Trump claims US is clearing mines in strait of Hormuz
Donald Trump has claimed the US has begun clearing mines in the strait of Hormuz “as a favour to countries all over the world”.
In a post on his Truth Social app, the US president said Iran’s minelaying ships “are also lying at the bottom of the sea”.
While claiming all of the Iranian military’s air and naval capabilities have diminished and its missiles and drones “have been largely obliterated”, Trump added:
The only thing they have going is the threat that a ship may “bunk” into one of their sea mines which, by the way, all 28 of their mine dropper boats are also lying at the bottom of the sea. We’re now starting the process of clearing out the Strait of Hormuz as a favor to Countries all over the World, including China, Japan, South Korea, France, Germany, and many others. Incredibly, they don’t have the Courage or Will to do this work themselves.
He repeated an earlier comment that empty tankers “from many nations” are heading to the US for oil.
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A rally by Hezbollah supporters on Friday saw Hezbollah supporters march from the prime ministers’ office to Hamra in West Beirut. Shouting matches erupted between residents of Hamra, an area not typically supportive of Hezbollah, and protesters, with the latter chanting, “Shia, Shia,” – a reference to the majority Shia support base of the group.
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Hezbollah supporters staged another rally in front of the prime ministers’ office against negotiations on Saturday afternoon, with protesters waving Hezbollah flags and pictures of the late Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. The Lebanese army deployed troops around the area, and warned that it would not tolerate any attempts to destabilise the country at “this sensitive moment”.
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Internal tensions in Lebanon had been on the rise since Israeli bombing over the last month displaced more than 1.2 million people across the country. Disagreements over Lebanon’s engagement with Israel threatened to further fracture the divided country.
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Residents of Lebanon were hopeful that Iran would make good on its promise to include Lebanon in its ceasefire with Israel and the US. Lebanese looked ahead to a meeting between Lebanon’s prime minister Nawaf Salam and US secretary of state Marco Rubio in Washington next week for potential progress on a ceasefire in Lebanon.
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Despite talk of a ceasefire, Israeli strikes and Hezbollah rocket fire continued. Israeli strikes on the southern towns of Kafr Sir, Zifta and Toul killed ten people overnight, while Hezbollah fired rockets at cities in Israel’s north. Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters continued to clash inside Lebanon, battling over the strategic city of Bint Jbeil.
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Al Jazeera, citing sources close to the mediation, has reported that the Iranian and US delegations are meeting face-to-face, with Pakistani mediators also present in the negotiating room.
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Reuters has also reported the same, citing a Pakistani source.
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The three-way talks are between US officials JD Vance, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Iran’s Mohammad Ghalibaf and Abbas Araghchi and Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir.
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In previous US-Iran negotiations, including the indirect nuclear talks that took place in Oman in the days before the war began on 28 February, mediators would shuttle back and forth between the two disputing parties to relay proposals and other information.
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Donald Trump has claimed the US has begun clearing mines in the strait of Hormuz “as a favour to countries all over the world”.
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In a post on his Truth Social app, the US president said Iran’s minelaying ships “are also lying at the bottom of the sea”.
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While claiming all of the Iranian military’s air and naval capabilities have diminished and its missiles and drones “have been largely obliterated”, Trump added:
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n
The only thing they have going is the threat that a ship may “bunk” into one of their sea mines which, by the way, all 28 of their mine dropper boats are also lying at the bottom of the sea. We’re now starting the process of clearing out the Strait of Hormuz as a favor to Countries all over the World, including China, Japan, South Korea, France, Germany, and many others. Incredibly, they don’t have the Courage or Will to do this work themselves.
n
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He repeated an earlier comment that empty tankers “from many nations” are heading to the US for oil.
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Both CBS and Reuters are reporting that peace talks between the US and Iran have now begun.
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Iran’s Fars news agency is reporting the same thing.
