Middle East latest: Israel and Iran trade renewed strikes, threatening to drag region back to full-scale war
Monday’s latest missile attacks marked the most serious crossfire since the increasingly tenuous April 8 ceasefire was reached as Yemen’s Houthi rebels also re-entered the fray.
Israel and Iran traded fire early Monday in retaliatory strikes that threatened to drag the wider Middle East back into a full-scale regional war, while Yemen’s Houthi rebels also fired at Israel and warned they would target Israel-affiliated ships in the Red Sea, further escalating tension.
Israel launched strikes on central and western Iran early Monday in response to missile fire from Tehran and Iran retaliated with waves of attacks, in the most serious crossfire since an April 8 ceasefire was reached. Explosions could be heard in central Israel as air defences sought to intercept incoming Iranian fire. Missile sirens also sounded across neighbouring Jordan.
The attacks appeared to continue into Monday evening with the BBC reporting the sounds of explosions in Tehran shortly after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has claimed it has launched a missile attack on a petrochemical plant in Haifa, northern Israel, according to a statement reported by Iranian Tasnim news agency.
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“No one believes that the Israeli regime would take any action without coordination with the United States,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said during a briefing with journalists in Tehran. “The United States bears responsibility for the Israeli regime’s aggression, and it will also be responsible for the consequences of any escalation in tensions.”
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said it had targeted two military bases in Israel, describing the attacks as being part of Operation Nasr, or “Victory.” The Guard said it launched the missiles after Israel targeted radar sites in three areas of Iran.
Tehran warned of retaliation on Sunday after Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs without warning in defiance of Washington’s request days ago to stand down.
Monday marked the 100th day of the Iran war, launched on February 28 when Israel and the United States killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior Iranian leaders.
The war raged until the two sides reached a ceasefire on April 8, but efforts at a permanent end to the hostilities have been challenged by Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas once passed in peacetime, as well as fighting between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah.
With global energy supplies threatened, Iran still holding a vast stockpile of highly enriched uranium and Yemen’s Houthi rebels getting involved in the fighting Monday, the risk of the war fully erupting again appears to be rising.
Diplomats race to save ceasefire
Two regional officials said concerted diplomatic efforts were underway Monday to salvage the ceasefire between Iran and the United States after the exchange of strikes between Israel and Iran.
Officials from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan and Qatar, have urged the US administration to pressure Israel to rein in its strikes on Iran and Beirut. They have also urged Iranian officials to stop attacks on Israel, they said. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to reporters.
One of the officials, who is involved in mediation efforts between Iran and the US, said the Pakistan-led mediators were furious about the Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which came while Pakistan’s interior minister was in Tehran in a fresh bid to push US-Iranian negotiations forward.
The mediators told the US administration that the Israeli strike on Beirut meant “to disrupt our efforts to reach a deal” and that “(US President Donald) Trump has to stop (Israeli Prime Minister Bejnamin) Netanyahu’s reckless manoeuvres.”
Trump says ‘I call the shots,’ not Israel
The White House did not respond to messages about the Israeli strikes and whether they were done in coordination with the US.
A senior US official on Sunday said US President Donald Trump had called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to urge him not to retaliate immediately for the Iranian missile attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private phone call, said that Mr Trump believed he had convinced Mr Netanyahu to wait.
Mr Trump “got Bibi to hold off for the time being,” the official said. The official would not offer any other details of the call, and there was no immediate comment from Mr Netanyahu’s office.
Mr Trump earlier told a Fox News Channel reporter that he wanted the Iranians to stop firing missiles and return to the negotiating table. He also said that Israel’s strikes in Lebanon earlier Sunday were not coordinated with the US and “I’m not happy about it.”
Speaking to The Financial Times before the Israeli strikes on Iran, Mr Trump insisted he dictated terms to Mr Netanyahu on how the war should be prosecuted.
“He won’t have any choice,” Mr Trump told the newspaper in a telephone interview. “I call the shots. I call all the shots. He (Netanyahu) doesn’t call the shots.”
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Houthis claim attack on Israel
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed an attack on Israel and said Israel-affiliated vessels would again be a target in the Red Sea, putting the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait connected them in danger.
The statement from Brigadier General Yahya Saree was broadcast on the Houthis’ al-Masirah satellite news channel. During the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis killed at least nine mariners and sunk four ships in over 100 attacks, often targeting vessels with tangential or no ties at all to Israel.
The assaults upended shipping in the Red Sea, through which about $US1 trillion ($1.42trn) of goods passed each year before the war.
They also greatly disrupted transits through Egypt’s Suez Canal, which links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. The canal remains one of the top providers of hard currency for Egypt, providing it $US10 billion in 2023 as its wider economy struggles.
The Houthis’ renewed threat also comes as Saudi Arabia is relying on its East-West Pipeline to export oil out through the Red Sea as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.
Israel strikes Iran
Iranian state television reported the sound of explosions being heard in Isfahan, Karaj, Tabriz and Tehran, without immediately elaborating. A witness in Tehran described hearing at least one large blast somewhere to the west of the country’s capital city. Iran closed the airspace around Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport, the country’s main airfield, after the Israeli attack.
Officials offered no details on what had been struck, nor any damage information. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said that Israel used air-launched ballistic missiles in its attack Monday morning, without elaborating.
The semi-official Fars and Mehr news agencies said Israeli strikes had hit a petrochemical factory in city of Mahshahr in Khuzestan province. It did not elaborate on damage.
The Israeli military later confirmed the strike on the petrochemical plant.
In Saudi Arabia, missile alert sirens sounded Monday morning in an area home to an air base that hosts US forces. Saudi state media reported the alert around its Al Kharj governorate, home to Prince Sultan Air Base. The alert came after Israel’s strikes on Iran. Saudi Arabia shortly after said the missile danger in the area had passed, without elaborating.
