al Jazeera reports.

The ministry said “final exams for all academic tracks in the 12th grade” were postponed. They had been scheduled to take place on Thursday and Saturday.

Earlier, the ministry announced it had relocated exam centres near sensitive or military sites to safer locations.

The US government issued sanctions on Wednesday targeting individuals and entities ⁠that it said were ⁠a ​part of an international network helping Iran procure weapons.

The sanction targets ⁠include Iranian and Russian nationals, as well as entities bases in Iran, Russia ⁠and Nigeria, the US Treasury Department said in ​a statement.

The move ‌comes amid heightened ‌tensions between Washington and Tehran, including recent hostilities ‌over control of the strait of Hormuz, and as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on Iran through a series of sanctions measures.

Wednesday’s sanctions targets “exemplify Iran’s use of foreign aviation ‌and transport firms, financial conduits, and travel coordinators to obscure the IRGC’s role ​in illicit procurement and to move material and personnel globally,” the Treasury said in a statement.

• The US ⁠military ⁠has denied ​that its ⁠forces struck a ⁠civilian ​wheat ‌storage facility ‌in Iran ‌on Tuesday. It said that Iranian military ‌targets were struck to ​degrade Tehran’s ability ⁠to attack ​commercial shipping in ​the ​strait ​of ‌Hormuz.

• Iran has threatened to halt all energy exports from the Middle East after the US reimposed a blockade of its ports and ships, as the two countries traded strikes for a fifth day and Donald Trump threatened to expand US strikes on Iran next week. The US blockade came into force early on Wednesday, prompting Iran to shut the strait of Hormuz and carry out a wave of retaliatory airstrikes on countries hosting US bases in the region.

• The US military said it has launched a new wave of strikes against Iran as the warring countries continue their back-and-forth attacks in the Middle East. US Central Command (Centcom) issued a statement today announcing the strikes that took place during daylight hours. In its attacks over recent days, the US has struck Iran only at night.

• Centcom said the strikes were “designed to further degrade military capabilities Iranian forces have used to attack commercial shipping in the strait of Hormuz”.

• The Iranian army vowed a “decisive response” after seven personnel were reported killed in a US attack on an Iranian military base. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported a number of personnel were also wounded in the incident at the base in Bampur in south-eastern Iran.

• More than 30 people have been killed in southern Iran in US attacks in recent days, said government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani. Iran’s health ministry said more than 260 people have been injured across the country in the latest wave of US strikes.

• Israeli airstrikes have killed at least a dozen people in Gaza over the past two days, local health officials said Wednesday, as strikes continue almost daily despite a months-old ceasefire with Hamas. On Wednesday, three members of a family were killed in central Gaza, Al Aqsa Hospital officials said.

• Iran’s foreign ⁠minister, Abbas Araghchi, travelled to Doha on ⁠Wednesday ⁠to attend ​the funeral of former Qatari emir ⁠Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Iran’s ISNA ⁠reported, days after ​Iran attacked ‌Qatar. Iran ‌has attacked what it ‌says are US targets in Qatar – a mediator between Washington and Tehran in the ‌Iran war – most recently on Sunday when ​the death of the former emir was announced.

• Lebanon and Israel concluded US-brokered talks in Rome on Wednesday, with a US official saying ⁠they had made progress on implementing a plan that could see Israeli forces begin to withdraw from some parts ⁠of southern Lebanon within ⁠days. The two ​longtime foes held ambassador-level talks at the US embassy in Rome on Tuesday and Wednesday – their sixth round of face-to-face ⁠negotiations since a new war erupted on 2 March between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, triggered by the wider regional ⁠conflict.

• Sirens rang out in Bahrain, while Kuwait and Jordan reported intercepting drones and missiles fired from Iran. The Iranian state news agency IRNA reported that Tehran forces launched a drone attack on a military base in Jordan that hosts US warplanes, while the IRGC claimed to have hit American facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait.

• US strikes targeted Iran’s southern port city of Bushehr, home to the country’s only civilian nuclear plant, according to state media. It was the second day in a row that the city has come under attack, according to IRNA.

The US ⁠military ⁠has denied ​that its ⁠forces struck a ⁠civilian ​wheat ‌storage facility ‌in Iran ‌on Tuesday.

It said that Iranian military ‌targets were struck to ​degrade Tehran’s ability ⁠to attack ​commercial shipping in ​the ​strait ​of ‌Hormuz.

Morocco ⁠signed an agreement on Wednesday ⁠to ⁠participate in ​the International Stabilization Force (ISF) ⁠for Gaza, state media reported.

The ⁠agreement was ​signed ‌in ‌Rabat at a ‌meeting attended by Moroccan foreign minister Nasser Bourita, senior defence officials ‌and Nickolay Mladenov, the Board ​of Peace envoy for Gaza, along with ⁠a delegation including ​the ​commander of ​the ISF, the ​state ‌news ​agency ​MAP said.

Lebanon and Israel concluded US-brokered talks in Rome on Wednesday, with a US official saying ⁠they had made progress on implementing a plan that could see Israeli forces begin to withdraw from some parts ⁠of southern Lebanon within ⁠days.

