Al Jazeera

By Lyndal Rowlands and Zaid Sabah

    US warns Iran to accept defeat or be “hit harder” than ever before, as Tehran rejects talks and pledges to continue fighting.

    US-Israeli strikes on Iran continue as Iranian missiles target central and northern Israel.

Israeli military says soldier ‘seriously wounded’ in Lebanon

    The military says the soldier was wounded as “a result of mortar shell fired at forces in Lebanon” and that the person has been taken to hospital for medical treatment.

    The statement came hours after the Israeli military said another reserve soldier was “seriously wounded” as a result of rocket fire in Lebanon.

Israeli attack on southern Lebanon wounds 8

    An Israeli attack has wounded eight people in the Arab Salim area of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, the Public Health Ministry’s emergency operations centre has said, according to NNA.

ADNOC CEO calls any Iran curbs on Hormuz passage ‘economic terrorism’

    Sultan al-Jaber, the CEO of Abu Dhabi state oil company ADNOC, has described any restriction of passage through the Strait of Hormuz by Iran as “economic terrorism”.

    “When Iran holds Hormuz hostage, every nation pays the ransom, at the gas pump, at the grocery store, at the pharmacy,” al-Jaber said in a speech in the US.

    “No country can be allowed to destabilise the global economy in this way. Not now. Not ever,” he added.

    Earlier, al-Jaber told US Vice President JD Vance that free passage through the Strait of Hormuz was the only durable solution to stabilising global markets.

UAE ‘responding to missile and drone threats’

    The Emirati Ministry of Defence says the country is again “responding to incoming missile and drone threats from Iran”.

    “The sounds heard are the result of the Air Defence Systems intercepting missiles and drones,” the ministry added in a short statement on X.

    The announcement comes four hours after the ministry issued a similar statement.

China sees ‘glimmer of hope’ if US, Iran begin negotiations

    China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has spoken to his Egyptian and Turkish counterparts on the US-Israel war on Iran and called for global efforts to promote dialogue between the warring parties, according to statements by his office.

    In his conversation with Egypt’s Badr Abdelatty, Wang said both the US and Iran were “signalling a willingness to negotiate”, offering “a glimmer of hope for peace”. He said the “international community should actively promote dialogue among the conflicting parties” and that “as long as talks begin, there is hope for peace”.

    Wang reiterated the sentiments in his call with Turkiye’s Hakan Fidan and told both diplomats that China supports Cairo and Ankara’s efforts at mediating between the warring parties and halting the war.

Japan starts release of state oil reserves

    A Japanese official has told the AFP news agency that the country has started to release another part of its strategic oil reserves as it looks to temper the impact from the surge in prices caused by the war on Iran.

    “The release [of the national stockpile] started at 10:59 am [01:59 GMT] to oil refiners,” said Kaname Morimoto, an official of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

    The move comes after Tokyo said it would release a month’s worth of government stockpiles, as officials started releasing 15 days’ worth of private-sector petroleum reserves.

    Japan is the fifth-biggest importer of oil, with more than 90 percent of it from the Middle East.

    Top government spokesman Minoru Kihara told AFP he was aware that the “transfer of oil from half of the reserve stations to four oil refining companies is scheduled to start” today.

Kuwait arrests six, dismantles third sleeper cell

By Malik Traina

Reporting from Kuwait City, Kuwait

    The Kuwaiti Ministry of Interior says it has arrested six individuals, five Kuwaiti citizens and one other national, and dismantled a Hezbollah-linked “terrorist” group.

    They said they also identified 14 other people, including five Kuwaiti citizens, two Iranians, two Lebanese, and five others who have fled the country.

    For the six they arrested, they said after questioning that the suspects confessed to planning to carry out assassination operations, targeting state symbols and leaders and recruiting individuals to perform these tasks.

    Authorities said that security in Kuwait is a red line and that they take these threats very seriously, and will show no mercy and will severely punish anyone who is involved in these kinds of activities.

