Al Jazeera

By Lyndal Rowlands and Zaid Sabah

    US President Donald Trump claims Iran is in a “state of collapse” and has asked Washington to lift its blockade on Iranian ports “as soon as possible”.

    Gulf leaders have met in Saudi Arabia and say Iran must take “the initiative to make serious efforts to rebuild confidence” after “treacherous” attacks on the region.

    Israel has killed three emergency workers in southern Lebanon, in an attack Lebanese President Joseph Aoun described as a “war crime”.

    The UAE has announced it is leaving OPEC on Friday, ending nearly 60 years of membership in the oil-producing cartel.

    Visit our live tracker for the latest casualty figures from across the region.

More ships transiting Panama Canal due to war on Iran

    The Panama Canal Authority’s finance chief has said that some 300 additional ships have passed through the waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans since October, compared with the same period last year.

    “The expectation is that this will continue until the situation in the Middle East is resolved,” Victor Vial said at a meeting, according to the Reuters news agency.

    The surge in traffic comes amid the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, with commercial vessels travelling through the Panama Canal carrying shipments that were rerouted or purchased from different countries to avoid the waterway off Iran’s coast.

    The average price to cross through the canal ranges between $300,000 and $400,000, depending on the vessel, and The Associated Press (AP) reported earlier this week that some ships are paying up to $425,000 in additional fees to secure last-minute passage through the waterway.

Iran denounces US ‘piracy’ in protest letter to UN chief

    Iran’s UN envoy, Amir Saeid Iravani, has sent a letter to the UN secretary-general and the president of the Security Council, strongly protesting the US’s capture of Iranian vessels and describing the acts as “piracy”.

    “Reliance on domestic arrangements, which are inherently illegal, can under no circumstances justify such an abhorrent crime committed through the use of force,” he said in the letter, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

    “Such behaviour constitutes illegal coercion, interference in lawful international trade, and the unlawful seizure of property. Simultaneously, it sets a dangerous precedent that severely undermines the international rule of law,” Iravani added.

Does the closure of the Strait of Hormuz impact the US economy

By Mike Hanna

Reporting from Washington, DC, United States

    Well, it does have an impact on the US economy because of the shortage of oil.

    Now, President Trump insists that the US does not need that oil coming through the Strait of Hormuz because the US is an oil exporter. But there is still a knockdown effect, and the price of fuel in the US has risen significantly.

    Now, Americans see it when they fill their cars with petrol, and they also see it when they go into the supermarkets to buy goods that have to be transported by trucks using diesel.

    The price of diesel has gone up, the price of basic goods has gone up, and the public is seeing an increase in the cost of living – something that President Trump said would not occur on his watch.

    Well, it’s occurring now.

    And that may well be influential on what the public decision is when they go to the midterm elections in November.

    It could be consequential for President Trump and his Republican Party.

Trump says King Charles ‘agrees’ that Iran must not have a nuclear weapon

    The US president, who is hosting the UK’s King Charles III at the White House, has addressed the war on Iran in a speech at a state dinner.

    He said his administration was “doing a little Middle East work right now” and that the situation was “going very well”.

    “We have militarily defeated that particular opponent, and we’re never going to let that opponent ever – Charles agrees with me even more than I do – we’re never going to let that opponent have a nuclear weapon,” he added.

‘Extraordinary’ GCC summit held in Saudi Arabia as UAE set to exit OPEC

By Michael Appel

Reporting from Doha, Qatar

    Gulf leaders gathered at an extraordinary meeting of the GCC in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

    It is the first in-person meeting between the leadership of the Gulf countries since the start of the war in Iran.

    On the table for discussion was how the GCC nations will respond to the military threat from Iranian ballistic missiles and drones fired in their thousands at the GCC nations since February 28.

    Also, how to open the critical, vital waterway, the Strait of Hormuz, through which almost every single GCC country relies on to get hydrocarbons, oils, gas, ammonia, helium and other critical products to market that are so vital to the global economy.

    The meeting in Jeddah was taking place off the back of the news coming out from the government of the United Arab Emirates that it will be leaving OPEC come the 1st of May.

