conflict

America’s war on Iran has already cost the US nearly $110 billion. Now, the Trump administration wants another $67 billion, even after declaring victory. Al Jazeera’s Emma Withrow breaks down the growing price tag.

The conflict in Yemen has entered a new chapter with a declaration by the Houthis that they are imposing a maritime siege on all shipping to Saudi Arabia.

The Yemeni rebel group, also known as Ansar Allah (or supporters of God), has attacked a number of Saudi tankers in the Red Sea.

This development has placed the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the strategic waterway that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the wider Indian Ocean, at the heart of the war between the United States and Iran, and amplifies pressure on global trade routes.

The Iranian-backed Houthis, who seized Yemeni capital Sanaa in 2014, have threatened to close the strait, the route through which much of Europe’s energy supplies pass. It is also a key passage for imports to Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis’ decision to announce a maritime blockade cannot be separated from the turmoil created by the ongoing war between Washington and Tehran, which erupted on February 28 when the US and Israel attacked Iran.

Houthis raise stakes for Saudi’s support

On Monday, Yemen’s internationally recognised government claimed responsibility for an air strike on Sanaa airport, saying that it was a measure to prevent an Iranian plane from landing in Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital. But the Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia for it.

The Houthis responded by firing missiles into Saudi Arabia – a key backer of the Aden-based Yemeni government – and later upped the stakes by announcing a naval blockade on the kingdom.

These developments mark a major escalation in Yemen’s civil war. Saudi Arabia, which has sought in recent years to avoid a new war on its southern borders, is facing a more complex equation with the threat shifting from land to sea, and the targeting of one of the most important alternative routes for its oil exports.

All of this raises the question: will this escalation cause a new confrontation between the Yemeni government and the Houthis? And if so, what does the balance of power look like between the Houthi and government sides after more than a decade of war? Has the balance changed enough to increase the odds of a military resolution to the conflict?

There has been talk of potential escalations in recent years, but this now seems more likely, especially since it intersects with local, regional and international events and the return of the US-Iran war.

The Yemeni government has restructured its military with a single decision-making centre, and regional messages suggest the military option has not been shelved, as was once thought.

So, will retaking Sanaa return to the table as a military objective to be thought of seriously, and what does that mean practically? And how ready are the parties, especially the Yemeni government, for battle?

The structure of government-affiliated forces

The anti-Houthi camp today comprises the National Army as the official framework of the Ministry of Defence, in addition to new formations with independent commands, such as the Giants Brigades, and the Guardians of the Republic forces in al-Makha, or Mocha, in the west.

These different groupings – all on the anti-Houthi side in the conflict – have emerged over the years due to the weakening power of the central government, the growth of independent figures, and the backing of regional countries.

The number of National Army personnel in the field is estimated at about 400,000, according to recent statements by the Defence Ministry. Its organisational structure includes Yemen’s seven military regions, but troop deployment is concentrated in Marib, Taiz and the country’s southern and eastern governorates, as a result of Houthi control over vast parts of the country’s northwest, including Sanaa.

Also backing the army are the Emergency Forces, comprising between 30,000 to 40,000 personnel, and the Homeland Shield Forces, created in 2022 with between 30,000 and 40,000 recruits, and tasked with taking over camps in Hadramout and the southern governorates in December 2025, following the defeat of separatist forces who previously controlled those areas.

Fighting late last year between the Yemeni government and affiliated forces on one side, and United Arab Emirates-backed separatists on the other, has led to changes in Yemen’s south and west.

After the defeat of the 75,000-strong separatist Southern Transitional Council, following a Saudi intervention on the side of the government and the withdrawal of the UAE from Yemen, the group’s organisational cohesion has been impacted. But they have not been disarmed, and remain in many locations in the south, with some elements absorbed – even if nominally – into government structures.

Another formerly-UAE backed force, the Tariq Saleh-led Guardians of the Republic, is estimated to number about 20,000 fighters. They are stationed primarily on the Red Sea coast and are considered among the most heavily armed formations, due to the past Emirati support.

The Giants Brigades are among the most prominent combat formations in the anti-Houthi camp, with an estimated 20,000 fighters and a presence on the Red Sea coast, in Aden, and in some southern areas.

Consequently, the total size of the forces affiliated with the government and the anti-Houthi camp is estimated at more than 500,000 personnel, albeit with a clear disparity in levels of training, discipline and institutional integration.

Quality of armament and military equipment

The types of weapons held by these forces do not differ as significantly as the level of their operation and management. The National Army relies on conventional weapons inherited from the Yemeni army pre-war, including light and medium weapons, armoured vehicles, tanks and field artillery, alongside various communication and transport capabilities.

The Homeland Shield Forces, backed by Saudi Arabia, are considered among the most relatively well-equipped modern formations. They rely on tactical vehicles, light armoured vehicles, and superior communication systems suited for rapid deployment missions and the protection of institutions.

The Emergency Forces rely on light to medium armament focused on urban operations and rapid deployment missions, more akin to a field military force with rapid intervention duties, combining a security character with combat capability.

The Giants Brigades rely on medium and heavy armament, armoured vehicles and fire support units, and they are recognised for their capability to conduct offensive ground operations compared with other forces.

As for the formations affiliated with the Southern Transitional Council, they rely on diverse weaponry, though readiness varies as a result of the organisational changes they have undergone.

In recent years, the majority of government forces have also developed their drone capabilities, both within regular units and some irregular formations. These assets are now used for reconnaissance and surveillance missions, and occasionally for limited tactical support.

Balance of power with the Houthis

Official military records in Sanaa indicate that Houthi-affiliated army units comprise more than 200,000 fighters and can also mobilise tens of thousands of members from their volunteer Popular Committees for rapid intervention and support.

However, these figures, much like the military rosters in the government camp, may not accurately reflect the actual combat strength on the ground due to the inclusion of reserve or inactive names in registries.

Although government-affiliated forces may possess more manpower, the balance of power in Yemen is not determined solely by numbers.

Despite sustaining significant damage to its forces and assets from US and Israeli strikes over the past few years, the Houthi side benefits from a more centralised command structure and possesses experience in managing asymmetric warfare.

This is in addition to possessing missile, drone and maritime threat capabilities that have proven their impact in the Red Sea and the Bab-al-Mandeb Strait. It appears that the military balance in Yemen is more a balance of organisational and war management rather than a balance of weaponry and numbers.

Readiness of government forces for a major battle

Indicators suggest government forces are capable of engaging in defensive battles, holding territory or managing extensive security deployments. However, they face significant challenges should they consider launching a large-scale offensive.

The most prominent of these challenges was the multiplicity of military decision-making centres – before Saudi Arabia assumed control of this decision-making following the UAE’s withdrawal – and the varying levels of training and discipline, compounded by the difficulty of operational coordination.

Geography is also a factor, as the Houthis’ control over the mountainous northwest grants them a defensive advantage, whereas government forces are dispersed across multiple fronts, limiting their ability to mobilise at a decisive point.

The scenario of entering Sanaa

So far, there are no clear public indications that any international power, including the US, has adopted a declared plan to support a large-scale military operation to take Sanaa.

Although Houthi attacks in the Red Sea have elevated the level of international interest in the Yemeni file, the international strategy has been focused on degrading Houthi capabilities related to the sea and smuggling, rather than on a ground offensive. However, reports have emerged from sources within the Yemeni state regarding a possibility of waging a war against the Houthis with US support.

If an operation towards Sanaa is considered, its success would require complex conditions, most notably unifying the government’s military command, providing broad domestic and regional political cover, and ensuring the ability to manage the city after seizing control of it. Some of these conditions may have already been met.

Has Saudi Arabia provided cover to confront the Houthis?

The Yemeni government’s military decision-making is largely tied to Saudi political and military support, and any broad move against the Houthis remains contingent upon Riyadh. But Riyadh has preferred to focus on protecting the kingdom’s southern borders, securing shipping lanes and preventing the expansion of the Houthi threat deep into Saudi territory.

It seems that Saudi strategy has previously leaned towards managing the conflict rather than resolving it, by combining limited military pressure, diplomatic moves and de-escalation tracks to reduce the security and economic costs of the war.

The Saudi position may have shifted recently in light of international and regional events, particularly concerning the security of navigation in the Red Sea. Riyadh may be pushed to re-evaluate its options regarding the Yemeni file, and the one currently on the table may be a military one.

Israeli police barred Palestinian worshippers from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque as more than 2,300 right-wing Israelis entered the compound under police protection during Tisha B’Av. Palestinian officials say the incursions aim to undermine the site’s longstanding status quo.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov ‘reaffirmed ​readiness’ for a political ​and diplomatic settlement to Russia-Ukraine war.

The top United States and Russian diplomats have discussed the war in Ukraine on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in the Philippines.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday in Manila, with Russian media reporting that the meeting was just over half an hour long.

The sit-down came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had spoken with US envoys in a bid to revive stalled talks aimed at ending the years-long war.

Lavrov “reaffirmed Russia’s readiness for a political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict”, a statement from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, adding that the minister told Rubio that ⁠Moscow remained committed ⁠to proposals put forward by presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir ⁠Putin at their August 2025 meeting ⁠in Alaska.

Lavrov also “stressed that it was unacceptable to continue supplying weapons to the Kyiv regime”, the ministry said. The minister condemned “a destabilising policy by European countries, which are still seeking to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia,” it added.

The US State Department offered few details about the meeting, with a spokesperson only saying that Rubio and Lavrov “discussed the US-Russia relationship and the need to end the Russia-Ukraine war”.

The two were also expected to discuss the conflict in the Middle East, which has seen Moscow condemn Washington’s strikes on its ally Iran.

“The war in Ukraine, I think, has in many ways impeded the ability of Russia and the United States to find areas of agreement on other topics,” Rubio told reporters on Wednesday.

“That doesn’t mean we won’t seek to find other areas of potential cooperation. But by the same token … we’d like to see that war come to an end,” he added.

Rubio said the US remained open to playing a role in ending the conflict “if that opportunity presents itself”.

For his part, Lavrov earlier indicated the meeting would “be useful in any case”.

“It’s good to ask questions and get answers,” Lavrov said to reporters on Wednesday, adding that he would ask Rubio about the latest statements by Trump predicting that a settlement is getting close.

