War returns to Iran with Israel, US strikes

According to Al Jazeera, Israeli occupation forces are carrying out demolition operations in the town of Al-Tayyiba in southern Lebanon, while an Israeli air strike has reportedly targeted the town of Al-Shahabiya.

Iran’s envoy to the UN says Persian Gulf states must “fully compensate” Iran for the damages the country suffered during the war, Tasnim News Agency reports.

Amir Saeed Iravani, Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations, has made the remarks in a letter sent to the UN secretary general and the president of the UN Security Council.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has spoken by phone with his Omani counterpart, Badr Albusaidi, amid a flurry of diplomatic activity, Tasnim news agency reports.

The two foreign minister discussed “the latest regional developments and the ongoing diplomatic efforts to prevent escalation of tensions and end the war, exchanging views and opinions”.

A spokesperson for Iran’s defence ministry has warned that the failure to “yield to Iran’s rights will bring more failures” for US President Donald Trump, according to Tasnim News Agency.

“Trump has no choice but to accept the demands of the Iranian nation and acknowledge our country’s rights,” the unnamed official was quoted as saying.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has discussed the latest regional and international developments with his Turkish, Qatari, Japanese, and Iraqi counterparts, IRNA news agency reports.

In separate phone conversations with Hakan Fidan, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Toshimitsu Motegi, and Fuad Mohammed Hussein, Araghchi exchanged views on bilateral issues.

He also discussed the latest regional and international developments.

Tehran has accused the United States of “excessive demands”, Iranian media said, according to AFP.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a call with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres that Tehran was engaged in the diplomatic process despite “repeated betrayals of diplomacy and military aggression against Iran, along with contradictory positions and repeated excessive demands” by the United States, according to the ministry.

Air attack sirens have been activated in Israel due to the “infiltration of a hostile aircraft” in the north of the country, Al Jazeera quotes the military as saying.

Israel’s military said aircraft were detected in the airspace over Kiryat Shmona and also Rosh HaNikra near the border with southern Lebanon.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations has said it received a report of an incident 200 nautical miles (370km) west of Yemen’s Socotra island, where a tanker carrying petroleum products said it was approached by a small craft with five people on board, Al Jazeera reports.

The craft reportedly came as close as 100 metres (328ft) from the tanker before altering course after the tanker’s armed security team were deployed, according to the UKMTO.

A similar incident north of Socotra was reported yesterday, Al Jazeera noted.

US Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari has said the Trump administration’s announcement that applicants must leave the US to apply for permanent residency raises concerns for thousands of Iranians already in visa limbo, Al Jazeera reports.

The proposed changes mean that Iranians seeking Green Cards could be “forced to leave the country and process their case from abroad [even though] there is no US embassy in Iran”, the Democratic congresswoman said.

“Right now, more than 12,000 Iranian nationals who are here legally on student or work visas are already living in fear because of the Trump Administration’s [visa] processing pause,” Ansari said in a post on X.

“And they could be sent back into the hands of a brutal regime in the middle of war and political repression.”

President Trump convened a meeting with his senior national security team on the war with Iran, two US officials told Axios.

“Trump is seriously considering launching new strikes against Iran, barring a last-minute breakthrough in negotiations, sources who have spoken directly with the president say,” the publication reports.

Social media accounts linked to Iranian embassies worldwide have continued to taunt Trump in what appears to be an effort to project defiance and counter US-Israeli narratives of a weakened leadership in Tehran, Al Jazeera reports.

The Iranian embassy account in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, has posted an image depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inside Trump’s head, steering his decision-making, an apparent allusion to alleged Israeli influence on US policymaking.

Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir held talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Tehran last night, Iran’s state media reported, according to Reuters.

Both sides exchanged views on the latest diplomatic initiatives aimed at preventing further escalation and ending the war in talks that lasted late into the night, the report said.

US arms sales to Taiwan take years to process and are unrelated to the war with Iran, a source familiar with the matter said, after a senior US official suggested there was a pause due to the need to have enough arms for the conflict, according to Reuters.

Taiwan has been waiting for the US to approve an arms sale that could be worth up to $14 billion.

The source familiar with the matter noted that President Donald Trump has said he would decide on the Taiwan arms sales soon.

“These sales take years to process and are unrelated to Operation Epic Fury,” the source said, referring to the war the US and Israel launched in February.

“The United States Military has more than enough munitions, ammo, and stockpiles to serve all of President Trump’s strategic goals and beyond.”

Russia’s envoy to international organisations in Geneva has said that the Iranian assessment of talks to end the war is likely closer to reality than that of the US, which he suggested has portrayed more progress than exists, AlJazeera reports.

In a social media post on X, Mikhail Ulyanov said: “Iranian assessments are closer to actual state of affairs.”

He added that US messaging at this stage is “less responsible”.

