War returns to Iran with Israel, US strikes

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”.

Lebanon’s health ministry says that Israeli strikes a day earlier, near a hospital in the southern city of Tyre, killed four people and wounded 127 others, including 39 staff from the facility, AFP reports.

The ministry statement says the wounded staff at the Jabal Amel hospital comprised “four doctors, 27 nurses, and eight [administrative] employees — four of whom are in critical condition and receiving treatment in intensive care”.

The attack “also caused severe and extensive damage across the hospital’s various floors, departments, and parking lot”, it adds.

Surging global transport costs and supply chain disruptions linked to the Middle East crisis are threatening the delivery of lifesaving aid to children, the UN children’s agency (Unicef) warns, according to Reuters.

Nearly 100 days after the outbreak of the Iran war, heightened insecurity around key Gulf shipping routes has driven up fuel prices and insurance premiums, while congestion at alternative ports has compounded disruptions, hampering aid deliveries.

Unicef says it is increasingly relying on air freight due to shipping delays, with the agency nearly exhausting annual contributions from logistics partners in the first quarter alone, as it flew supplies into Lebanon and Gaza amid delays of up to four to six weeks.

“That is unprecedented,” Unicef’s Chief of Global Transport and Logistics, Jean-Cedric Meeus, tells reporters.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called on Israel to exercise restraint in its campaign in southern Lebanon, Reuters reports.

Merz said Germany viewed the latest escalation in the south with great concern and urged Hezbollah to lay down its arms.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has said military operations in southern Lebanon will continue under all circumstances, according to Al Jazeera.

The Israeli defence minister adds that the military is studying the possibility of carrying out additional operations in Lebanon and suggests that attacks could be expanded depending on developments along the border.

He says Israel’s longer-term objective is to disarm Hezbollah, while its immediate focus is on removing the group’s weapons from areas south of the Litani River under Israeli control.

Israeli arms exports have reached an all-time high for the fifth consecutive year, hitting more than $19 billion in 2025, driven by missile, rocket and air defence systems, the defence ministry says, AFP reports.

Israel is among the world’s leading arms exporters.

“Israel’s all-time defence export record has been broken for the fifth consecutive year, with $19.2bn in 2025 — a nearly 30 per cent surge compared to the previous year, more than doubling in five years and quadrupling in a decade,” a defence ministry statement said.

Missile, rocket and air defence systems were the lead exports and accounted for 29pcof deals, it said, adding that a “notable surge was recorded in observation and optronics systems”.

European countries purchased 36pc of exports, while Asia and the Pacific Region bought 32pc, and the Middle East and North Africa 15pc.

Lebanon’s public university has said that it was postponing some examinations after two students and their father were killed while returning to south Lebanon after sitting exams a day earlier, AFP reports.

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) said a dentist from the border village of Qlayaa “was killed with his son and daughter when an enemy drone targeted his car on the Nabatieh-Khardali road”.

The Lebanese University, in a statement on X, mourned the loss of the two students “in an Israeli attack targeting civilians on the Khardali road”.

The institution, “which has lost a large number of its students, lecturers and employees during the Israeli aggression, affirms that the safety of the university community remains the highest priority”.

It said it would postpone exams on its main campus in Beirut’s southern suburbs, and in the southern city of Sidon, until next week “in the face of the current developments”.

Israel’s defence minister says that Washington has given its backing to potential Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern Dahiyeh suburb, a Hezbollah bastion, if the group attacks northern Israeli communities, AFP reports.

“The prime minister and I led a coordinated move together with the IDF to establish a new equation… If Israeli towns continue to be attacked, we will evacuate and strike the Shiite Dahiyeh quarter in Beirut, Hezbollah’s stronghold,” Israel Katz said at a conference, a defence ministry statement said.

“The United States endorsed this principle and conveyed it to the Lebanese government and all relevant actors… either the fire on Israeli communities stops, or — if fire continues — we will strike in Dahiyeh. This equation will be upheld.”

Qatar’s Ambssador to Pakistan Ali bin Mubarak Al Khater has met with Tariq Fatemi, the prime minister’s aide on foreign affairs.

