Al Jazeera

By Heba Habib and Rached El-Moctar

    Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi says the Strait of Hormuz remains closed despite a temporary transit agreement with Oman, insisting that Washington must return to its commitments under the memorandum of understanding before the waterway is fully opened.

    US President Donald Trump says that all mines have been cleared and detonated from the strait’s international waters and that Tehran has received warnings that any ships laying new mines will be “destroyed”.

    The US State Department has told Al Jazeera that Washington is taking “concrete action to end” this longstanding threat from Iran by cutting off Tehran’s remaining financial lifelines and delivering swift follow-up measures after recent sanctions.

    Israel’s ongoing violations of a “ceasefire” implemented last October have continued, as attacks killed at least seven Palestinians across Gaza on Tuesday. Three of them were killed in a strike on a residential building in Beit Lahiya near Kamal Adwan Hospital, according to local medical sources.

Iran will not wait out US election timeline for new fighting

    We have more from Mokhtar Haddad, editor-in-chief of the Iranian newspaper Al-Wefaq.

    He said recent US media reports regarding the US secretary of state’s remarks about not launching new strikes against Iran reveal a clear strategy to manage the current standoff through the midterm elections before resuming broader military action.

    “He wants to say that the midterm elections matter to them. They want to get through this stage and then begin fighting,” Haddad told Al Jazeera.

    He said Iran would not wait for that timeline to play out.

    “I do not think Iran will wait while America merely seeks to get past the election period and then return to broader fighting,” he said.

    Haddad dismissed the announced blockade and sanctions as being substantively new.

    “They are the same sanctions,” Haddad said, adding that anyone familiar with US policy “can see that this was nothing new”.

    He said Tehran would respond if Washington fails to return to the memorandum of understanding.

    “If it sees that America has not complied with the conditions and has not returned to the memorandum of understanding, Iran will take the necessary measures,” he said, pointing to “changes to Iran’s military outlook and doctrine during this period” as evidence of that posture.

Iran-Oman talks on Strait of Hormuz do not mean reopening

    Ongoing talks between Iran and Oman over managing the Strait of Hormuz should not be read as a sign Tehran intends to reopen it, according to Mokhtar Haddad, editor-in-chief of the Iranian newspaper Al-Wefaq.

    “Iran and the Sultanate of Oman have been pursuing this matter for some time. But that does not mean Iran will open the Strait of Hormuz,” Haddad told Al Jazeera.

    He said Tehran has kept the two issues separate.

    “Iran has always stressed that this track is separate from the issue of reopening the Strait,” Haddad said, describing a process beginning with “an interim agreement, after which a final agreement would be announced.”

    He suggest that any such deal would not extend to reopening shipping.

    “Does that mean reopening the Strait of Hormuz  No, certainly not,” he said, adding that “Iranian officials have confirmed this.”

    Haddad said Iran’s position would hold “unless the US accepts the Iranian conditions contained in the memorandum of understanding,” saying that Washington “must return to implementing the memorandum of understanding” for the Strait’s status to change.

What are the 5 economic sectors at the heart of new US sanctions on Iran

    The US has declared “maximum pressure” on Iran, aiming to cut off channels used to bypass existing sanctions by targeting five sectors it says sustain the Iranian economy.

    Here are the targeted sectors:

    Shipping: The most significant target, carrying most of Iran’s oil and trade – roughly 170 million tonnes annually, per Iran’s Chamber of Commerce – with imports worth $50bn to 70bn. Restrictions would compound the existing disruption caused by the blockade of southern ports.

    Gold: The second targeted sector, which Iran has used as an alternative method of settling payments and revenue through barter arrangements to bypass the international financial system. Restrictions would affect entities, particularly in China and Russia, engaging in gold-based barter. Tehran has also used gold to help stabilise its currency as foreign-reserve levels declined, while many citizens turn to it as a store of value. Official Iranian data puts gold trade over the past five months alone at $98m, excluding informal or unofficial imports.

    Digital assets: Used by Iran as a means of receiving payments, including for oil sales. This remains a smaller channel, but Iran’s digital economy currently accounts for an estimated 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

    Aviation: Already limited by sanctions on parts and aircraft, this sector faces further strain on fleet operations.

    Technology: Restrictions here target long-term industrial and military capacity rather than immediate economic impact.

The Iran war is bringing cyberwarfare into critical infrastructure

    Media reports about a cyberattack that forced a British power plant offline for four days should be taken seriously far beyond the United Kingdom.

