War returns to Iran with Israel, US strikes

Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the possible resumption of attacks on Iran with Gadi Eisenkot, who has been tasked with forming the next government, Israeli media reports.

According to Channel 12, Netanyahu held the meeting Thursday and sought to share intelligence on Iran with Eisenkot.

The broadcaster cited an “informed” source who said the intelligence “could change his view” of Netanyahu’s motives for resuming attacks.

Eisenkot was not aware that Mossad chief Roman Gofman was visiting Washington to discuss the issue, said Channel 12.

The Russian and Chinese ambassadors to the United Nations have expressed concern over US and Israeli threats of renewed hostilities against Iran, stressing the need to pursue political and diplomatic means to establish peace, IRNA reports.

The UN Security Council held a meeting on Friday on the “Situation in the Middle East” at the request of Bahrain.

China’s Ambassador Fu Cong said that the risk of a large-scale conflict breaking out in the region remains high, adding that recent rhetoric suggesting the possibility of renewed hostilities against Iran is particularly concerning.

Iran’s Navy says a tanker caught fire and was immobilised after hitting a naval mine while sailing in a prohibited area east of the Strait of Hormuz despite previous warnings, state media reports.

In a statement on Saturday, the Navy said the vessel had switched off its tracking and identification systems while transiting the unsafe zone.

It warned that any tanker entering the prohibited area would face the same fate, criticizing owners for risking their assets based on the “nonsense” of US President Donald Trump.

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations has slammed Western members of the Security Council for their “hypocrisy and double standards,” demanding that the United States immediately end its war of aggression and lift its illegal naval blockade if it is genuinely committed to diplomacy, state media reports.

Addressing a Security Council meeting on Friday regarding rising tensions in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, Gholamhossein Darzi stressed that the root causes of the current situation are the unprovoked wars of aggression launched by the US and the Israeli regime on June 13, 2025, and February 28, 2026.

“The US is the aggressor, not the victim,” Darzi declared, condemning the assassination of Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, senior officials, and nuclear scientists.

The UK says the situation in Yemen requires a diplomatic solution, calling on the Houthis to immediately halt their military offensives and support an inclusive, UN-led political process, Al Jazeera reports.

US President Donald Trump does not want to resume the war with Iran “for now,” as his administration maintains economic and military pressure on Tehran, according to a media report.

Citing a US official, The Washington Post reported that Trump has received several daily intelligence briefings since the midterm elections.

“It’s become pretty clear that Trump does not want to go back to war for now,” the official said.

The report said the administration had settled on a middle path of no new war, no talks and no lasting peace as the conflict entered its eighth month.

Iran’s navy and Revolutionary Guards said that fires had broken out on a total of three oil tankers that struck mines in the Strait of Hormuz, where Tehran has restricted navigation, AFP reports.

Since war erupted with the United States in February, Tehran has insisted that vessels obtain its authorisation to cross the strait and has attacked ships that do not comply.

“A short while ago, two oil tankers that had switched off their radar and positioning systems and were secretly attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz through an unauthorised route exploded and caught fire after striking a naval mine,” the Guards’ navy said in a statement.

A separate statement from Iran’s conventional navy said another tanker “navigating through the unsafe and prohibited zone east of the Strait of Hormuz with its tracking and identification systems switched off, caught fire and was forced to stop after striking a naval mine”.

A UN official warned that growing tensions and attacks on commercial shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab threaten international peace and security, regional stability and the global economy, Anadolu reports.

Khaled Khiari, assistant secretary-general for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, told the UN Security Council virtually that maritime incidents had continued to increase, with commercial vessels facing different forms of attacks and numerous ships and their crews stranded inside the Gulf for months.

“Civilian vessels and commercial shipping must not become targets,” he said, reiterating warnings by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about the risks posed by continued tensions in the strategically important waterways.

US President Donald Trump will discuss the Iran war with his Chinese and Russian counterparts in trilateral talks in China next week, but is not expected to talk about Russia’s war on Ukraine, a senior US official said, AFP reports.

“I think the president does intend to talk about Iran in the trilateral meeting with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin,” the US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters on a call ahead of Thursday’s meeting in Shenzhen.

Oil prices are down, set for a second straight weekly decline, as signs of a growing global supply surplus weigh on the market and Washington’s focus on blockading Iran while ramping up other economic pressures allay fears of renewed hostilities in the nine-month war, Reuters reports.

Brent futures are down 5 cents, or 0.05 per cent, to $95.77 a barrel as of 1746 GMT (10:46pm PKT). US West Texas Intermediate futures have fallen 17 cents, or 0.19pc, to $88.57 a barrel.

The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) member countries will release around 71 million barrels of emergency oil and product stocks through the end of February 2027, roughly doubling the pace of the releases in September and October, Reuters reports citing the agency.

Included in the release will be around 15 million barrels of diesel, which are scheduled to be released by the end of February, almost entirely from government stocks in France and Germany, at a pace of 4 million to 5 million barrels in January before easing in February, the IEA says in a monthly report.

The move by the IEA, which manages industrialised countries’ strategic oil inventories for use in severe oil shocks, is part of a record stocks release first announced in March after the Iran war cut supplies from the Middle East, sending prices soaring.

Yemen’s government forces say the Houthis launched a ballistic missile attack on Aden this evening in a “terrorist act targeting civilians”, Al Jazeera reports.