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JD Vance, a vocal opponent of US wars in the Middle East, has gone quiet since the beginning of the current military campaign. He now faces off with Iranian negotiators who feel emboldened by their new control of the Hormuz strait and their resilience in the face of the largest US-Israeli onslaught in history. Vance’s presence at the talks as vice-president will make it the highest-level meeting since the Iranian revolution of 1979.
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His task is straightforward enough: to bridge the gap between a rhetorical ceasefire in serious peril and a more durable peace. But Vance will face a difficult choice in Islamabad: to either undersign considerable US concessions to Iran in order to hold the ceasefire and negotiate the opening of the strait of Hormuz – or effectively cut off negotiations, personally backing a return to war that is unpopular with the American public.
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The results could have a considerable impact on his expected run for the presidency in 2028, where his Maga credentials are already in question for failing to offer a more full-throated opposition to the war. Vance entered office calling for a more restrained foreign policy and an end to US forever wars in the Middle East – but the negotiations could drag him further into the largest US intervention in the region since the beginning of the Iraq war.
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Read more here:
“,”elementId”:”1e9f855e-f8c5-4069-ae66-5524e23cea93″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.RichLinkBlockElement”,”prefix”:”Related: “,”text”:”JD Vance dispatched to negotiate Iran peace with few cards to play”,”elementId”:”dbd44dd3-f028-4198-8ef5-2b525b4aee06″,”role”:”thumbnail”,”url”:”https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/11/jd-vance-dispatched-to-negotiate-iran-peace-with-few-cards-to-play”}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1775910477000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”08.27 EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1775911107000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”08.38 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1775911107000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”08.38 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”08.38″,”title”:”Analysis: Vance has few cards to play in peace talks”,”contributors”:[{“name”:”Andrew Roth”,”imageUrl”:”https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2019/06/07/Andrew-Roth.jpg?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=cdbc60ad355fd8fcf3d98fbbbf89fa50″,”largeImageUrl”:”https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2019/06/07/Andrew_Roth,_L.png?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=b43b83c4998787fd8c68631b800cb8f7″}],”primaryDateLine”:”Sat 11 Apr 2026 10.53 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Fri 10 Apr 2026 22.39 EDT”},{“id”:”69da3ae58f08dd4830774407″,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”
Iran is unable to find the mines it laid in the strait of Hormuz and does not have the capacity to remove the explosives, preventing Iran from allowing more traffic through the waterway, the New York Times reported, citing US officials.
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Iran laid mines in the strait of Hormuz last month after the US and Israel declared war against the country, dropping explosives throughout the waterway with small boats. The US was mostly unable to monitor the small boats which were mining the strait, leaving the country uncertain about the location and number of mines in the waterway.
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Maritime traffic through the strait ground almost to a standstill due to the mines, as well as Iranian drones and missiles that threatened to hit ships. A senior Revolutionary Guards official said on 2 March the country would set ships “ablaze” if they tried to traverse the strait.
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A small number of ships have continued to pass through after being given the go-ahead by Iran, which allowed vessels from friendly nations that paid tolls.
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US officials have said that Iran placed mines in the strait erratically, and may not have marked where it put all of them. Some mines also drifted or moved from their original location, US officials suggested.
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Read the full piece here:
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Donald Trump’s addiction to framing every event in the most apocalyptic terms is what allows conservative commentators such as Mark Levin to praise him as “a once-in-a-century president”.
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But Trump cannot play out his entire presidency on a reckless high wire without eventually falling off – potentially taking America with him into a steep decline into the unknown.
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Trump likes to portray Europe as being under civilisational threat from migration, but this week he threatened that a 7,000-year-old civilisation would “die … never to be brought back” if it did not comply with his demands.
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He swiftly discovered it was not a threat on which he could follow through, and had to be extricated from it in a rescue mission led by Pakistan and, ignominiously for him, China. He pulled back in a social media post issued just 88 minutes before the implied destruction of Iran.