The two ​longtime foes held ambassador-level talks at the US embassy in Rome on Tuesday and Wednesday – their sixth round of face-to-face ⁠negotiations since a new war erupted on 2 March between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, triggered by the wider regional ⁠conflict.

Under a US-brokered 26 June framework deal, Lebanon and Israel agreed to implement ​a ‘pilot zone’ project that would see the ‌disarmament of militant groups – ‌an apparent reference to Hezbollah – as well as the deployment of Lebanese troops ‌to the south and the progressive withdrawal of Israeli forces still occupying Lebanese land.

In written comments distributed to journalists, a US official described the two days of talks as “productive and positive“.

“We agreed on the structure and guidelines for the pilot zone process, to be finalised and implemented in the coming days,” the ‌official told Reuters.

The official said talks would move to a technical phase to implement the framework deal and reach a “comprehensive agreement between Israel ​and Lebanon.“

Iran has threatened to halt all energy exports from the Middle East after the US reimposed a blockade of its ports and ships, as the two countries traded strikes for a fifth day and Donald Trump threatened to expand US strikes on Iran next week.

The US blockade came into force early on Wednesday, prompting Iran to shut the strait of Hormuz and carry out a wave of retaliatory airstrikes on countries hosting US bases in the region.

“Regional energy exports are either shared by all or denied to all,” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement on Wednesday. It added that the strait would remain closed until the “end of America’s evils”, further disrupting shipping in the waterway that before the war was a chokepoint for a fifth of the world’s oil and gas.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said the renewed US blockade had “in a way, dismantled the Islamabad memorandum”, the interim deal that, among other things, was meant to keep the strait open and give space for negotiations towards a permanent peace.

The flare-up in violence and disruption to shipping further drove up the price of oil, with the price of crude on Wednesday continuing to rise past the one-month high reached on Tuesday.

Israeli airstrikes have killed at least a dozen people in Gaza over the past two days, local health officials said Wednesday, as strikes continue almost daily despite a months-old ceasefire with Hamas.

On Wednesday, three members of a family were killed in central Gaza, Al Aqsa Hospital officials said.

On Tuesday, woman and six police officers were among those killed in an airstrike on a police station in the densely populated Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, hospital officials said.

A man died in the bombing of a tent camp in Khan Younis in the south, Nasser Hospital officials said. And Israeli forces shot and killed a child in the Muwasi area outside the southernmost city of Rafah, according to hospital officials.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes in central and southern Gaza.

In a statement on the attack in Jabaliya, it claimed that four of the slain police officers were Hamas militants, without providing evidence on how those killed were involved in planning or carrying out attacks.

An image has been shared on the newswires of Sami Abu Qassem, a Palestinian boy who was wounded in an Israeli strike in Gaza that killed his parents and six-year-old sister, leaving him the sole survivor of his family (read more in a previous post at 10:11).

In a further update, US Centcom said it has redirected two commercials ships since reimposing the naval blockade on Iranian ports.

In a post on X, it said:

Since restarting the naval blockade against Iranian ports 17 hours ago, US forces have redirected 2 commercial vessels attempting to run the blockade. The US military remains vigilant and prepared to ensure full compliance.”

The third time Anna Liedtke was subjected to an illegal strip-search in Israeli detention, female prison guards forced her on to her knees, covered her mouth to stop her screaming and raped her, according to interviews and a criminal complaint filed in Israel.

She described hearing male guards laughing during the attack, which she believes they watched and may have filmed. It took place in an area separated from the prison hallway by a partially drawn curtain that her attackers had left open.

Liedtke, 25, joined a flotilla sailing from Europe to Gaza with humanitarian aid last autumn. Israeli forces intercepted her boat in international waters on 8 October and took her to Israel, where she was detained for five days.

The abuse and violence directed at flotilla participants in Israeli prisons, including rape, was intended to intimidate, Liedtke said. “It’s clear they want to break our will and silence us, making this so traumatic that we will never talk about Palestine again,” she told the Guardian.

Read more:

Iran’s foreign ⁠minister, Abbas Araghchi, travelled to Doha on ⁠Wednesday ⁠to attend ​the funeral of former Qatari emir ⁠Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Iran’s ISNA ⁠reported, days after ​Iran attacked ‌Qatar.

Iran ‌has attacked what it ‌says are US targets in Qatar – a mediator between Washington and Tehran in the ‌Iran war – most recently on Sunday when ​the death of the former emir was announced.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard ⁠Corps said on Sunday ​it was ​targeting Qatar’s ​Al Udied, the ​biggest ‌US base ​in ​the Middle East, with ballistic missiles.

US Centcom has issued another statement saying it has completed its round of strikes against Greater Tunb island near the strait of Hormuz, which is administered by Iran but claimed by the UAE.

In a post on X, it said:

US Central Command (CENTCOM) completed a morning round of strikes against Iran at 7.30am ET [12.30pm BST] on July 15.

CENTCOM launched precision munitions against coastal defence systems and cruise missile storage and launch sites on Greater Tunb Island during the 90-minute wave. The strikes further degraded Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping in the strait of Hormuz.”

In an earlier statement (see post at 11:38) Centcom said it began launching strikes at 6am ET [11am BST].