US-Iran war highlights: UN pauses evacuation plan in Hormuz after cargo ship hit; 3 civilians killed in Lebanon

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza is reporting that two people were killed and 15 others were injured in the past 24 hours due to the ongoing Israeli aggression despite a ceasefire.

It said several victims remain trapped under rubble and on roads, with rescue teams unable to reach them.

Israel has withdrawn from some of the southern Lebanese territory it has occupied in its war with Hezbollah, a U.S. State Department official said on Thursday, adding that Lebanon's armed forces should now step in.

There was no immediate comment from Israel. A senior Lebanese security official said they were unaware of any withdrawal of Israeli troops from Israel's so-called "buffer zone" in southern Lebanon.

The State Department official did not say how much territory Israel withdrew from or where exactly the pullback occurred. Israel and Lebanon have been holding U.S.-brokered talks in Washington aimed in part at halting fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia.

US-Iran war LIVE: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday warned that Iranian tolls on ships passing the Strait of Hormuz would spread to other waterways, risking "total chaos".

"International waterways do not belong to any nation state. This is a foundational principle in the world today, without which the world would be in total chaos," he told a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting in Bahrain.

"If in fact we accepted that you can charge money to use an international waterway because it happens to be near your territorial space, well then this will spread throughout the world like a contagion."

Rubio, on his first regional tour since the US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding to end the Middle East war, said the US wants a peace deal but not "at any price".

"While we want a deal, we don't want a deal at any price," he said. "We want a deal that's good, we want a deal that's real, we want a deal that's verifiable, and we want a deal that's adhered to."

US-Iran war LIVE: China's state-owned refiners are considering resuming Iranian oil purchases, but competing alternative supplies and falling domestic fuel demand will temper their interest, said several industry sources.

Any purchases would be the first since 2019 when Sinopec and PetroChina bought Iranian crude shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on Tehran's petroleum exports in his first term.

PetroChina and Sinopec are examining the banking, insurance and shipping considerations needed to resume their Iranian transactions, said three of the sources, officials at Chinese state oil companies who spoke on condition of anonymity as the subject is sensitive.

The decision follows Monday's U.S. waiver allowing global customers to buy Iranian oil and petrochemical products and settle in U.S. dollars after the memorandum of understanding signed last week that ended the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

via Reuters

US-Iran war LIVE: Thousands of Iranian faithful attended religious processions across the country on Thursday to mark Ashura, a day of mourning for the death of Hussein, a key figure in Shia Islam.

This year's ceremonies were held against the backdrop of intense diplomatic efforts aimed at ending a war sparked by massive US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February.

In towns and cities around Iran, men and women dressed in black to mark the day, while some carried red flags in honour of Hussein, the third Shia Muslim imam, who was killed in battle more than 13 centuries ago.

The commemorations included traditional mourning rituals, with participants beating their chests, while others took part in symbolic acts of self-flagellation.

On the first day of the Middle East war, US and Israeli strikes killed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with a number of military commanders.

Iran retaliated by launching missiles and drones on US allies in the region, including Gulf countries and Israel.

According to IRNA state news agency, some of Thursday's events including in central Yazd province were held "in memory of the martyred leader and the martyrs of the resistance front", a network of Tehran-backed groups across the region opposed to Israel and the US.

State television showed portraits of the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, on display at some ceremonies. The new ayatollah has not been seen in public since his appointment following his father's killing.

via AFP

US-Iran war LIVE: Bahrain foreign minister said welcomed the Oman's move for a corridor for safe passage of vessels through Hormuz.

via Reuters

US-Iran war LIVE: Arab Gulf states reject ‘new geopolitical facts’ born from aggression: UAE presidential adviser

New “geopolitical facts” cannot be imposed on the Arab Gulf states as a result of a “treacherous aggression against them”, the UAE’s presidential adviser Anwar Gargash said.

“For imposing a fait accompli from the womb of aggression does not establish stability; rather, it sows new seeds of discord and conflict for the future. And this is precisely what applies to the Strait of Hormuz,” he wrote on X.

US-Iran war LIVE: Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Thursday warned against any crossings of the Strait of Hormuz without authorisation, saying vessels not complying "will be dealt with".

The future of the strait, a vital route for energy shipments that was locked down by Iran during the war, is a key sticking point in negotiations between Tehran and Washington.

Tehran has said it plans to impose what it calls maritime service fees, as opposed to tolls, while the United States argues it is an international waterway and therefore should not be charged.

