Saturday: As it happened
- Iran’s foreign minister has accused Washington of ‘a reckless military adventure’ and of undermining diplomatic efforts to end the US-Iran war
- At least 17 people were killed in Israel’s latest strikes on Lebanon
- An Iranian official warned countries that back a US resolution on ending the war risk the Strait of Hormuz being closed to them ‘forever’
- US allies anticipate Trump will withdraw more forces from Europe
- Binyamin Netanyahu insists he has “full co-ordination” with Donald Trump amid reports of tensions
Key Reads
- David McWilliams: Iran war is now an international hostage situation
- Israel’s artists face isolation at Venice Biennale and prepare for booing at Eurovision
- Aer Lingus chief executive says it has enough fuel for summer flights
That concludes Saturday’s live coverage of the ongoing war in the Gulf and wider conflict in the Middle East.
Get up to speed with the day’s developments below.
[ US and Iran no closer to ending war as Tehran yet to respond to latest proposalsOpens in new window ]
Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that he hoped that the Iran conflict would end as soon as possible but that if it did not then everyone would lose out. – Reuters
More on the latest fatal Israeli strikes in Lebanon.
The Lebanese health ministry said three Israeli drone strikes killed a Syrian man who was riding a motorcycle with his 12-year-old daughter in the city of Nabatiyeh.
The ministry said that after the initial strike, the man and his daughter managed to move away from the site only to be attacked again by the drone instantly killing the man.
The girl then moved about 100m away and was hit again by the drone after she had been already wounded. The girl later died in a hospital, NNA said.
The Israeli military said Hizbullah fired explosive drones into Israel near the border with Lebanon, adding that three soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously, in one of the attacks.
It added that Hizbullah fired drones inside Lebanon as well in which one hit an Israeli vehicle without inflicting casualties.
Hizbullah claimed several attacks inside Lebanon as well as firing a drone at an Israeli military post in the northern town of Misgav Am.
The latest war between Israel and Hizbullah began on March 2nd, when Hizbullah fired rockets into northern Israel, two days after the United States and Israel launched a war on Hezbollah’s main backer, Iran.
Israel has since carried out hundreds of air strikes and launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, capturing dozens of towns and villages along the border.
Later, Lebanon and Israel held their first direct talks in more than three decades. The two countries have formally been in a state of war since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.
A new round of talks is scheduled to take place in Washington over two days starting on Thursday.
A 10-day ceasefire declared in Washington went into effect on April 17th. The ceasefire was later extended by three weeks. – AP
A Qatari liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker, Al Kharaitiyat, was sailing towards the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday after departing Qatar’s Ras Laffan en route to Port Qasim in Pakistan, according to LSEG shipping data.
A successful passage would mark the first transit by a Qatari LNG tanker through the strait since the start of the war on Iran. There was no immediate comment from QatarEnergy.
The vessel, managed by Nakilat Shipping Qatar Ltd and sailing under the Marshall Islands flag, has a cargo capacity of 211,986 cubic metres, according to LSEG data.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards halted two Qatar LNG tankers, Al Daayen and Rasheeda, that had been heading towards the Strait of Hormuz on April 6 and instructed them to hold position without explanation, a source told Reuters at the time.
Qatar is the world’s second-largest exporter of LNG, with shipments mostly going to buyers in Asia. Iranian attacks knocked out 17 per cent of Qatar’s LNG export capacity, with repairs expected to sideline 12.8 million tons per year of the fuel for three to five years. – Reuters
Girl (12) among at least 17 killed by Israel in Lebanon
Three Israeli drone strikes on vehicles just south of Beirut on Saturday killed four people while a series of air strikes on southern Lebanon killed at least 13, including a man and his 12-year-old daughter, state media and the Lebanese health ministry said.
The three drone strikes south of Beirut marked another escalation since a ceasefire between Israel and Hizbullah went into effect on April 17th. Both Israel and Hizbullah have continued their daily attacks despite the truce.