Discussions aimed at ending the conflict in Ukraine have been at a standstill, with US attention now focused on the Middle East and Moscow maintaining its demand that Kyiv cede territory.

On Thursday, Zelenskyy said in a post on X that he had “a good, important conversation on how to reinvigorate diplomacy” with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

Rubio spoke briefly with Lavrov at a gala dinner on Tuesday, and the two participated in a meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum on Thursday morning.

Trump has voiced support for Ukraine’s campaign of long-range drone strikes targeting Russian energy infrastructure, saying it could “help bring about an end” to the conflict.

Ukraine has been escalating its drone strikes, hitting refineries, oil depots and cargo ships at sea, which has caused fuel shortages in Russia.

In late June, a massive barrage of Russian missiles and drones killed at least 30 people in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Claimed attacks come days after Houthis announced naval embargo on Saudi vessels.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have claimed an attack on two Saudi oil tankers transiting through the Red Sea.

“We targeted two Saudi oil tankers, named ENCELA and LAYLIA, for their violation of the blockade decision issued by the armed forces,” Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Wednesday.

Saree added that the attacks were carried out, “using a number of ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones”, and led to fires on the ships.

The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, had also forced “nearly ten ships… to abandon their routes, and turn back”, Saree said.

Saudi Arabia has not commented on the claims, but the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) centre said it had received reports that a tanker has been struck.

“The master of a tanker reports being struck by an unknown projectile which has caused a fire onboard that the crew are currently fighting,” UKMTO, which monitors shipping in the region, said.

Yemen’s Houthi group, which has fought the Yemeni government and a Saudi-led coalition that backs it for more than a decade, imposed a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia on July 20. That followed some of the worst violence Yemen has seen for four years, after the Yemeni government bombed the Houthi-controlled Sanaa airport to stop an Iranian plane from landing.

The Houthis said the declaration of the maritime embargo on Saudi Arabia was “based on the equation of ‘an eye for an eye’ and affirmed “the right of our great people to respond to the blockade with a blockade”.

The group, which seized Sanaa in 2014, accused Saudi leaders of imposing “an unjust and oppressive siege” for nearly 12 years, “plundering our resources and imposing a comprehensive blockade on our ports and airports by land, sea, and air”.

“The Saudis feel that they can instigate a popular uprising against the Houthis using these economic strangulation methods,” Hussain al-Bukhaiti, a journalist based in Sanaa told Al Jazeera.

Riyadh has rejected claims that it was imposing a siege on the Yemeni people, and the group’s critics point out that they have rejected a proposal from Jordan to resume flights between Amman and Sanaa.

“The ultimate goal for Ansar Allah’s naval blockade against the Saudis, is to force Riyadh to lift its embargo on the ports and airports controlled by the Houthis,” al-Bukhaiti said.

Amid the disruption in shipping through the Strait of Hormuz due to the US-Israel war on Iran, Saudi Arabia has been attempting to facilitate oil flow through alternative routes through the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. But that route is now under threat from the Houthis.

The Houthis disrupted global commerce when they began attacking ships around the Bab al-Mandeb after the launch of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023. The attacks ended with the announcement of a “ceasefire” in Gaza in October 2025.

“The people who are questioning if the Houthis can successfully do a blockade against the Saudis should remember, how successfully the Houthis closed access to the Red Sea for the Israeli ports, which in fact resulted in the closure of Eilat port in southern Israel,” said al-Bukhaiti. “Eventually the Americans had to do a deal with the Houthis, with mediation from Oman,” he added, referring to a May 2025 agreement.

The Bab al-Mandeb chokepoint connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden is one of the world’s most important shipping routes, including for oil exports.

Between Yemen to the northeast and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa to the southwest, the strait is just 29km (18 miles) wide at its narrowest point, limiting traffic to two channels for inbound and outbound vessels using the Suez Canal.

In 2024, about 4.1 billion barrels of crude oil and refined petroleum products passed through the strait – about 5 percent of the global total.

With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed since Israel and the US launched their war on Iran in late February, shutting down Bab al-Mandeb as well could block 25 percent of the world’s oil and gas supply.

Labaran Kaduna says his son, Desire, was unlucky in life. Two months after Desire’s white wedding in Rigange, a small Bachama community in the Lamurde local government area of Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria, his newly built house was burnt to the ground when the Tshobo and Bachama tribes first clashed in July, 2025. A year later, Desire himself was killed in the same conflict that remains unresolved. 

Desire had provided HumAngle with materials and information about the conflict last year, in an effort to bring awareness to the violence, as though he knew that it would one day claim his life too.

Labaran speaks about his late son with a sad smile on his face and pride etched in his voice: “He was a university graduate. Since he was yet to secure a white-collar job, he joined me in farming and soon had his own large farm.”

Desire was 36 years old.

“He had a bad leg which made it difficult for him to walk very fast or run, so when our community was attacked that night, people fled and left him behind,” said Labaran. 

HumAngle gathered that a group of armed men stormed the Rigange community on the night of June 27 and opened fire on people. Labaran believes the men were members of an armed militia and that several of them had been storming the area to wreak havoc since the communal crisis began. That night, many fled, leaving Desire limping behind. 

“His brother survived the attack, so he ran home to inform us. When we reached the spot, we realised that he had been shot dead, and after shooting him, they took all his belongings, like his phone and wallet. They even took his shoes,” the grieving father said. 

A lot can happen in a year 

Desire is one of the many who have lost their lives in the Lamurde communal clash. HumAngle has been unable to obtain the total number of casualties, as efforts to reach Suleiman Nguroje, the Adamawa State Police Public Relations Officer, have failed. He has neither responded to phone calls nor replied to text messages sent to his phone.

In 2025, HumAngle extensively documented the violent land dispute that shattered daily life in Lamurde. The clash, which began in July 2025, forced many locals to flee the area, while those who remained lamented being trapped in their communities, unable to move freely. Access to healthcare and other social services became difficult, especially for Tshobo communities, which had long depended on clinics in Lamurde town, a Bachama stronghold. The most affected communities remain Rigange, Waduku, Wammi, Sabon Layi, and Sikori. A total of 53 houses were destroyed that year while 170 homes were partially damaged.  Despite several peace talks and reconciliation efforts by the government and stakeholders, both tribes continue to clash. 

“Desire was kind and hardworking. He had two little children. Last year, he married their mother in church, but unfortunately, he was not lucky to see them grow,” Labaran said. 

Rosaline Danladi, a Tshobo woman from Anguwan Baki, one of the affected communities in Lamurde, bears the scars of the year-long conflict. Her husband, Danladi, was killed when the tribes clashed in December 2025. Danladi was a farmer who left behind his wife and seven children. 

“We were in the room that night when we heard gunshots, so my husband stepped out while I ran with the children in another direction. We waited for his return, but he never came back,” Rosaline recalled.

Danladi’s remains were later found, and he was buried. Rosaline explained that she has been struggling to keep up with her children’s needs months after his demise because she was a full-time housewife who had always relied on her husband. 

“I am just managing to take care of the children. Two were in a boarding school in Numan while the smaller ones were in a private school here, but they have all recently dropped out,” she said. 

Rosaline said 2025 had been an unfortunate year for her and many in the Lamurde area. Sadly, the conflict has persisted into 2026, and new waves continue to rise. 

Speaking to HumAngle, Jonah John, a security analyst in Adamawa, stressed that the impact of the crisis can not be overemphasised. Apart from deaths, property losses, and displacement, he noted that the closure of the famous Tingo market in the region has affected businesses, leading to a hike in the cost of foodstuffs across Adamawa. 

Fallen classrooms

When both tribes started clashing in June 2025, schools, clinics, and other social services closed temporarily across the affected Lamurde communities. Even though clinics and administrative activities have now resumed, children in communities such as Tingno and Rigange remain out of school. 

HumAngle spoke to Celestine Bafyau, the principal of the Government Day Secondary School in Rigange. He said the school serves almost 300 students from both Bachama and Tshobo communities. 

“We have students from Bashaka, Lamurde, and other Rigange areas,” he stated.

The school was burnt down during the July 2025 clash and has remained deserted to date. To ensure the children don’t miss out on learning, Celestine said, teachers utilised the nearby primary school, but with many students displaced and others who had completely fled town, it became hard to keep up.

According to the principal, students from JSS 3 and SS3 are currently using the primary school block to write their final examinations, and, due to the large number, some are writing theirs under a nearby tree. At the same time, those in JSS1, JSS2, SS1, and SS2 remain out of school. 

“I have taken pictures of the school attached to a report and submitted it to the education board in Yola because we need help,” he stated. 

Celestine noted that teachers are eager to resume teaching.  “Honestly, my staff are ready, and they are disturbed. We do go to school sometimes to check it, but most of the students have relocated to other communities. If there’s peace, we will call them so we can teach them,” he said. 

When the crisis began in July, several people were killed, and many were displaced. In December, another bout of violence erupted between the two tribes and eight people were killed in Lamurde town. Despite three peace deals, a fresh wave of terror occurred in January when three women in the area were attacked and killed on their farm. On June 27, the attack that claimed Desire’s life happened. 

According to the security analyst, Lamurde’s security architecture is very weak. 

“The deployment of the security forces should be treated with a great sense of importance, looking at the fact that it’s the sole responsibility of the government to safeguard and to protect the lives and property of its citizens, but the government has failed totally. That is the only reason why things keep repeating themselves over and over again,” he stressed.  

Locals told HumAngle that security officers deployed to the area had since withdrawn. Youths and local vigilante groups now take turns to patrol the area. 

Both parties have accused each other of using armed militias to fight. Jonah, the security analyst, explained that both parties illegally acquired rifles and other unlicensed weapons to intimidate each other. 

“If they cannot stand the pressure or tension on the other hand, they will have to employ the service of militia,” he warned.

The cause of the Lamurde clash has been linked to land ownership, with both tribes claiming possession of the same land. HumAngle gathered that both parties were instructed by the state government and members of the peace committee to forfeit the land. Yet, the clashes continued. 

There are claims across social media that the land both parties have been clashing over contains mineral resources. While some claim it is gold, others call it ‘mineral’. HumAngle learned that it is clay-like in nature.  

