strikeMar 13, 2026

Lebanon appeals to Israel's allies to stop airstrikes

Summary

The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran has engulfed Lebanon, pushing the beleaguered country to a new precipice as Israel expands a ferocious bombing campaign and threatens an invasion of south Lebanon in response to strikes by Hezbollah, Tehran’s most powerful proxy. More than 680 people, at least 98 of them children, have been killed in Lebanon in the past week, while Israeli evacuation orders and strikes have forced 800,000 people to flee, authorities here say. Lebanon’s government, trying to stave off a disaster that threatens to overwhelm it, has appealed to U.S. and European leaders to intervene, officials said, even offering to engage in once-taboo talks with Israel. Israel rejected the proposal, according to two people familiar with the matter who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. Lebanese officials, in a diplomatic scramble from Beirut to Paris to Washington, have called for an immediate ceasefire, support for the Lebanese army to seize Hezbollah’s arsenal, and eventual direct peace talks with Israel “under American sponsorship,” according to an adviser to President Joseph Aoun. “The president of the republic is desperate and seeking all means to stop the destruction of the country and halt attacks,” the adviser said. Israeli airstrikes on Thursday pounded the capital, Beirut, and Lebanon’s southern borderlands, provoking warnings of a humanitarian crisis. Families have crammed into schools and spilled out onto the streets of the Beirut waterfront, and traffic has choked off roads needed by ambulances to reach the wounded. Israel’s sweeping warnings on Thursday, pushing Lebanese residents out of their towns and cities, have stoked fears of a long, crushing offensive. While the U.S. is attacking Iran, officials say, Israeli leaders see an opportunity to fulfill a long-standing ambition of wiping out Hezbollah and extending Israel’s regional dominance. Hezbollah, a political and paramilitary group, said it fired dozens of rockets and drones across the border in the past day. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Lebanon’s leaders on Thursday that if they do not stop Hezbollah’s fire, “we will take the territory and do it ourselves.” Cyprus, a European Union member, offered to host talks between Lebanon and Israel, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. But the Israeli government has been adamant, this person said, that now is the time to dismantle Hezbollah, whose salvos have displaced residents of northern Israel in past wars. So the campaign in Lebanon “could outlast the conflict with Iran,” this person said. As the Israeli assault intensifies, there is no sign of an off-ramp in the war spiraling across the region. Iran’s newly appointed supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, pledged Thursday that Tehran would keep retaliating and said the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for the world’s oil supply, would remain closed. Khamenei, who made the comments in a written address, has not been seen in public since the Feb. 28 U.S.-Israeli attack killed his father. The new leader said that Iran had warned its Persian Gulf neighbors of fierce retaliation and that they should shutter the U.S. bases on their territories, where Iran has directed many of its missile and drone counterattacks. With Europe nervous about rising oil prices and a potential refugee crisis, French President Emmanuel Macron is working to broker a truce in Lebanon, separate from the Iran war. France, which had a colonial mandate to control Lebanon before its independence, has close ties to the country, but Macron is also seeking to project influence in the region after the Trump administration sidelined European powers in its decision to unleash a war in the Middle East. Macron sent his army chief to Beirut last week, has dispatched warships to the Mediterranean to help defend Cyprus and Persian Gulf allies from Iranian counterattacks, and has suggested that French vessels could help secure shipping lanes. Macron has warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against another invasion of Lebanon. France has also suggested its forces could back the Lebanese army in disarming Hezbollah — a mission the army says Lebanon can’t complete while under bombardment. But diplomats say Israel appears intent on finishing the job it started in September 2024, when Israeli forces dealt Hezbollah a shocking blow with an attack that involved exploding pagers and the assassination of its longtime leader, Hasan Nasrallah. The United States and France brokered a ceasefire that year. Lebanon, already battered by an economic collapse, is still reeling. Israel did not stop bombing or withdraw its military from positions in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah rebuffed calls to surrender its weapons; Israeli officials said the Lebanese government was not doing enough to disarm it. With U.S. attention focused on Iran, one diplomat briefed on mediation efforts said, Israel sees a window to “get rid of Hezbollah once and for all.” Asked about the conflict in Lebanon, President Donald Trump said Wednesday: “We love the people of Lebanon, and we’re working very hard. We gotta get rid of the Hezbollah.” Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel to avenge the Feb. 28 killing of Iran’s supreme leader. The decision to join the war has deepened the group’s political isolation in Lebanon, as the Shiite community from which the group draws its core support bears the brunt of the war. Israeli strikes have pummeled Beirut’s southern suburbs and southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah is dug in. Israeli officials say they’re targeting the group’s capabilities, but the offensive has emptied out diverse, densely populated neighborhoods on the capital’s edge and agricultural lands in the south. An overnight strike hit Beirut’s public beach, where displaced civilians are sheltering. Residents of some Christian villages in the south, who had sought to distance themselves from the war, have been forced to flee this week. The Israeli military in recent days has sent reinforcements to the border, invaded some border villages and clashed with Hezbollah militants. With the threat of bombardment, Israel has sought to clear out more than 10 percent of Lebanon, in a part of the country that it occupied for nearly two decades until a U.N.-monitored withdrawal in 2000. Haneen Sayed, Lebanon’s minister of social affairs, said the exodus was far greater than that of the 2024 war. “There is a national emergency,” she told The Washington Post. “We are mobilizing very quickly. … Unfortunately, we have been through emergencies before, and we have not collapsed. But we are facing challenges.” Joshua Zarka, Israel’s ambassador to France, suggested that Aoun’s openness to direct negotiations and growing criticism of Hezbollah are not sufficient to stop the Israeli campaign. “What would end it is the disarmament of Hezbollah,” he said this week. In recent months, the Lebanese government has walked a tightrope, under pressure from Trump envoys to force Hezbollah to disarm. Lebanon’s president, appointed last year after the ceasefire, pledged to establish a monopoly on arms as the state confiscated some of Hezbollah’s arsenal. But Hezbollah has resisted Israeli demands to disarm completely, and Lebanese officials are wary of reigniting strife. The country remains fragile, with political sectarian balance between communities that fought a bloody 15-year civil war. The U.S., France and other nations have long backed the Lebanese army as a potential counterweight to Iranian influence in the country. Still, Western support for the cash-strapped force is no match for U.S. military aid to Israel or Tehran’s backing for Hezbollah. Mohanad Hage Ali, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center, said the Lebanese government had “actually acted against Iranian influence” and sought to degrade Hezbollah’s sway recently, including by seizing weapons and curbing Iranian flights. But, he added, the message from Israel seems to be: “You have no military power and we dictate what we want. Complete surrender or nothing, that’s what’s on the table.” Hezbollah, which has long cast itself as a defender of Lebanon’s south, grew into the dominant force of the country’s fractious politics, but the last war with Israel depleted its arsenal and influence. While Hezbollah might be suffering losses, and its Iranian sponsors are under attack, its fighters are steeped in guerrilla warfare. A hard-line Israeli minister has threatened that his country would destroy Beirut’s southern suburbs, like Gaza. Peace appears most elusive to those left stranded by Israeli strikes, many of whom fear they might never be able to return home. Nahida, a 50-year-old mother of two, fled suburban Beirut with her husband and children to shelter with many others at Beirut’s landmark racetrack. They’ve been sleeping on the ground. “I know we cannot go back to our home,” she said. “It is completely destroyed, and who will rebuild?” Pope Leo, who visited Lebanon in December on his first foreign trip, paid tribute Wednesday to a Lebanese priest who was killed as Israeli bombed southern Lebanon. “We insist on staying in our homes. If we leave, then we will lose them,” said the Rev. Antonios Farah, another priest from the parish. “If we leave, where do we go? … We are attached to our land, and we want to preserve it.”

