War returns to Iran with Israel, US strikes

A coalition of pro-Iran former paramilitaries in Iraq said that multiple people were killed and wounded in US-Saudi strikes in the country, AFP reports.

“These attacks resulted in the martyrdom of a number of personnel and injuries to others, as well as material damage to several buildings and properties,” the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), known as Hashed al-Shaabi in Arabic, said in a statement.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they struck and halted three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian media reported, despite a lull in fighting between the Washington and Tehran, AFP reports, citing Iranian media.

The Guards’ navy said “three violating oil tankers, which ignored our warnings and continued sailing an unsafe and illegal route, were struck and brought to a halt”, the Tasnim News agency reported.

Venezuela summoned the ambassador of Iran, a longtime ally, to face protest over comments that were deemed “contemptuous and inappropriate,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, AFP reports.

“The ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Venezuela was summoned to the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry in order to be given a note of protest over the contemptuous and inappropriate remarks made against Venezuela’s institutions and authorities,” the statement shared via social media said.

Asked by AFP, Venezuelan authorities did not specify what remarks they referred to, but video circulating online indicates Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had recently said Iran is “not Venezuela” when it come to negotiations with the United States.

Oil prices jump more than three per cent in early Asian trade after the US military said it had intercepted multiple missiles launched by Iran.

At around 0015 GMT, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate was up 3.67pc at $82.17 a barrel, while North Sea Brent crude gained 3.39pc to $86.94.

The U.S. military said it intercepted multiple ballistic missiles launched by Iran towards US forces in the Middle East, adding American forces remained “vigilant”, Reuters reports.

The statement by the US Central Command did not mention the exact location it said Iran attempted to target.

Iran launched ballistic missiles towards a US Base in Jordan and the missiles were intercepted, Axios reports, citing a US official, according to Reuters.

There are going to be no tolls and no fees for passage through the Strait of Hormuz in a coordination deal being discussed in relation to the waterway restricted by the Iran war, Reuters reports, citing a US official.

The US official said Iran was making unreasonable demands that were rejected by Oman and the United States.

US and Saudi warplanes carried out strikes against “Iran-aligned terrorists” in Iraq who launched more than two dozen drone attacks in recent days, the US military said.

The strikes targeted “Iran-aligned terrorists that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) directed to attack US forces and Saudi energy infrastructure,” US Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement.

It further warned that “the IRGC and its terrorist proxies must cease these attacks to avoid further US military response”.

Saudi Arabia confirmed its involvement in the strikes, with its defence ministry saying it hit “targets belonging to those militias present on Iraqi territory that are linked to attacks on the kingdom’s oil facilities”.

Saudi Arabia has said that its air defenses intercepted and destroyed several drones that attempted to target oil facilities in the kingdom’s Eastern Province, Reuters reports.

Saudi defence ministry spokesperson Turki al-Maliki said on X that the drones were launched from Iraqi territory by what he described as “Iran-backed terrorist militias”.

Saudi Arabia reserves the legitimate right to defend itself and its national capabilities and retains the right to respond “at the appropriate time and place,” al-Maliki said.

Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned Iran’s renewed attacks on Jordan, calling them a “flagrant violation” of the kingdom’s sovereignty, Al Jazeera reports.

The ministry warns that the continued attacks mark a “blatant breach” of international law and the UN Charter and a “dangerous escalation” that risks derailing efforts to contain regional tensions and undermining diplomatic efforts toward stability.

The statement has also called for an immediate and complete halt to all military action, restraint from further escalation, and a serious return to dialogue, alongside commitment to understandings already reached diplomatically.

Qatar says it renews its full solidarity with Jordan and support for measures that Amman takes to protect its sovereignty.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made some video remarks after his meeting with Trump, calling the private talks in the White House “excellent”, Al Jazeera reports.

The meeting “reflected a complete partnership, bilateral support, and an understanding of the shared goal of ensuring that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon”, Netanyahu says.

“There was an opportunity to exchange views and make important arrangements for the security and future of Israel,” he adds, without elaborating.

In a post on X, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says he has been assured by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha that the attack on an Iranian ship was unintentional and Ukraine seeks no escalation.

“Iran does not seek escalation either, but made clear [that] any attack on our citizens or interests is unacceptable. There must be restitution for losses,” Araghchi adds.