“They brought it home as a sample for me to see. So, it’s like clay. Even if I see it, I can just pass. I wouldn’t even know that it’s important or something. So, they say the men have been packing them in large quantities. And then, actually, Tshobo has never been benefiting from it at all,” Hyginus Mangu, the Tshobo community leader, told HumAngle. 

The controversial mine 

Hyginus said the mine in question lies far away from the town and is in no way affiliated with the land in dispute.  “For me, personally, I don’t know where the spot is, but I do know that there are some people who used to do some mining there, and the people are not Tshobo people. I don’t know how they get to that area to mine,” the Tshobo community leader said. 

He added that the miners were from Gombe State and had been mining in the area before the crisis began.

Jacob Bawa, the Youth leader of Rigange, a Bachama community in Lamurde, corroborated Hyginus’s claim. According to him, the mine is far away from the main town and is not affiliated with the disputed land. Jacob also claimed that locals from the Bachama community do not benefit from the mine. 

Jacob maintained that he had never been to the mine, as it was only recently publicly discovered, even though it had been operating illegally for years. 

HumAngle could not access the mine or obtain pictures of the mineral, as access is highly restricted.  

On June 30, Adamawa State Governor Ahmadu Fintiri banned illegal mining in Lamurde Local Government Area following speculations that the mining was fueling the crisis between the two tribes. Security agencies were directed to ensure strict compliance. The Governor assured locals of securing sustainable peace and addressing the root causes of the Lamurde conflict. 

Jonah, the security analyst, emphasised that allegations that the mine is driving the recurring conflict in Lamurde should be taken seriously by the government and other relevant stakeholders. Although most miners come from Gombe State to extract the minerals, Jonah believes the illegal miners engage Lamurde residents as labourers, who end up clashing over land and resources. He called on locals to shun violence and desist from being used as puppets by the miners who are taking advantage of their home. 

Even though access to farmlands and clinics has improved for the Tshobo people, Hyginus said they still don’t have access to administrative and business services in Lamurde town due to fear of being attacked. 

In Rigange, Jacob Bawa, the youth leader, says life is hard for Bachama locals who stayed behind because they have nowhere else to go. “We are suffering because most of the people have run to neighbouring communities like Numan and Yola. Also, we don’t have mosquito nets or tents because most of the houses here were burnt down,” he said. 

HumAngle gathered that the Lamurde main route is partly closed, and travellers can barely access the area. 

According to Jonah, the use of social media by both parties to spread hate speech and misinformation also re-fuels the crisis. 

“So if the government can put an order, just like the federal government did, any hate speech from each other should equally be dealt with,” he said. 

What lies ahead?

The security analyst calls on the government and stakeholders to secure the people of Lamurde. He also advised the locals to embrace peace and live together as they’ve always done, especially with intermarriages that have occurred between them for centuries. 

“All those people that are hiring all these militias or whatever, please, they should stop that. At the end of every crisis, only the women and the children suffer the most. So honestly, they should look at the future of their children, the future of their local government and the future of their tribes,” he said. 

While Rosaline and Desire’s father continue to bear the burden of grief, they are uncertain of what lies ahead for other grieving families and displaced locals of Lamurde. Rosaline says she’s struggling to get by each day and is doing her best to make sure her children are provided for.  However, she fears another night might come when the clashes will recur as the matter remains unsettled and with her husband gone, she’s not sure if she could cope with another attack.

Labaran (Desire’s father) has a large family. With four wives, 16 children and many grandchildren, he said the family had never been apart. They lived together in their large family home in Rigange. Now, he says, his family is scattered because some of his daughters-in-law had gone to their families for safety. While some of his sons remain in Rigange, guarding what’s left of their household, Labaran has moved with the others to Numan local government, where they are currently staying with a relative. 

“My children built a big apartment, and it was all burnt to the ground. My son-in-law then built a new house for me, and it was burned too. Approximately 13 houses were burnt in my extended family,” the man said. 

But none of those losses, he said, can be compared to the loss of his son, Desire. 

“Just peace. I want peace. We are in a difficult situation at the moment,” he said.

The US military’s 11th consecutive night of strikes extended to Iranian provinces not previously hit, marking a broadening of the campaign. As Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi reports from Tehran, rising civilian casualties and mounting economic pressures are fueling questions about whether diplomacy is possible.

Bamako, Mali – The ambush that killed at least 50 Malian soldiers and struck a joint convoy of the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) and Russia’s Africa Corps near the northern town of Anefis on July 18 was more than another battlefield setback.

It underscored how Mali’s armed groups are becoming increasingly coordinated, exposing the limits of the military government’s security strategy, despite growing Russian military support.

The Malian military confirmed the assault and said it had launched counter-operations, while Africa Corps later released footage it said showed drone strikes targeting fighters involved in the ambush.

The attack is the latest in a series of coordinated operations across northern Mali since April, raising questions about why armed groups are increasingly cooperating, whether Bamako’s security strategy is working, whether Russia’s military role has – and has not – changed, and what the conflict could mean for the wider Sahel.

Why are separatist and Islamic armed groups fighting together?

The July 18 ambush was jointly claimed by the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a coalition of predominantly Tuareg separatist groups, and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda affiliate in the Sahel.

Until recently, such cooperation would have seemed unlikely as they have different longterm political aims. The FLA seeks greater autonomy or independence for northern Mali, while JNIM aims to establish governance based on its interpretation of Islamic law across the region.

For Héni Nsaibia, a senior West Africa analyst at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) monitor, the answer lies in a shared battlefield enemy rather than a shared ideology.

“The Tuareg-led separatists and JNIM are currently fighting together because they share a common enemy in the Malian armed forces and their Russian partners from the Africa Corps,” Nsaibia told Al Jazeera.

“In doing so, they act as force multipliers for one another, allowing them to pool resources and mutualise their efforts to confront their adversaries more effectively. These groups also share kinship ties despite their ideological differences and regard one another as sons of the land, defending their ancestral territory against invading forces.”

For Mali’s military, that cooperation makes attacks harder to anticipate and more difficult to repel, allowing armed groups to combine local knowledge, manpower and operational experience while pursuing separate objectives.

The military government’s decision to abandon the 2015 Algiers Peace Agreement, request the withdrawal of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), and deepen military cooperation with Russia reshaped the conflict. The collapse of the peace framework removed one of the few mechanisms managing relations between Bamako and northern armed groups, while the military’s increasingly confrontational approach encouraged former rivals to coordinate against a common adversary.

The shift became increasingly visible during coordinated attacks launched across several parts of the country in April, stretching Malian and Russian forces across multiple fronts. More recently, fighting around Anefis has shown that the alliance is capable not only of launching simultaneous operations but also of sustaining pressure on strategically important military positions.

With negotiations abandoned and military confrontation becoming the dominant strategy, armed groups that once competed with one another have found greater incentives to cooperate on the battlefield.

Has Russia changed the course of Mali’s war?

Since replacing the Wagner Group as Moscow’s principal military presence in Mali, Africa Corps has become an increasingly important partner for the Malian army.

Its personnel have provided combat support alongside Malian forces, while Russian drones and aircraft have expanded the military’s surveillance and strike capabilities. Those capabilities have strengthened the army’s ability to respond to attacks and defend key positions.

“Russia has helped strengthen Mali’s military, which was at risk of being overrun, and has given it more support on the battlefield,” Nimi Princewill, a regional analyst specialising in West Africa and the Sahel, told Al Jazeera.

“But this attack, as well as the earlier seizure of Kidal, suggests the Kremlin’s military support has not changed the overall picture. The conflict remains deeply rooted, with geographical and ideological dimensions that are proving difficult for the junta to tackle.” The army seized Kidal, a key town in the country’s north that the Tuareg rebels held for nearly a decade, in November 2023, but Tuareg and allied fighters retook the town in April this year.

Rather than transforming the conflict, Moscow’s military backing appears to have strengthened the army’s battlefield capabilities without addressing the political, governance and security conditions that continue to fuel the violence.

Recent operations reinforce that assessment. Convoys travelling through northern Mali continue to face frequent ambushes, particularly along routes linking Gao, Anefis and other military positions, exposing the continued vulnerability of military supply lines despite increased Russian support.

The shift away from Western security partners also changed the type of assistance available. While Africa Corps has strengthened Mali’s combat capabilities, the withdrawal of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) ended an international presence that provided logistics, monitoring and intelligence support across much of northern Mali.

The result is a military that has become more effective in direct combat but continues to struggle to secure vast, remote territory against increasingly adaptable armed groups.

Has Bamako’s strategy paid off?

The limitations of Bamako’s security strategy raise broader questions about whether it is translating battlefield gains into lasting security.

Since seizing power in 2020, Mali’s military government has centred its strategy on military force, ending longstanding cooperation with Western partners while strengthening defence ties with Russia.

But the repeated ambushes around Anefis and along northern supply routes suggest the measurable gains of this approach on the battlefield have yet to translate into lasting strategic control.

More fundamentally, the growing cooperation between armed groups with different objectives suggests that Bamako’s strategy has not prevented them from adapting and reshaping the conflict.

What could this mean for the wider Sahel?

The implications of the Anefis ambush extend well beyond Mali.

JNIM, the al-Qaeda affiliate, already operates across Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, while fighting continues to spread across the central Sahel.

The evolving battlefield also presents a challenge for the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), whose members all face persistent armed violence despite expanding military cooperation. The alliance was created to strengthen collective security, but increasingly coordinated attacks suggest that cooperation among governments is being matched by equally adaptable cooperation among armed groups.

At the same time, Mali’s withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has reduced opportunities for regional coordination with neighbouring countries confronting many of the same security threats.

If the FLA-JNIM partnership proves durable, it could encourage similar tactical cooperation elsewhere in the Sahel, further complicating efforts to contain armed groups whose operations already span national borders.

“The AES was supposed to mean that our security was finally our own business. But when Mali bleeds, Niger bleeds with it, because the armed groups attacking those convoys do not recognise the Alliance of Sahel States any more than they recognised ECOWAS. We traded one set of partners we did not trust for another, and the war is still coming south,” a Niger-based security expert, who requested anonymity because he feared potential repercussions, told Al Jazeera.

