Al Jazeera

By Adam Hancock and Heba Habib

    US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Washington aims to “sever every economic lifeline” that sustains Iran ahead of an expected announcement from the US to impose extreme economic sanctions against Iran.

    Iran security chief Mohsen Rezaei warns that if Trump’s “economic war” continues, Tehran will halt all oil exports from the Gulf and treat any country’s support for US sanctions as “an act of war”.

    The Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission has backed a draft law stipulating that ships of countries permitted to pass through the Strait of Hormuz will pay for services provided by Tehran.

    Israeli forces have carried out several deadly strikes across Gaza, including on a warehouse near the Maghazi refugee camp.

    A Syrian delegation led by Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani met Israeli officials in Jordan, with US mediation, according to a Syrian diplomatic source quoted by the country’s state news agency, SANA.

18 Updates

Israeli forces detain Syrian shepherd in Quneitra incursion

    Israeli forces have detained a Syrian civilian in the village of Al-Rafid in the southern countryside of Quneitra province on Sunday, Syrian state media reported.

    The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said an Israeli force comprising several military vehicles advanced west of Al-Rafid, detained the man while he was herding sheep, and took him into the occupied territories.

    The incident is the latest in a series of Israeli incursions into southern Syria that have intensified since the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad’s government in December 2024.

Israeli police arrest two teenagers after video shows assault on elderly Palestinian amputee

    Israeli police have arrested two teenagers after a video emerged showing a young settler beating an elderly Palestinian amputee with a stick in the occupied West Bank’s Masafer Yatta region.

    The assault took place in the village of Al-Rakeez, south of Hebron. Footage of the incident allegedly shows the main suspect, a 16-year-old resident of the nearby Israeli outpost of Avigail, approaching Sheikh Saeed al-Amour from behind and striking him with a wooden stick while the 60-year-old victim struggled to gather his crutches.

    Police also arrested a 17-year-old Jerusalem resident on suspicion of filming the assault and seized an unlicensed vehicle used in the incident. The primary suspect remains in custody pending a court hearing, while the second suspect was released to house arrest.

    Al-Amour, a prominent local farmer and land rights advocate, had his right leg amputated in April 2025 after being shot during a confrontation with a settlement security officer on his farmland.

    The Masafer Yatta region has experienced persistent friction between Palestinian villagers and Israeli settlers amid expanding outposts and military restrictions in the South Hebron Hills.

Israeli military vehicles advance into southern Syrian village of Ma’ariya

    Israeli forces have advanced with several military vehicles into the village of Ma’ariya in the western Deraa countryside, in southern Syria, according to Syrian state broadcaster Al Ikhberiya.

    The incursion is the latest in a string of Israeli military movements into Ma’ariya and surrounding villages in the Yarmouk Basin area.

Tehran views sanctions as an act of war

    Tehran views Washington’s sanctions and blockade measures as acts of war, not merely economic pressure, according to Mohsen Farkhani, a researcher specialising in international relations in Tehran.

    “These sanctions are themselves a war, and the blockade imposed on Iran is also part of that war,” he told Al Jazeera. “Therefore, both the blockade and sanctions are forms of war and require an Iranian response.”

    “China, Turkiye and other countries will not cut their relations with Iran,” regardless of whether Tehran would treat states like the UAE, Turkiye, Iraq, Pakistan or China as adversaries if they curtailed trade under US pressure, Farkhani said.

    He added that the UAE’s move to cut trade with Iran was made “only because of US pressure. Otherwise, we have been neighbours since time immemorial, and I do not think it is possible to cut relations completely with Iran because there are deep ties”.

    Tehran has so far shown restraint, he said. “Iran has consistently exercised caution in adopting its positions and in ensuring that they are in line with international resolutions.”

Fewer than 20 ships transited Strait of Hormuz over weekend

    Fewer than 20 vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz this weekend, according to the latest data from the ship tracker Kpler.

    Thirteen vessels crossed the strait on Saturday and just four on Sunday, the data shows.

    However, the actual number of ships transiting the waterway could be higher as some vessels may have switched off their notification transponders.

    Separate blockades by the US and Iran continue to restrict traffic through the vital chokepoint for energy shipments.

UN’s Albanese calls for international protection force in West Bank, Gaza

    Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, says it is “absolutely urgent” to establish an international protection presence in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

    “Third states have an obligation, per the ICJ, to act to end Israel’s unlawful occupation,” Albanese wrote on X, using the acronym for the International Court of Justice. She also questioned whether the UN secretary-general’s diplomatic efforts, along with the General Assembly’s “Uniting for Peace” mechanism, could help bypass a deadlocked Security Council.

