War returns to Iran with Israel, US strikes

When asked whether the war in Iran was worse than that in Ukraine, US President Donald Trump has said, “We talked more about the war in Ukraine, but he (Russian President Vladimir Putin) would like to be of help. I said, ‘Before you help me, I’d like to end your war.’”

Asked about which war would end first, Trump replied, “I don’t know. Maybe they’re on a similar timetable.”

US President Donald Trump has reiterated his claim that Iran has very little military equipment left in the wake of Washington’s military campaign.

“They have some missiles, a small percentage. They have a small percentage of missile-making facilities,” Trump tells reporters. “We knocked out about 80 per cent of them, the rest could come very quickly if we don’t make a deal.”

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, US President Donald Trump says he talked “a little bit” about Iran during a phone call with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

“He told me he’d like to be involved with the enrichment, if he can help us get it,” Trump says, referring to retrieving Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium.

“I said, ‘I’d much rather have you be involved with ending the war in Ukraine.’ To me, that’d be more important,” he adds.

Iran’s Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad says Iran’s supply and distribution of fuel remains stable despite the US blockade on Iranian ports, according to Al Jazeera.

In comments carried by Iranian state broadcaster IRIB, Paknejad adds that oil industry workers are operating around the clock to make sure there are no disruptions.

Iranian football federation officials will not attend the FIFA congress in Canada, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reports, citing what it said was “inappropriate behaviour of immigration officials” at Toronto airport, according to Reuters.

Tasnim said that three federation officials arrived with visas to participate in Thursday’s congress but returned on the next available flight.

Iran’s Justice Minister Amin Rahimi says all Iranian state institutions stand behind the Supreme National Security Council, which ultimately makes decisions regarding war and negotiations, Al Jazeera reports.

“In matters such as war or negotiation, it is the Supreme National Security Council that makes decisions based on the interests of the country, and these decisions are implemented after the approval of the supreme leader of the revolution; therefore, there is a unified and coherent approach in the country in these areas,” Rahimi says in comments carried by the Tasnim news agency.

“Whether in the field of defence or in the field of negotiation, the main goal is to protect the rights of the Iranian people, and all the pillars of the country are of the same opinion on this path.”

Brent oil prices have surged to more than $119 a barrel, their highest level since early 2022, raising the economic toll from the war in the Middle East, according to AFP.

Near 1715 GMT (10:15pm PKT), Brent oil futures were up 7.6 per cent at $119.69, its highest level since the early days of the Ukraine war in 2022.

Oil prices have surged since US-Israeli attacks on Iran prompted Tehran to effectively close the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for petroleum deliveries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken by phone with US President Donald Trump, Putin’s diplomatic advisor Yuri Ushakov tells reporters, adding that the two leaders primarily discussed the Middle East war, AFP reports.

“The presidents paid particular attention to the situation regarding Iran and in the Persian Gulf,” Ushakov says.

“Vladimir Putin considers Donald Trump’s decision to extend the ceasefire with Iran to be the right one, as this should give negotiations a chance and, overall, help to stabilise the situation.”

Israel’s military chief, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, vows to strike Hezbollah targets north of the Litani River and beyond the so-called “Yellow Line” during a visit to south Lebanon, AFP reports.

“Any threat, anywhere, against our communities or our forces — including beyond the Yellow Line and north of the Litani — will be eliminated,” Zamir says, according to a military statement issued after he visited troops stationed within Israel’s security zone in southern Lebanon.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan says there is a need to maintain momentum in the Gaza peace plan process, urging increased pressure on Israel to prevent ongoing violations, Al Jazeera reports.

“The efforts that the parties will make on this issue are important. In particular, putting pressure on Israel’s reluctance and preventing its violations are extremely important for moving to the second phase in Gaza,” Fidan has said at a joint news conference with Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger.

“Frankly, we are warning both the international community, the mediators, and all actors on the Board of Peace to take the necessary measures,” he adds.

According to Fidan, the situation risks generating further instability, energy security challenges, and irregular migration flows.

The minister also says that one million people have been displaced in Lebanon due to Israeli occupation, warning that further expansion could trigger additional migration.

For this reason, he adds, “Israel must be placed under more qualified international pressure on this issue.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has stressed the importance of free transit along global sea lanes, saying his government’s foreign and security policy will continue to prioritise it, Al Jazeera reports.

“For an industrial and trading nation like Germany, the unrestricted use of global sea lanes, and indeed maritime security, is a prerequisite for a successful economy,” Merz has said at a national maritime conference in the city of Emden.

“We are seeing these days that when geopolitical tensions cause maritime bottlenecks, the global economy is hit, and we are hit where we are most vulnerable,” he observes, adding that the latest developments have once again shown the close interrelationship between economic and security policy.

“We are living in an era of fundamental global realignment. Security and competitiveness are two sides of the same coin,” Merz says.

“How quickly we make progress in both areas at the same time will determine how well, how freely, and how prosperously we will live in Germany in the 21st century.”

