Al Jazeera

By Zaid Sabah and Abby Rogers

    Iranian officials and state media have reported multiple explosions in the country’s south, including near the Bushehr nuclear facility.

    A US official has told Al Jazeera that the country’s military was not behind the latest strikes on Iran. No one else has so far claimed responsibility, and Iran has not so far blamed any specific country.

    At the same time, the US official said that Washington remains committed to negotiations with Iran, and that technical talks with Tehran continue.

    Earlier on Thursday, Iran said it attacked “US bases and strategic centres” in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, after the US bombed Iranian cities on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Gaza mourns aid worker killed by Israel who helped them see the World Cup

    Palestinians in Gaza have turned out in ‌large numbers to pay their respects to a senior member of Egypt’s main aid organisation, who had set up World ⁠Cup screenings in the shattered ⁠enclave and was killed by an Israeli air strike on a taxi he was in this week.

    The strike killed Mohammed al-Wahidi, himself a Palestinian, on the eve of the Egypt vs Argentina match on Tuesday, along with three other people, including two ⁠young passers-by, siblings aged 10 and 8, in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City, medics said.

Palestine to hold first legislative elections in 20 years

By Daniel Khalili-Tari

    Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has announced that legislative elections will be held in late November, as his government comes under mounting international pressure to demonstrate its legitimacy.

    Abbas issued a decree on Thursday declaring the election date for November 28 in all Palestinian territories, including the occupied West Bank, occupied East Jerusalem and Gaza.

    If the vote goes ahead, it will be the first in 20 years.

    The last legislative elections in the Palestinian territory were held in 2006, when Hamas secured a shock victory. The result triggered a political split with Abbas’s previously dominant Fatah party, culminating in Hamas taking control of Gaza in 2007.

    “This is understood to be a consequence, an outcome if you will, of the dialogue between the Palestinian president, the Palestinian leadership and foreign countries, namely powerful countries,” said Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Oil dips slightly, but tracks for weekly gain amid ongoing US-Iran strikes

    Crude prices dipped in early Friday trading, though they were still headed for weekly increases amid ongoing retaliatory strikes between the US and Iran.

    Brent futures ticked down by 6 cents, or 0.08 percent, to settle at $76.24 per barrel as of 01:25 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude edged lower by 4 cents, or 0.06 percent, to $72.04 per barrel.

US may have de-escalated on Thursday due to ongoing mediation

By Kimberly Halkett

Reporting from Washington, DC, United States

    A US defence official has been telling Al Jazeera that the explosions being reported in Iran are in no way the result of US actions.

    The US defence official did not tell us what may be behind, or who may be behind, the explosions in Iran.

    Just having said that, they will only say that they are not the responsibility of the US.

    It is being reported here in the US that part of that reason could be because of ongoing negotiations in the region, with a number of countries working to help with mediation efforts.

How many ships have passed through the Hormuz strait since June 17

By Marium Ali

    More than three weeks after the US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to end their war and restore shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the future of passage through the vital waterway is once again under a cloud.

    Three ships were attacked in the strait in recent days, after Iran accused them of attempting to pass without seeking its approval. The US hit back with escalating strikes on Iranian soil — first targeting coastal cities, and then, on Thursday morning, hitting the capital Tehran, too. Iran has in turn fired missiles and drones at multiple Gulf nations. On Friday, Iranian officials reported new attacks on the country.

    All of this has implications for a global economy that has for decades depended on the Strait of Hormuz, that suffered in recent months as the US-Israel alliance waged war on Iran, and that is now again on tenterhooks.

So how many ships have passed through the Strait of Hormuz since the US and Iran signed the MoU on June 17  And how many vessels have been attacked

Palestine stands with Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain: Palestinian president

    The office of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned Iran’s attacks on Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain this week.

    Iran has said it attacked “US bases and strategic centres” in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, after the US bombed Iranian cities on Tuesday and Wednesday.

    Abbas’s office expressed solidarity with Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain on Thursday, and reaffirmed Palestine’s support for any measures the countries took to maintain their sovereignty, the Wafa news agency reported.

NASDAQ closes on a high despite US-Iran escalation

    NASDAQ closed on a high on Thursday, despite growing fears that the US and Iran are on the verge of resuming their war, Reuters reported, after semiconductor firm Micron Technology drove up chip stocks.

    Iranian officials on Friday morning reported multiple explosions in the country’s south, but a US official told Al Jazeera that Washington was not behind the attacks.

    The US bombed Iran on Tuesday and Wednesday after multiple ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without Tehran’s approval were hit. Iran then fired missiles and drones at multiple Gulf nations and Jordan, which host US military bases.

