Netanyahu acknowledges pause in fighting in TV speech but vows forceful response to future attacks
Fears of a return to a full-scale regional war in the Middle East eased on Monday as Israel and Iran said they had halted attacks on each other after an appeal from Donald Trump to “immediately stop shooting”.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, acknowledged the halt in fighting with Iran in a televised speech, but vowed to respond “with force” to future attacks.
Continue reading...Recent exchange of missiles between Iran and Israel highlights diverging views between US president and Israeli PM
The latest eruption of hostilities between Iran and Israel appears to have been contained for now after Donald Trump insisted he called “all the shots” in the Middle East, but in a dangerously fragile region Benjamin Netanyahu has again shown he is ready to take shots of his own.
The exchange of missiles on Sunday and Monday was ample demonstration of the inherent instability of the current limbo between war and peace, but it also shone a bright light on the complex and conflicted relationship between the US president and the Israeli prime minister, frenemies who could determine the fate of the current ceasefire.
Continue reading...Arch-enemies Israel and Iran have returned to active confrontation while Donald Trump tries to present himself as mediator
Israel and Iran have returned to active war for the first time since a ceasefire was agreed two months ago in an exchange of rocket fire that threatened efforts to end the conflict.
Donald Trump, who started the war in February alongside Israel but has since attempted to present himself as a mediator, told the two sides to stop shooting and said “final negotiations” on peace were proceeding. By late afternoon on Monday, the attacks had stopped.
Continue reading...Chokehold on shipping route draws Houthis in Yemen back into conflict as commenters see ‘no turning back’
Iran’s reversion to large-scale military exchanges with Israel broadened the conflict that began in February not only by making the Israeli attacks on Hezbollah a direct casus belli for Iran for the first time, but also by drawing the Houthis in Yemen back into the conflict with as yet incalculable consequences.
Some in Tehran, buoyed up by past perceived military success and emboldened by the chokehold of the strait of Hormuz, would like to turn this moment into the point of no return in the conflagration with Israel. A minority would welcome the abandonment of ceasefire talks with the US, an outcome for which they have been agitating for weeks.
Continue reading...Tehran official had promised ‘decisive and painful’ reply to Israeli bombing of apartment buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs
Iran launched missiles at Israel on Sunday in response to Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, shattering a fragile ceasefire and marking the most serious escalation since April, after 100 days of war.
A senior Iranian official has promised a “decisive and painful” response to Israel’s airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut and, a few hours later, sirens sounded across northern Israel.
Continue reading...Legal papers, expert investigations and social media posts tell story of how a 32-year-old Iraqi appeared to run ‘proxy’ campaign
On Monday, a slightly dishevelled Iraqi man, shackled and dressed in beige prison overalls, was ushered into a Manhattan courtroom.
Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, 32, pleaded not guilty to a series of terrorism-related offences, then gestured toward the judge and prosecutors. “I’m a prisoner of war. I’m not a threat,” he told them. “Children and women are being killed by your rockets.”
Continue reading...Iran attacks American bases in Gulf states after Washington shoots down drones and strikes Iranian radar sites
Bahrain has said Iran fired ballistic missiles and drones at it and Kuwait, hours after the US and Iran exchanged strikes over the Gulf, the latest in a series of flare-ups that threatened to break the fragile ceasefire.
Air raid sirens rang out on Saturday in Bahrain and people were told to move to a safe location and await further instructions. Kuwait’s military said it was intercepting drones and missiles launched at the country.
Continue reading...Conditions that led to bloody prewar protests have been made worse, commentators say
Iran is already preparing for the perilous transition from wartime unity to a fractious peace marked by hyperinflation, a 10% contraction in the economy, power cuts and calls for a triumphalist government to end its unprecedented hunting down of dissent.
With peace not yet secured, the debates within the regime about Iran’s future are only just starting to emerge but its rulers are clearly thinking about how after surviving the war, they can survive the peace.
Continue reading...Pouria Zeraati of Iran International TV was stabbed three times outside his London home in attempt to ‘silence’ him
Two men have been found guilty of involvement in a targeted knife attack on an Iranian journalist in London said to have been carried out on behalf of the regime in Tehran.
Pouria Zeraati, a British journalist of Iranian origin, was working for Iran International, a Farsi-language dissident broadcaster, when he was stabbed in the leg outside his west London home in 2024.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Global powers are focused on oil markets and elections but those living through conflict in the Middle East feel abandoned
Good morning. It’s been another week of brinkmanship via Truth Social and ceasefires broken before they’ve been announced.
While US president Donald Trump claims an agreement with Iran could happen soon, for those living in the Middle East it does not feel like peace is anywhere near. People have seen more bombs dropped in Lebanon this week; and the death toll continues to rise, national economies falter, and displacement abounds.
UK politics | Andy Burnham has signalled he would begin transforming the broken social care system this year if he became prime minister, he has said in an interview with the Guardian, accusing Westminster of “flinching away” from tackling difficult policy problems.
Environment | Humanity can raise living standards, reduce inequality and keep global heating within a 2C rise, according to a sweeping vision for planetary survival.