    It gives us a glimpse of how the Iran conflict could develop, and signals to governments and businesses around the world that they need to be ready for a new battlefield.

    This is the part of the Iran conflict that countries well beyond the Middle East need to consider. Geography offers far less protection in cyberwarfare.

What’s been happening in the occupied West Bank

    According to the Palestinian Wafa news agency, Israeli forces and settlers continued a campaign of arrests, raids, demolitions, and land seizures across the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.

    Here are key incidents reported across the West Bank:

    The Israeli army arrested three Palestinians in Nablus along with several others in Hebron, Tulkarem, and Jenin.

    Israeli forces detained about 40 staff members during a raid on UNRWA’s vocational training centre in Qalandiya, north of Jerusalem, before evicting them. Israeli authorities evacuated the building and raised the occupation flag over it.

    Israeli bulldozers demolished shacks and sheep pens, and levelled land in Duma, south of Nablus. More than 100 centuries-old olive trees were uprooted in Barta’a.

    Settlers continued their siege on three homes in Qusra, south of Nablus, for the third consecutive week, restricting local movement. They also cut down electricity poles in Burin, attacked homes and monuments in Madma and Turmus Aya, and targeted solar panels in Tubas, while blocking firefighting crews and activists.

    Israeli forces closed the Al-Jib and Beit Aksa checkpoints northwest of Jerusalem and set up new military checkpoints near Ramallah and west of Bethlehem, disrupting local travel.

    Israeli authorities approved 18 new and modified colonial zoning areas in the occupied West Bank, including plans for new settlements, illegal under international law, the domestic legalisation of outposts, and expansions of existing councils.

US plans to restore diplomatic staffing at Middle East embassies

    Reuters reports, citing sources familiar with the matter, that the US plans to restore diplomatic personnel to embassies across the Middle East after withdrawing them due to the war on Iran.

    According to these sources, US missions in Israel, Jordan and Oman are expected to return to full staffing.

    Staffing in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Lebanon is to be capped at 85 percent, and in Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain at 75 percent.

    “Based on our latest assessment, we are adjusting our staffing posture at certain posts in the Middle East to ensure we can continue advancing US foreign policy objectives while protecting the safety and security of our personnel,” a US State Department spokesperson told the agency.

    Washington pulled staff out after joint US-Israel strikes on Iran began on February 28. Several Gulf missions came under Iranian fire, and the embassy in Kuwait closed for a period.

US can sustain naval blockade, sanctions on Iran indefinitely

    We have more from Joey Hood, former US envoy to Tunisia.

    He said that shipping companies appear to be accepting the risk of transiting the Strait of Hormuz rather than halting operations.

    “They can’t shoot all of our ships, so let’s just send them through and accept the risk that we’re going to lose one or two from time to time,” Hood told Al Jazeera, describing the calculation of the countries and companies involved. He added that they “are not going to accept Iran’s new regional order”.

    Hood said that carrier deployments have returned to normal after an extended stint in the region.

    “The United States usually has 10 or 11 aircraft carriers deployed around the world or in scheduled maintenance,” he said, noting they typically “rotate every six months or so”.

    He said the USS Abraham Lincoln’s deployment had been an exception, extending “several months beyond that normal schedule, because Donald Trump launched the war in late February”.

    With carriers now back on a standard rotation, Hood said the underlying pressure campaign remains durable.

    “The naval blockade and the economic sanctions are things that the US government can continue to do almost cost-free to itself and to its people for a very long time,” he said, pointing out that sanctions have “been in place for more than 40 years” and have “gotten tougher and more comprehensive over time”.

US senator accuses Trump of profiting from Iran war via energy holdings

    US Senator Chris Van Hollen has accusedTrump of personally profiting from the war with Iran after a report by Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee found that the president’s oil and gas holdings may have gained as much as $15.5m this year.

    “Clearly, you’ve got a president who’s profiting from the illegal war that he started, along with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu,” the Democratic senator told MSNBC.

    He said Trump had used the White House as a “pay-to-play casino” and had “pocketed over a billion dollars” since returning to office.

    “He is grossly profiting off of a senseless war,” Van Hollen said.

Oil prices drop to $86.80 a barrel

    Oil prices are continuing their downward trajectory, with Brent crude futures dropping $1.78, or 2.0 percent, to $86.80 a barrel as of 00:27 GMT.

    US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude went down $1.49, or 1.8 percent, to $80.87.