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Jul 21, 2026strikeUnverifiedUSIsraelIranProxy

US strikes Iran for 10th consecutive night as Tehran strikes tanker in the Strait of Hormuz

○ 1 source

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran attacked a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz early Tuesday, forcing its crew to abandon the ship, while the United States conducted yet another round of airstrikes targeting the Islamic Republic as they struggle over control of the key waterway.

The 10 consecutive nights of U.S. airstrikes haven’t compelled Tehran to loosen its grip on the strait, through which about a fifth of all crude oil and natural gas traded once passed in peacetime. Even as the U.S. and Iran inch closer to all-out war again, Iran’s interior minister traveled to Pakistan, a key mediator in the conflict, for talks.

However, it remains unclear just what new deal could be reached to end the fighting. The interim deal signed last month that was meant to end the fighting has crumbled. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has largely stalled. And as fighting intensifies, both sides have targeted civilian infrastructure relied on by millions of people.

“Iran and groups supportive of Iran may target other U.S. interests overseas or at locations associated with the United States and Americans throughout the world,” the U.S. State Department said in a new warning to Americans. The escalation has pushed oil prices higher in recent weeks.

Benchmark Brent crude traded Tuesday above $88 a barrel and regular gasoline in the U.S. climbed to an average of $4 a gallon, keeping pressure on Americans’ wallets ahead of midterm elections this fall. Meanwhile, the U.S. military identified two soldiers who were killed in Jordan in attacks that left a third person missing.

Separately, the military confirmed another death in Iraq on Saturday during the “controlled detonation” of a downed Iranian drone. President Donald Trump took to social media on Monday to warn that “Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!

” Trump was planning to attend a ceremony on Tuesday evening at Dover Air Force Base, where at least one service member’s remains were due to arrive. US strikes come as ships attacked The U.S. military’s Central Command said Tuesday it targeted “Iranian military command centers, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and air defense systems.

” It released more footage of bombings that targeted sites in Iran. “American forces remain postured and prepared to hold Iran accountable for unwarranted aggression toward civilian mariners seeking to freely and openly transit the strait,” the command said.

Iranian state media reported that explosions were heard in Fars, Hormozgan, Ilam, Kerman and Sistan and Baluchistan provinces. However, traffic through the strait has slowed to a crawl during the latest violence. Lloyd's List Intelligence said only three ships transited the strait on Sunday.

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said a tanker came under attack early Tuesday in the strait off Oman, forcing the crew to abandon the vessel. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed the attack, as well as two other attacks on ships Monday in the waterway.

The route around Oman has been the one the U.S. military has encouraged ships to travel to avoid Iran’s control. The UKMTO separately reported Tuesday that another previously unknown attack on a ship took place early the previous day. Tehran also hit U.

S.-allied countries throughout the Middle East. Jordan military's said Tuesday that Iran targeted it with five drones and three missiles, all of which were shot down. Bahrain sounded its missile alert sirens Tuesday afternoon as another Iranian barrage targeted the island kingdom, which is home to the U.

S. Navy's 5th Fleet. Nearly 100 US injuries since early July The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson said nearly 100 U.S. service members have been injured since the U.S. restarted strikes on July 7, and 96% of them have returned to duty.

“The vast majority of injuries experienced were minor concussions,” Sean Parnell posted Monday on X in response to a New York Times report that the Pentagon has withheld information about troop injuries from Iranian strikes. He denied that the Pentagon was hiding data about injuries.

However, the Defense Casualty Analysis System, the military’s clearinghouse for reporting deaths and injuries in conflict, has not been updated as of Monday night with the latest attacks. Yemen rebels threaten attacks on other Mideast waterway Yemen’s Houthi rebels announced a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia on Monday.

The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, said they would block shipping between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden by targeting the Bab el-Mandeb, a maritime chokepoint like the Strait of Hormuz, in response to an attack on Sanaa International Airport last week that they blamed on Saudi Arabia.

With the Strait of Hormuz blocked, Saudi Arabia has been relying on a pipeline to the Red Sea to get millions of barrels of oil out to market. The Houthis earlier demonstrated their ability to disrupt shipping there when they targeted ships for months over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, with over 100 vessels attacked.

Saudi Arabia’s military said it would keep the waterway open. “All Houthi threats against transiting vessels will be dealt with swiftly and firmly, as such threats are a blatant violation of international law and fall under acts of maritime piracy,” said Maj.

Gen, Turki al-Malki, a Saudi military spokesman. A glimmer of hope for diplomacy Pakistan has intensified diplomatic efforts in recent days to resuscitate the interim deal. Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni arrived in Islamabad on Monday for two days of talks with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and others.

On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the U.S. is still open to negotiating with Iran but that “it has to be real.” “If the door opens to diplomacy — if the guys that want to do something productive for Iran win and take control of that system, or take control of the negotiations — that’ll be a very positive development,” Rubio said.

“That’s not where we are tonight, unfortunately.” Iranian authorities on Sunday said at least 50 people have been killed and 517 wounded in the latest rounds of U.S. strikes. Since the war began on Feb. 28, 17 U.S. service members have been killed.

JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press

Jul 21, 2026strikeUnverifiedUSIranRussiaChina

How the US-Iran conflict has thrown India’s Chabahar plans into doubt

○ 1 source

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth posted social media images showing damage to a maritime control tower at Iran’s Chabahar port following reported US military strikes, accompanied by the caption “Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz.” India’s Ministry of External Affairs stated that the Shahid Beheshti terminal operated by India at the port sustained no damage.

The ministry reiterated its position that civilian infrastructure should not be targeted during conflicts.

Location: Iran

Divya A

Jul 21, 2026strikeUnverifiedUSIranProxy

U.S. strikes Iran and Houthis threaten Saudi Arabia shipping as mediators push 10-day ceasefire

○ 1 source

U.S. strikes Iran and Houthis threaten Saudi Arabia shipping as mediators push 10-day ceasefire - The U.S. has carried out its tenth consecutive evening of attacks against Iran. - Iran attacked a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz early Tuesday, while Houthi militants in Yemen declared a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia.

- Rystad Energy has warned about the risk of a significant rebound in oil prices. The U.S. completed a fresh round of strikes against Iran on Monday evening as Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis threatened to impose a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, potentially opening a new front in the Middle East conflict.

The latest cycle of tit-for-tat strikes comes amid reports that regional mediators have presented Washington and Tehran with a proposal for a 10-day ceasefire, a pitch that could put last month's Memorandum of Understanding back on track. The U.S. Central Command said overnight that it had carried out another round of strikes on Iran at 9 p.

m. ET on Monday. "U.S. forces struck Iranian military command centers, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and air defense systems to degrade Iran's ability to continue attacking commercial vessels flowing through the Strait of Hormuz," Centcom said in a statement.

It added that commercial vessel transits through the strategically vital waterway were continuing. Centcom forces, the statement said, had facilitated the transit of around 900 commercial vessels and 450 million barrels of crude oil through the strait since early May.

Iran, meanwhile, attacked a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz early Tuesday, forcing its crew to abandon the vessel as it seeks to tighten its control over the waterway, one that typically handles around 20% of the world's oil traffic. Houthi militants in Yemen on Monday declared a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia effective immediately, a move that could substantially threaten Middle East oil supplies.

The Houthis have repeatedly threatened to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait during the U.S.-Iran war. The strait is a choke point for commercial ship traffic that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and global markets. The militants, in a statement carried by state news, accused the Saudis of laying an "aggressive siege" against them.

Tensions escalated last week after they claimed that Riyadh had bombed Sanaa International Airport. The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said that it would respond to the Houthis naval blockade with force, reportedly describing such threats as "a blatant violation of international law.

" 10-day ceasefire 'won't be an easy task' Oil prices rose briefly on news of the Houthi statement but later pared gains as energy market participants closely monitored the prospect of a diplomatic breakthrough. International benchmark Brent crude futures with September delivery were last seen trading 0.

5% lower at $88.77 per barrel, having surpassed $90 in the previous session. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures with August delivery, meanwhile, stood 0.4% lower at $82.88. Strategists at ING said there's some hope of de-escalation between the U.S.

and Iran given the reports that mediators are proposing a 10-day ceasefire. "This won't be an easy task," ING's Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey said in a research note published Tuesday. "Large divisions remain between the US and Iran. And President Trump said the US would retaliate following the deaths of several American troops," they added.

In a post on Truth Social on Monday, President Donald Trump said: "Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!" He added that this directive had been passed on to every leader in the military. Saudi Arabia oil risk Jorge León, senior vice president and head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, said the Houthis' threat puts approximately 2.

5 million barrels per day of Saudi Arabian oil at risk at a time when traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is at a standstill. "With the Gulf's primary maritime outlet largely closed, the market is increasingly dependent on Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline and Red Sea terminals to maintain export flows," León said Monday in a research note.

Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline network, or Petroline, is a roughly 750-mile system that transports crude across Saudi Arabia, connecting Abqaiq on the oil-rich kingdom's eastern Gulf coast to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea. "Any disruption at Bab el-Mandeb would therefore threaten not only Saudi shipments but one of the few remaining routes capable of compensating for the severe reduction in Hormuz traffic," León said.

"If a ceasefire does not materialize and Hormuz remains largely closed while the Houthi threat to Red Sea shipping intensifies, the risk of a significant rebound in oil prices would be substantial," he added. — CNBC's Chloe Taylor and Spencer Kimball both contributed to this report.