On Wednesday night, Israel’s air force carried out an air strike on a southern suburb in which Israel said it killed a senior Hizbullah military official. It was the first strike near the capital since the ceasefire was reached.
Two of the strikes on Saturday took place on the highway linking Beirut with the southern port city of Sidon in which several people were wounded, while the third happened on a road leading to Lebanon’s Chouf region killing three, the state-run National News Agency said.
An Associated Press journalist at the scene saw a dead body on the road in the town of Saadiyat.
The health ministry said an Israeli air strike on the southern village of Saksakiyeh killed at least seven, including a child, and wounded 15. The ministry said this was an initial count.
The agency reported strikes in southern Lebanon, including one on the village of Bourj Rahhal that killed three and another in Maifadoun that killed one. – AP
Governments backing US risk closure of Strait of Hormuz ‘forever’
Ebrahim Azizi head of the national security commission of the Iranian parliament has warned other governments that siding with the US-backed resolution to end the war “will bring severe consequences”.
Azizi, specifically mentioning microstates such as Bahrain, said countries that back the resolution risk closing the Strait of Hormuz on themselves “forever”.
Two Gaza flotilla activists to be deported from Israel
Two activists arrested last month when Israeli forces intercepted the Gaza-bound flotilla they were travelling on are expected to be deported in the coming days after being released from security detention on Saturday, their lawyers said.
Saif Abu Keshek, a Spanish national, and Brazilian Thiago Avila were detained by Israeli authorities on April 29th and brought to Israel.
The activists were part of a second Global Sumud Flotilla launched from Spain on April 12th to try to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza by delivering aid to the enclave.
Israel’s foreign ministry said Abu Keshek was suspected of affiliation with a terrorist organisation and Avila was suspected of illegal activity. Both denied the allegations.
The governments of Spain and Brazil said Abu Keshek’s and Avila’s detention was unlawful, but Israel’s Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court remanded them in custody until May 10th.
Human rights group Adalah, which has assisted in their legal defence and also said the detention was unlawful, said that Abu Keshek and Avila were informed that they will be released from detention on Saturday and handed over to immigration authorities’ custody until their deportation. – Reuters
Saturday afternoon recap
Europe wants to keep Nato functioning, says Merz
German chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Saturday Europe wanted to work to keep the Nato alliance functioning, despite differences with the United States that the Iran war has exposed.
“We are really willing to keep this alliance alive for the future,” Merz said at a press conference with Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson. He also said Sweden and Finland had strengthened the European pillar of the alliance.
“We know that there are some differences. We know that we are seeing challenges, all of us, but our final goal is to bring this conflict to an end and to guarantee that Iran is not able to produce nuclear weapons,” Merz said.
“And this goal is a common goal between America and Europe.”
After Merz said last month Iran was “humiliating” the US, Trump hit back by ordering 5,000 US troops to be withdrawn and cancelled the planned deployment of long-range Tomahawk missiles.
Merz said the main issue was not troop numbers but “unity of purpose” and that it was in the US interest to have a strong European component of Nato.
“We are remaining interested and highly interested in having the American army and the American military support on our side,” he said. “So this is something we are having in common and we are trying to achieve that currently.” – Reuters
UK will deploy one of its warships to the Middle East
The UK will deploy one of its warships to the Middle East as part of planning for a European-led mission to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz once there’s a stable ceasefire.
HMS Dragon, a Type-45 warship capable of destroying guided missiles, is likely to form part of the UK’s offer for the defensive naval mission, designed to reassure commercial ships attempting to pass through the waterway. Such a mission will only begin once sustained ceasefire or peace deal is agreed to.
“The pre-positioning of HMS Dragon is part of prudent planning that will ensure that the UK is ready, as part of a multinational coalition jointly led by the UK and France, to secure the Strait, when conditions allow,” a spokesperson for the UK ministry of defence said.
The move comes as Iran weighs a new proposal from the US to end the war, which has been going on for 10 weeks. The ship has just completed weapons system testing off the coast of Crete and was deployed to help defend Cyprus at the start of the conflict.