Ukraine | The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has called for face-to-face negotiations in a public letter addressed directly to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
England news | The poorest and most nature-deprived communities in England will be further left behind in their access to green spaces if proposed changes to planning laws go ahead, a report finds.
UK news | Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor received private income from subletting three cottages on his Windsor Royal Lodge estate while paying a “peppercorn rent” to the crown estate, a report into royal property arrangements has revealed.
Continue reading...Group calls ceasefire a ‘roadmap to annihilate part of the Lebanese people’, throwing regional peace talks into doubt
Hezbollah has rejected a US-brokered ceasefire plan agreed by the Lebanese and Israeli governments, throwing the future of a truce in Lebanon and regional peace negotiations into question.
The group’s leader, Naim Qassem, called the plan a “roadmap to annihilate part of the Lebanese people” in a statement on Thursday.
Continue reading...Sultanate says talks with Tehran are limited to lawful management of waterway, but Washington has doubts about neutrality
Oman is resisting US pressure to break its links with Iran, and insists it has only been negotiating with Tehran on a future management system for the strait of Hormuz that would be compliant with international law. The aim would be to implement any regime after consulting the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO).
Traditionally Oman, a longtime US ally that shares stewardship of the strait, has adopted the role of a back-channel mediator allowing it to remain neutral in disputes that have led to fissures in other parts of the Gulf.
Continue reading...Stunning rebuke to president as lawmakers vote 215-208 for measure forcing him to seek congressional approval
The US House of Representatives delivered a stunning rebuke to Donald Trump over his war on Iran on Wednesday, as representatives backed a move to force him to seek approval from Congress or withdraw US forces.
The House voted 215 to 208 in favor of the war powers resolution, as four Republicans voted with Democrats. The dissident Republicans were Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Tom Barrett of Michigan.
Continue reading...Son of deposed shah forced to distance himself from once-dreaded Savak as some of his ‘fascistic’ supporters glorify it
For decades, the Savak was seen as the most hated symbol of repression that kept Iran’s last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in power – and a main driving force behind the revolutionary fervor that toppled him in 1979.
Now the deposed monarch’s son, Reza Pahlavi, has been forced to distance himself from the once-dreaded security agency after some of his most vociferous supporters glorified it as the defining emblem in their drive to install him on the throne in a royal restoration.
Continue reading...US military says it struck tanker and sites on Iran’s Qeshm Island and defended Kuwait and Bahrain from missile attacks
The US and Iran have exchanged fresh missiles and drone strikes, further jeopardising efforts by Washington to secure a new ceasefire agreement with Tehran.
US forces fired a Hellfire missile to disable a tanker attempting to break through the American blockade of the strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, and later said they repelled Iranian reprisal attacks in the region and attacked sites on Iran’s Qeshm Island.
Continue reading...Warplanes carry out dozens of airstrikes and Israeli army issues evacuation warning for city of Nabatiyeh
Israeli warplanes have launched dozens of strikes across southern Lebanon despite a new agreement supposedly brokered by Donald Trump aiming to bolster the tattered ceasefire in Lebanon.
The US president said on Monday that he had stopped an imminent Israeli strike on Beirut and that he had spoken to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and representatives of Hezbollah and both agreed that “all shooting will stop”.
Continue reading...The far shorter Middle East war has rapidly revealed the strategic weakness of US firepower in an interconnected world
In a 1965 speech justifying the war in Vietnam, Lyndon B Johnson argued that the goal was to ensure “every country can shape its own destiny” since only in such a world could the US secure its own freedom. However, he also admitted “such were infirmities of man that force must often precede reason, and the waste of war, the works of peace”.
It was the kind of elegant justification of the country’s moral mission to which successive US presidential speechwriters have turned at times of war.
Continue reading...Sobering reality for president after three-month odyssey that threatens to take him back to where he started
After the hubristic beginnings came the reality.
The road travelled since the most momentous foreign policy decision of his presidency seems to have delivered Donald Trump to a sobering destination: that Iran has been the nemesis of several US presidents before him for a reason and is an adversary not to be taken lightly.
Continue reading...Pentagon chief also tells Singapore defence summit of ‘alarm’ at China’s military buildup but says US does not seek ‘needless confrontation’
The US warned on Saturday it was “more than capable” of resuming war with Iran after President Donald Trump said any peace deal must adhere to his red lines, including Tehran never being able to develop nuclear weapons.
The White House had signalled Trump was close to a decision on an initial deal on Friday after weeks of mixed signals in tenuous negotiations, though Tehran denied there was a final agreement on ending the Middle East conflict that has jolted the global economy.
Continue reading...Some Iranians hoped foreign intervention would unseat the regime but instead the US-Israel war has damaged livelihoods and strengthened those in power
As Donald Trump swung this week between threats of new military action against Iran and predictions that a lasting ceasefire deal was imminent, many Iranians were left exhausted and gripped by uncertainty.
Despite the partial lifting of an internet shutdown that began when the war started on 28 February, fears of worsening repression at home have also fuelled pessimism about the future among some of those to whom the Guardian spoke.
Continue reading...