The latest attack threatens the security and safety of residents and represents a dangerous escalation, Majed Abdullah al-Nuzaili, a spokesperson for Yemen’s government forces, said in a statement.

He added that government forces are taking all necessary operational measures to deal firmly with the sources of the threat.

Saudi Arabia’s civil defence has sent out an all-clear notice for the southwestern province of Jizan, minutes after warning earlier of potential danger in the area, Reuters reports.

Jizan is home to a Saudi Aramco refinery with a capacity of 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

Saudi Arabia’s Directorate of Civil Defence has issued an early warning for the kingdom’s Jizan province.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the Federal Reserve should have an open mind and not hike rates because of an “energy supply shock” tied to the Iran war, Reuters reports.

“I think the Fed should understand that this is an energy supply shock,” while the underlying US economy is very strong, Bessent said in an interview on CNBC.

“So I think that to hike too much into an energy supply shock when it’s coming down, these are very noisy numbers,” he explains. “You know, the Fed’s supposed to look into the future, not look in the rearview mirror.”

The US central bank left its policy rate on hold last month, with Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh saying policymakers would be watching for data to help decide whether more monetary policy tightening would be needed.

“I’m not going to tell the Fed what to do. I am going to say they should have an open mind,” Bessent says, noting that the Fed did three rate cuts over the same period last year. “And now to reverse just based on an energy supply shock, a reversal in a dramatic way isn’t something that I would do if I were on the Fed. But I’m not on the Fed.”

It is necessary to raise pressure on Yemen’s Houthis so that they end their attacks in the region, notably on Saudi Arabia, France’s foreign ministry spokesperson says, according to Reuters.

“Our position is that it is necessary to increase pressure on the Houthis so that they put an end to their unacceptable attacks and provocations, particularly against Saudi territory, but not only there,” Pascal Confavreux tells a news conference in response to a question on whether Paris backs the idea of the European Union designating the Houthis as a terrorist organisation.

In a piece carried by Iran’s IRNA state news agency, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has outlined how the US and Israel’s unilateral strikes on the country are not only illegal, threaten international law as a whole.

“The military attacks launched by the United States and the Zionist regime (Israel) against Iran constitute a clear violation of the prohibition on the use of force and an infringement of Iran’s sovereignty,” he writes, noting that the legality of the strikes must be assessed through the lens of international law, not justifications after the fact.

Citing Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits the use or threat of force by member states, Araghchi notes that the US-Israeli strikes were not approved by the Security Council and allegations of future threats do not meet the requirements for Article 51 — the right to self-defence.

“To treat a potential future threat as grounds for military action would be to accept preventive war based on the unilateral judgment of individual states,” he adds. “Such an interpretation would seriously undermine, if not altogether empty, the prohibition on the use of force of its practical meaning.”

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US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tells CNBC that he will not be cowed by Iranian threats against his life, after recently moving from his Washington, DC, residence to a US military base, Reuters reports.

“Why am I going to be afraid when the brave military personnel in the Gulf [and] President (Donald) Trump, constantly receive death threats?” he says.

Outside a depot near Basra, hundreds of tanker trucks queue to load Iraqi crude oil bound for the Syrian port of Baniyas via an overland desert route which had been largely unused for decades, Reuters reports.

Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer, has been working to find alternative export routes for its oil since the Strait of Hormuz, its usual outlet, was disrupted by the Iran war. Despite higher transportation costs, the overland route has also regained appeal because of an end to years of conflict in Syria, two people close to the matter tell Reuters.

Since last month, Qatari energy group UCC Holding has been shipping Iraqi crude oil by truck to Baniyas, said Bassem Abdul Karim, director general of state-run Basra Oil Company (BOC).

UCC began shipping 120,000 to 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) under a contract with state oil marketer SOMO, with cargo volumes depending on truck availability, Abdul Karim added.

UCC and SOMO have not responded to requests for comment.

US Central Command has denied the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards statement claiming that Iran had targeted a US early-warning radar in Bahrain, saying US forces had shot down two one-way attack drones launched by the IRGC toward Bahrain and that there were no injuries or damage, Reuters reports.

Yemen’s internationally recognised government is fortifying positions on the outskirts of Aden province, home to its de facto capital, as Houthi foes seize hilltops overlooking the area, three military officials tell AFP.

Houthi fighters are advancing east, consolidating their gains near the Red Sea while also moving closer to the Gulf of Aden. They have been taking hold of strategic hilltops in the Al-Madaribah wal Ara district overlooking Aden province, the sources says.

“We received high-level directives to establish military fortifications west and north of Aden Governorate, as the threat to the government’s interim capital draws nearer,” one of the military officials says.

The fortifications include stacking up sandbags and digging tunnels.

The US military has denied an Israeli media report that it is preparing for a possible resumption of operations against Iran, dismissing claims of changes to its regional force posture as “pure speculation”.

Responding to Anadolu, a US Central Command (Centcom) official says there are no updates to the US force posture in the Middle East.

The denial follows a report by the Israeli public broadcaster KAN, which cites a US official as saying that Centcom had urged Israel to prepare for a possible resumption of military operations against Iran in the near future. The warning was reportedly conveyed to Israeli military representatives in the United States.

KAN also reports that Washington is sending similar messages to Gulf countries through security channels.

The report further claims that the US deployed around 200 aerial refuelling aircraft across the Middle East and Europe, with two aircraft carriers — the USS George Washington and USS George HW Bush — already in the region and a third, the USS Roosevelt, expected to arrive in the Arabian Sea next week.