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Not for the first time, Trump had disregarded Iran’s history of resilience. As the late Iranian essayist Bastani Parizi once wrote: “Sometimes the fate of this kingdom hangs by a hair, but that hair does not break.”
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Faced by Iran’s refusal to back down, symbolised by millions of Iranians volunteering to stand on the bridges of their homeland, a late-night White House scramble ensued to find a justification to bring his latest piece of brinkmanship to a semi-dignified end before his ghoulish deadline.
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Read on here:
“,”elementId”:”6eca1b6b-e546-4fc7-bb7c-0c45095fe6ef”},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.RichLinkBlockElement”,”prefix”:”Related: “,”text”:”Is Iran Trump’s Suez crisis, or just a passing thunderstorm?”,”elementId”:”80383c98-5bf3-4915-ab79-b8a86a30db4b”,”role”:”thumbnail”,”url”:”https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/11/iran-trump-suez-crisis-strait-of-hormuz”}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1775908701000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”07.58 EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1775908801000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”08.00 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1775908801000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”08.00 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”08.00″,”title”:”Analysis: Is this Trump’s Suez crisis?”,”contributors”:[{“name”:”Patrick Wintour”,”imageUrl”:”https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/contributor/2015/2/4/1423058508175/Patrick-Wintour.jpg?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=0214aa9c1e69866694a667e8b6f06d4f”,”largeImageUrl”:”https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2017/10/09/Patrick-Wintour,-R.png?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=e0667fc9c61eae5efd46797b8b06c93c”}],”primaryDateLine”:”Sat 11 Apr 2026 10.53 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Fri 10 Apr 2026 22.39 EDT”},{“id”:”69da352b8f08a86a0e563c1b”,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”
French president Emmanuel Macron said he met with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and discussed the importance of ensuring Lebanon is included in the US-Iran ceasefire.
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In a statement on X, Macron said:
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We first discussed the situation in the Middle East and Near East, calling for respect for the ceasefire and its implementation in Lebanon, respect for freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, and underscoring the need for a robust and lasting diplomatic solution.
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He added that the two leaders also discussed the war in Ukraine.
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Donald Trump has posted on his Truth Social app, saying a “massive” number of empty tankers are heading to the US to load up with oil and gas.
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He wrote:
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Massive numbers of completely empty oil tankers, some of the largest anywhere in the World, are heading, right now, to the United States to load up with the best and “sweetest” oil (and gas!) anywhere in the World. We have more oil than the next two largest oil economies combined – and higher quality. We are waiting for you. Quick turnaround!
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It is not entirely clear if this message is connected to Iran’s ongoing control, and effective closure, of the strait of Hormuz.
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US vice-president JD Vance is holding talks with Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, the White House said.
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The US delegation also includes US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
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The Iranian delegation led by parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has met and held talks with the Pakistani prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported in a brief update.
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Sanctions, the strait of Hormuz, nuclear enrichment and Israel’s attacks on Lebanon are some of the key issues on the agenda in today’s Islamabad talks.
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The US has demanded Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz, the key shipping route that has been effectively shut since the start of the war on 28 February. Iran wants acknowledgment of its authority over the narrow waterway, and has suggested charging transit fees for ships seeking passage, a demand the US has rejected. Donald Trump, however, has floated the idea of a “joint venture” between the US and Iran to set tolls.
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Iran, while claiming it is not seeking a nuclear weapon, wants recognition of its right to enrich uranium. The US has ruled this out and Trump has insisted “there will be no enrichment of uranium”. Iran’s nuclear programme has been at the centre of tensions between the two countries for decades, with the US imposing sanctions and other restrictive measures to end it.
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Iran wants the ceasefire to include Lebanon, where the Israeli military’s attacks have killed more than 2,000 people since the start of the fighting on 2 March, according to Lebanese authorities. Israel claims the ceasefire does not cover its military operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and it continues to launch attacks in the country.