More than 40 nations are participating in planning for the UK-France military mission, with another meeting due next week.
US allies anticipate Trump will withdraw more forces from Europe
US allies in Europe anticipate that Trump will withdraw more forces from the Continent after he announced he would pull 5,000 troops out of Germany, people familiar with the matter have told Bloomberg.
Top diplomats from Nato allies forecast that Trump will announce more drawdowns, possibly including from Italy, and scrap a plan dating back to Joe Biden’s presidency to station long-range missiles in Germany, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
Other scenarios include the US ending participation in some military exercises and diverting forces from countries it’s unhappy with to others that are seen as more supportive of the president, the people said. That’s an idea that dates back to Trump’s first term, when he considered sending more troops to Poland.
The people said their predictions about the withdrawals were based on Trump’s public comments and conversations that alliance officials have had with US counterparts over their future plans for Nato.
The Pentagon declined to comment, while the White House referred to comments made by US secretary of state Marco Rubio on Friday.
“If one of the main reasons why the US is in Nato is the ability to have forces deployed in Europe that we could project to other contingencies, and now that’s no longer the case at least when it comes to some Nato members, that’s a problem – and it has to be examined,” Rubio told reporters in Italy.
The moves would serve as a further signal of Trump’s unhappiness with some Nato allies such as Germany and Spain over what he’s seen as insufficient help for the US and Israeli war against Iran. Asked in late April whether he would consider removing troops from Italy or Spain, Trump responded, “Well, why shouldn’t I?”
“Italy has not been of any help to us,” he said. “And Spain has been horrible, absolutely horrible.”
The alliance hasn’t yet been told which unit will be pulled out of Germany but officials believe the US is looking at options to promptly implement the withdrawal, one of the people said.
Bahrain’s interior ministry said on Saturday it had arrested 41 people it said were linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the state news agency reported.
The US and Iran appeared no closer on Saturday to finding an end to their war after the two sides traded fire in the Gulf amid a tenuous ceasefire, while a US intelligence analysis concluded Tehran could withstand a naval blockade for months.
Recent days have seen the biggest flare-ups in fighting in and around the Strait of Hormuz since a ceasefire began a month ago, and the United Arab Emirates came under renewed attack on Friday.
Washington has been awaiting Tehran’s response to a US proposal that would formally end the war before talks on more contentious issues, including Iran’s nuclear programme.
Speaking in Rome on Friday, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said the US was expecting a response that day, although an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson said Tehran was still weighing its response.
Large oil slick spreads in the Gulf
A large oil slick is spreading in the Gulf off Kharg Island, Iran’s primary crude oil export terminal, satellite images show, raising concerns about the state of Iranian oil infrastructure straining under a US-imposed naval blockade.
The apparent spill, located off the western coast of the island, had spread over an area of more than 52sq km, according to an estimate by Orbital EOS, a global oil spill monitoring service. More than 3,000 barrels of oil may have been released, Orbital EOS said.
The cause of the spill was unclear. Iranian oil and gas infrastructure has been under strain because of the US blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway into the Gulf through which 20 to 25 per cent of the world’s seaborne oil normally passes.
The Iranian government has also restricted ship traffic through the strait as talks on reopening the passage stall. Vessels and facilities have sustained damage in US and Israeli attacks, making them vulnerable to spills.
That has left tankers stranded, constraining exports and causing Iran to rapidly run out of places to store its oil, raising concerns of possible leaks or other mishaps at the Kharg Island hub. – The New York Times
Tensions emerge in Netanyahu-Trump alliance
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu interrupted an uncharacteristically long silence over the Iran conflict this week with a video commentary insisting he had “full co-ordination” with Donald Trump, with whom he spoke “almost daily”.
The insistence that all was rosy in the US-Israeli relationship followed weeks of reports in the domestic press that Israel was no longer being consulted over the Iran conflict, and even less over Pakistani-brokered peace talks.