Iran’s mission to the UN has accused Washington’s “excessive demands” of pushing nuclear nonproliferation talks towards collapse, AlJazeera reports.

“The NPT Review Conference failed for the third consecutive time due to obstructionism by the US and its allies,” the mission said in a post on X.

It added that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and, ultimately, achieve a world free of them — has “no future” without broader disarmament efforts.

The Trump administration was preparing for a fresh round of military strikes against Iran, according to sources with direct knowledge of the planning, even as diplomacy continued, CBS reports.

Some members of the US military and intelligence community cancelled their plans for the Memorial Day weekend in anticipation of possible strikes, several sources said.

Defence and intelligence officials began updating recall rosters for US installations overseas as tranches of troops stationed in the Middle East rotate out of the theatre, part of an effort to reduce the American military footprint in the region amid concern about possible Iranian retaliation.

Read the full report here.

Twenty-seven countries have moved since the Iran war started to put in place crisis instruments that could quickly access funding from existing World Bank programs, according to an internal document viewed by Reuters.

The World Bank document did not name the countries or the total amount of funds potentially being sought. The World Bank declined to comment.

The document showed that three countries had approved new instruments since the Middle East conflict began on February 28 while the others were still completing the process.

Indian state-owned fuel retailers raised petrol and diesel prices for the third time this month, dealers said, as the companies look to recoup losses caused by elevated crude oil prices amid the Middle East war, Reuters reports.

Petrol in New Delhi will cost 0.87 rupees (just under 1 US cent) more at 99.51 rupees a litre, while diesel prices will be raised 0.91 rupees to 92.49 rupees per litre, dealers said.

India, the world’s third-largest importer and consumer of oil, was one of the last major economies to raise retail fuel prices after the US-Israeli war on Iran triggered a surge in prices globally.

US President Donald briefly mentioned Iran during a speech in New York state, Al Jazeera reports.

“We have stopped them. They’re never going to have a nuclear weapon, and they know that,” Trump said. “It’ll be over with soon.”

He also talked about how the world views his decisions to attack Iran and Venezuela during his speech.

“How did we do in Venezuela? Not bad,” he said. “We’ve taken out so much oil in Venezuela, we paid for the cost of the war [on Iran] about 25 times over.”

France has drafted a UN Security Council resolution on setting up an international mission to restore movement in the Strait of Hormuz and could submit it if conditions are right, the foreign ministry says according to Reuters, as Washington struggles to bring to a vote a text Russia and China may say is biased against Tehran.

A US-Bahraini resolution on the strait has been under discussion for more than two weeks, with a vote repeatedly delayed as China and Russia signal they could veto it.

The US-Bahraini draft resolution demands Iran halt attacks and mining in the strait. China and Russia vetoed a similar US-backed text in April, arguing it was biased against Tehran.

Washington has secured almost 140 countries to co-sponsor its text in the hope of avoiding a veto, two European diplomats said. France, another veto-wielding power, has so far refused to back the US text.

A third Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker is transiting the Strait of Hormuz and heading to China, ship-tracking data shows according to Reuters, as a Qatari negotiating team arrives in Tehran to try to help secure a deal to end the war with Iran.

As shipments through the waterway continue to be erratic, this third transit of a Qatari LNG tanker is taking place nearly two weeks after a first such cargo passed through the strait under a Pakistan-Iran arrangement.

The vessel, Al Sahla, with a capacity of 211,842 cubic metres, left Ras Laffan and is expected to arrive at China’s Tianjin LNG terminal on June 14, according to LSEG shipping data.

Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte has said that Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz “affects us all”, as foreign ministers gather for a summit in Sweden, according to Al Jazeera.

“It is important that countries are coming together around plans to ensure that the Strait can be open for transit,” Reuters reported Rutte telling a news conference.

“Iran’s direct assault on freedom of navigation impacts us all,” the Nato chief added.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei has said that peace negotiations with the United States are not “close”, adding that it is difficult to say whether a deal could be reached within “weeks or months”, Al Jazeera reported.

State media quoted him as saying that the gaps between Tehran and Washington remain “deep and significant”.

“We cannot necessarily say that we have reached a point where an agreement is close,” he said. “The focus of the negotiations is on ending the war. Details related to the nuclear issue are not being discussed at this stage.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Japan’s Toshimitsu Motegi have held a phone conversation, Al Jazeera reports according to Araghchi’s official Telegram account.

A brief statement said the call was held “to discuss bilateral issues and the latest regional and international developments”.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said any demand for Iran to hand over its highly enriched uranium to the United States was a “non-starter”, reports Al Jazeera.

“We will not reach a conclusion if we try to delve into details related to highly enriched uranium in Iran,” he was quoted as saying by the state-run IRNA news agency.

Baghaei also said a Qatari delegation was currently holding talks with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, adding that Pakistan remained the main mediator in the negotiations.