Whether the tactical partnership between the FLA and JNIM proves durable remains uncertain. But the Anefis ambush suggests that as Mali’s security strategy shifts, armed groups are adapting in response, with consequences that could extend far beyond Mali’s borders.

The conflict between the United States and Iran intensified on Monday, with both sides launching fresh military strikes that raised fears of a broader regional crisis threatening global energy supplies, maritime security and critical civilian infrastructure. While oil prices briefly climbed above $90 a barrel amid renewed disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, attacks on desalination facilities also highlighted a dangerous expansion of the conflict beyond military targets.

Despite the escalating violence, both Washington and Tehran signalled they remain open to diplomacy, suggesting that negotiations have not been completely abandoned even as the war enters a more volatile phase.

US and Iran Exchange Fresh Strikes

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said they had launched missile attacks against U.S. military assets across the Middle East after another night of American bombardment targeting several Iranian cities.

According to Iran, ballistic missiles targeted U.S. military facilities at Jordan’s Aqaba Airport, Kuwait’s Al Adiri Camp and Ali Al Salem Air Base, as well as American positions in Syria. Bahrain also activated air raid sirens, while Kuwait reported intercepting hostile drones during the attacks.

Meanwhile, U.S. Central Command confirmed it had carried out a ninth consecutive night of strikes against Iran, saying the operations were intended to degrade Tehran’s capability to threaten commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian media reported explosions in several cities, including Tabriz, Chabahar, Konarak, Bandar Mahshahr and Bandar Imam Khomeini, with at least one person killed and several others wounded.

President Donald Trump defended the latest strikes, describing them as retaliation for the deaths of U.S. service members in recent Iranian attacks.

Hormuz Shipping Faces Renewed Disruption

The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one fifth of global oil supplies normally pass, remains at the centre of the confrontation.

The IRGC claimed two oil tankers had exploded after attempting to navigate what it described as an unsafe route through the strategic waterway. Tehran did not provide details about the vessels or casualties, and the reports could not be independently verified.

Separately, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency reported that a commercial vessel off the coast of Oman had been struck by an unidentified projectile, leaving the ship adrift though its crew remained safe.

Shipping disruptions pushed Brent crude briefly above $90 per barrel as traders worried that prolonged instability in Hormuz could significantly reduce global oil exports.

The renewed uncertainty comes after vessel traffic through the strait had already fallen sharply in recent days, with many shipping companies delaying voyages or rerouting vessels due to security concerns.

Civilian Infrastructure Becomes a New Battlefield

Beyond energy markets, the conflict is increasingly threatening essential civilian infrastructure.

Kuwait confirmed that one of its desalination plants was attacked for a second consecutive day, causing a fire. Desalination facilities provide the majority of drinking water across Gulf countries, making them among the region’s most critical infrastructure assets.

Iran has accused the United States of previously striking one of its own desalination facilities and warned that any attacks on Iranian civilian infrastructure would trigger reciprocal action against similar installations across the Gulf.

The targeting of water infrastructure represents a significant escalation, raising humanitarian concerns alongside military and economic risks.

Diplomacy Remains on the Table

Despite intensifying military operations, officials from both countries suggested diplomacy has not been completely abandoned.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington would continue targeting Iranian capabilities as long as Tehran threatened international shipping but stressed that the United States remained open to a diplomatic solution.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry echoed that position, stating diplomacy remains one of the country’s instruments for pursuing national interests despite ongoing hostilities.

Tehran also confirmed that Iran’s interior minister would travel to Pakistan, which has served as an important intermediary between the two sides since the conflict began, although Iranian officials described the visit as focused primarily on bilateral relations.

Political Pressure Mounts in Washington

The conflict is also creating growing domestic challenges for the White House.

U.S. gasoline prices climbed above $4 per gallon on Monday, reversing declines seen after the temporary ceasefire reached earlier this year. Rising fuel costs have historically carried significant political consequences for American administrations and could become a major issue ahead of November’s congressional midterm elections.

Trump defended the military campaign by arguing that Iran had suffered severe damage and insisted the United States had effectively secured control over the Strait of Hormuz, despite continued Iranian attacks across the region.

Why It Matters

The latest escalation illustrates how the conflict is evolving beyond conventional military strikes into a broader campaign targeting global trade routes and critical infrastructure. While the Strait of Hormuz remains the world’s most important energy chokepoint, attacks on desalination plants introduce a new humanitarian dimension that could directly affect millions of civilians across the Gulf.

At the same time, continued disruptions to commercial shipping threaten global oil markets, supply chains and inflation at a time when many economies are already grappling with elevated energy costs.

What’s Next

The coming days will determine whether the conflict enters an even more dangerous phase. Iran appears determined to maintain pressure on U.S. forces and commercial shipping while signalling it could expand attacks against civilian infrastructure if American strikes continue.

Washington is likely to sustain military operations aimed at securing freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz while attempting to deter further Iranian retaliation. However, any successful attack on major oil facilities, shipping lanes or water infrastructure could trigger a broader regional crisis involving additional Gulf states.

Although both sides continue to leave the door open for negotiations, the cycle of retaliation has significantly reduced the prospects for an immediate diplomatic breakthrough. Until meaningful talks resume, the Gulf is likely to remain one of the world’s most volatile flashpoints, with global energy markets and regional stability hanging in the balance.

With information from Reuters.

The United States has attacked Iran for a ninth consecutive night after the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) announced a US soldier had died in northern Iraq in a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian drone.

Here is what happened over Sunday night and Monday morning and what officials on both sides have said:

Where was Iran attacked?

CENTCOM announced in a statement on X that it completed the ninth wave of attacks against Iran at 02:00 GMT on Monday.

It said it “targeted Iranian military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks to further diminish Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz”.

The US military did not provide details about the actual sites hit in Iran.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said two oil tankers “exploded” and were halted in the southern Strait of Hormuz late on Sunday, according to a report by the semiofficial Tasnim News Agency on Monday.

The IRGC stated the vessels were trying to transit through the strategic waterway under what it described as US coercion.

“This passage is unsafe for the transport of chemical fertiliser or even a single drop of oil and gas,” the group warned, adding that the corridor would remain unsafe as long as US military operations in the region continue.

An MQ-9 drone was intercepted and shot down over Eslamabad-e Gharb in western Iran’s Kermanshah province, according to the Mehr News Agency on Monday.

Mehr said the drone was targeted by an advanced air defence system operated by the IRGC aerospace force.

Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim News Agency reported on Monday that US strikes targeted an area in the town of Khormoj in southwestern Iran. It quoted a local official.

Where did Iran strike, and where were warnings issued?

Jordan: The IRGC said on Monday that it launched ballistic missiles at US C-17 transport planes and P-8 aircraft at Aqaba airport, claiming several were heavily damaged. In a statement carried by the state-controlled IRIB broadcaster, the IRGC also said 20 hangars housing US forces in the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Azraq were destroyed.

Bahrain: The US embassy in Bahrain said it has information suggesting Iran may seek to target unspecified locations in central Manama. It urged Americans to remain vigilant, follow instructions from local authorities and immediately seek shelter if warning sirens sound or explosions are heard.

US soldier in Iraq: A US service member was killed in northern Iraq on Saturday during the controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from an Iranian drone, CENTCOM said.

What happened in the Strait of Hormuz?

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency reported late on Sunday that a vessel about 8 nautical miles (15km) northwest of Kumzar, Oman, had caught fire.

It is unclear whether this happened due to an attack by Iran. The UKMTO said the cause of the fire had not been verified and advised vessels in the area to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity while authorities investigate.

What have Iranian and American leaders said?

US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the US is hitting Iran to honour American service members who have been killed.

“We hit them very hard again tonight, and we did that in honour of the, probably three, it’s probably three great patriots,” Trump told reporters as he returned to Washington, DC, after the World Cup final in New Jersey. At least two US soldiers were killed in Jordan last week after Iranian missiles struck a US base there, and the third soldier Trump referred to was killed in Iraq during the detonation of the Iranian drone.

“We feel very badly,” he said when asked about the military fatalities, adding that those who died were fighting so “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview with state media that Tehran would end the war with the US when it had “the upper hand in the field”, local news reported on Monday.

Talking with the IRNA news agency, Araghchi said the most critical decision in crisis management was identifying the precise moment to halt hostilities and begin negotiations.

“The end of the war is possible either through absolute military victory or through negotiations. The right time to negotiate is precisely when you have achieved a reliable field and strategic achievement on the military front,” Araghchi said.

“You cannot take risks with the lives of the people and the fate of the entire country. Decisions must be made based on accurate and complete calculations,” Araghchi said.

The US military carried out its ninth consecutive night of strikes on Iran, targeting military command centres, air defence systems and coastal surveillance facilities, according to CENTCOM. The US military said it hit maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks.

On Tuesday, the Chairman of the Knesset’s Education Committee, Zvi Sukkot of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, arrived at a Palestinian school in East Jerusalem for a “surprise visit” – his second in two weeks. He did not come to evaluate pedagogy or classroom conditions or needs. Instead, he smashed the school’s entrance sign because it featured a Palestinian flag and publicly pledged to shut it down.

This storming of the school was more than just a publicity stunt meant to appeal to his political base ahead of Israel’s October 2026 elections. It was the physical embodiment of a sweeping state campaign targeting Palestinian education in unlawfully occupied and annexed East Jerusalem.

Sukkot is using his position to physically police Palestinian schools. This move comes on top of the Knesset’s aggressive legislative campaign to destroy Palestinian education in East Jerusalem that lawmakers have pushed in recent years.

One such law, passed in January 2026, bars graduates of Palestinian universities in the West Bank from working as teachers in Israel and in East Jerusalem. This law is based on racist ideology and extremist claims that graduates of these universities are inherently dangerous and morally unfit to be educators.

The motives of the law’s proponents were made clear during Knesset deliberations: advancing what several MKs called the “Israelisation” of the educational system and of the students, even at the expense of access to education. In a May 2025 Education Committee session, one Likud MK claimed that this law is needed as teachers who graduate from Palestinian universities “do not cultivate Israelisation” among their students.