UN peacekeepers say they found around four tonnes of mainly ammonium nitrate explosives this month in a south Lebanon border village under Israeli occupation, AFP reports.

On July 2, during a “routine route check” near Hula, “peacekeepers found 385 containers abandoned inside a building, containing approximately 4,000 kilograms of explosive material, consisting mainly of ammonium nitrate compounds,” the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) has said in a statement.

Unifil specialists “later carried out on-site procedures to render the material inert, making it safe and removing the risk it posed”.

Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, says Tehran has “no plans to negotiate with the US” but affirms talks are proceeding “step by step” with Oman, Al Jazeera reports.

“We should not get America used to fighting whenever it wants and sitting at the negotiating table whenever it wants,” Gharibabadi has said in remarks reported by state TV, claiming that it was Washington “who sent messages pleading for an end to the conflict”.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha says he called his Iranian counterpart following Iran’s denunciation of a Ukrainian drone attack on one of its ships, warned him against escalation and told him to end all support for Russia.

“I emphasised the necessity to refrain from any escalatory steps, as well as to end any support for Russia’s war against Ukraine. This war is illegal and it must end,” Sybiha writes on X.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, also writing on X, says he spoke to Sybiha and “discussed the challenges facing our nations, including the threat posed by Iran”.

Al Jazeera reports that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s office says he held a phone conversation with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, but a statement posted on Araghchi’s official Telegram channel has not revealed what both sides discussed.

Both countries have been at odds since Iran sold drones to Russia in 2022, but tensions rose sharply over the weekend after Ukraine struck an Iranian commercial ship in the Caspian Sea. Iran said the strike killed one sailor and injured another.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim they have targeted a Saudi oil tanker in the Red Sea with ballistic missiles for allegedly violating a blockade on the kingdom’s ports announced by the group last week, AFP reports.

“The targeting of the Saudi vessel came after it ignored warnings,” a Houthi military spokesman says, identifying the ship as the NCC Ghazal and saying it had been “forced to turn back”.

US Central Command (Centcom) has said that American forces have redirected 18 commercial vessels, disabled two and boarded two others as part of a naval blockade of Iranian ports.

Tehran will consider “any action” to maintain control over the Strait of Hormuz, including the resumption of war, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi has warned, Al Jazeera reports.

In comments reported by the Fars news agency, Gharibabadi says Iran would “no longer be able to exercise sovereignty” if it opens up a southern lane closer to the Omani coast, where it has been shooting at ships.

“Any European ship that wants to come near the Strait of Hormuz is our legitimate target,” he added.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt says on X that US President Donald Trump’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “positive and productive”.

Feda-Hossein Maleki, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, says Tehran will respond militarily to Ukraine’s attack on an Iranian ship in the Caspian Sea, Al Jazeera reports.

“We responded through diplomatic channels and presented an ultimatum, but a military response will certainly follow,” Maleki says.

On Saturday, Ukraine struck an Iranian merchant vessel, killing one sailor and injuring another.

The ongoing meeting between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Oval Office is closed to reporters and an agenda has not been published, according to Al Jazeera.

However, Israel’s envoy to the UN, Danny Danon, has told reporters ahead of Netanyahu’s arrival at the White House that the Israel-US war on Iran will top the agenda.

“I’m sure that will be number one on the agenda in the meeting today,” Danon says, responding to questions on whether Israel expects the two leaders to focus on specifics of ending or scaling down the war on Iran.

Danon adds that Israel is ready for “different scenarios.”

Iran’s ambassador to China says Tehran has “no confidence” in the United States going forward even as both sides paused military strikes to restart stalled peace talks, Al Jazeera reports.

Speaking to reporters at the Iranian embassy in Beijing, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli has stressed that Iran only takes retaliatory actions in response to US attacks and suggested that China could take a leading role in peace negotiations.

“We have always emphasised that, in addition to our will to defend, we are also ready to negotiate. However, given the US’s lack of commitment to the [Islamabad] memorandum of understanding and its reneging on its commitments, Iran has no confidence in the American side,” he says.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has arrived at the White House, where he is expected to hold a closed-door meeting in the Oval Office with US President Donald Trump, Al Jazeera reports.

The US-Israeli war on Iran is likely to top the agenda, alongside Israel’s war on Lebanon and the disarmament of Hezbollah.

The visit comes at a time when Netanyahu is increasingly unpopular at home and abroad, and as relations with Trump have reportedly strained.