Location: Iran

Sam Meredith

Jul 21, 2026strikeUnverifiedIsraelIranProxy

How Houthi Red Sea blockade tightens Iran's grip on energy supplies

○ 1 source

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis announced Monday they would impose a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia, further throttling a global energy market already greatly restricted by Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This is why it matters and what it means for the Iran war and the global energy crisis.

It is not clear how the Houthis would carry out a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia, its northern neighbor along the Red Sea coast, or whether it would include a return to attacks on shipping. Yemen sits on the Bab el-Mandeb strait – the southern gateway to the Red Sea – and closing that would open up a new front in the energy crisis and Iran's overarching conflict with the U.

S. With the Strait of Hormuz already disrupted, the Red Sea has become a critical alternative outlet for Gulf oil and other products. A serious disruption would mean both of the Middle East's major oil export routes are shut simultaneously. Iran's partial blockade of the Strait of Hormuz after Israel and the U.

S. attacked it on Feb. 28 disrupted most oil and other exports from the Gulf, raising prices and delivering a global energy shock. Saudi Arabia responded by diverting more than 70% of its normal daily crude exports to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Ships from Yanbu bound for Europe go north through the Suez Canal.

Those heading to Asia go south through Bab el-Mandeb. Shipments from Yanbu averaged 4 million barrels per day in recent weeks according to data from Kpler and Signal Ocean, up from around 973,000 bpd a year earlier. Total petroleum volumes transiting Bab el-Mandeb amounted to 7.

4 million bpd in June, or about 7% of global oil output, according to Kpler data, up from 4.2 million bpd last year. That has provided a lifeline for the energy market, helping to keep down global oil prices. Saudi Arabia is considering an expansion of its crude oil pipeline to the Red Sea coast, Reuters reported last week.

When the Houthis launched attacks on Red Sea shipping in November 2023, Gulf oil exports were flowing freely. The Houthis have been in a civil war against the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government for more than a decade and have attacked Gulf neighbors with missiles and drones.

However, a 2022 truce between the country's warring sides largely held until last week, when Yemen's internationally recognized government said it had struck Sanaa airport to stop an Iranian plane landing. The Houthis said Saudi Arabia was responsible and, in response, fired missiles at Abha airport in the kingdom's mountainous southwest.

A senior Houthi official, politburo member Mohammad al-Farah, then warned in an interview on Iran's Press TV website that if the situation kept escalating, Bab el-Mandeb would be closed. The U.S. says Iran has armed, funded and trained the Houthis with help from Hezbollah.

The Houthis deny being an Iranian proxy and say they develop their own weapons. It is not clear how far the group's stance on Bab el-Mandeb and the Red Sea stems from its own strategic priorities or is being made on Iran's behalf. After Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza, the Houthis began firing at Israel and on shipping in the Red Sea, saying they were doing so in support of Palestinians.

The attacks severely disrupted global shipping, prompting Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd and other major companies to divert around Africa – a far longer, more expensive route. Red Sea traffic has not recovered since, with traffic through the Suez Canal down 52% in 2025 versus 2023 levels and at its lowest in at least 50 years, Suez Canal Authority data shows.

A U.S.-led mission to restore free navigation in the Red Sea involved repeated strikes on Houthi targets and a campaign that shot down hundreds of drones and missiles. But some Houthi attacks continued until last summer, only ending completely with the Gaza cease-fire in October.

Last month, the Houthis said they would ban ships linked to Israel from the Red Sea after Israel renewed military attacks on Iran. However, that threat was never acted on and shipping groups Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd are resuming some Red Sea routes that they had abandoned during the Houthi attacks last year, Maersk said this month.

While Hezbollah and the Iraqi groups joined the war early with rocket and drone fire after the first U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, the Houthis had been comparatively quiet. The group's leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on March 5: "Our fingers are on the trigger at any moment should developments warrant it.

" Iranian commanders have repeatedly warned that the Houthis could join the war. The Houthis launched a few missile and drone attacks on Israel in late March and early April. Revolutionary Guards Quds Force commander Esmaeil Qaani said on June 1 they could choke off the Red Sea.

That may now have changed with their announcement of the blockade on Monday against Saudi Arabia in retaliation for what they called the kingdom's siege of its ports and airports, including last week's strike.

Reuters