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Iran has also demanded sanctions relief and a guarantee that the US will not attack Iran again, suggesting a permanent end to hostilities beyond the two-week ceasefire.
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For those of you just joining us, welcome to our live coverage of events in the Middle East with talks between Iranian and US officials scheduled to begin in Islamabad. Stay tuned here for all the updates – but first, a quick recap.
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The US delegation has touched down ahead of high-stakes talks with the United States on Saturday, joining Iran’s delegation which had arrived earlier. The US side is led by the vice-president, JD Vance, alongside the special envoy, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
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Iran’s delegation is headed by the powerful parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, reportedly accompanied by Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister; Ali Akbar Ahmadian, secretary of Iran’s defence council; Abdolnaser Hemmati, governor of Iran’s central bank; and several members of the Iranian parliament. Ghalibaf said earlier on Friday that two previously agreed measures – a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets – “must be fulfilled before negotiations begin”. Israel and the US have denied that the ceasefire extends to Lebanon.
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The planned talks come as Trump threatened fresh strikes if talks fail, adding that the Iranians “have no cards” and the only reason they are alive “is to negotiate”. Trump told the New York Post that the US is loading its warships with the “best weapons” in case talks with Tehran fail. “And if we don’t have a deal, we will be using them and we will be using them very effectively,” he said.
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Meanwhile, Lebanon and Israel have agreed to meet in Washington on Tuesday to discuss a ceasefire and to set a date to begin talks. The conversation on Tuesday will be mediated by the US and take place at the state
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Lebanon’s health ministry has updated the death toll from Israel’s most brutal strikes on the country in years on Wednesday to 357 killed. It brings the total killed in Lebanon since Israel renewed its offensive on 2 March to more than 1,953 people. The number of people wounded stands at 6,303, the health ministry added.
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US intelligence reports that China is preparing to send new air defence systems to Iran over the new few weeks, CNN reports, citing anonymous sources. The US state department, White House and Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
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A plane carrying the US envoys headed for talks with Iran has touched down in Pakistan’s Islamabad, sources told Reuters.
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The delegation is led by the US vice-president, JD Vance, and includes president Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The Iranian delegation had already arrived earlier.
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About 100 members of an advance US team are already in the city, a Pakistani source told Reuters.
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The meeting is the first since the outbreak of the war more than a month ago. Both sides have claimed conditions before the onset of negotiations, with Iran demanding an end to Israeli strikes in Lebanon and the US concerned with nuclear weapons and the fate of transit through the strait of Hormuz.
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US intelligence indicates China is preparing to deliver new air defence systems to Iran within the next few weeks, CNN reports, citing three people familiar with recent intelligence assessments, according to Reuters.
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The network said Beijing could be routing shipments of shoulder-fired anti-air missiles known as MANPADs through third countries to mask their origin, citing unnamed sources. The US state department, the White House and the Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
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President Trump and Pakistani officials have confirmed that China helped step in to push Iran to accept a tentative ceasefire. But while the Chinese government says it backs the ceasefire, it has not to date tried to claim any diplomatic credit as a security guarantor, with a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington merely saying “as a responsible major power, China will continue to play a constructive role and make efforts to de-escalate tensions”.
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Hello, and welcome to our live coverage of events in the Middle East with talks between Iranian and US officials scheduled to begin in Islamabad in just a matter of hours.
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Stay tuned here for all the updates. If you are just joining us, below is a quick recap of the latest news
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Iran’s delegation has arrived in Islamabad ahead of high-stakes talks with the United States on Saturday, which the Pakistani prime minister described as “make or break” for achieving a permanent ceasefire. The delegation is headed by Iran’s powerful parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and he is reportedly accompanied by Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Ahmadian, secretary of Iran’s defence council, Abdolnaser Hemmati, governor of Iran’s central bank, and several members of the Iranian parliament. Ghalibaf said earlier on Friday that two previously agreed measures – a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets – “must be fulfilled before negotiations begin”.