    Albanese’s post referenced a July 2024 ICJ advisory opinion, which found Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful and said other states have a duty not to aid in maintaining it. The UN Security Council has repeatedly failed to act on Gaza and the West Bank amid vetoes from the US, one of the five permanent members with veto power.

    The “Uniting for Peace” resolution allows the General Assembly to take up matters of international peace and security when the Security Council is unable to act due to a lack of unanimity among its permanent members.

Can Iran retaliate against countries that join US ‘economic war’

    Iran has threatened to retaliate against any country that joins the US’s “economic war” against it, as diplomatic efforts to end the months-long conflict have stalled and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has drastically decreased.

    The warning from Iran’s top security official, Mohsen Rezaei, on Saturday came as Washington plans to announce new sanctions on Monday that could further strain the struggling Iranian economy.

    Rezaei described Iran’s retaliation strategy as a three-stage sequence, starting with talks with countries cooperating with the US to de-escalate tensions.

    “But if they do not act, we will strike. We will target that country’s interests,” he added.

Greece moves missile battery to Crete after Iranian threats to US bases in Europe, Greek media outlet reports

    Greece is moving a Patriot missile battery from the island of Karpathos to the Souda naval base on Crete to bolster air defences, the Greek daily Kathimerini reports.

    The move comes about 24 hours after senior Iranian officials threatened possible strikes on US bases on European soil, the paper said. Greece’s Defence Ministry and armed forces general staff have been on alert since last week, assessing the threat level and reviewing measures to protect critical infrastructure, according to the report.

    The battery, along with its equipment and personnel, departed Karpathos at dawn and was expected to be operational in the wider Souda area within hours, Kathimerini said. The system had been deployed to Karpathos in March as part of a broader plan to shield all sectors of Athens’s flight information region from potential ballistic missile attacks.

    The relocation reflects concerns in Athens over Iran’s remaining arsenal, which allies have assessed still includes a significant number of ballistic missiles capable of ranges beyond 2,000km (1,240 miles), potentially putting infrastructure in southeastern Europe within reach, the report said.

    Separately, Greece’s Defence Ministry is weighing whether to extend or end the deployment of a Greek Patriot unit stationed in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, since September 2021, with an early return to Greece seen as the more likely outcome, Kathimerini reported. The unit has intercepted ballistic missiles and drones fired by Iran and Yemen’s Houthis at energy facilities in western Saudi Arabia since the US war on Iran began.

Oil prices fall as investors wait for US announcements on Iran sanctions

    Oil prices slid as Asian markets opened for trading on Monday morning, with investors awaiting details of an expected announcement from Washington on imposing more sanctions on Iran.

    Brent crude futures dropped more than 1 percent to $93.45 a barrel, with US oil futures also falling more than 1 percent to $86.14 a barrel, Reuters reported.

    US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said an “economic D-Day” is coming for Iran and is due to hold a news conference on Monday afternoon to announce the sanctions.

Two brothers killed in Israeli strike on tent near Gaza hospital

    Further to our previous post, we can now report that, according to medical officials, two Palestinian brothers were killed, and several other people were wounded when an Israeli aircraft struck a tent sheltering displaced people near Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza.

    Earlier, artillery shelling was also reported south of the Maghazi refugee camp, also in central Gaza.

Sanctions against Iran will not bring down regime

    The new sanctions package against Tehran is designed to reach far beyond Iran itself, according to Michael Mulroy, former US deputy assistant secretary of defence. “These are called secondary sanctions,” he told Al Jazeera.

    “Sanctions will be imposed on all countries, institutions and entities that deal with Iran and have trade relations with it. We are speaking here about China and other countries, as well as financial institutions that process Iranian financial transactions.”

    Mulroy said Washington is also moving against the infrastructure Iran uses to bypass restrictions: “The United States is also targeting the shadow fleet used to smuggle Iranian oil and evade sanctions.”

    He said there were limits to the strategy, however: “These measures will not bring down the regime, but they will significantly harm it and the Revolutionary Guard, cutting off funding to that entity.”

    Mulroy linked the sanctions push to domestic political timing in Washington. “I believe this option has been pursued instead of military escalation ahead of the US midterm elections, given that this war is not particularly popular among Americans or US public opinion,” he said, adding that the standoff “could move to a military level if Iran targets any regional allies or US targets”.

China and Russia won’t participate in new US sanctions on Iran

    Washington’s bid to enlist allies against Iran will struggle to gain traction among the states that matter most, according to Mohsen Farkhani, a researcher specialising in international relations.

    “China and Russia will not participate in these sanctions, given their already tense relationship with the United States,” he told Al Jazeera from Tehran. “Iran is an important economic partner for China because of the large quantities of oil exported to China.”