"The only authorised route for passage through the Strait of Hormuz is the route announced by the Islamic Republic of Iran," said the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of Iran's military.

Any crossing without authorisation is "unacceptable and extremely dangerous", they warned in a statement.

They also denounced what they said was a new route through the waterway announced by "certain authorities", without elaborating.

US-Iran war LIVE:

The US Senate rejected a resolution on Wednesday to rein in President Donald Trump's handling of the Iran war -- an apparent U-turn following pressure from the Republican leader.

The move came just one day after the Senate voted 50-48 to pass a resolution calling for an end to the Iran war, delivering a rebuke to the White House as it seeks to negotiate a lasting deal with Tehran.

The legislation is seen as largely symbolic and has little chance of curbing executive authority because Trump has the presidential power of veto.

Trump slammed the Tuesday vote as "poorly timed and meaningless," saying that it made his job more difficult.

The president lashed out on Wednesday at Republican lawmakers during a closed-door lunch on Capitol Hill, US media reported.

Hours later, Republican Senators Rand Paul and Bill Cassidy -- who had called for a check on the president's war on Iran -- changed their stance in the late Wednesday vote to align with Trump, CNN reported.

The Wednesday resolution, which was defeated 50-47, did not nullify or change the outcome of Tuesday's vote.

Trump took a more positive view of Wednesday's result, writing on Truth Social that "This vote puts Iran on notice!"

via AFP

US-Iran war LIVE: Iran foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaiel Baghaei alleged that NATO members are complicit in the US war on Iran and that they must be held accountable. “This is a clear and damning admission of NATO’s active complicity in an unlawful war of aggression against a sovereign UN Member State — a flagrant violation of peremptory norms of international law and the core principles of the UN Charter. The Organization and its individual member States that participated in such decision - making must be held accountable for all the consequences,” he wrote on X.

US-Iran war LIVE: Top US diplomat Marco Rubio was in Bahrain on Thursday after promising Gulf allies that Washington would protect their interests as it seeks to hammer out a final settlement to end the war with Iran.

With diplomacy in full swing, Brent crude fell to its lowest price since the start of the war in February, which has crippled global oil supplies flowing from the crude-rich Middle East.

President Donald Trump met with NATO chief Mark Rutte at the White House on Wednesday and said the United States was "doing great" in negotiations with Iran.

Trump also asked Congress for nearly $88 billion in supplemental funding, mostly to cover the spiralling cost of the war, just a day after Congress called on him to end the conflict unless lawmakers explicitly authorise military action.

Rubio is on a regional tour to reassure the Gulf states, which were targeted by Tehran's missiles and drones during the conflict and saw their crucial oil and gas shipments effectively cut off by an Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

US-Iran war LIVE: A Liberian oil tanker made its way out of the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday using a new route close to Oman's shore that has been promoted by a U.N. maritime agency, despite threats to shipping from Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

The transit of the Stoic Warrior and the threats come as tensions rise between Iran and the United States over the terms of their interim accord aimed at permanently ending the Iran war. From getting ships through the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf to the future of Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium, the two nations are increasingly debating the terms of the deal signed last week.

Through the signing of the memorandum of understanding, the U.S. and Iran agreed to a 60-day period to iron out these and other details. Until that happens — during private talks — leaders from both countries will also continue to negotiate in public, raising the risks of derailing the shaky ceasefire in the region.

via AP

US-Iran war LIVE: The Israeli military said on Thursday that one soldier was killed during what it described as "operational activity" in southern Lebanon, Reuters reported.

US-Iran war LIVE: US President Donald Trump during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte slammed European countries for not supporting the US-Israel war on Iran, Al Jazeera reported.

“We didn’t need help on this at all. We demolished them in literally the first week,” Trump said. He added, “But it would have been nice if they would’ve said: ‘We’d like to help.’ We didn’t even need it, but it would have been nice if they said that.”

US-Iran war LIVE: Donald Trump said on Wednesday it may never be known who was at fault for a deadly strike on a girls' school in Iran on February 28, the first day of the Iran war, that killed scores of children. Reuters first ‌reported in March that an initial internal U.S. military investigation showed U.S. forces were likely responsible for the fatal strike in Minab in southern Iran. The Pentagon has ​since elevated the probe but it has not acknowledged any ​preliminary findings.

"I don't know that they are ever going to solve that problem," Trump told reporters.

"I don't know that they are ever going to solve that problem in terms of whose fault was it because there were missiles flying all over the place, and it's horrible what happened but there were missiles flying all over the place," he said.