The law passed despite the devastating consequences it is bound to have on the already fragile and disadvantaged Palestinian education system in East Jerusalem. This system is largely dependent on graduates of West Bank universities – who are overwhelmingly women – and it already has a serious shortage of teaching staff and classrooms.

Another law, passed in November 2024, which is widely referred to as the “Silencing Law”, gives the Israeli Ministry of Education full discretion to suspend or dismiss teachers through a fast-track administrative process. It targets speech the ministry deems to be “incitement to terrorism”, based on the ambiguous and arbitrary clauses of the Israeli Counter-Terrorism Law, which has become a catch-all mechanism to criminalise Palestinian speech.

The 2024 law also gives the ministry the right to revoke funding from schools on these same grounds, potentially leading to their closure.

Here too, the Knesset Committee’s deliberations on this law revealed an explicit targeting of the Palestinian education system in East Jerusalem and lawmakers’ views that this system is a security threat that must be dealt with. As a Likud MK said during an early 2024 Education Committee discussion on this proposed legislation: “It’s very important that they become Zionists… If I was an Arab from East Jerusalem, the first thing I would be is a Zionist. Above all”.

MK Sukkot’s pledge to shut down the school he attacked is not an idle threat. It follows the closure of six schools in East Jerusalem and its outskirts in 2025, which left 800 Palestinian children suddenly without access to formal education. These closures were the immediate result of the 2024 and 2025 anti-UNRWA laws passed by the Knesset.

The legislation and MK Sukkot’s physical vandalism of a Palestinian school demonstrate the state’s efforts to impose “Israelisation” on young Palestinian students living under occupation, and to erase any trace of Palestinian education and identity, even at the cost of trampling on every legitimate pedagogical need along the way.

Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel – is currently challenging all of these laws before the Israeli Supreme Court, with pending petitions against the ban on Palestinian university graduates, the “Silencing Law” targeting teachers’ political expression, and the anti-UNRWA laws.

We will continue to do all that we can to legally resist the campaign against Palestinian education. But the state’s assault on Palestinian schools will not stop until there is genuine international pressure on the Israeli government to stop its violations of nearly all the human rights of the occupied Palestinian population in East Jerusalem, including the right to education and the right to dignity.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

With the ruins of the Gaza Strip lying around him, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz last week renewed his push to set up illegal settlements in the battered territory’s north.

“I intend to establish three Nahal outposts, which is also a military entity, in those places that were in northern Gaza,” Katz told Channel 14, referring to bases that combine farming with an armed presence in a bid to consolidate control over a territory.

The minister said, in his view, establishing these settlements would enhance security – but execution would have to be “in the right way, at the right timing, while coordinating”.

It was not the first time the member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party has made such remarks. In December, Katz said the Israeli military would “never leave all of Gaza” but “in due course” would establish Nahal posts despite a United States-brokered plan stipulating a full Israeli military withdrawal and barring the re-establishment of Israeli settlements.

His comments also echoed a recent statement by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that “the groundwork to establish three settlements in the North Gaza area” had been completed. Smotrich, who also holds the portfolio of “settlement administration” in the Ministry of Defence, has repeatedly called for the full occupation of the Gaza Strip.

Such a push has been central to the goals of Israel’s settler movement, which in January 2024 organised a conference attended by government ministers to advocate for the re-establishment of settlements in the Strip.

“This is their ideology. They want the Gazans out of Gaza and they want to settle there like they settle in the West Bank,” former Israeli diplomat Alon Liel told Al Jazeera.

All settlements on Palestinian land are illegal under international law, but settlement expansion and annexation have been a core objective of Netanyahu’s hard-right government. In recent years, it has carried out unprecedented settlement expansion, resulting in the forced displacement of dozens of Palestinian communities and the de facto annexation of land in the occupied West Bank.

Issam Younis, a prominent Palestinian human rights defender and director of the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, said he was not surprised by Katz’s latest comments. “It was very clear from day one in the genocide that the main goal was to make life impossible in Gaza by destroying everything,” he told Al Jazeera. “It’s a race for time – take over land, starve Gaza and deny it any chance at life, then expel the population and build settlements.”

Younis said Israel’s conduct during its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza and the “ceasefire” agreed in October under the US plan clearly showed that expelling the population is the main objective of the Israeli government.

“Dehumanising statements by senior Israeli officials reaffirmed this: calling Palestinians in Gaza ‘human animals’, saying that there are no civilians in Gaza, then saying clearly that the objective was to expel the population and create settlements in the Gaza Strip,” Younis added.

Israel made no secret of that objective. In early 2025, the government announced it was setting up an agency to oversee the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from Gaza as part of a plan proposed by Katz.

The announcement drew widespread international condemnation. Experts warned that such a move would amount to a war crime. Last month, the Israeli government decided to rebrand the agency and replace talk of “voluntary migration” with the “free movement plan” while using “language deemed more acceptable internationally”, according to Israeli media.

The policy enjoys widespread support in Israel. A 2025 poll commissioned by the University of Pennsylvania found that 82 percent of Jewish Israelis support the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.

Meanwhile, nine months into a “ceasefire”, during which Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,127 Palestinians, conditions in Gaza remain unbearable.

The United Nations says at least 265 children have been killed during the period while hunger persists and the debilitated healthcare system continues to suffer acute medicine shortages.

“Only 20 percent of what Gaza needs has been allowed to enter – things related to water and health and to life in general,” Younis said, referring to Israeli restrictions on aid entering the Strip. “Gaza is being starved and parched for water.” For him, the aim is clear: expulsion, “even if they call it voluntary migration”.

Liel said Israel is doing the minimum on the humanitarian track to avoid upsetting US President Donald Trump, who has set up what he has named the Board of Peace to oversee the administration and reconstruction of the Strip.

“I don’t think that Israel wants Gaza to be reconstructed like Trump is dreaming,” he said.

Palestinians have been increasingly frustrated with the Board of Peace’s failure to pressure Israel or implement the recovery and construction plans outlined in Trump’s “ceasefire” plan, including the entry of critically needed assistance.

“The Board of Peace is complicit until it moves to rebuild Gaza immediately,” Younis said. “Otherwise, it would not be allowing Israel to create the conditions that make life impossible for Palestinians in Gaza, which will result in expulsion.”

Israeli forces have also expanded the “Yellow Line”, demarcating Israeli-controlled areas within Gaza, to encompass 70 percent of the Strip. “We are not retreating from the ‘Yellow Line’, unequivocally, as long as Hamas does not truly disarm, and even after that, we remain inside Gaza,” Katz told Channel 14 during his tour of northern Gaza, saying the destruction of the territory was “the result of a deliberate policy”.

The settlement push comes as Israel is gearing up for elections, which will be held on October 27.

According to Liel, Katz and other ministers are openly talking about building settlements in Gaza because their calculation is that it would boost their electoral chances amid a shift to the right by the electorate.

Many observers expected the weeks leading up to the polls to be accompanied by a serious escalation in Gaza, the West Bank and other Israeli “war fronts” without changing the political situation in Israel.

“The wish of this Israeli government was that as many [Palestinians from Gaza] will leave. Hopefully voluntarily. If not, Israel will help, and this is the reason you don’t want to rebuild Gaza,” Liel said.

The US has launched a new wave of strikes on Iran after two American soldiers were killed by Iranian strikes in Jordan. President Donald Trump called it ‘swift punishment’, as Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro reports.

Mojtaba Khamenei says Trump’s signature is ‘worthless’ and that ‘bullying’ is a core element of US foreign policy.

Iran’s supreme leader has warned that the United States will suffer “unforgettable lessons” at the hands of Tehran and its regional allies, accusing the US of repeatedly violating the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two countries.

A written statement attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei was read out on state television on Saturday, in which the supreme leader said Washington’s breaches of last month’s MoU showed that President Donald Trump’s signature was “utterly worthless and invalid”.

“The repeated breach of agreements by the Great Satan vis-a-vis the accord has once again proven to all that the signature of the President of America is now utterly worthless and invalid, and that bullying, hegemonism and savagery are inseparable components of the American creed and doctrine,” the statement read.

“Now that the American enemy is seeking to foment war and suffer heavier costs and further humiliation, it should know that the dear nation of Iran and the Resistance Front hold unforgettable lessons for it,” it added.

The US dramatically escalated its attacks on Iran this week by targeting civilian infrastructure, including bridges, railway lines and water desalination plants.

Tehran has responded by successfully striking civilian infrastructure in Kuwait, with authorities there urging everyone to ration electricity.

The US-Israeli war on Iran, which began in February, is seen as existential by the country’s senior leadership.

Tehran has shown no sign of caving to the increasing demands from the Trump administration, as regional countries continue to push for an end to the conflict behind the scenes.

Khamenei said the US has “revealed its true face,” exposing its “deceitfulness, irrationality, unreliability and wickedness”.

He called on Iranians to trust the leadership to protect the country, urging people to remain “vigilant” and “active” as the fighting grinds on.

Reports have surfaced in recent days that the Houthis in Yemen could close the Bab al-Mandeb gateway to the Red Sea in support of their crucial ally Iran. That would further destabilise global energy markets, increase inflation and apply additional pressure on Trump to halt attacks.

The war is deeply unpopular in the US and has inflicted economic harm on Americans.

The MoU mediated by Qatar and Pakistan and signed last month aimed to create the conditions to bring the war to a permanent end.

However, Tehran and Washington have since declared the accord “over” after accusing each other of violating it.

The move lands as EU foreign ministers remain deadlocked over a bloc-wide ban on illegal settlement trade

Belgium’s federal government has approved a ban on importing goods produced in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

It is the latest among a small but fast-growing group of European countries acting alone on a question still unresolved at EU level.

The decision came at the government’s final cabinet meeting before the summer break, the Belgian News Agency (Belga) reported on Saturday.

The move fulfils a commitment made last year over the scale of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and its death toll.

Earlier this week, Belgian foreign minister Maxime Prevot pressed EU counterparts at a closed-doors meeting in Brussels for a bloc-wide ban, accusing the European Commission of offering ministers “a bone to chew on” rather than a genuine plan to act.

Belgium’s ban arrives as both a domestic pledge fulfilled and a signal to the EU leadership.

The case for tighter controls was strengthened this year by a Global Echo Litigation Center investigation, which examined more than 30,000 export documents covering thousands of Israeli agricultural shipments to Europe.

