War returns to Iran with Israel, US strikes

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ⁠chief Rafael Grossi says the agency is offering support to the United Arab Emirates during a visit to the nuclear power plant that came under a drone attack last month, according to Al Jazeera.

Grossi says Emirati authorities reacted very quickly to the attack at the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant by shutting down a reactor due to the loss of external power.

He adds that ⁠a number of activities will take place to complete repairs at ‌the plant, but has provided no further details.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says it has verified 190 attacks on health care facilities and personnel in Lebanon over the past three months, warning that the country’s health system is coming under growing strain amid escalating violence, Anadolu.

Abdinasir Abubakar, WHO representative to Lebanon, tells reporters in Geneva that more than 3,400 people have been killed and nearly 10,400 injured since the latest Israeli escalation began in March.

“These have been among the deadliest months for Lebanon since the start of the conflict in October 2023,” the representative states, noting that the attacks on health care have killed 128 health workers and injured 332 others.

“Not only do these attacks kill and maim, they also deprive people of the health services they need, when they need them most,” Abubakar says.

US Central Command (Centcom) says American forces have redirected 122 commercial vessels and disabled five others as part of a naval blockade of Iranian ports.

US President Donald Trump has rubbished media reports claiming that Washington and Iran ceased communications, calling them “false and erroneous”.

“The conversations between us have been going on continuously,” he writes in a post on Truth Social. “Where they lead, one never knows, but as I told Iran, ‘It’s time, one way or another, for you to make a deal. You’ve been doing this for 47 years, and it cannot be allowed to go on any longer!’”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who was wounded in US-Israeli attacks and has not been seen in public since assuming office, is alive and increasingly active, AFP reports.

“I think there are indications out there that he is increasingly engaging at some level,” Rubio tells the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

At least four people have been killed in Israel’s latest attacks on the southern Lebanese Tyre district, Al Jazeera reports citing the state-run National News Agency.

An attack on Burj Shamali has killed two people and wounded 14, while two people were killed in an air raid on Shehour.

The Lebanese group claims it launched drones at two Israeli military armoured vehicles, as well as two tanks, in southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera reports.

The attacks unfolded, Hezbollah claims, near the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah, which is located just beyond the “yellow line” stretching roughly 10 kilometres north of the Lebanon-Israel border.

Hezbollah will not accept a “partial ceasefire” with Israel, a senior official from the group says, refusing to halt attacks against northern Israel in exchange for Israel sparing Beirut’s southern suburbs.

“We will not accept a partial ceasefire,” Mahmud Qomati tells AFP in a written statement, adding that “the Zionist enemy should know that any aggression against the suburbs could lead to a deeper and stronger response” from the group.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told Senators that the Trump administration has not offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange just for opening the Strait of Hormuz, adding that any sanctions relief will be based on Tehran meeting conditions relating to its nuclear programme, Reuters reports.

Israeli air strikes have targeted the city of Nabatieh and the town of Nabatieh al-Fawqa in southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera correspondents on the ground are reporting.

Israeli strikes have also targeted Sultaniyeh and Bir al-Salasil, both located in the Bint Jbeil district.

Israel and the United Arab Emirates are growing closer because of the Middle East war, a senior Israeli official tells AFP, citing increased military cooperation and opportunities to increase trade and business ties.

Two Israeli delegations will arrive next week, the Gulf-based official says, including a transport ministry team that will discuss a trade corridor linking India, the Middle East and Europe.

“This presents an opportunity to enhance ties. We believe in this market … We believe people should come. There’s a lot of opportunity for cooperation,” the Israeli official adds.

At least 3,468 people have been killed and 10,577 wounded by Israel since March 2, Al Jazeera reports citing Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the country will help make Iran’s “terror regime” disappear, as talks to reach a peace agreement between the US and the Islamic republic appear to stutter, AFP reports.

“This terror regime, which is destined to disappear from the world, and we will help bring about this outcome, this regime will no longer threaten us with nuclear bombs and thousands of lethal ballistic missiles,” Netanyahu says at an event marking the appointment of Major General Roman Gofman as the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that Washington is “in talks” with Iran and that Tehran has agreed to discuss aspects of its nuclear programme which were previously never mentioned.

“There is a prospect before us … that for the first time … they (Iran) have agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear programme that just a month ago, just a year ago, they were refusing to even mention, much less enter discussions about,” he tells the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Rubio notes that Iran’s “fractured” government is complicating the process, as it “takes days to get responses from their system”.

“We’re hopeful that something like that can happen — in which the Strait [of Hormuz] would reopen, we would enter a period of negotiations on very specific topics, delineated negotiations, in the hope of reaching an outcome that is acceptable to us, and something that they would be able to do as well,” he adds.

Iran says it will hold a three-day state funeral for late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated in US-Israeli strikes on the first day of the Middle East war, at a date to be announced, AFP reports.

A state funeral initially planned for March 4 was postponed due to the war.

“A three-day public funeral is planned,” Tehran Deputy Mayor Mohammad Amin Tavakolizadeh is quoted as saying by state television.