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US vice-president JD Vance, who is en route to Islamabad, said he was “looking forward to negotiations” and expected them to be positive – though he warned Iran not to “play” the US. He is leading the US delegation and will be accompanied by Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
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The planned talks come as Trump threatened fresh strikes if talks fail, adding that the Iranians “have no cards” and the only reason they are alive “is to negotiate”. Trump told the New York Post that the US is loading its warships with the “best weapons” in case talks with Tehran fail. “And if we don’t have a deal, we will be using them and we will be using them very effectively,” he said.
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Meanwhile, Lebanon and Israel have agreed to meet in Washington on Tuesday to discuss a ceasefire and to set a date to begin talks. The conversation on Tuesday will be mediated by the US and take place at the state department.
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Lebanon’s health ministry has updated the death toll from Israel’s most brutal strikes on the country in years on Wednesday to 357 killed. It brings the total killed in Lebanon since Israel renewed its offensive on 2 March to more than 1,953 people. The number of people wounded stands at 6,303, the health ministry added.
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Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, said on Friday that 13 state security personnel were killed in an Israeli strike on a governmental building in the southern city of Nabatieh. In a statement, Aoun condemned continued Israeli attacks and said targeting state institutions would not deter Lebanon from defending its sovereignty.
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Key events
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In Gaza, which marked six months since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on Friday, Palestinian health officials said at least seven people have been killed in two Israeli airstrikes overnight.
An airstrike hit a police checkpoint in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip early this morning, killing at least six, while a second airstrike hit the northern town of Beit Lahia, killing at least one, officials said.
The Israeli military said the strike in Bureij had been carried out after members of Hamas approached the yellow line demarcating the half of Gaza occupied by Israel, according to Reuters news agency. It did not immediately comment on the strike in Beit Lahia.
Israel has repeatedly shot at people in areas around the yellow line since the ceasefire deal was struck in October, often accusing militants of trying to cross the line or attack troops.
Since October, Israeli attacks have killed at least 700 people in Gaza, according to health officials there.
Iranian media has denied reports that US warships have crossed the strait of Hormuz.
The denial in the semi-official Tasnim news agency follows a report by the US news site Axios, citing a US official, that several US navy ships crossed the narrow waterway today.
There are conflicting reports over what’s happened. Tasnim, quoting an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, reported that a US destroyer attempted to enter the strait but was forced to retreat after a warning from Iran’s armed forces. Axios, citing a US official, said no such warning was given.
Earlier today, Donald Trump claimed the US has started to clear mines in the strait of Hormuz.
Just days before negotiations are expected to take place in Washington between Israel and Beirut, the Israeli military said it has struck more than 200 targets in Lebanon in the past 24 hours, claiming they belong to the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
“The air force continues to strike infrastructure belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation and to support the operations of ground forces operating in southern Lebanon,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement on social media.
Lebanon divided over potential talks with Israel
William Christou
In Lebanon, opinion was split over the government’s decision to negotiate directly with Israel, raising social tensions in the country already racked by a mass displacement crisis.
A rally by Hezbollah supporters on Friday saw Hezbollah supporters march from the prime ministers’ office to Hamra in West Beirut. Shouting matches erupted between residents of Hamra, an area not typically supportive of Hezbollah, and protesters, with the latter chanting, “Shia, Shia,” – a reference to the majority Shia support base of the group.
Hezbollah supporters staged another rally in front of the prime ministers’ office against negotiations on Saturday afternoon, with protesters waving Hezbollah flags and pictures of the late Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. The Lebanese army deployed troops around the area, and warned that it would not tolerate any attempts to destabilise the country at “this sensitive moment”.
Internal tensions in Lebanon had been on the rise since Israeli bombing over the last month displaced more than 1.2 million people across the country. Disagreements over Lebanon’s engagement with Israel threatened to further fracture the divided country.