‘Defective status of inconclusive negotiations’: US congressman slams Trump’s strategy on Iran

    Democratic Congressman Jimmy Panetta has criticised Donald Trump over the ongoing military conflict with Iran, warning that the administration’s actions demonstrate a failure of both diplomacy and strategic planning.

    “Although we can’t rely on what the President says about it, we can rely on the renewed U.S. strikes and Iranian drone attacks to determine the defective status of the inconclusive negotiations and ineffective ceasefire,” he wrote on X.

    He added that the current crisis is “the continued effect of entering into war without a clear strategy, congressional approval, or the consensus of the American public”.

    “Congress must continue our efforts, with or without the Speaker, to end the Iran War, open up the Strait of Hormuz, and lower prices for Americans,” Panetta said.

    Panetta is the son of Leon Panetta, who served as secretary of defence and CIA director during the Obama administration.

Iran says NATO summit in Ankara politically motivated

    As NATO met this week in Ankara, one of the most significant issues before the alliance was freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

    But Iran has said the meeting, and its focus on the strait and Iran’s nuclear programme, is politically motivated, Iranian state media IRNA reported.

    The Iranian Embassy in Turkiye said the country’s nuclear programme is peaceful, emphasising that Tehran is not looking to develop nuclear weapons. The embassy added that Iran has a responsibility to maintain security in the Strait of Hormuz and that the destabilising actions of other countries are the primary source of insecurity in the region, IRNA reported.

    Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, called out NATO chief Mark Rutte’s “relentless self-congratulation for serving an illegal war of choice”, saying NATO’s support of the US-Israel war on his country “exposes the servile mindset of a fawning courtier who fancies that flattery can erase a king’s contempt”.

    Before the NATO summit, Trump had called on European allies to help the US secure the strait.

    “I’m not happy with NATO, because of the fact that they didn’t want to help us with the number 1 state sponsor of terror, that’s Iran,” he said during an appearance with Rutte. “They were unwilling to help us.”

Israel told Trump Iran was planning to kill him: WSJ

    Israel recently told US President Trump that it had intelligence suggesting that Iran was planning an assassination attempt against him, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

    CNN separately reported that the intelligence pertained to a “specific” attempt. The US government and Iran have not responded to these reports and claims, but Washington has in the past claimed that it had thwarted multiple attempts by Iran to kill Trump.

    Speaking in Ankara on the sidelines of the NATO summit earlier this week, Trump had referred to the perceived threat to his life from Iran, which he said had him on its target list.

US military struggling with asymmetric challenge in the Gulf, analyst says

    Dan Grazier, a former US Marine Corps officer, says that the threat of naval mine warfare in the Strait of Hormuz poses a disproportionate risk to global trade and presents a complex challenge that Washington has yet to solve.

    Grazier agreed with the assessment that even minimal action from Iran could effectively close the vital shipping lane, noting that “mine warfare is really tricky” and that “all Iran would have to do is launch one or two, and then it becomes a huge operation to try to clear those waterways”.

    Talking to Al Jazeera, he added that because the vessels transiting the region are highly valuable, “any activity like that would have a big effect on global trade”.

    According to Grazier, this dynamic exemplifies the core difficulties of asymmetric conflict, creating a significant dilemma for American policymakers trying to withdraw from the situation without appearing weak.

    “That is a really tricky conundrum for officials here in Washington, because Iran has huge advantages where they aren’t trying to project military power beyond their shores,” Grazier said. He explained that the Iranian military “only have to take kind of minor disruptive measures in order to create a big problem for the United States and Israel to deal with in this conflict”.

    Grazier urged leadership in Washington to actively seek an end to the hostilities, observing that “this asymmetric type of warfare is a tricky military problem, and frankly, it’s one that the United States has not figured out yet”.

    When asked if it is already too late for the US to adapt its strategy, Grazier acknowledged the difficulty of the current circumstances.

    “Well, a little bit, we kind of have the tiger by the tail right now,” he said. While noting that “it is possible to learn during a conflict”, Grazier concluded that “it’s much easier to learn after a conflict and try to figure out these kinds of issues, so that we can employ better tactics in the future.”

Why US strategic oil reserves offer clue to Trump’s war capacity

By Andy Hirschfeld

    Last month, the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) fell to its lowest level since 1983 as renewed tensions between the US and Iran raised concerns about the stability of global oil supplies and prices.

    US President Donald Trump acknowledged to reporters on Wednesday that anytime the US strikes Iran, oil prices jump.

    And they did. Brent futures topped their highest level since June 19 on Wednesday. Brent futures settled at $78.02 a barrel, up 5.2 percent from the day before.