Roughly one in six contained goods grown in settlements in the occupied West Bank or Golan Heights, rising to nearly one in five among shipments bound for EU countries.

Investigators found exporters routinely obscured the true origin of the produce, labelling it Israeli, blending it with genuine Israeli stock, or shipping it under addresses unconnected to where it was grown.

Similar moves by others in Europe

The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner, buying close to 30 percent of its exports and accounting for nearly a third of its total trade in goods, worth 43 billion euros ($49bn) last year.

Belgium joins a list of states no longer waiting for EU-wide action.

Spain enshrined a ban in law last September, the Netherlands agreed to one in May and Slovenia adopted a similar measure earlier this year, though it has dramatically shifted its approach to Israel following the election of a more pro-Israel government.

Differences between the EU’s 27 member states have made it difficult for the bloc to act decisively on the issue.

Ireland’s parliament passed its own prohibition on July 15 , days before Belgium’s move.

The wave of national bans follows efforts earlier this month by the EU to coordinate action among its member states.

The European Commission reportedly circulated a paper to EU capitals setting out three options: an import ban, a licensing scheme, or high tariffs on settlement goods. However no decision was reached.

Five former European officials, including ex-Italian prime minister Enrico Letta and former German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, published a joint call for the EU to adopt a bloc-wide ban.

They argued that national bans like Belgium’s carry limited weight alone, since goods cleared through customs in one member state can move freely across the rest of the bloc.

A ban, they wrote, would not amount to a sanction against Israel but would simply bring EU trade policy into line with restrictions it has applied before, including on conflict minerals and goods made with forced labour.

Several EU countries, including Spain, Italy and Germany, have also acted to restrict arms exports to Israel over the war in Gaza.

Ras al-Ahmar, occupied West Bank – The drive to Thaer Bisharat’s home should take less than 10 minutes from the main road. Instead, it took three hours.

Every gate leading into Ras al-Ahmar, in the northern Jordan Valley, is shut these days. Such road closures have become the norm rather than the exception, patrolled in shifts by Israeli soldiers and settlers whose roles on the ground have become increasingly difficult to tell apart. The sole access point that remained was a single, winding dirt road, passable only by four-wheel drive vehicles and requiring drivers to evade the roving Israeli patrols.

During the drive to Thaer’s house, Israeli forces had the area under an even greater lockdown than normal as they were nearby in the al-Buqaia plain, destroying three wells belonging to local Palestinians – including one owned by a relative of Thaer’s.

This is some of the most fertile land in the occupied West Bank, where farmers normally tend rows of banana trees alongside crops such as grapes, olives and potatoes. But along the dirt road leading to Thaer’s isolated home, the farms stand half-abandoned, with plastic greenhouse doors open and flapping in the breeze, as crops go thirsty after water was cut off in the area weeks ago by Israeli authorities.

“I can’t even run an errand,” said Thaer. “From Tamun, the village, it used to take me ten minutes. Now, with the current [dirt] road… it takes an hour, at best.”

He was spending the afternoon alone – his brother and sister-in-law had gone into town that morning for basic necessities. Left by himself, it was easy to feel like a sitting duck.

“Just this morning, there was a car – two people in it, dressed in military gear, army-backed,” he said. “They went to the people living near the banana houses. They took down ID photos, names, phone numbers. And they tell them, ‘You’ve got 24 hours to leave. Otherwise we’re coming to confiscate everything you’ve got’.”

In recent weeks, that pressure has escalated from long-standing “closed military zone” orders issued by the military into outright seizures of private land, alongside the destruction of irrigation pipes, water wells and greenhouses in the barrier’s path – the sharpest expression yet of an advancing takeover in which settler-outpost expansion and land seizure now work in tandem to squeeze out the Palestinians who remain.

“They cage us in and suffocate us,” Thaer said.

A trench, an outpost and a series of seizure orders

That tightening isolation is the result of one of Israel’s newest infrastructure projects in the occupied West Bank: the ‘Crimson Thread’ barrier. Announced in 2025, the first part of the project combines a trench and military road running roughly 22km between the Ein Shibli and Tayasir checkpoints – severing the northern Jordan Valley from Tubas to the north and Nablus to the south. Israel says it is intended to prevent weapons smuggling from Jordan, but the route runs several kilometres inside the occupied West Bank rather than along the already-fenced Jordanian border.

The plan is for the barrier to eventually run for 500km, splitting Palestinians from thousands of hectares of land and creating a barrier that – in its consequences – mirrors the separation wall on the other side of the West Bank.

On March 8, Israeli military commander Gilad Shriki visited several Palestinian communities, and, in their words, warned residents they should leave in preparation for a complete Israeli takeover of the area.

Then, last month, an Israeli Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for construction of the ‘Crimson Thread’ barrier to proceed. Since then, the Israeli Civil Administration has moved aggressively. Roughly three kilometres of trenches have already been dug, destroying Palestinian infrastructure in its path – including irrigation pipes, farmland and greenhouses, all while severing farmers from land on the other side.

The route of the ‘Crimson Thread’ project was stitched together with nine land seizure orders – a “clear escalation” of a decades-long effort by Israeli authorities to remove Palestinians in the area, according to Dror Etkes, who tracks Israeli land policy for Israeli NGO Kerem Navot. What started as checkpoints, settlement building and the designation of Palestinian lands as military firing zones “have in recent years become much more aggressive – through settler attacks, military raids, confiscation of property and denial of access to firing zones”.

Now, such military land seizure orders allow Israeli authorities to “seize whatever land it deems necessary” for security purposes, says Etkes.

According to the Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission, Israeli authorities issued 49 military land-seizure orders in the first half of this year – already exceeding the 47 issued in all of 2025.

Thaer scoffs at the official rationale. “It’s not a military road,” he said. “You don’t dig a trench two and a half, three metres deep for that.”

‘Effectively in a prison’

Etkes said the barrier accomplishes two things at once: “blocking Palestinians’ ability to enter everything east of the barrier” – where most of their farmland is – while linking existing illegal settlements to a new outpost being built along the route, on Jabal Tamun, that he expects to further impact 8-9,000 dunams (8 to 9sq km) of Palestinian agricultural land, most of it in Area B.

“The majority of communities aren’t there anymore – they’ve been forced to leave, which convinced [Israeli authorities] that the time was right for the next move,” said Etkes, listing emptied communities such as Khirbet Samra and Khirbet Yarza.

A Kerem Navot map shows the ‘Crimson Thread’ barrier route curling around Khirbet Yarza – but by the time construction reached it, Khirbet Yarza was already gone, with its residents displaced by settlers months earlier.

Mahdi Daraghmeh, who heads the al-Maleh village council, has watched the same pattern unfold throughout the hamlets he oversees. “Settler terror and fear have pushed many families to leave,” he said. “In the communities here, 130 families have been displaced – they’ve abandoned their structures, their homes, their land. And now they’ve lost their livelihoods – they have nothing left to live on.”

Since the June Supreme Court ruling, Israeli authorities have carried out near-daily operations in the area, cutting water supplies, destroying tanks and confiscating tractors and other farming equipment.

“They confiscated the tractors and water tanks from us here,” said Thaer. “So they claim these tractors and tanks are a threat to their security. A threat to your security, how?”

At the same time, settlers brought caravans into the area east of Ras al-Ahmar, positioning themselves inside territory expected to be cut off from Palestinian communities.

On June 16, bulldozers demolished livestock infrastructure at the home of Bilal Bani Oudeh, a friend of Thaer’s, and warned him to leave within 24 hours. He refused, so that night, settlers returned and brutally assaulted him.

“He nearly died,” Thaer said. “After they attacked him, they talked about tying him to a rope behind a vehicle. They took everything he owned.”

With authorities working assiduously to keep observers from documenting or photographing the ‘Crimson Thread’ operation, excavation has uprooted hundreds of olive and grape trees while repeatedly severing irrigation pipelines serving tens of thousands of dunams. On the morning of July 14 alone, Israeli authorities destroyed three wells in al-Buqaia – including one belonging to Bisharat’s relative – and confiscated pumps and equipment.

The Atuf village council – one of those affected by the new barrier – put that single day’s damage at more than four million shekels ($1.3m).

Already, this destruction has decimated the local economy in weeks, wiping out the summer harvest. “There’s no agricultural season to speak of,” Daraghmeh said. “Most of the land hasn’t been cultivated and what has been cultivated is for the settlers’ benefit.”

When the trench is finished, cutting communities off from each other and their farmland, residents fear it will mark the end of a Palestinian presence here. “Our communities will have no services, no infrastructure whatsoever,” said Daraghmeh. “No hospital, no emergency centre, no schools; for all of that, people have to go to the neighbouring town and that will be impossible.”

“Once this trench cuts people off,” he said, “the people here will effectively be in a prison.”

‘Give us the rights of the animals’

With Israeli authorities having shut off water into the area for weeks, one tank now costs Thaer more than 300 shekels ($100), more than triple the previous price. But even transporting water is a perilous pursuit; his brother was recently beaten and held at gunpoint by marauding settlers, who he said stole his phone and robbed him of his money.

Thaer estimates that agricultural production in the area has collapsed by as much as 90 percent, while many families have already lost half their livestock because they can no longer reach grazing land.

But among neighbouring communities now erased, Thaer has seen this playbook before: once Palestinians are removed, he says, the settlers take over their lands. “Then suddenly there’s no more ‘firing zone,’” Thaer said. “A road appears, water arrives, sheep arrive. Life comes back to the place, thank God!

“So why do I get told it’s all a military zone?”

Thaer looked out at the Israeli settlement farms, lush and green in the distance. Around his own property, the ground was parched, littered with half-abandoned equipment. “Under their ‘law’, we are treated like animals,” he remarked.

Thaer paused. “Israel always talks about ‘rights’, ‘rights’, ‘rights’,” he said. “When someone hits a dog, suddenly, there’s animal rights advocates everywhere.”

“So actually, we don’t even want human rights,” he said. “Just give us the animal rights they talk so much about. At this point, we’d settle for living under that.”

Umm al-Khair, occupied West Bank – The Palestinian villagers of Masafer Yatta, a collection of hamlets in the southern West Bank, feel Israel’s military and settlers closing in on them on a daily basis.

