War returns to Iran with Israel, US strikes

In response to a question about whether the US is considering a postwar reconstruction programme in Iran, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent replies, “We’ve got to get to the deal before we get to the other side.”

Former US counterterrorism chief Joe Kent says the US war in Iran has proven that American bases in the region “are a liability, not an asset”.

“Operation Midnight Hammer proved we can strike inside Iran from the US without relying on our bases in the region,” he writes on X. “Operation Epic Fury proved that our bases in the region are a liability, not an asset. Our bases give Iran easy-to-reach targets.

“Pulling out now works in our favour, not Iran’s,” he adds.

Kent resigned from his post in March in protest over the US war on Iran, stating, “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

Asked if the ceasefire is still in effect between the US and Iran after today’s strikes, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent notes that Washington prefers peacefully resolving the conflict.

“With the Iranian government, we did not have regime change, but we changed the regime,” he tells reporters during a White House briefing.

“As President Trump said at the cabinet meeting, as we’ve said other times, the first layer of leadership was eliminated, the second layer, and we’re now at the third layer,” he adds.

Bessent notes that the Iranian government comprises three “pillars”: the elected government, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the clergy. He further adds that “they are having trouble communicating”.

“So we are being patient. We do not have unlimited patience. President Trump always prefers a peace deal, so everything we have done thus far has been defensive and at present, that is what we’ll continue doing,” he says.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency, citing a source close to the negotiating team, said on Thursday the text of a potential Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the US had not yet been finalised or confirmed.

The source said Tehran had not informed the Pakistani mediator that the text was complete, and would notify both the mediator and the public once finalised, adding that Western media reports claiming the agreement had already been finalised were false.

To a question about whether the US economy could work without a deal, and whether inflation would come down, the US treasury secretary said that oil prices had already come down substantially.

“We are pumping more oil than we’ve ever seen before. As I said, these are short-term challenges that we will get over and I think we’ll move forward.”

He said the US had been exporting more energy than ever before, and there are almost 2,000 ships waiting to come out of the Gulf. “I think the oil market’s going to be very well-supplied on the other side of this. I would expect on the other side of this that gasoline prices will follow.”

“Natural gas is down and the futures market is showing us that oil will be lower than pre-conflict levels. We are more resilient to energy price fluctuations due to President Trump’s energy dominance and deregulatory agenda.”

When asked if he could confirm on the record a tentative deal for a 60-day US-Iran ceasefire, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said:

“It’s always a mistake to get out ahead of the president, so it’s all going to be the president’s decision. I think we can see that the president very clearly stated his three [conditions]: open the Strait, no highly-enriched uranium, no nuclear programme.”

When asked if those conditions were part of a temporary deal, Bessent replied: “If there can be no deal without those, why would there be a deal without those?

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent termed state-owned Iranian airlines “outlaws”, and warned that anyone accommodating those airlines could be sanctioned.

“One thing that we’re not going to do is restrict movement for religious reasons, so Iranians who want to make the pilgrimage to Makkah and Madina will be allowed. We will also allow valid humanitarian reasons,” he explained.

“But the other thing we can do is that when therse airlines fly, they have to be refuelled, they sell tickets, they pay landing fees — anyone who accepts those, we will sanction,” he stated.

“They should be very clear that the state-owned Iranian airlines are outlaws and they cannot do this.”

When questioned about the US position on sanctions on Iran, the US treasury secretary declined to “preview the deal” but said he thought “things would go very slowly in terms of that, so we’ll see.”

“It is a multifaceted agreement and nothing is going to be on the table until we see the Strait of Hormuz open, and the Iranians agree that they have to turn over the highly enriched Uranium, and that they can’t have a nuclear programme,” he said.

“President Trump has done something that no other administration has been able to do: we have gotten the Iranians to talk about their nuclear programme and to perhaps commit to not having one. That has never happened before.”

“If you look at the results of our kinetic action, of our economic pressure, it has worked to bring them to the table and have a discussion on this.”

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at a White House press briefing on Thursday said the US and Iran negotiating teams “have been going back and forth”.

“President Trump has made it very clear, he talked about it at the Cabinet meeting, that he has several red lines, and Iran has to turn over their highly enriched uranium, they cannot pursue a nuclear weapon and the Strait of Hormuz … has to free transit.”

“Navigation of the seas has to be free and open as it was before, so he’s not going to take a bad deal, he’s going to make a great deal for the American people.

Oman has no plans to impose a toll on the Strait of Hormuz, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told a White House press briefing today.

“I had a call with the Omani ambassador this morning and he assured me that there were no plans for tolling the Strait,” he told reporters.

“As he said, our countries have had 200 years of good relations, he wants to have another 200 more, and I told him that this was a non-starter and he did not want to risk either Omani individuals or Omani financial institutions getting sanctioned,” he added.

Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, says adding Israel to the blacklist for sexual violence is “long overdue”, Al Jazeera reports.

“This listing could not have come soon enough,” Alsalem writes on X. “I had in the past expressed my disappointment that Israel was not listed already, given the systematic, large-scale and horrific sexual violence perpetrated by Israel against Palestinian women, men and children that have been independently documented and verified.”

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres, says the world body is trying to “get a better understanding of what is official and what is not official”, amid reports that an MoU has been reached between Tehran and Washington, Al Jazeera reports.

Dujarric told reporters that the UN is “very worried and concerned” about exchanges of fire between the two countries this week.

“We encourage both parties to respect the ceasefire that they had announced,” he states.

