The US and Israel on Feb 28 launched what they described as a “pre-emptive” joint strike against Iranian targets, with Trump announcing start of “major combat operations”
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) Centre has said it received a report of a “suspicious approach 84 nautical miles southwest of Yemen’s Al Mukalla.
“The master of a bulk carrier has reported being approached to within 500 metres by 1 green-hulled skiff which was accompanied by 1 white fishing vessel,” UKMTO said.
It advised vessels to transit with cautino and report any suspicious activity to UKMTO.
The UAE’s aviation authority has said air traffic in the country has returned to normal, Reuters reports, citing the state news agency, after precautionary measures implemented on February 28 at the start of the war were lifted.
The decision followed a comprehensive assessment of operational and security conditions in coordination with relevant entities, the General Civil Aviation Authority adds.
The Iranian embassy in Japan has refuted a report carried by a Japanese media outlet that says there are calls within Tehran to dismiss Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi from the negotiating team.
Hezbollah has said it targeted a “gathering of Israeli enemy soldiers” inside a house in the town of Biyyada in southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera reports.
The group said it attacked the building at 7:15pm yesterday. It was unclear how many soldiers were in the home, what the outcome of the raid was, or whether there were casualties, Al Jazeera noted.
Hezbollah carried out the attack “in response to the Israeli enemy’s violation of the ceasefire and the attacks that targeted villages in southern Lebanon”, it said on its Telegram channel.
An Iranian proposal so far rejected by US President Donald Trump would open shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and end the US blockade of Iran while leaving talks on Iran’s nuclear programme for later, Reuters quotes a senior Iranian official as saying.
Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential diplomacy, the senior Iranian official said Tehran believed its latest proposal to shelve nuclear talks for a later stage was a significant shift aimed at facilitating an agreement.
Under the proposal, the war would end with a guarantee that Israel and the US would not attack again. Iran would open the strait, and the US would lift its blockade.
Future talks would then be held on curbs to Iran’s nuclear programme in return for the lifting of sanctions, with Iran demanding Washington recognise its right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, even if it agrees to suspend it.
“Under this framework, negotiations over the more complicated nuclear issue have been moved to the final stage to create a more conducive atmosphere,” the official said.
Americans have the “undeniable right and the solemn duty” to demand accountability from the Trump administration over the US-Israeli “war of choice” on Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei has said.
“It is beyond dispute that the US administration’s ‘war of choice’ against Iran was a clear, unprovoked act of aggression,” Baqaei said on X.
He posted footage of US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand at a recent Senate hearing amid mounting criticism of the war, saying, “We did not have any evidence that Iran intended to imminently attack this country in any way, shape or form.”
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has discussed the regional situation in the Middle East with the Foreign Minister of Kuwait, Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, the Foreign Office (FO) has said.
“Foreign Minister Sheikh Jarrah commended Pakistan’s sincere efforts aimed at fostering lasting peace and security for the Ummah as well as the wider international community,” the FO said on X.
It added that the two leaders discussed the evolving regional situation and exchanged views on its wider economic implications.
Mohamad Elmasry of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies says US-Iran talks remain in a “holding pattern” because Washington is misjudging the pain it is inflicting on the Iranian regime.
“Trump keeps talking about how everything’s just going to explode within a matter of days. My sense is that that’s not accurate, that Iran could actually hold out for some time, and they believe at least that they have time on their side,” he told Al Jazeera.
Elmasry said Iran is pushing for a short-term agreement to start with because it has a more realistic view of how difficult negotiations over its nuclear programme can be.
“The reasons why the Iranians are saying, let’s make this sort of patchwork agreement and then we’ll hold off on the nuclear file, is because I think they recognise that the nuclear negotiation is going to be very time-consuming and very complicated,” he was quoted as saying.
“The Iranians have a lot of experience in this arena, unlike the Trump administration, which is very inexperienced on the nuclear file. It’s not something that can come together in just a few hours or just a few days.”
At least two people have been killed and several others wounded in an Israeli air strike on the southern Lebanese town of Shoukin, Al Jazeera reports.
Among the injured was Shoukin’s Mayor Hussein Ali Ahmad, reported the National News Agency, adding “the attack destroyed a number of residential buildings and caused massive damage to an entire neighbourhood”.
The towns of Zoutar al-Sharqiya and Zoutar al-Gharbiya, and the river area between Zoutar and Deir Siryan were also targeted in overnight strikes, it said.
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Mayfadoun in the Nabatieh district on May 2, 2026. — AFP
Former US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has lambasted US President Donald Trump’s funding of Israeli “atrocities”, Al Jazeera reports.
“American Christians speak out!!!” said the former Trump ally, reposting criticism of Israel’s demolition of Christian sites in the Lebanese village of Yaroun.
“America can’t be silent and must stop funding Israel to do such atrocities!!!”
Bankrupt discount carrier Spirit Airlines ceased operations, the industry’s first casualty linked to the Iran war, after failing to secure creditor support for a US government bailout plan, Reuters reports.
No US carrier of Spirit’s size — it accounted for 5 per cent of US flights at one point — has liquidated in two decades. Spirit helped keep fares lower in markets where it competed against major carriers.
Iran has executed two men accused of spying for Israel, including one accused of gathering intelligence near the Natanz nuclear site in central Isfahan province, Reuters reports.
They quoted the judiciary as saying Yaghoub Karimpour and Nasser Bakarzadeh were hanged after being found guilty of intelligence cooperation with Israel and its spy agency, Mossad.
They said Karimpour passed sensitive information to a Mossad officer, while Bakarzadeh was accused of collecting details on government and religious figures and key sites, including in the Natanz area.
An Iranian military official said that a renewed conflict with the United States was “likely”, as peace talks remain stalled and President Donald Trump criticised Iran’s latest proposal in negotiations, AFP reports.
“A renewed conflict between Iran and the United States is likely, and evidence has shown that the United States is not committed to any promises or agreements,” Mohammad Jafar Asadi of the military’s central command centre, Khatam al-Anbiya, was quoted as saying by Iran’s Fars news agency.
Japan spent at least 5 trillion yen ($32 billion) in the foreign exchange market, according to multiple reports, in its first intervention to prop up the currency since 2024, AFP reports.
The yen, trading just shy of 160 yen to the dollar, is close to its level from the summer of 2024, when Japanese authorities spent billions of dollars to boost its value.
Officials had hinted in recent days at potential intervention for the currency, which has weakened against the dollar in recent months amid the Iran war and rising oil prices, as well as the gap between US and Japanese interest rates.
Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reports more dawn attacks on southern Lebanon.
The Israeli army “opened fire with heavy machine guns” on the towns of Ramya and Qouzah. Earlier, the town of Froun was “subjected to hostile artillery shelling”, it said.
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei’s message on Persian Gulf Day stated that the Iranian nation will defend its achievements — from nanotechnology and biotechnology to its peaceful nuclear and missile industries — just as it defends its borders, IRIB reports.
Israel’s military has urged residents of several towns and villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate, continuing forced displacement in the area despite a ceasefire, reports Al Jazeera.
In a post on X, the army said the latest order applies to Qaaqaait al-Jisr, Adchit al-Shaqif, Jebchit, Ebba, Kfar Jouz, Harouf, al-Duwayr, Deir ez-Zahrani and Habboush.
China’s envoy to the United Nations has told reporters that there is no real ceasefire in place between Israel and Lebanon, only a “lesser fire”, Al Jazeera reports.
“It is incumbent on Israel to stop this bombardment of Lebanon,” Fu Cong told reporters at the UN’s headquarters in New York, as China assumed the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council for May.