    This is the third largest oil producer in OPEC, and the seventh largest oil producer in the world. It says it has done this “in terms of its long-term strategic and economic vision” and that it plans to gradually and prudently increase production from about 3.6 million barrels up to 5 million barrels per day come 2027.

    Meanwhile, in Qatar, the Foreign Ministry held a briefing and reiterated its stance that a comprehensive deal is needed to end the US-Israel war on Iran.

US Treasury chief says blockade will soon force Iran to ‘reduce oil production’

    US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says his department has stepped up financial pressure on Tehran and moved to dismantle the networks sustaining the Iranian economy.

    “The Treasury Department, through Economic Fury, has targeted Iran’s international shadow banking infrastructure, access to crypto, shadow fleet, and weapons procurement networks,” Bessent said in a post on X.

    These measures also strike at funding for Iranian proxies in the region and “independent Chinese ‘teapot’ refineries that support Iran’s oil trade”.

    He claimed that “these actions have disrupted tens of billions of dollars in revenue that would be used to fund” the Iranian government. As a result, “Tehran’s inflation has doubled and its currency has rapidly depreciated.”

    Bessent also said that the US’s “maximum pressure campaign” on Iran, including the blockade on Iranian ports, was disrupting the country’s oil trade.

    “Kharg Island, Iran’s primary oil export terminal, is soon nearing storage capacity, which will force the regime to reduce oil production,” he said.

    Bessent added that this was causing “an additional approximately $170 million per day in lost revenue and causing permanent damage to Iran’s oil infrastructure”.

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Amnesty slams Israel’s destruction of solar panels in southern Lebanon

    The international human rights organisation has said that a video showing Israeli forces destroying solar panels in southern Lebanon is just one example of how civilian infrastructure is being targeted.

    In a post on X, Amnesty International said that its previous calls for similar Israeli attacks to be investigated as war crimes have yet to be heeded.

    “Israel must stop the unlawful destruction of civilian property across southern Lebanon.”

    Israel launched its biggest offensive there on April 8, with a major wave of strikes across the country killing more than 350 people and wounding more than 1,000.

    One woman from Beirut’s southern suburbs recalls the moment a four-storey building was hit by an Israeli missile that day.

    Watch below:

Houthis say they are ‘not neutral’, reaffirm support for Iran and Lebanon

    Yemen’s Houthi rebels have condemned the US’s “piracy” in the Gulf of Oman, saying the attacks on Iranian commercial vessels and the detention of their crews violate international law.

    In a statement, the Houthi Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the US’s actions have forced the world to pay a heavy price, by disrupting supply chains and shipping, and increasing the price of food and fuel.

    But it said it supported Iran’s restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz, affirming “the right of states to self-defence and to restrict navigation in their territorial waters to counter security threats”.

    The statement also warned that “Yemen is not neutral regarding the ongoing attacks against Iran, Lebanon and Palestine”, adding that its position remains “clear, public, and explicit in this regard”.

    The Houthis, who control the most populated areas of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, have previously launched missiles at Israel over the war on Iran and warned they could close down the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which leads to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, if the conflict continues.

Tony Blair briefs UNSC on Board of Peace’s activities in Gaza

    Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair has addressed the UN Security Council in his role as a member of the executive board of Trump’s Board of Peace for Gaza.

    Here are some of his key points:

    The situation in Gaza remains “precarious”. “The war has stopped, violence has fallen dramatically, but ceasefire violations continue.”

    Food assistance has “improved”, and the Rafah crossing with Egypt is partially open, particularly for “medical evacuations”. But “life remains desperate for many”.

    The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza has been established and the International Stabilization Force, a multinational peacekeeping force authorised to secure and demilitarise Gaza, “has completed its pre-deployment assessment mission”.

    Demilitarisation talks with Hamas are continuing, and once that process is complete, it “will unlock immediately vital progress for the people of Gaza: additional humanitarian aid and material; new medical facilities; greater freedom at the crossings, including Rafah; the staged withdrawal of Israeli forces”.

    Plans for reconstruction are being worked upon, including a port, proper infrastructure, new housing and full access to the digital economy.