    The fall came on new hopes that the Strait of Hormuz could reopen after Iran said it had resumed talks with neighbour Oman on managing the strategic waterway, according to news reports. Both benchmarks lost more than 3 percent on Tuesday.

Israeli air attack targets southern Lebanon village

    An Israeli air strike has targeted Kafr Rummana, in the Nabatieh district of southern Lebanon, according to our colleagues on the ground.

Gulf of Oman sees surge in ship-to-ship oil transfers, says tracker

    At least 20 sets of ship-to-ship (STS) transfer sessions have taken place in the Gulf of Oman, according to vessel-tracking service TankerTrackers.com, marking a busy day of operations in the area.

    STS transfers involved pumping cargo directly from one vessel to another at sea, commonly used to obscure a cargo’s origin or avoid port calls in sanctioned or high-risk waters.

    In a post on X, the firm reported a running count of 25 million barrels of crude oil and additional refined products originating from “almost every country in the region”, excluding Iran. TankerTrackers later noted that it has identified five additional transfer sessions, including one involving Iranian liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

    The Gulf of Oman has increasingly become a focal point for ship-to-ship transfers as regional shipping navigates around the Strait of Hormuz.

Israeli forces advance into southern Syrian village

    Israeli military forces are advancing into the village of Jumla in the Yarmouk Basin, near the occupied Golan Heights in the western countryside of Deraa province in Syria, according to our colleague on the ground.

US, Iran both inaccurate on Strait of Hormuz status

    Neither Washington nor Tehran is being fully accurate about the status of the Strait of Hormuz, according to former US diplomat Joey Hood.

    “Donald Trump does frequently say that the strait is open, and he’s not entirely correct in saying that,” Hood told Al Jazeera. “And the Iranian side is not entirely correct in saying that they’ve closed it.”

    Hood said Iran lacks the physical means to seal the waterway outright. “It’s not like a highway, where you can drag a gate across it or place some sort of obstacle to block shipping,” he said. Instead, Iran relies on coercion: “What they do is threaten and then fire missiles on commercial ships that are unarmed in order to try to enforce their will.”

    Hood said not all shipping is complying. Some vessels are “turning off their transponders, going at night, hugging the coast of Oman”, he said, while the US military tries “to protect them with whatever assets it can”.

Israeli forces raid UNRWA facility in occupied West Bank

By Hamza Mohamed

Reporting from the occupied West Bank, Palestine

    Israeli soldiers have raided a United Nations facility in the occupied West Bank.

    The UNRWA training centre has been operating for more than 70 years. Every year, it provides vocational training to more than 300 Palestinians from across the occupied West Bank. But now, its doors have been shut.

    UNRWA says Israeli forces entered the facility without its consent or authorisation. Israel says a new educational and community complex will be established here.

    But Palestinians see something very different. They say this is part of a broader Israeli campaign.

    The raid was met with protest. Israeli forces fired tear gas at Palestinians in the camp. A Palestinian boy was shot and injured during the confrontations.

    UNRWA was established in 1949 to support Palestinians displaced by the creation of Israel. Today, it helps nearly 6 million Palestinians in the occupied territories, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

    And this is not the first time Israeli forces have entered the Qalandiya facility. In February last year, they forcibly entered the centre and ordered it to be evacuated.

    For decades, this place offered Palestinians a path to a better future. Now, it is empty, and where a centre for Palestinian education once stood, the Israeli flag now flies.

    UNRWA and experts say it is a direct breach of international law.

A recap of recent developments

    US President Donald Trump has submitted a civil nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia to Congress, maintaining that the pact will only advance if the kingdom joins the Abraham Accords, a US administration official told Reuters.

    Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said that the Strait of Hormuz is shut despite an interim transit accord with Oman, maintaining that Washington must honour its obligations under the memorandum of understanding for the waterway to open.

    Trump said that all mines were cleared in the strait’s international waters and that Tehran has been warned that any ships dropping new mines would be “immediately and systematically destroyed”.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara will keep pushing for regional peace, promising that Turkiye will block any attempt to execute what “bloody scenarios” for the Middle East.

    UK Finance Minister John Healey said that London backs Washington in seeking a diplomatic path on Iran and welcomed the increased pressure on Tehran through the expanded US sanctions revealed on Monday.

    Israeli attacks killed at least seven Palestinians across Gaza as violations of a “ceasefire” implemented last October persisted. Three of the people were killed in a Tuesday raid on a residential property in Beit Lahiya near Kamal Adwan Hospital, according to local medical sources.