    Farkhani argued that Tehran retains significant leverage over global trade routes regardless of the sanctions push. “I believe Iran has leverage in the Strait of Hormuz and also in Bab al-Mandeb,” he said.

    The researcher said the deeper problem for Washington is a regional crisis of confidence in US security guarantees. “All neighbouring countries see that the United States is unable, and no longer credible, to provide a defensive umbrella for those countries under these circumstances,” Farkhani said. “Consequently, many countries have lost confidence in the United States.”

    That erosion of trust, he said, will directly undercut the sanctions campaign: “Imposing these sanctions will not be useful, because those countries will not join the United States; therefore, the sanctions will remain unilateral.”

US is depending on allies for the success of new sanctions

By Ahmed Al Rehaid

Reporting from Washington, DC

    As of this moment the US treasury has not officially announced the details of the sanctions or exactly what they include.

    However, the secretary treasury has threatened that any country he says deals with Iran will also face economic isolation. Last week, he said that allies and parties dealing with Iran must choose either to stand with the United States or to stand against it. This reflects a major US reliance on the parties dealing with Iran for the success of the anticipated new package of sanctions.

    These assertions by the treasury secretary come as other officials confirm that Central Command is working to enforce this blockade on Iranian ports strictly.

    What is striking in these remarks is that the treasury secretary says that the Iranian regime is on its way to collapse. Thus, he maintains that one of the aims of the maximum economic pressure on Iran is to bring down the regime.

    He may be among a small number around President Trump who stress that one objective of this economic pressure is not only to change Iran’s positions, but also to change the regime in Iran.

    At the beginning of this war, the administration had said that regime change was not among the war’s main objectives.

Treasury secretary says US aims to ‘sever every economic lifeline’ that sustains Iran

    In an opinion piece for the Financial Times, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the US war on Iran is entering an “endgame”, with an “economic D-Day” coming for Tehran.

    In reference to Trump’s announcement last week that the US would target Iran with economic sanctions, Bessent said Washington will wage “the single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary”.

    Bessent has previously warned that this new economic warfare could include more secondary sanctions on other nations and companies that conduct business with Iran.

    “The president has created the conditions to leverage every agency, every authority and action many assumed we would never summon. Any remaining tie to Tehran will hasten the economic ostracism of countries and entities, whether that tie be purposefully constructed or wilfully ignored,” he said.

    “The world should understand that our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains the tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone.”

National security adviser says Iraq will begin final push to gather militia weapons after September deadline

    Iraq will begin a final push to gradually bring weapons held by armed factions under state control after the international coalition’s scheduled departure on September 30, national security adviser Qasim al-Araji says, describing the move as a “strategic Iraqi decision” to be carried out through dialogue rather than confrontation.

    Al-Araji told the state-run Iraqi News Agency on Sunday that the government was serious about severing ties between political parties and Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) brigades, adding that ongoing dialogue was producing positive results.

    “Weapons of the factions will become a force for the state and will not be handed over to any external party,” Araji said, adding that all political forces agree that the decision of war and peace rests exclusively with the state.

    Araji said: “September 30 is the date set for the departure of the Global Coalition, not the deadline for the handover of weapons.”

    Some Iran-aligned factions have so far resisted the process. Kataib Hezbollah has linked its disarmament to the departure of US and other foreign forces, and demanded, as conditions, that Turkish troops leave northern Iraq and that the Peshmerga (Kurdish forces) be dissolved.

    Araji said that “the factions are not enemies of the state; rather, they are part of it,” stressing that confrontation was a “red line” for the government, and that Baghdad would guarantee the rights of PMF fighters once the weapons were handed over.

    The push to centralise arms comes as Iraq prepares for the withdrawal of the US-led international coalition mission next month, a longstanding demand of Iran-aligned factions that have wielded significant military power since the fight against ISIL (ISIS).

A recap of the latest developments

    Iran’s security chief, Mohsen Rezaei, has warned that if Trump’s “economic war” continues, Tehran will halt all oil exports from the Gulf and treat any country’s support for US sanctions as “an act of war”.

    Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority says vessels repeatedly violating its passage rules through the Strait of Hormuz will face restrictions on future trips.

    Commercial traffic through the strait has remained at reduced levels over the past 48 hours, according to the latest report by United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO).

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Gaza will not return to its pre-October 7 status and has promised to intensify operations in areas where attacks on Israeli forces continue.

    A Syrian delegation led by Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani met Israeli officials in Jordan, with US mediation, according to a Syrian diplomatic source quoted by the country’s state news agency, SANA.