War returns to Iran with Israel, US strikes

Israeli flag carrier El Al announced that it had cancelled flights scheduled to bring Israelis home from Dubai after the United Arab Emirates withdrew landing permits for Israeli carriers, TRT reports.

“Due to the cancellation of approval for Israeli companies to land in Dubai, as was reported by the authorities in Israel, we are forced to cancel, at this stage, our rescue flights … for tomorrow, Friday, October 2,” the airline said on Facebook.

Women and girls account for 53 per cent of the projected 22 million additional people who could face food insecurity by the end of this year due to the Middle East escalation and disruption to the Strait of Hormuz, according to a UN Women analysis released, Anadolu reports.

That amounts to an additional 11.7 million women and girls across the 28 countries analyzed, on top of an estimated 208 million who were already food insecure or undernourished, it said.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has said that rebuilding regions destroyed in the latest Israel-Hezbollah war was beyond the state’s capacity, calling for funding as he visited the heavily damaged south, AFP reports.

“I am aware of the magnitude of the crisis” including the destruction, displacement and loss of livelihoods, Salam said in Nabatieh, a major southern city hit hard by Israeli airstrikes.

“But the scale of the needs exceeds the capacities of the Lebanese state and its ability to bear these burdens alone,” Salam added. “We still need significant funding” for reconstruction, the prime minister said.

Yemen’s armed forces spokesperson has said that air force warplanes carried out 20 precision strikes over the past three hours targeting Houthi movements, reinforcements, gatherings, personnel, vehicles and military equipment in Taiz province, Reuters reports.

The strikes hit hostile targets directly and inflicted losses on Houthi militia personnel, equipment and military movements, the spokesperson said in a post on X.

The US military has deployed two additional Patriot missile batteries to protect energy facilities in Saudi Arabia and Qatar amid preparations for possible renewed military attacks on Iran, the Axios news site reported, citing two US officials and a regional source.

One battery was sent to Saudi Arabia last month to protect a key oil facility, while another was deployed to Qatar to defend a natural gas facility, according to the report.

The Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) has said that three United Arab Emirates-linked tankers attacked in the Strait of Hormuz in the past week were on the PGSA’s non-compliance list, IRNA reports.

Several oil tankers have been hit in the strait in the recent days.

Iran has called on Iraq to lift remaining flight restrictions caused by US sanctions and fully restore normal air travel between the two countries after services partially resumed at one Iraqi airport this week, Al Jazeera reports.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has condemned Washington’s “illegal and inhumane” efforts to disrupt Iran’s trade and air transport through the “extraterritorial enforcement” of US sanctions and urged Baghdad to remove the restrictions.

It says the movement of millions of Iranian and Iraqi citizens required “an independent and responsible approach” to disagreements between the two governments.

Egypt has strongly condemned a Houthi attack targeting an electricity station in the Saudi city of Madina, describing it as a “blatant violation” and a dangerous escalation that threatens the kingdom’s security and stability, Al Jazeera reports.

In a statement, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry says it firmly rejects attempts to undermine Saudi sovereignty and expressed full solidarity with the kingdom and any measures it takes to protect its security and stability.

Cairo has added that Saudi Arabia’s security is an “inseparable part” of Arab national security and closely linked to Egypt’s own national security.

President Trump has said Iran will be “ending” very soon “one way or the other” and that when it does, oil prices will decline. He cited the country’s high rate of inflation among other factors.

Oil prices tick higher as traders weigh renewed tensions over Iran against signs of improving regional supply and efforts to ease a global diesel shortage, Al Jazeera reports.

Brent crude has risen 29 cents to $102.60 a barrel as of 00:22 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) has gained 27 cents to $93.14 in early trading.

Prices had jumped sharply on Thursday after reports that the US was sending a third aircraft carrier and up to 10,000 additional troops to the Middle East as President Donald Trump weighs renewed strikes on Iran after the November midterm elections.

“Now I have to make a decision. They’ll either sign a very fair deal, or they won’t exist any longer,” Trump has told reporters at the White House, according to Reuters.

Market concerns were also fuelled by China’s decision to halt most fuel exports for October. But those pressures were partly offset by recovering Saudi oil exports and a US push for European countries to release emergency diesel reserves.

US President Donald Trump has warned that Iran will be “hit very hard” if it is found to be linked to a pilot’s attack on a flydubai flight to Israel, AFP reports.

The dramatic events a day earlier saw passengers help stop the plane from crashing, making an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia before the flight’s mostly Israeli passengers were flown home to a hero’s welcome.

On whether the United States would retaliate against Iran if it was found responsible, Trump has replied: “Oh, they’ll be hit very hard, don’t worry.”

Trump’s threat coincides with a wider US military buildup in the region.

A tanker has been attacked while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, a British maritime agency said, according to AFP.

The vessel was hit by an “unknown projectile” in the strategic waterway, “resulting in a fire,” the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre (UKMTO) said.

The crew were reported safe, but the damage was as yet unknown, UKMTO added.