In one of those villages, Umm al-Khair, the presence of a newly established illegal settlement outpost nearby is the latest evidence that they are being replaced in their own land.

Salem and Ikhlas al-Hathaleen live with their eight children in a modest home covered with sheet metal. The land around their home had been somewhere the family could use for agriculture and grazing. But the illegal outpost, an extension of the nearby settlement of Carmel established last September, was set up on that land, roughly 20 metres (66 feet) away from their house.

Ikhlas explains that her old morning routine used to involve taking the family’s sheep out of their enclosure, providing them with food and water, milking them, and allowing them to graze.

The tasks were simple – but that is no longer the case.

Now, thanks to the new Israeli outpost, reaching the enclosure – which lies just behind the house – has become difficult, and at times, impossible.

According to Ikhlas, the family was initially prevented for four consecutive days from reaching the livestock enclosure and then was only allowed to access it once, while accompanied by Israeli soldiers, in order to provide food and water for the animals. They were then prevented from accessing the enclosure for two days. This pattern of occasional visits interspersed with days of not being allowed to access the animals has continued, and Ikhlas says they have only been able to check on the animals three times in July.

“I look every morning to see whether the sheep are still alive,” Ikhlas says. “I only wish I could reach them and take care of them like I used to.”

Struggle for a bathroom

It is not just sheep enclosure that is a struggle to get to for the al-Hathaleen family.

Even the family’s bathroom, which is a freestanding structure a few metres away from their home, has become difficult to reach.

Ikhlas explains that settlers in early July placed obstacles near the bathroom, including barbed wire and children’s playground equipment, all in an effort to make access harder, particularly for children and the elderly.

She adds that the situation has become more complicated since the Israeli army declared the area around the bathroom a closed military zone. As a result, the family – including the children, the youngest of whom is a year old – have been forced to use a neighbour’s toilet, despite the risks involved in reaching it.

The route requires crossing a road used by settler vehicles, Ikhlas says, adding that her five-year-old daughter Swar was injured after being hit on the road last August.

For Ikhlas, it is not just an issue of reaching a toilet or the family’s livestock, but about a family’s ability to live with dignity and have a normal life inside their own home.

“We will not leave our land,” she says. “Even if we have to live in a tent or under a tree, we will stay here.”

Growing settlements

Umm al-Khair has faced an increasing tide of settler attacks since October 2023, when Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began, as well as a simultaneous escalation in Israeli attacks in the occupied West Bank.

Jewish settlers, seeking to capture more land from Palestinians in the West Bank, have become a particular menace, with little pushback from the Israeli state – and often encouragement, particularly in light of the presence of far-right settler leaders, such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, in the highest ranks of government.

Settlements continue to expand rapidly across the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, making any hope for a Palestinian state on these lands increasingly remote.

An Israeli court issued an order last October that the new illegal outpost next to Umm al-Khair be evacuated, but after the Israeli army did nothing to implement the order, it was cancelled.

The local Palestinians have little ability to push back against the Israeli settlers – if they do, they are at risk of being attacked more forcefully by the settlers, who have weapons, or arrested by soldiers.

Khalil al-Hathaleen, the head of Umm al-Khair’s village council, says that settlement expansion in the area has accelerated in recent years, including the establishment of the new illegal outpost, as well as the opening of roads for settlers, and expanding the areas under the control of existing settlements – all of which rely on expropriating Palestinian land.

Khalil explains that as a result, the number of livestock owned by Umm al-Khair’s residents has dropped from 3,000 to about 700, as a result of the difficult conditions facing herders and the growing challenges in accessing grazing areas.

He adds that more than 1,000 olive trees have been cut in the area, 50,000 square metres (538,000sq feet) of agricultural land taken over, and demolition orders issued against 14 homes and structures.

“For the people of Umm al-Khair, losing access to their land does not only mean losing property,” Khalil says. “It means losing an entire way of life that has existed for generations.”

Hisham al-Sharbati, a researcher at the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, says the organisation has been monitoring the situation in Umm al-Khair for years, and that challenges facing residents have intensified alongside settlement expansion in the area.

“The humanitarian impact is visible in every detail of daily life – from difficulties accessing sources of income to restrictions affecting homes and basic facilities,” he says, adding that the actions of Israel and its settlers directly contravene international law.

Children in fear

Ahmed al-Hathaleen, another resident of Umm al-Khair, works to track Israeli abuses in the village.

“I have a special folder on my phone called ‘Umm al-Khair File’,” he says, adding that it contains about 1,500 video clips and 1,200 photographs that he has collected since April 2025.

“Photography and video have become a way to tell our story and show people what is happening here,” he says.

Ahmed, who is 31 years old, says that it is the children – and he has three of them – who are most affected by the situation, with some experiencing nightmares as a result of the surrounding environment.

Sahm Khalil al-Hathaleen is one of those children. He says children in the community have lost much of their normal childhood, especially their right to education and safe spaces to play.

The 12-year-old boy says that he just wants to go to school and play without fear, but that is impossible in the current situation they face.

“The children here just want to live like other children,” he says.

Sahm sees some of those other children living normal lives – the children from the nearby Israeli settlements. While they play, he describes being woken up in the middle of the night scared whenever he hears a sound outside.

“Fear,” Sahm says, “has become part of our daily lives.”

The US military has continued strikes against Iran, hitting targets further to the country’s north as well as close to capital Tehran for the first time in the latest round of violence.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said early on Thursday it struck several military sites and assets in a bid to “further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten innocent mariners” in the Strait of Hormuz. The unit also said it disabled an oil tanker in the passageway.

At least 35 people have died, and more than 300 have been wounded in the latest wave of attacks that began last Wednesday after CENTCOM launched strikes on Iranian port cities close to the Strait of Hormuz. The US says the attacks are in retaliation for Iran hitting three commercial ships in the Strait.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it targeted US military assets in neighbouring Gulf countries.

Here’s what has happened in Iran and the US on Wednesday and Thursday and what both sides are saying:

Where did the US hit?

CENTCOM said in a statement early on Thursday that US air strikes targeted Iranian command centres, air defence sites, missile and drone capabilities as well as coastal surveillance facilities.

Multiple locations were hit, CENTCOM said, including Bandar Abbas on Thursday.

An earlier wave of strikes late on Wednesday hit coastal defence and cruise missile sites on Greater Tunb Island in a 90-minute bombing wave, CENTCOM added. The small, strategically located island sits near the Strait of Hormuz and is believed to hold a naval base, although details are not publicly available. It is also believed to be a point from which the Iranian military has disrupted shipping routes.

Meanwhile, Iranian media reported attacks in Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, Sirik, Chabahar, Konarak, Rask, Khondab, Khorramabad and Semnan.

A hospital in Ahvaz was forced to evacuate 211 patients after reportedly being hit in the strikes.

Air defences were activated in Tehran and neighbouring Pakdasht and Parchin on Thursday.  The Iranian military said an MQ-9 drone was downed over the city of Andimeshk.

CENTCOM, in a separate statement on Thursday, said it was enforcing a naval blockade reimposed on Tuesday by disabling a “non-compliant” oil tanker that was attempting to sail towards Iran’s Kharg Island using Hellfire missiles.

How has Iran responded?

Iran’s army claimed retaliatory attacks on US military assets in Kuwait and Bahrain on Thursday.

Kuwait: The Iranian army said in a statement it targeted radar systems, the Patriot defence system and fuel tanks belonging to US forces at the Ali Al Salem airbase in Kuwait. In an earlier statement, it said it hit a radar and gathering point for US soldiers in Kuwait, as well as US communications systems and fuel depots in Jordan’s al-Azraq airbase.

Bahrain: Drones also targeted US Super Hawk radars and Patriot defence systems at the Sheikh Isa airbase in Bahrain, the army added.

Jordan: Meanwhile, Jordan said it intercepted eight Iranian missiles on Thursday.

Iraq: Iraqi authorities said five drones attacked the city of Erbil, with two crashing near a US base and one shot down near the US consulate. Iran’s army has not claimed the attacks.

What are both sides saying?

Iran’s parliament speaker and lead negotiator, Mohammad Ghalibaf, said on Wednesday Iran is prepared for a fuller military confrontation if the US does not live up to the terms of the interim deal. The country is fighting an “existential” battle, he added.

The IRGC has, meanwhile, threatened to halt all energy exports from the Middle East over the US’s naval blockade, which was reimposed on Tuesday.

“The export of oil and gas from the region will be either for everyone or for no one,” it said in a statement.

Speaking at the US Army War College in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, President Donald Trump reiterated his claims that Iran was pushing to strike a peace deal behind the scenes but did not provide details.

“They don’t like what we’re doing, and they do want to settle. We’ll find out whether or not we settle with them, or we just finish it off,” he said.

However, in a rare show of gratitude on Wednesday, Trump thanked Iran via his Truth Social platform for the release of Dena Karari, an American citizen the US says was “wrongfully” jailed in the country since 2024.

Meanwhile, US Vice President JD Vance, in an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan released on Wednesday, defended the war on Iran but added that an agreement was needed between the two sides to end the conflict.

Footage shows firefighters extinguishing a massive fire after Russia launched a flurry of missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa early Wednesday morning. The strikes killed at least six people and wounded 20 others across the country, officials said.

United States President Donald Trump is scheduled to address a defence summit at the US Army War College on Wednesday, where he is expected to laud US investments in its armed forces that he has argued have helped add a new edge to history’s most powerful military.

But his speech comes at a time when the US’s war on Iran has significantly depleted the US military’s weapons stockpile.

The summit, which will be held in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, comes as the US has re-ignited attacks on Iran in the past week, and as Trump has threatened to continue a war that, according to recent US polls, is highly unpopular among Americans facing high costs of living.

The US has expended half of at least four of its most critical munitions since its war on Iran began on February 28, and has racked up billions of dollars in weapons expenses, analysis shows.

Replenishing low stockpiles could take anywhere between several months and several years. Analysts warn that a shrinking arsenal could put the US in a less formidable position in a potential future conflict – particularly against China.

Here’s what we know about the US weapons inventory:

What’s happening with the US-Iran war?