“They engaged in discussions on matters of mutual interest,” the Qatari embassy in Islamabad said.

Six bodies have been recovered, and three injured people rescued from the rubble of a residential building attacked by Israel in besieged southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera reports.

The civil defence agency said in a statement: “Since yesterday evening and continuing until this morning […] personnel have been carrying out search and rescue operations in a residential building that was targeted in the town of Marwaniyah – Sidon district.

“These operations resulted in the recovery of the bodies of six martyrs and the rescue of three injured people who were taken to hospital to receive the necessary treatment.”

Rescue efforts continue to try to find any survivors under the rubble of buildings despite dangerous conditions on the ground, said the civil defence agency.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for legal and international affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, says that the regional instability in the Gulf is the result of “crimes and impunity” by Israel.

In a post on X, Gharibabadi said, “The current transformations in Lebanon, Syria, and the occupied Al-Quds have made one reality even clearer: the regional crisis is not the result of ‘scattered tensions’; it is the product of the crimes and impunity of the Zionist regime”.

He said that Israel has violated “the sovereignty of governments, renders ceasefires meaningless, and desecrates the sanctities of the Palestinians”.

He called on the UN Security Council to “move beyond the stage of expressing concern and issuing general calls, and adopt punitive and binding decisions against the Zionist regime.

“International law is not upheld through low-cost and ineffective condemnations,” he added.

Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, will guarantee the group’s adherence to a “global ceasefire” with Israel, his adviser has told AFP.

Berri, who heads the Hezbollah-allied Amal party, has long acted as an intermediary between the group and the United States.

Adviser Ali Hamdan told AFP that “Speaker Berri’s main demand is a global ceasefire. If a global ceasefire deal is reached, he will guarantee Hezbollah’s respect for it.”

Hamdan said a “global ceasefire means a halt to Israeli strikes by air, land or sea, and that it will not carry out detonations or demolitions” in the south, where Israel is accused of razing entire villages.

UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash says the Gulf is “paying the price for Iran’s inflated regional ambitions”.

In a post on X, Gargash said, “From the Arabian Gulf to Yemen, Lebanon, and Iraq, we are all paying the price for Iran’s inflated regional ambitions,” adding that no state should play a role at “the expense of shared security, stability, and prosperity”.

“Review is required and inevitable, on clear foundations: respect for sovereignty, good neighbourliness, and non-interference in others’ affairs,” he added.

Bahrain has banned citizens from travelling to Iran and Iraq until further notice citing regional security concerns, the interior ministry has said, Reuters reports.

Iran and groups favouring it in Iraq have launched attacks against Gulf countries, including Bahrain, since the onset of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

The Lebanese army says two of its soldiers have sustained moderate injuries from an Israeli drone attack on the Haboush-Deir al-Zahrani road in the Nabatieh district, Al Jazeera reports.

It has not provided details about the soldiers’ identities or the Israeli attack.

The Israeli military has warned residents of the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh to evacuate ahead of planned strikes in the area, AFP reports.

“In light of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation’s violation of the ceasefire agreement, the IDF is compelled to act against it with force,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesman, Colonel Avichay Adraee, posted on X.

“For your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately and move north of the Zahrani River.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Iran has already paid a “very heavy” price, adding the country will “fall in the end”.

“The price Iran has already paid is very heavy. The foundations of this terrorist regime in Iran have cracked. It will never return to what it was, and I tell you – it will fall in the end,” Netanyahu has said, according to a post on social media platform X by the PM’s office.

According to the post, Netanyahu made the remarks during the farewell ceremony for Mossad Director David Barnea.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Navy says 24 ships have passed through the Strait of Hormuz after obtaining permission from Iran in the last 24 hours, Reuters reports.

Two tankers carrying oil products exited the Strait of Hormuz over the past week, while a liquefied natural gas carrier loaded cargo in the United Arab Emirates, shipping data showed, Reuters reports.

Aframax tanker Cy Victorious, carrying at least 80,000 metric tons (over 508,000 barrels) of high-sulphur straight-run fuel oil, exited the strait on May 30, ship-tracking data from Kpler and LSEG showed.

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 May 29, according to Kpler data. Its destination is unclear.