"Somebody said it was our missile, maybe it wasn't our missile but I have seen nothing to lead me to believe it was," Trump remarked, adding: "I don't think it was us."

via Reuters

US-Iran war LIVE: US-Iran war LIVE: Chief Iranian negotiator and Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf termed the Islamabad memorandum of understanding as ‘a declaration of America’s defeat.’

Ghalibaf said the MoU demonstrated that dialogue succeeds when the other side abandons attempts to impose its will on a civilized nation, Press TV reported.

“The Islamabad memorandum of understanding became a declaration of America’s defeat,” he was quoted as saying.

US-Iran war LIVE: Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian said that Iran is now recognized across the world as a powerful and dignified nation as he praised Iran’s armed forces. "Our enemies had believed that through their aggression, they could bring the Islamic Republic to an end within three days and then install their own proxies, as they have done in certain countries of the region," he said chief on Wednesday, Press TV reported.

“They never believed that our fighters would stand so firmly and strike back with such force, even as two nuclear-armed aggressors and their supporters employed all their capabilities against us.”

"Today, Iran is recognized throughout the world as a powerful and dignified nation," Pezeshkian was quoted as saying.

US-Iran war LIVE: In Washington, Lebanon and Israel discussed a US-backed proposal for Israel's forces to pull out of some territory it invaded to be handed back to Lebanese army control.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not pull troops out.

Israel has been battling Hezbollah in Lebanon since the militant group attacked Israel on March 2 in support of Iran, and Tehran has made a cessation of hostilities there central to its demands in any peace deal with the United States.

An Israeli drone strike on a car in southern Lebanon killed two people on Wednesday, Lebanese sources told Reuters, while Israel said it struck two armed Hezbollah fighters. It was not immediately clear if the incidents were the same.

via Reuters

US-Iran war LIVE: US President Donald Trump has welcomed Senate vote that blocked an effort to advance a war powers resolution related to Iran, after two Republican senators changed their positions, shifting the outcome in the administration's favour.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said, "Wow! The Senate just changed its vote on Iran from 50-48 against, to 50-47 for. Rand Paul and Bill Cassidy changed. Thank you to Leader John Thune, Lindsey Graham, Bernie Moreno, and all. This vote puts Iran on notice!"

According to CNN, the Senate on Wednesday (local time) rejected an attempt to advance a war powers measure aimed at limiting the president's authority to engage militarily with Iran, a day after lawmakers had approved a similar resolution.

CNN reported that Trump had expressed frustration with Republicans who supported Tuesday's Iran war powers resolution, arguing that Congress had weakened his negotiating position with Tehran.

US-Iran war LIVE: “Would you really like to know?” Sen. Bill Cassidy asked President Donald Trump.

Just hours after refusing to sign a bipartisan housing bill that Republicans hoped would boost their election-year prospects, the president was attending a private lunch Wednesday with the Senate GOP. Trump wondered aloud how anyone could have voted for a war powers resolution a day earlier that seeks to block further U.S. military action against Iran.

Cassidy, one of the four Republicans who backed the measure, was ready with an answer.

“I stood and said, ‘You have not told the American people what's going on,'” Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, recounted to reporters afterward. “This is supposed to last four weeks. It's lasted four months. Our original objectives have not been achieved.”

Things deteriorated from there.

When Cassidy told Trump he would continue voting for war powers resolutions until there's a congressional briefing on developments in Iran, the senator recalled that Trump “did not particularly care for my comments” and “raised his voice.”

Trump repeatedly told Cassidy to sit down, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private meeting. At one point, the president called the senator a “lunatic," the person said.

Cassidy acknowledged losing his temper, which he said was “not appropriate.”

“But I again matched his tone and volume," Cassidy said, before recalling that he eventually sat down. “And so I sat down and tried to de-escalate. I guess my point is, though, that the American people need to know more than we're being told.”

Within hours, Cassidy was invited to the White House to receive the briefing he had requested with Vice President JD Vance and Trump envoy Steve Witkoff. Cassidy then stood down, returning to the Capitol and casting a late-night vote against a similar war powers resolution. This time, Republicans blocked the measure.

“I want to thank Vice President Vance and Special Envoy Witkoff for the thorough briefing this afternoon on Iran,” Cassidy posted on X. “I appreciate the quick invitation to the White House to address many of my concerns.”

via AP

US-Iran war LIVE: Oil prices dropped to pre-war level with Brent crude slipping to USD 72/barrel on Thursday.The latest decline comes after a sharp 4 per cent fall in the previous session, bringing Brent back to its closing level seen before the US-Iran conflict began.