Residents of Lebanon were hopeful that Iran would make good on its promise to include Lebanon in its ceasefire with Israel and the US. Lebanese looked ahead to a meeting between Lebanon’s prime minister Nawaf Salam and US secretary of state Marco Rubio in Washington next week for potential progress on a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Despite talk of a ceasefire, Israeli strikes and Hezbollah rocket fire continued. Israeli strikes on the southern towns of Kafr Sir, Zifta and Toul killed ten people overnight, while Hezbollah fired rockets at cities in Israel’s north. Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters continued to clash inside Lebanon, battling over the strategic city of Bint Jbeil.
US and Iranian officials meeting directly in Islamabad talks – reports
Al Jazeera, citing sources close to the mediation, has reported that the Iranian and US delegations are meeting face-to-face, with Pakistani mediators also present in the negotiating room.
Reuters has also reported the same, citing a Pakistani source.
The three-way talks are between US officials JD Vance, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Iran’s Mohammad Ghalibaf and Abbas Araghchi and Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir.
In previous US-Iran negotiations, including the indirect nuclear talks that took place in Oman in the days before the war began on 28 February, mediators would shuttle back and forth between the two disputing parties to relay proposals and other information.
Trump claims US is clearing mines in strait of Hormuz
Donald Trump has claimed the US has begun clearing mines in the strait of Hormuz “as a favour to countries all over the world”.
In a post on his Truth Social app, the US president said Iran’s minelaying ships “are also lying at the bottom of the sea”.
While claiming all of the Iranian military’s air and naval capabilities have diminished and its missiles and drones “have been largely obliterated”, Trump added:
The only thing they have going is the threat that a ship may “bunk” into one of their sea mines which, by the way, all 28 of their mine dropper boats are also lying at the bottom of the sea. We’re now starting the process of clearing out the Strait of Hormuz as a favor to Countries all over the World, including China, Japan, South Korea, France, Germany, and many others. Incredibly, they don’t have the Courage or Will to do this work themselves.
He repeated an earlier comment that empty tankers “from many nations” are heading to the US for oil.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it is investigating an incident where rockets launched from Lebanon landed in northern Israel yesterday without warning sirens being activated.
“A preliminary investigation suggests that the launches were not detected, which is why no warning was issued in the town,” the IDF said in a statement on X, adding that the “circumstances of the incident, including the failure to detect the launches, are currently being investigated by all relevant authorities”.
French president Emmanuel Macron has said he discussed the Iran ceasefire talks with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, and that the two leaders had agreed to stay in close contact on the issue.
I reiterated my support for the ceasefire, which must be fully respected and extended without delay to Lebanon. We discussed the need to restore fully free and safe navigation in the Strait of Hormuz as quickly as possible.
As talks get underway in Islamabad, we agreed to remain in close contact in order to contribute to a de-escalation, freedom of navigation, and the conclusion of an agreement to ensure lasting peace and security in the region.
Peace talks under way, US and Iranian media report
Both CBS and Reuters are reporting that peace talks between the US and Iran have now begun.
Iran’s Fars news agency is reporting the same thing.
Analysis: Vance has few cards to play in peace talks
Andrew Roth
JD Vance, a vocal opponent of US wars in the Middle East, has gone quiet since the beginning of the current military campaign. He now faces off with Iranian negotiators who feel emboldened by their new control of the Hormuz strait and their resilience in the face of the largest US-Israeli onslaught in history. Vance’s presence at the talks as vice-president will make it the highest-level meeting since the Iranian revolution of 1979.
His task is straightforward enough: to bridge the gap between a rhetorical ceasefire in serious peril and a more durable peace. But Vance will face a difficult choice in Islamabad: to either undersign considerable US concessions to Iran in order to hold the ceasefire and negotiate the opening of the strait of Hormuz – or effectively cut off negotiations, personally backing a return to war that is unpopular with the American public.