The agency did not specify which flag the tanker was flying, nor did it offer its planned route. It also did not say if it was carrying crude or liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The Pentagon has announced the award of a $24.4 billion contract for Raytheon to accelerate production of SM-6 missiles as Washington works to replace the large amount of munitions expended during the Iran war, AFP reports.

The missiles are “critical anti-air and anti-surface warfare munition. This five-year agreement, with two additional option years, will drive faster production,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

The deal “provides the defence industry with the long-term predictability needed to expand workforce capacity and secure critical supply chains,” the Pentagon added.

Raytheon confirmed in a statement Wednesday that their SM-6 “has been successfully fired from various US Navy ship-based platforms and launchers on land,” calling it a “combat-proven weapon.”

The weapons-maker also acknowledged increased efforts to meet demand.

“By continuously investing in our operations and facilities, we are removing constraints and boosting capacity to ensure we deliver this critical capability our sailors depend on,” Raytheon President Phil Jasper said in the statement.

Loud explosions were heard in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, which is controlled by Houthi forces, an AFP correspondent said.

The Saba agency, which is affiliated with the anti-government fighters, spoke of “Saudi aggression” on X.

AFP footage showed large plumes of smoke rising above the city.

The Saudi-led coalition says that it is continuing to take “operational measures” to deter Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

Saudi-led coalition forces say that two ballistic missiles have been intercepted in the cities of Khamis Mushait and Jizan.

In a separate statement, the coalition says four drones have been intercepted and destroyed in Khamis Mushait.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright has told Fox News that he is “highly confident” Europe can help ease soaring global fuel prices by drawing down emergency diesel inventories to help ease soaring global fuel prices, adding, “I think we have some positive news coming,” Reuters reports.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says that a set of new sanctions targeting Iran’s rail and automotive sector “lays the groundwork for the United States and our partners to drain the regime’s revenue once and for all”.

“The Iranian regime’s ability to fund its war machine and inflict terror on the world has been severely diminished thanks to Operation Economic Outcast,” Bessent writes on X.

Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman says he has discussed the Saudi-US strategic defence partnership and coordination to strengthen regional security and stability in a phone call with Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, according to Reuters.

US President Donald Trump claims that though it would take four to six weeks to eliminate the Iran “nuclear threat”, he “did it in one night”.

“The rest of the time is just to make sure it stays that way,” Trump writes in a post on Truth Social of the other seven months of conflict between Washington and Tehran.

The deputy director-general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation has expressed deep concern to AFP about the impact of the latest Israel-Hezbollah conflict on agriculture in south Lebanon.

The latest war “puts additional pressure on farmers and rural communities that, frankly, were already facing considerable hardships”, the FAO’s Beth Bechdol warns.

“We’re deeply concerned” about the situation in south Lebanon, where agriculture is “at the heart” of livelihoods, she says in an interview in Beirut.

“It is our best assessment that 56,000 hectares, which is more than 22 per cent of Lebanon’s agricultural land, has been reported as affected or damaged,” including burned or physically damaged.

Israeli forces have been carrying out widespread demolitions affecting villages and farmland.

“Farmers and their families are no longer able to be connected to their agricultural land,” Bechdol says, noting that the conflict has also “disrupted markets and reduced access” to essentials for food production, including fertilisers.

The official spokesperson for a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has vowed to take “necessary measures” against Yemen’s Houthi rebels and ensure the protection of the holy cities of Madina and Makkah, after a power station in the former was attacked by the group.

Major General Turki Al-Maliki said the attack targeted the Taibah electricity distribution station in Madina, according to a coalition statement.

“The findings of investigations and inquiries conducted by the relevant authorities, based on an operational review and the debris of the drone used, established the involvement of the terrorist Houthi militia in planning and carrying out this cowardly terrorist act,” it reads.

Al-Maliki notes that one transformer was taken out of service without affecting the electricity network, adding that this “cowardly terrorist act” reinforces the Houthis’ pattern of “attempting to target the Two Holy Mosques and deliberately provoking the feelings of millions of Muslims around the world by targeting Makkah and Madina”.

“Major General Al-Maliki affirmed that the coalition would continue to take and implement the necessary measures to deter the terrorist Houthi militia, ensuring the protection of the Two Holy Mosques and the safety of the pilgrims and visitors to the holy sites in Makkah and Madina,” the statement reads.

US President Donald Trump has suggested that the pilot of a Flydubai service from Dubai to Tel Aviv, who got into a violent altercation with his co-pilot, may have links to Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Asked by a reporter if he had been briefed on whether the pilot had links to Tehran, Trump responds, “We’re working on it right now; we’re very open with them. I would say the answer, based on what I’m hearing, is yes, but we’re working on it right now.”

When asked a follow-up question about whether the pilot was put on the flight by the IRGC, or radicalised elsewhere, Trump replies, “Could have been, yeah.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin expresses hope that the Strait of Hormuz will be open to shipping and that sanctions on Iran will eventually be lifted, Reuters reports.

Speaking to a forum of Russia experts, Putin says that Russia’s proposal to receive enriched uranium from Iran, if it is removed from the country, remains on the table.