Furthermore, a clear sign of easing tensions has been the exit of stranded tankers from the Strait of Hormuz following an initial accord to end the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, easing supply concerns after months of disruptions.

At the time of writing this article, crude oil was trading at USD 69.20 LTP, 1.18 per cent lower, while Brent crude was trading at USD 72.28/barrel. At the same time, WTI crude oil price was at UD 69.15 per barrel, down 1.19 points or 1.69 per cent. Furthermore, Brent had dropped over USD 3 on Wednesday as supply concerns eased, and WTI settled down nearly USD 3.

Oil benchmarks found some relief after the International Maritime Organization announced on Tuesday that Iran and Oman would coordinate a large-scale evacuation of over 11,000 stranded seafarers via the Strait of Hormuz.

via ANI

US-Iran war LIVE: Senate Republicans who were berated by President Donald Trump on Wednesday over opposition to his war in Iran held a late-night vote to try to appease him, voting down a war powers resolution a day after a similar measure passed.

Trump harangued GOP senators face to face earlier in the day for allowing a vote to block his war in Iran on Tuesday, further escalating a feud that has diverted GOP efforts to focus on election-year affordability issues and brought much of the chamber’s business to a halt. He exchanged particularly harsh words with Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of four Republicans who had voted with Democrats on the measure.

Hours later, though, Cassidy received a personal briefing on the war at the White House from Vice President JD Vance and envoy Steve Witkoff and returned to the Capitol to vote against a second war powers resolution. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican who has repeatedly voted with Democrats to halt the war, voted present instead of yes after a separate conversation with the White House, allowing the measure to fail.

“I want to thank Vice President Vance and Special Envoy Witkoff for the thorough briefing this afternoon on Iran. I appreciate the quick invitation to the White House to address many of my concerns,” said Cassidy, who lost reelection last month after Trump endorsed his opponent, in a post on X.

It's unclear whether the move will be enough to appease Trump, who had called the Republicans “losers" for voting against his war and had called Cassidy a “lunatic” at the lunch after their tense exchange. But the vote was a clear signal to the president from Republican senators who still want to placate him, despite increasing tensions in recent weeks and his decision Wednesday morning to reverse himself and delay signing a housing bill that received overwhelming bipartisan support.

via AP

US-Iran war LIVE: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said that IAEA inspectors will gain access to Iran's uranium enrichment sites, EuroNews reported, contradicting Iran's claims.

Speaking to reporters at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Wednesday, Grossi said that the MoU signed by the US and Iran leaves no room for ambiguity.

"I can understand political statements, they are part of the reality, but the fundamental thing I would like to remind you and draw your attention to is that there has been a Memorandum of Understanding, signed by both presidents," Grossi said, as quoted by EuroNews.

The framework deal, he said, "says explicitly that the nuclear activities that are going to be carried out with regard to the nuclear material facilities will be supervised by the IAEA -- in all letters."

"Obviously, to do that, we will have to inspect. Whether this happens the day after tomorrow or in one week or in 10 days, it's important, but not essential. This is going to happen," he added, as quoted by EuroNews.

The comments come as Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs of Iran, Kazem Gharibabadi said that there is no program for access to the attacked facilities and nuclear materials.

via ANI

US-Iran war LIVE: US President Donald Trump said there is nothing for him to believe that the strike on Minab school in Iran was by the United States, saying there were plenty of missiles fired by other people.

"It's horrible what happened, but there were missiles flying all over the place, and somebody said it was our missile, well, maybe it wasn't our missile. But I've seen nothing to lead me to believe it was," Trump told reporters at the White House, AFP reported.

US-Iran war LIVE: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that although the Hezbollah is still in Lebanon, they are destroying its infrastructure.

Netanyahu, while speaking at the Federation of Local Authorities in Israel Conference, said that Israel will tell even the President of the United States what it stands for.

Excerpts from his speech posted on X by the office of Israeli Prime Minister said, "I also told President Trump, well, two presidents, Biden first of all, when they told me 'Do not enter Rafah.' Do you know why they said 'Do not enter Rafah'? Because the President of the United States said he would halt the weapons supply. I said I respect him very much, and he even came here at the beginning of the war, but we have no choice, we will enter - and if we must, we will fight with our fingernails. Because there are moments when you must know how to tell even the President of the United States what we stand for."