Following an April ceasefire between the US and Iran, and the subsequent signing of a memorandum of understanding in June, the conflict kicked off again after the US Central Command launched heavy waves of attacks on Iran’s military sites last Wednesday, saying it was aiming to degrade Tehran’s military capabilities. Huge, hourlong attacks have continued for four nights since Sunday, including on railway tracks and bridges.

Both sides traded low-intensity attacks throughout the ceasefire period. However, the US escalated air attacks last week after Iran fired on three commercial ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz – because those vessels had used a shipping route not approved by Tehran.

Each blames the other for violating the ceasefire, and at last week’s NATO leaders’ summit, Trump declared the pact with Iran over, although he said American negotiators could continue talks. Washington has also reinstated a naval blockade on Iran-linked ships trying to transit the waterway and has re-imposed sanctions on Iran.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has responded with retaliatory attacks on US military assets in Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait.

More than a dozen people have been killed in Iran since the new wave of US attacks, including civilians.

“We’re going to knock out all their power plants. We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate,” Trump threatened in a Fox News interview that aired on Tuesday.

Attacking civilian infrastructure is a violation of international law.

Does the US have enough weapons to keep attacking Iran?

Washington’s supplies are running low but have not reached a critical level, according to analysis of the US weapons inventory by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank.

In the 39 days of conflict between the start of the US-Iran war in February and the ceasefire in April, the US hit more than 13,000 targets, focusing mainly on using seven of its most powerful missiles and air defence systems: Tomahawk missiles, Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM), Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), Standard Missile-3 (SM-3), Standard Missile-6 (SM-6), Terminal High Altitude Area Defenses (THAAD) and Patriots.

For at least four of the munitions, Washington likely expended more than half of its available stockpiles, although many lower-grade alternatives are still in stock, according to CSIS. Government data on weapons inventory is classified.

Here’s how the munitions were used:

• Tomahawks – The US had about 3,000 of the long-range missiles that are fired from sea at ground targets. It likely used up more than 1,000 in the war on Iran.
• JASSM – About 4,000 of these stealthy, air-launched long-range missiles were in the US inventory before the war. About 1,100 were used in the war on Iran.
• PrSM – Supplies of the newly delivered, ground-launched long-range missiles were already low to start with, with deliveries since 2023 amounting to a total of 90. An estimated 40-70 were used in the war. One US military official claimed that the “entire” inventory had been expended.
• SM- 3 – The most expensive weapon per unit at $28m, these ship-launched ballistic missile interceptors numbered about 410 before the war. The US has used between 130 and 250 of these in the war on Iran.
• SM-6 – Also ship-launched, this missile is mainly used to intercept aircraft and cruise missiles. The US had about 1,160 stockpiled. An estimated 190- 370 have been expended in the Iran war.
• THAAD – The US had about 360 of the costly anti-ballistic missile systems by April, and between 190 and 290 were used in the war. The US has a total of 8 THAAD units or “batteries” consisting of launchers, interceptors, and radar systems.
• Patriot – An estimated 2,330 Patriots were in stock before the war, but between 1,060 and 1,430 have been expended. Some older versions may also likely be available – about 400 of them.

What does this mean?

Analysts from CSIS say that while the US may have enough to continue hitting Iran in the near-term war, it has reduced its stockpiles so significantly that it may not have enough for potential future wars, especially against a formidable rival like China.

Replenishing high-capability and costly weapons like the ones the US has used in Iran will likely take several years.

Trump and senior administration officials have publicly maintained that the US has an “unlimited” supply of weapons as the US-Iran war has raged on.

However, in March, Trump said administration officials met with the heads of US manufacturers, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, BAE Systems, Honeywell Aerospace, L3Harris Missile Solutions, and Northrop Grumman. He said all promised to “quadruple” production and that increased manufacturing was already under way.

Subsequently, in June, Trump signed the Defense Production Act, an executive order compelling US weapons manufacturers to speed up production, citing existing conditions “which may pose a direct threat to the national defense or its preparedness programs”.

An order compelling private actors to ramp up production likely reflects timeline concerns within the Pentagon, analysts note.

In the short term, Washington is also unlikely to meet demands from its allies, and may not have the capacity to supply the THAADs and Patriots that Ukraine says are crucial in its war against Russia.

Already, supply orders have hit road bumps. Japan’s order of 400 Tomahawks from Raytheon was meant to be delivered between 2025 and 2027, but US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in May that two more years could be added to the schedule.

Meanwhile, Switzerland began negotiations with France, Israel and South Korea in June to buy another missile defence system after its 2022 order from Lockheed Martin and Raytheon continued to face delays.

How long will replenishing weapons take?

Hegseth said in May that it could take “months and years” to replenish the supplies, based on the weapons system.

Analysts reckon it could take the US between one and four years to get its most exquisite munitions stockpiles back to pre-Iran war levels, even as Trump has boasted that new weapons plants are being built around the US and production is being ramped up.

Trump’s administration is set to buy large amounts of advanced munitions in its proposed $1.5 trillion 2027 defence budget – a 44 percent increase from 2026’s defence budget.

According to CSIS, estimated timelines to replenish the seven critical munitions, based on existing production facilities, are:

• Tomahawk: Between 4- 5 years (207 will be delivered in 2026, while 785 have been requested for 2027).
• JASSM: 1 year (821 to be delivered in 2026 and 821 requested for 2027).
• PrSM:  8 months (70 to be delivered in 2026 and 1,134 requested for 2027).
• SM- 3:  3 years ( 52 to be delivered in 2026 and 214 requested for 2027).
• SM-6:  3 years (125 to be delivered in 2026, and 540 requested for 2027).
• THAAD: 3 to 3.5 years (92 to be delivered in 2026, and 857 requested for 2027).
• Patriot: 3 years (172 to be delivered in 2026, and 3202 requested for 2027).

The United States carried out attacks against Iran for a third consecutive night late on Monday.

Iran has continued to hit targets in the Gulf in several waves of retaliatory strikes on Tuesday, including UAE‑flagged oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and US military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait.

Here is a recap of what has happened on Monday night and Tuesday, and what each side has said.

Where did the US attack Iran?

US Central Command, the military’s regional command known as CENTCOM, said its latest strikes began at 4:45pm ET (20:45 GMT) on Monday and were aimed at degrading Iran’s capacity to attack “innocent civilians and commercial shipping” in the strait.

CENTCOM later announced the conclusion of its strikes and said the latest round of attacks on Iran lasted five hours. It added that US forces “successfully struck military targets across Iran including Bushehr, Chah Bahar, Jask, Konarak, Abu Musa, and Bandar Abbas”.

Iranian state television and semi-official news agencies reported explosions throughout the night across the country’s southern coast, including the port city of Bandar Abbas, and on Kish and Qeshm islands, as well as the town of Jam in Bushehr province.

A projectile that struck western Bandar Abbas caused no casualties, the Fars news agency reported, citing the regional governor’s office.

What areas did Iran target?

For its part, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had launched a wider retaliatory campaign against US allies and interests across the Gulf.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that Iranian forces had struck several “violating” vessels in the strait, and that a US-made drone had been shot down near Bandar Abbas.

The UAE: The UAE said two of its oil tankers had been hit by Iranian cruise missiles in Omani waters in the Strait of Hormuz. The UAE added that one Indian national crew member had been killed on one of the tankers, and eight other people were wounded.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency said the IRGC hit two “offending” oil supertankers, citing an IRGC statement – apparently referring to the two UAE tankers.

Kuwait: The Iranian army said on Monday that it had carried out a drone attack on US military targets in Kuwait. In a statement posted by state broadcaster IRIB, the army said it launched drones at a US Patriot missile system, fuel tanks, a watchtower, an ammunition depot and communication systems.

Bahrain: The IRGC said it targeted “several weapons storage depots, a satellite communications centre, and a building housing US forces” at al-Juffair Base in Bahrain. It also said it had hit the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain with missiles and drones.

Air sirens have been heard four times in Bahrain on Tuesday so far.

Jordan: Jordan’s army said it shot down four missiles in Jordanian airspace that were fired from Iran, according to the official Petra news agency. After this, the IRGC said it launched ballistic missiles at US forces and key facilities at an airbase in Jordan.

In a message addressed directly to Jordanians, the IRGC insisted that the operation was aimed at the US military presence in the country rather than at Jordan or its citizens. “You know that we hold no animosity toward your country. On the contrary, we deeply love you, the noble people. You understand the pain and suffering of the Palestinian people better than any other nation, and you are aware of the crimes of the Zionist regime in the massacre of 70,000 Palestinians, including 20,000 children in Gaza, carried out with the direct involvement of the United States,” it said.

What have the US and Iran said?

US President Donald Trump formally notified Congress on July 10 that fighting with Iran had resumed on July 7, invoking his authority to keep US forces in combat for another 60 days without lawmakers’ approval.

At a news conference on Monday, Trump said Iran’s offensive capabilities were being dismantled, but he still thinks a “deal is possible” despite the return to open fighting.

Trump also repeated an earlier demand that Gulf nations help cover the cost of protecting shipping, saying Washington was “protecting a very rich portion of the world” and expected to be paid for it.

On Monday, Trump also threatened to “take out” Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, also known as Pickaxe Mountain, a suspected nuclear site near the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran.

Meanwhile, the US blockade on Iran, confirmed by the US Navy-led Joint Maritime Information Centre (JMIC), is due to begin at 20:00 GMT on Tuesday.

The US’s blockade covers Iran’s ports and terminals along the entire southern coastline, according to JMIC.

Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security Committee, has warned that Iran remains steadfast in defending its red lines, following the formal introduction of a bill to manage the Strait of Hormuz.

In an X post on Tuesday, Azizi wrote: “Last night, coinciding with the downing of US drones, the ‘Strategic Action for the Security and Sustainable Progress of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf’ bill was formally introduced in Iran’s Parliament. We remain steadfast in defending our red lines, particularly regarding the management of the Strait of Hormuz.”

What is happening to shipping in Hormuz?

Oil prices rose more than 9 percent on Monday, with Brent crude climbing to about $81 a barrel, its highest level since mid-June.

Kpler, the ship-tracking firm, said crossings through the strait fell by about 52 percent between July 10 and July 12, compared with the previous week.