Al Jazeera

By Alex Milan Durie and Ali Mustafa

    President Donald Trump has again insisted that the US has “total control” over the Strait of Hormuz, despite shipping traffic through the key waterway dropping to a one-week low amid the escalating war on Iran.

    Tehran remains resolute, pledging to continue its resistance against the US and keep the strait closed until all its demands are met.

    The Israeli military has launched its first air strikes on Gaza in more than a week, while conducting bombings and demolitions in southern Lebanon, despite “ceasefires” being in effect in both places.

19 Updates

Iran is not anti-imperialist. It is a state calculating survival

By Hossein Dabbagh

    More than five months into the US-Israel war on Iran, the prospects for a deal that would end the confrontation remain unclear. Earlier this week, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said there were no direct negotiations with the United States.

    Meanwhile, hostile rhetoric and calls for revenge continue to emanate from Tehran. Some Western commentators, especially on the right, have claimed that Iran is incapable of striking a deal because of its anti-American ideology. But that is a flawed assumption.

    One just needs to look at the Iranian constitution and its recent history to discover that the Islamic Republic is not governed solely by ideology. The regime, in its present form, would not shy away from reaching a settlement with the US, and even Israel, if it fell in line with its guiding principle: regime survival.

    Watch the latest episode of Al Jazeera’s Project Force to find out.

Will Saudi-led war in Yemen start again

US strikes in Yemen killed 153 civilians in 2025, says Pentagon review

    US military strikes targeting Yemen’s Houthis killed 153 civilians last year and wounded another 243, according to a Pentagon assessment of the attacks.

    The numbers were disclosed by a US official on Tuesday, citing the review, which found that all of the civilian deaths and injuries recorded by the US military in 2025 came from three strikes in Yemen in April.

    The unclassified assessment was sent to Congress as part of the Pentagon’s annual report on civilian casualties. It was obtained by AP after NBC News reported it earlier.

What’s been happening in the occupied West Bank

    Israeli forces and settlers have continued a campaign of arrests, raids, demolitions, and land seizures across the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, with at least 10 Palestinians detained, including a journalist, the Wafa news agency reports.

    Here are some of the reported incidents:

    A Palestinian was detained after Israeli forces raided his house in the Tulkarem suburb of Shuweika.

    Israeli forces using earthmovers demolished 27 commercial, industrial, and agricultural facilities east of Jenin on the pretext that they were built without a permit. Several military vehicles stormed the area, and roads leading to it were cordoned off as the demolition got under way.

    Three Palestinians, including journalist Muhammad Awad, were detained by Israeli forces across various neighbourhoods in Ramallah.

    Three other Palestinians were detained in Israeli raids across towns and villages in Jenin.

    A 16-year-old, Salah Youssef Al-Atrash, was severely beaten by Israeli forces in the village of Artas, south of Bethlehem.

    Israeli settlers besieged three Palestinian families in their homes in the village of Qusra amid an ongoing attempt to seize their land.

    A three-storey house owned by Mahmoud Suleiman Zawahra was demolished by Israeli authorities in the village of al-Masara, south of Bethlehem.

    In Hebron, Israeli forces destroyed a 70-year-old house belonging to a Palestinian resident.

    In Nablus, forces raided the Hands of the Future Generation association in the Jabal Ajram area, west of the city.

Iran’s FM slams France’s ‘hypocrisy’ on human rights

    The Iranian foreign minister has criticised France and other Western nations for condemning Tehran’s handling of domestic dissent while not taking meaningful action on Israel’s war crimes and rights abuses in the Middle East.

    “Countries like France should stop lecturing the world about ‘human rights’ and international law. The hypocrisy is blatant and embarrassing,” Abbas Araghchi wrote on X.

    “Your backing of Israel’s genocide in Gaza—and aggression against Iran—has destroyed whatever moral high ground you imagined you had.”

    Araghchi’s comments come after France confirmed on Wednesday that the EU and 20 other nations had issued a statement condemning ‌Iran’s executions of protesters. The nations called on Tehran to take meaningful ‌steps ⁠towards ensuring respect for human rights, end use ⁠of the death penalty and release ⁠those arbitrarily detained.

    Families have told Al Jazeera that the settlers have been blocking the entrances to at least three homes since Sunday using rocks and tents, while Israeli forces have failed to clear them.

    In an interview with Al Jazeera, American Palestinian Loai Ridi said his brother, Qusay, and 18-year-old nephew Ahmad have been under siege for four days in their home in the village of Qusra.

    “They cut off the electricity; they cut off the water lines. He only has supplies for two, three days left,” Ridi said.

    Watch the interview below:

X suspends account of Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree

    The X account belonging to Yahya Saree, the spokesman for Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebel group, has been suspended.

    It remains unclear why the profile, which had 121.5k followers, was taken down. A notice on the account reads “Account Suspended”, accompanied by a message stating that “X suspends accounts that violate Our Rules”.

    Saree’s page served as a primary outlet for announcing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, as well as strikes against Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s internationally recognised government.

US intelligence sceptical that Iran threatened to assassinate Trump: US media

    The Washington Post reports, citing US officials, that US intelligence officials expressed scepticism about an alleged Iranian assassination threat against Trump that was relayed by Israel and prompted a secret manoeuvre to fly him out of Turkiye in an alternate military aircraft.

    The Israeli government reportedly passed on information about the threat to the CIA, but the agency’s analysts did not find the intelligence convincing and informed administration officials of their reservations, according to the report.

    Reports concerning threats against Trump’s life were based on Israeli sources rather than US agencies, with some analysts considering them to be of low credibility, according to The Washington Post account.

    Addressing reporters on Tuesday, Trump confirmed that he had secretly switched planes on the tarmac in Ankara, Turkiye, following the NATO summit last month, stating he was simply following the direction of security personnel.

Oil prices drop more than $1 a barrel

    Oil prices are continuing their downward trajectory, with Brent crude futures losing $1.29 as of 01:00 GMT or 1.5 percent to reach $87.69 a barrel.

    US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude went down $1.30, or 1.6 percent, to $81.97.

    The losses came after forecasters lowered global oil demand projections for 2026 due to disruptions from the US-Israel war on Iran, though supply constraints from the conflict provided a floor for the market.

    OPEC lowered its world oil demand growth forecast for 2026 to 580,000 barrels per day in its monthly oil market report on Wednesday.

More than half of Gaza’s population lacks access to water: UN

    Most of the population across Gaza lacks sufficient access to water, sanitation, and hygiene, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports.

    More than 1.3 million people in Gaza, or more than half of the enclave’s population, have access to less than 6 litres (1.6 gallons) of water per person per day for drinking and cooking. According to humanitarian standards, the minimum amount of water needed in an emergency is 15 litres (4 gallons) per day for drinking, washing and cooking.

    Another 700,000 people in Gaza, representing more than one third of the population, have access to less than 9 litres (2.4 gallons) of water per person per day. OCHA pointed out that this compromises their ability to maintain hygiene, clean homes, and meet children’s needs.

    “People face overcrowding at water collection points and lack enough containers to transport water back to their homes, a task that is often left to children,” the UN agency said.

    Three in every four people in Gaza rely on water trucks, with humanitarian partners supplying more than 2,500 collection points daily and more than 100 displacement sites across Gaza last month.