Such is the scepticism over Netanyahu’s trustworthiness among the general public and independent press that the immediate reaction among observers to his video statement was speculation that the reality could be even worse than they had imagined.
“He is doing so much talking about how great the relationship is that it makes me rather concerned about how much tension there is,” said Dahlia Scheindlin, an American-Israeli political consultant and pollster. “I wouldn’t be surprised, as the war is clearly going very poorly from all perspectives related to the original goals.”
The US president and the Israeli prime minister have long presented mirror images of each other. They have both pioneered populist methods to dominate domestic politics, cutting away at the constitutional underpinning of the very systems that brought them to power, with little regard for past norms or constraints.
Since February 28th, when they brought the Gulf to a standstill with a devastating US-Israeli assault on Iran, they have bound their fate together so tightly that it will be very hard for either of them to unstick themselves from its legacy.
According to multiple reports, US intelligence and military officials stressed the risk that Iran could attack US allies in the Gulf and close the strait of Hormuz. But Netanyahu – and US administration hawks including the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth – prevailed, arguing that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were overrated and would not have the strength to hit back.
They were proved wrong on every count. The Iranian people did not rise up, the regime did not fall, the Kurds did not attack from the northwest and the Revolutionary Guards were able to inflict withering damage on US bases and Gulf monarchies, close the Hormuz strait and trigger a global economic crisis.
The president stopped mentioning Israel and Netanyahu in his relentlessly upbeat public statements about the war. When US negotiators started talking to their Iranian counterparts and Pakistani mediators in the run-up to a ceasefire announcement on April 8th, Israel was left out of the loop. Israeli officials complained to the press that they had to use their intelligence assets to try to find out what was going on.
There are varying accounts of what is on the table in the peace talks, but there has been no mention of Iran’s missile arsenal or its use of regional proxies, both of which are Israeli priorities.
When Trump did mention Netanyahu, it was mostly to tell him off. After Israel bombed Iran’s South Pars gasfield, for example, Trump said he had told Netanyahu “not to do that”.
“On occasion, he’ll do something, and if I don’t like it ... we’re not doing that any more,” the president said.
When the ceasefire was agreed, Trump initially sided with Netanyahu’s interpretation that Lebanon was excluded and then, with the truce in jeopardy, swiftly reversed himself and made Israel follow suit.
“Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A. Enough is enough!!!” he said in a social media post on April 17th, in an unprecedented public rebuke to Netanyahu.
Since this nadir, Israeli government officials have been briefing reporters that the ceasefire cannot last and that a return to hostilities was inevitable. Last weekend, there was a flurry of reporting in Israeli newspapers that intensive US-Israeli military co-ordination had resumed at their earlier tempo, in anticipation of further joint strikes.
Those strikes have yet to materialise, however, and the Trump administration has sought to downplay the significance of recent exchanges of fire around the strait of Hormuz. – The Guardian
Iran accuses US of ‘reckless military adventure’
Iran’s foreign minister has accused Washington of “a reckless military adventure” and of undermining diplomatic efforts to end the war.
The comments came after the United States said it had fired on two Iranian-flagged oil tankers Friday, as US Central Command said it had disabled the two tankers as they tried to reach an Iranian port.
On Friday, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, questioned in a social media post whether the US strikes were a “crude pressure tactic”.
He added: “Every time a diplomatic solution is on the table, the US opts for a reckless military adventure.”
The latest strikes came a day after the US military and Iran exchanged fire in the Strait of Hormuz – fighting that the Iranian military said was triggered by an earlier US attack on another Iranian tanker.
They also came as Iranian officials have said the United States and Iran are debating a one-page US proposal for the sides to reopen the strait and cease hostilities for 30 days as they negotiate a comprehensive deal to end the war.
Despite the exchanges of fire in recent days, both president Donald Trump and Iran’s foreign ministry have insisted that their month-long ceasefire was holding.
A key hurdle to any agreement was the US demand for advance commitments on the fate of Iran’s nuclear programme and its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, three senior Iranian officials said. – New York Times