    Meanwhile, the SPR fell by 6.2 million barrels in the week ending July 3 to 319.5 million barrels, according to data from the Department of Energy, marking its lowest level since the Reagan administration. It has a storage capacity of 713.5 million barrels.

    That serves as a red flag for the US — and the global oil economy.

    The US has been releasing oil from the reserve during the war on Iran to ensure that the global economy does not suffer from crippling crude shortages, and to ensure prices don’t leap to catastrophic levels. But ensuring that the strategic reserve has enough in it is also critical — that helps signal to financial markets that the US has tools at its disposal to keep the global oil economy in check.

    That’s why the US cannot allow the strategic reserve to be depleted to levels that are much lower than at present — which in turn could limit President Trump’s war options.

US avoided attacking Iran on Thursday after regional deescalation efforts: Axios

    Despite a week of attacks between the US and Iran, the US sought to de-escalate the situation on Thursday, US officials told news outlet Axios.

    The Trump administration is “still committed to finding a resolution, and technical-level talks continue” to reach a nuclear deal, Axios reported.

    Qatari, Pakistani and other regional mediators conducted multiple phone calls between Iran and the US on Wednesday, trying to bring both parties back to the negotiating table.

    “There are extensive diplomatic efforts to first agree with both sides on de-escalation and then set a date for another round of negotiations between the technical teams,” one regional source involved in the mediation told Axios.

    Reporting from the White House on Thursday, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said there is still a commitment from US officials to the technical talks between the two countries.

Israeli attacks kill six in Gaza

    Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip have killed at least six Palestinians.

    Two people were killed and several others injured when an Israeli drone struck central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp on Thursday, according to Gaza’s civil defence. Four others were killed in attacks elsewhere in the Strip.

    One attack hit a car in a densely populated area of Gaza City, killing at least one person.

    “This street is considered one of the most busiest streets in Gaza City, as it was full of commercial stores and supermarkets,” Al Jazeera’s Moath al-Kahlout reported from the scene. “It is also full of displaced Palestinians.”

    Earlier on Thursday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said at least eight people had been killed in 24 hours, with 17 others injured. It did not provide additional information on the circumstances of the casualties.

    The continued killings come despite Israel and Hamas agreeing to a ceasefire on October 10, 2025.

    “The Israeli army continues to breach the ceasefire agreement since day one of the ceasefire,” al-Kahlout reported. “We are talking about more than 3,000 breaches to the ceasefire.”

    Al Jazeera’s Marah Rayan has the latest in our video below:

Here’s what we know about the latest attacks on Iran

    Explosions were reported across southern Iran on Thursday by state media and local officials, including near the Bushehr nuclear facility.

    The attacks focused on multiple sites in southern Iran, including the cities of Konarak and Sirik.

    Iran blamed “the enemy” for the attacks, but did not name this “enemy”.

    A US official told Al Jazeera that Washington was not behind the latest attacks and still wanted to pursue diplomacy with Tehran.

    Analysts said that if the US was indeed not behind the attacks, the finger of blame is likely to shift towards Israel, though there has been no confirmation from any side so far.

    The US and Iran have been trading attacks since Tuesday, with Tehran additionally hitting military sites across the Gulf, including in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, further straining the fragile ceasefire deal agreed to in mid-June.

Technical talks continue between US, Iran

By Kimberly Halkett

Reporting from Washington, DC, United States

    What we know is that, in the midst of all this, there has been the question about whether or not the US is still committed to diplomacy and the MoU, given the fact that the US president said on Wednesday in Ankara that he felt that it was dead.

    We do know, according to a US official, that the US is still committed to finding a resolution with Iran, not only to bring about the end of the conflict, but … [also] to limit Iran’s nuclear programme and ensure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

    In other words, we know there have been talks at the technical level in order to advance this agenda, with US officials reportedly saying that there is still an ongoing commitment to those technical talks and they do continue.

A recap of the latest developments

    Multiple sites in southern Iran have been hit by renewed strikes, according to local officials and state media.

    These strikes include attacks near the Bushehr nuclear facility in southern Iran.

    A US official has told Al Jazeera that the American military was not behind these latest strikes.

    The official also insisted that technical talks with Tehran continued despite three days of escalating military exchanges. This, even though US President Donald Trump had said earlier in the week that the truce with Iran was “over”.

    Mourners gathered on Thursday in Mashhad for the burial of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a joint US-Israeli strike on February 28, the first day of the war on Iran.

    Israeli forces have continued to attack Gaza and Lebanon.

Welcome to our coverage

    Hello, and welcome to our live coverage of the United States and Israel’s war on Iran, as well as Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Lebanon.

    Stay with us for the latest news and analyses related to these conflicts.