A member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Fada Hossein Maleki, said there has been “significant progress” in US-Iran negotiations, Al-Jazeera reported.

“A large part of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s proposals have been accepted,” Maleki said.

“The only concern is the unpredictability of Trump and the lapses in commitments that we have witnessed so far from the United States,” he added.

US and Iranian negotiators have agreed on a framework for a 60-day ceasefire extension deal, but President Donald Trump has yet to approve it, according to multiple sources cited by AFP, Reuters, Axios, and Al-Jazeera.

The White House declined to comment on the matter to Reuters, while Al-Jazeera reported the White House is confirming the Axios report.

Iranian officials and state media have yet to comment on the matter.

The proportion of vessels not linked to Iranian ownership which are transiting the key Strait of Hormuz has risen, AFP reports citing data from maritime firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

This is despite Iran’s blockading the waterway since the start of the Middle East war on February 28, preventing a large share of Gulf countries’ hydrocarbon exports, in turn harming the global economy.

“The last week we saw ships flagged with Singapore, UAE, South Korea, and also a Norway flagged-vessel going through the Gulf, specifically exiting,” says Bridget Diakun, an analyst at Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

Crossings by very large crude carriers not tied to Iran appear in particular to be picking up again. Of the 27 recorded by analytics firm Kpler since the start of the conflict, more than half took place in May.

Five of these huge oil tankers, meanwhile, left the Gulf through the strait between May 20 and May 26. Three of them — the Eagle Veracruz sailing under the Singaporean flag, as well as the Eagle Verona and the Yuan Gui Yang, each flying the Chinese flag — have declared China as their destination.

Another ship, the Universal Winner, is heading to South Korea, whose flag it flies, while the Nissos Keros, flying the flag of the Marshall Islands, is headed for India.

Amir-Saeid Iravani, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, has rejected criticism of the country’s actions in the Strait of Hormuz, Al Jazeera reports.

“Iran’s actions are lawful and consistent with international law,” he has said during a UN Security Council meeting. “Iran could not allow such a critical waterway to be used as a corridor for hostile action and military aggression against its sovereign territory and vital interests.”

The European Union has sanctioned four entities and three individuals it says are “extremist Israeli settlers” responsible for “serious and systematic human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank”, Al Jazeera reports.

In a statement, the EU Council designated the following people and organisations:

• The Nachala Settlement Movement and its director, Daniella Weiss. The group “encourages and facilitates coercive acts that lead to the forced displacement of Palestinians”, it said.
• Israeli NGO Regavim and its director, Meir Deutsch, who “lobby for the demolition of Palestinian property” to expand Israel’s control over the entirety of the West Bank, plus the demolition of an EU-funded Palestinian primary school.
• The Hashomer Yosh NGO and its president, Avichai Suissa, which the council said supports “at least 28 violent outposts and settlements”.
• The Amana cooperative association of the settler movement Gush Emunim, which has likewise “played a key role in initiating, financing, and facilitating at least 30 violent outposts and settlements”.

Ben-Gurion International Airport, Israel’s main air gateway near Tel Aviv, is operating at about one-third of capacity due to the presence of US refuelling aircraft, threatening heavy flight cancellations this summer, the head of the Israel Airports Authority said on Thursday.

Sharon Kedmi, director general of the authority, told Kan’s Reshet Bet radio station that 70 per cent of activity at the airport is limited because of the space and resources being taken up by American military activity.

“We are only utilizing one-third of the airport’s operational capacity,” he said. “We are at the limit of our capabilities. There will be flights that we will announce in the coming days that are being cancelled.”

Foreign carriers will not be able to return soon, and as many as 3 million passengers will see their flights cancelled, he added.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned Oman that if it facilitates tolls in the Strait of Hormuz, Washington may impose sanctions on Muscat.

“The United States Government will not tolerate any effort to impose a tolling system in the Strait of Hormuz,” he writes on X.

“Oman, in particular, should know that the US Treasury will aggressively target any actors involved — directly or indirectly — in facilitating tolls for the Strait and any willing partners will be penalised.”

Bessent has urged all nations to outright reject any efforts by Iran to disrupt the free flow of commerce.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi is doubling down on Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz, following the latest round of US strikes, Al Jazeera reports.

Speaking at the commemoration ceremony for the Revolutionary Guard’s commander-in-chief, Gharibabadi has accused the US of violating the ceasefire, and says Iran’s sovereignty over the waterway “has now been established”, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reports.

“We will not allow them to take a step to undermine Iran’s sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz with these military actions,” he adds.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he had ordered the country’s military to take control of 70 per cent of the Gaza Strip, in defiance of the terms of a fragile ceasefire that took effect in October.

“We are currently squeezing Hamas. We now control 60pc of the territory in the strip. You know, we were at 50, we moved to 60. My directive is to move to … 70pc,” he has said at a conference in an occupied West Bank settlement, according to a video aired by Israel’s Channel 12 network.

The UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, known as Unifil, says it is “deeply concerned” by Israel’s massive bombardment of the region, according to Al Jazeera.

“Ongoing conflict is causing deaths, injuries, and widespread destruction,” it says in a statement. “The situation is further undermining stability in the area.”

Several peacekeepers have been killed in southern Lebanon since Israel expanded its ground invasion.

Israel is breaking all contact with United Nations chief Antonio Guterres, the country’s UN envoy has announced, saying it was “outrageous” that Israel has been blacklisted over accusations of sexual violence in war zones, AFP reports.

“We are done with this secretary-general,” Ambassador Danny Danon says in a video posted on X.