He has not specified when the funeral will take place, but says it could be in early Muharram.

Tavakolizadeh adds that funeral events will take place in Tehran, as well as in the holy cities of Qom and Mashhad, where Khamenei will be buried.

“In Tehran, the ceremony will last at least 24 hours,” Tavakolizadeh states, adding that up to 20 million people are expected to attend.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon behind a “conventional shield”, which Washington has “substantially eroded”.

“Iran’s desire to build a nuclear weapon was going to be effectuated behind a conventional shield,” Rubio says, testifying before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“They were going to build for themselves so many missiles, so many drones, so many conventional weapons … that at that point, there’s nothing you could do about it,” he adds, adding that Iran’s plan was to rely on conventional arms to deter action against its nuclear weapons programme.

Rubio says that the US military campaign “substantially degraded” Iran’s capability to build missiles and drones.

“They still have a lot of drones,” he adds, noting that they are “easy to make”.

Iran has yet to reveal all of its “winning cards” and is ready for a potential confrontation with its enemies, state broadcaster Press TV reports quoting a high-ranking military official.

Brigadier General Mohammad Jafar Asadi, from the country’s Khatam al-Anbiya central headquarters, has responded to recent claims by Western media circles and American officials regarding the vulnerability of Iran’s defence capabilities.

“We have said many times that we have not yet revealed all our winning cards, and there are many cards we will use if needed,” he says.

Explaining the status of the country’s defence industry, General Asadi explains, “The facilities we now use to manufacture military equipment and support the Armed Forces are completely hidden from the enemy’s view.

“They have no knowledge of their locations. Therefore, our situation in defence production is acceptable,” Asadi says.

Israel has kept up relentless attacks on towns in southern Lebanon, a day after US mediation appeared to have averted an immediate escalation of the war with threatened attacks on the capital, Beirut, Al Jazeera reports.

But the development has failed to reassure ⁠many Lebanese — 1.2 million of whom have been displaced — as the buzz of Israeli drones over Beirut keeps residents on edge.

“Every time we return to our homes, there is a warning for us to be displaced again,” says Faten al-Chehime, who fled to a makeshift camp from her residence in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Monday, only two weeks after returning home.

Kuwait’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah has lauded Pakistan’s mediatory role in the US-Iran negotiation process.

In a phone call with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Jarrah expressed appreciation for Pakistan’s continued mediatory role and its efforts to facilitate engagement between the United States and Iran, commending its constructive contribution to regional peace and security,” the Foreign Office (FO) said.

The two discussed evolving regional and international developments, the statement said.

“DPM/FM reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to supporting diplomacy and sustained engagement as the preferred path to lasting peace and stability across the region,” FO added.

The two sides agreed that diplomatic efforts will yield “a positive outcome and durable peace in the near future,” FO said, adding that the two also reaffirmed their commitment to bilateral ties between Kuwait and Pakistan.

Oil prices have dropped, paring the previous session’s sharp gains, as Iran reviews a proposed agreement with the United States to halt the war between the two countries, Reuters reports.

Brent crude futures are down $0.69, or 0.7 per cent, to $94.29 a barrel at 1307 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate has fallen $0.82, or 0.9pc, to $91.34 a barrel.

Israel’s foreign ministry has accused Hezbollah of breaking the renewed ceasefire, calling its violations “unacceptable”.

“Just last night, the Iranian proxy launched multiple missile and drone attacks from Lebanon against Israeli communities,” it says in a post on X.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reports, “The fourth round of Lebanese-Israeli negotiations began a short while ago at the US State Department headquarters in Washington, after the arrival of the participating delegations,” according to Al Jazeera.

Two tankers carrying oil products have exited the Strait of Hormuz over the past week, while a liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier has loaded cargo in the United Arab Emirates, Al Jazeera reports citing shipping data .

The Aframax tanker Cy Victorious, carrying at least 508,000 barrels of high-sulphur straight-run fuel oil, exited the strait on Saturday, data from Kpler and LSEG shows. The vessel last loaded at Iraq’s Khor al Zubair port in early April ‌and is expected to reach Malaysia in the second half of June.

Another Long-Range 2 tanker, Sti Elysees, loaded with clean products from Kuwait in late February, exited the strait on Friday. Its destination is unclear.

Meanwhile, the Marigold LNG tanker, managed by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, loaded at the UAE’s Das Island on May 24-25, analytics firm Vortexa says.

“The vessel halted AIS (automatic identification system) transmissions on May 3 before a ‘dark’ inbound transit of the Strait of Hormuz,” Vortexa said in a report.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares has reaffirmed his country’s opposition to the US-Israel war against Iran, saying it will not be pulled into the conflict, Al Jazeera reports.

“We will not take part in any action that could mean an escalation. And above all, we think that there is no military solution for this crisis,” he says in an interview with The Financial Times.

Albares adds that the fundamental divide in the world order is between a view grounded in international law on the one hand, and “the law of the jungle” on the other, meaning “chaos, violence and war as a substitute for foreign policy”.