    This is the third sleeper cell that authorities here in Kuwait have arrested since the fighting started. We’ve also seen last week that in the UAE, they’ve arrested a cell as well. We are seeing authorities in the Gulf taking security in the region very seriously.

Germany’s defence minster says war on Iran a ‘catastrophe for world’s economies’

    Boris Pistorius has called for a “diplomatic solution” to the US-Israel war on Iran, and described the conflict as an economic “catastrophe”.

Speaking to reporters at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Pistorius said Germany was ready to help secure any peace

    “To make it crystal clear, this war is a catastrophe for the world’s economies. The impact is absolutely evident already now, after a little bit more than two weeks,” he said.

    “From the beginning on, we have not been consulted before. Nobody asked us before. It’s not our war and therefore we don’t want to get sucked into that war,” he added.

    He urged the US and Iran to end the shooting and the killing and said Germany will discuss operations to secure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz if there is a ceasefire.

    “But the time has not yet come, and therefore we appeal for a ceasefire as soon as possible,” he said.

US and Israeli attacks on Iran ‘increasing in number and intensity’

By Mohamed Vall

Reporting from Tehran, Iran

    It’s been going on nonstop.

    It’s a vast campaign just like any other day, but it is increasing in number and in intensity.

    We have Shiraz that has been hit very hard, and at least two people have been reported killed there, two young brothers.

    We have Lamerd airport in the south also that has been bombarded. Isfahan, again every single day, and Karaj. Those have been constant targets since the beginning of the war. Bander Abbas is also another constant target.

    But also, we noticed that there is an expansion of the area of bombardment, the area that is targeted.

    We have two new cities, the holy city of Mashhad, which is rarely targeted but has now been hit, and also Taybad, and that’s in the extreme north, near the border with Afghanistan.

    So there is an expansion of the number of cities and the geographic area of this bombardment by the Americans and the Israelis.

Two boys killed in US-Israeli attack on Iran’s Shiraz: Report

    The IRNA news agency is reporting that the two teenage boys were killed in a US-Israeli attack on a residential area in the village of Kafri in the county of Shiraz on Wednesday evening.

    It identified the boys as Ilya and Amir Hossein Sharafi.

Oil prices likely to remain high ‘unless China puts in some of its reserves’

    We’ve been speaking with William Lee, the chief economist at Global Economic Advisors, on the impact of the war on Iran.

    He said the US’s release of oil from its strategic reserves will moderate prices over the next few weeks, but the shortages will remain.

    The release of the strategic reserves “is really mainly a psychological effect, because the net increase in petroleum that’s available for the world markets is going to be small”, he told Al Jazeera, explaining the oil won’t be distributed where it’s most needed.

    “And most of the demand right now is in Asia, outside of China, and to ship it from the US to these markets will take time.”

    The price hikes will remain unless “China puts in some of its own reserves to try to fill some of that gap, but there’s no sign” Beijing will do that, Lee added.

    China does not officially publish information about its crude inventories, so it is not clear how much oil the country has in reserve. But it’s thought to hold the world’s largest strategic oil reserve.

    The US holds some 415 million barrels of oil in its reserve.

Israel launches ‘wave of extensive strikes’ on central Iran

    The Israeli military says the attacks targeted the city of Isfahan in central Iran.

Sirens in Kuwait as firefighters continue to battle blaze at airport

By Malik Traina

Reporting from Kuwait City, Kuwait

    In the last hour, alarms have sounded in Kuwait three times.

    We’ve also seen attacks across the GCC in recent hours, including in Bahrain and the UAE.

    In Bahrain, the Ministry of Interior said that civil defence teams have extinguished a fire at a facility the Muharraq area, without any injuries. And in the UAE, too, sirens blared, while Saudi Arabia reported intercepting more than a dozen in the Eastern Province, where the majority of its oil facilities are located.

    Last night, about 24 hours ago, two drones hit the fuel tank at the Kuwaiti international airport, and authorities are still trying to put that fire out. The amount of damage these attacks – even when one or two of these drones get through air defences – is devastating.

    We are now four weeks into the war, and these attacks keep on happening.