Israeli ‘double-tap’ strike kills 5 in south Lebanon, including medics

By Heidi Pett

Reporting from Tyre, southern Lebanon

    It hasn’t really felt like a ceasefire here in southern Lebanon.

    The Israeli military has carried out dozens of air strikes, some of them well north of what it calls the “Yellow Line” or the forward defence line, which is the part of southern Lebanon that its troops are occupying or seeking to control from the air.

    In one of those strikes, the Ministry of Health has confirmed that five people were killed, among them three workers from the civil defence who were trying to rescue survivors from an earlier strike.

    So once again, a double-tap attack on rescue workers here in Lebanon and there were two soldiers from the Lebanese army also injured in that attack.

    Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has condemned the strike and has called it a new war crime here in Lebanon, and said that they will be taking what steps they can to compel the Israeli military to abide by the ceasefire.

    The Israeli military has also continued artillery shelling and demolitions. Massive explosions were seen in the town of al-Qantara, where the Israeli military said that it was detonating a Hezbollah tunnel network.

    They have also continued demolishing houses, notably in the town of Bint Jbeil, where for the second day in a row, Hezbollah says that they targeted an Israeli bulldozer with an explosive drone.

    This is a pattern we’ve seen over the last couple of days, with Hezbollah increasingly using drones to target Israeli equipment and troops. This doesn’t mean it has stopped firing rockets. There have been launches from the Lebanese city of Tyre, which set off sirens in northern Israel earlier on Tuesday.

Iran calls for UNSC to compel Israel to stop attacks on Lebanon

    Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, has called on the UN Security Council to “act decisively to compel Israel to fully uphold the ceasefire in Lebanon”.

    The council should also ensure that Israel “immediately halt all attacks against civilian and civilian infrastructure and withdraws all its occupying forces” from Lebanon, Iravani said.

    He also decried US and Israeli attacks on Iran, as well as Israel’s actions in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

Trump insinuates divisions in Iran’s leadership

By Mike Hanna

Reporting from Washington, DC, US

    There has been no further clarification from Trump on those comments from a short Truth Social post earlier in the day. He’s insinuating that there is division in the Iranian leadership, saying that they do not know who’s actually in control.

    This is part of perhaps a campaign to unsettle the Iranian leadership and cast division among them as he attempts to get them back to the negotiating table on his terms.

    He mentioned there that Iran wants the Strait of Hormuz opened. Well, that has not been a secret for a long period of time. But he also insisted the red flag remains for his administration, and that is the question of nuclear capability.

    Now it is believed that the message that Iran sent – which was discussed by President Trump’s national security team some 24 hours ago – suggested opening the Strait of Hormuz and then pushing nuclear negotiations to a later time.

    Most of the indications are that the president does not agree with this, but everything still remains in limbo.

    It would appear that the ceasefire, though, stays in place. But that itself is at the will of the US president.

    Other attacks happened nearby, as Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz vowed that southern Lebanon’s fate would be like Gaza’s.

A recap of recent developments

    US President Donald Trump says Iran is in a “state of collapse” and has reached out to ask Washington to lift its naval blockade on Iranian ports.

    The United Arab Emirates has announced it is leaving OPEC on Friday, ending nearly 60 years of membership in the oil-producing organisation.

    Gulf leaders have held their first face-to-face meeting in Saudi Arabia since the US-Israel war on Iran began and condemned recent Iranian attacks on the region.

    Israel continues bombarding southern Lebanon, killing at least 11 people, including three emergency workers who were targeted while responding to attacks in the town of Majdal Zoun.

    Trump, whose approval has sunk to a new second-term low, has slammed German Chancellor Friedrich Merz after he said Tehran was “humiliating” Washington in negotiations.

    The World Bank says energy prices are projected to surge 24 percent this year to their highest in four years, with Brent crude expected to average $86 per barrel, up from $69 in 2025.

Welcome to our coverage

    Hello, and welcome to our coverage of the ceasefire in the war between the United States, Israel and Iran.

    Stay with us for the latest developments, reactions and analyses from across the Middle East and beyond.