The results could have a considerable impact on his expected run for the presidency in 2028, where his Maga credentials are already in question for failing to offer a more full-throated opposition to the war. Vance entered office calling for a more restrained foreign policy and an end to US forever wars in the Middle East – but the negotiations could drag him further into the largest US intervention in the region since the beginning of the Iraq war.
Read more here:
Iran ‘unable to find the mines it laid in the strait of Hormuz’
William Christou
Iran is unable to find the mines it laid in the strait of Hormuz and does not have the capacity to remove the explosives, preventing Iran from allowing more traffic through the waterway, the New York Times reported, citing US officials.
Iran laid mines in the strait of Hormuz last month after the US and Israel declared war against the country, dropping explosives throughout the waterway with small boats. The US was mostly unable to monitor the small boats which were mining the strait, leaving the country uncertain about the location and number of mines in the waterway.
Maritime traffic through the strait ground almost to a standstill due to the mines, as well as Iranian drones and missiles that threatened to hit ships. A senior Revolutionary Guards official said on 2 March the country would set ships “ablaze” if they tried to traverse the strait.
A small number of ships have continued to pass through after being given the go-ahead by Iran, which allowed vessels from friendly nations that paid tolls.
US officials have said that Iran placed mines in the strait erratically, and may not have marked where it put all of them. Some mines also drifted or moved from their original location, US officials suggested.
Read the full piece here:
In Lebanon, a funeral is being held for 13 security personnel who were killed by Israeli airstrikes near a government complex and a State Security office in Nabatieh.
Analysis: Is this Trump’s Suez crisis?
Patrick Wintour
Donald Trump’s addiction to framing every event in the most apocalyptic terms is what allows conservative commentators such as Mark Levin to praise him as “a once-in-a-century president”.
But Trump cannot play out his entire presidency on a reckless high wire without eventually falling off – potentially taking America with him into a steep decline into the unknown.
Trump likes to portray Europe as being under civilisational threat from migration, but this week he threatened that a 7,000-year-old civilisation would “die … never to be brought back” if it did not comply with his demands.
He swiftly discovered it was not a threat on which he could follow through, and had to be extricated from it in a rescue mission led by Pakistan and, ignominiously for him, China. He pulled back in a social media post issued just 88 minutes before the implied destruction of Iran.
Not for the first time, Trump had disregarded Iran’s history of resilience. As the late Iranian essayist Bastani Parizi once wrote: “Sometimes the fate of this kingdom hangs by a hair, but that hair does not break.”
Faced by Iran’s refusal to back down, symbolised by millions of Iranians volunteering to stand on the bridges of their homeland, a late-night White House scramble ensued to find a justification to bring his latest piece of brinkmanship to a semi-dignified end before his ghoulish deadline.
Read on here:
Macron and Erdoğan discuss Middle East war
French president Emmanuel Macron said he met with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and discussed the importance of ensuring Lebanon is included in the US-Iran ceasefire.
In a statement on X, Macron said:
We first discussed the situation in the Middle East and Near East, calling for respect for the ceasefire and its implementation in Lebanon, respect for freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, and underscoring the need for a robust and lasting diplomatic solution.
He added that the two leaders also discussed the war in Ukraine.
‘Massive’ number of empty tankers heading to US to load up with oil and gas, says Trump
Donald Trump has posted on his Truth Social app, saying a “massive” number of empty tankers are heading to the US to load up with oil and gas.
He wrote:
Massive numbers of completely empty oil tankers, some of the largest anywhere in the World, are heading, right now, to the United States to load up with the best and “sweetest” oil (and gas!) anywhere in the World. We have more oil than the next two largest oil economies combined – and higher quality. We are waiting for you. Quick turnaround!
It is not entirely clear if this message is connected to Iran’s ongoing control, and effective closure, of the strait of Hormuz.