Addressing the US strike that hit an Iranian girls’ school early in the war — killing about 170 people, mostly children — US War Secretary Pete Hegseth says the “unfortunate situation remains under investigation”.

Asked how much that attack cost, he answered: “I wouldn’t tie a cost to that.”

Ongoing investigations suggest the attack may have been the result of a mistake by the US military because of outdated intelligence.

The Israeli military claims it carried out 20 overnight attacks on southern Lebanon, targeting what it describes as Hezbollah “command centres and military structures”, Al Jazeera reports.

In one strike, it claims it launched a drone at a Hezbollah fighter approaching Israeli soldiers, killing him.

Despite the declared ceasefire, Israel’s military says it will continue to “operate to remove threats” in southern Lebanon to Israeli soldiers and civilians in the north.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says attacks on healthcare facilities and staff are increasing globally, with a notable uptick recorded since the recent conflict in the Middle East began, Reuters reports.

Before the US-Israeli strikes at the end of February, attacks globally on such facilities and staff averaged about 3.7 per day, but that has now increased to 4.3, the body says.

“This is clearly showing that healthcare is the target,” Altaf Musani, the Director of Emergency Health Interventions at the WHO, tells reporters in Geneva.

The attacks include airstrikes and shelling of hospitals and clinics as well as arrests and intimidation of healthcare workers.

“When healthcare is needed most, it is being attacked … these attacks are having a deep impact on functionality,” Musani says.

Since the recent conflict in the Middle East began, 50 hospitals and private healthcare centres have been closed, and 16 hospitals have been damaged across the region, according to the WHO.

The US-Israeli war on Iran could plunge more than 30 million people into poverty, the head of the UN Development Programme has warned.

“It’s development in reverse,” Alexander De Croo tells AFP on the sidelines of a G7 development meeting in Paris. “It took decades to build stable societies, to develop local economies, and it took only several weeks of war to destroy that.

“We did a study after six weeks of war and estimated that even if the conflict ended at that point, 32 million people would be pushed into precarity in 160 countries,” De Croo says.

The war has led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows in peacetime. A shortage of supplies and high prices has led to countries imposing a range of measures that include fuel rationing and shortening the work week to reduce consumption.

The UNDP says the war will have a profound impact on Sub-Saharan African countries as well as certain countries in Asia, such as Bangladesh and Cambodia.

High “energy costs, a lack of fertiliser, will have an enormous impact in the months to come” on people in these countries, says De Croo, a former prime minister of Belgium.

Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson says the US appears to lack a coherent strategy in its war with Iran, adding to a growing chorus of European criticism, Al Jazeera reports.

Speaking to Swedish Radio News, Kristersson says it remains unclear how Washington intends to achieve its stated objective of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“Right now, I’m struggling to see any coherent strategy behind this,” Kristersson states.

Asked whether the US is winning the war against Iran, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has said “absolutely”, calling it an “astounding military success”, Al Jazeera reports.

Pressed on whether the US considered Iran potentially closing the Strait of Hormuz prior to starting the conflict, Hegseth has replied that the War Department “looked at all aspects of this risk”.

Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has emerged as a figurehead since the start of the Middle East war, says the United States’ naval blockade of the country aims to create division and “make us collapse from within”, AFP reports.

He says US President Donald Trump “divides the country into two groups: hardliners and moderates, and then immediately talks about a naval blockade to force Iran into submission through economic pressure and internal discord”, according to state TV.

“The enemy has entered a new phase and wants to activate economic pressure and internal division through naval blockade and media hype to weaken or even make us collapse from within,” Ghalibaf adds, calling for “maintaining unity” as the only solution.

US President Donald Trump tells Axios that he will maintain a naval blockade on Iran until the Islamic republic agrees to a deal addressing Washington’s concerns about its nuclear programme.

“The blockade is somewhat more effective than the bombing. They are choking like a stuffed pig. And it is going to be worse for them. They can’t have a nuclear weapon,” Trump tells the outlet.

“They want to settle. They don’t want me to keep the blockade. I don’t want to [lift the blockade], because I don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon,” he adds.

Trump has not shared any military plans during the 15-minute interview with Axios.

The majority of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is likely still at its Isfahan nuclear complex, which was bombarded by air strikes last year and faced less intense attacks in this year’s US-Israeli war, the head of the UN nuclear agency has told The Associated Press, Turkish outlet TRT World reports.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi has said in an interview that the watchdog has satellite images showing the effects of the latest US-Israeli air strikes against Iran and that “we continue to get information”.

The UN nuclear watchdog believes a large percentage of Iran’s highly enriched uranium “was stored there in June 2025 when the 12-day war broke out, and it has been there ever since”, Grossi said.

“We haven’t been able to inspect or to reject that the material is there and that the seals — the IAEA seals — remain there,” he says. “I hope we’ll be able to do that, so what I tell you is our best estimate.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has had a telephone conversation with his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, where they discussed the “latest developments related to the ceasefire, bilateral relations, as well as regional and international issues,” according to Iran’s embassy in India.