escalate

The UK, France and Germany have called on Iran not to escalate tensions and to pursue negotiations after UN sanctions were reinstated on Saturday.

The three countries said they had “no choice” but to bring back the sweeping measures against Tehran “as a last resort” over its “continued nuclear escalation” and lack of cooperation.

“We urge Iran to refrain from any escalatory action,” they said in a joint statement, adding: “The reimposition of UN sanctions is not the end of diplomacy.”

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian insisted last week that the country had no intention of developing nuclear weapons, and condemned the re-imposition of international sanctions as “unfair, unjust, and illegal”.

The United Nations’ sweeping economic and military sanctions were reimposed on Iran at 00:00 GMT on Saturday – a decade after they were lifted in a landmark international deal over its nuclear programme.

Iran stepped up banned nuclear activity after the US quit the deal in 2016. Donald Trump pulled the US out in his first term as president, criticising the deal – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – negotiated under his predecessor Barack Obama, as flawed.

Talks between the three countries and Iran on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly earlier this week failed to produce a deal which would have delayed the sanctions being reimposed.

In a joint statement early on Sunday, the foreign ministers of the three European countries, known as the E3, said: “Given that Iran repeatedly breached these commitments, the E3 had no choice but to trigger the snapback procedure, at the end of which those resolutions were brought back into force.”

In the meantime, they said they would “continue to pursue diplomatic routes and negotiations”.

They cited Iran’s failure to “take the necessary actions to address our concerns, nor to meet our asks on extension, despite extensive dialogue”.

Specifically, they mentioned Tehran’s refusal to cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.

“Iran has not authorised IAEA inspectors to regain access to Iran’s nuclear sites, nor has it produced and transmitted to the IAEA a report accounting for its stockpile of high-enriched uranium,” the statement read.

Iran suspended IAEA inspection after Israel and the US bombed several of its nuclear sites and military bases in June.

Under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is legally obliged to allow inspections of its nuclear sites, and on Friday, the IAEA confirmed that they had resumed.

But while Iran has been in talks with the IAEA to find a way forward, it has also warned that a return of sanctions will put that in jeopardy.

Pezeshkian has walked back from his earlier threats for Iran to quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But, speaking to reporters on Friday, he added that Tehran would need reassurances that its nuclear facilities would not be attacked by Israel in order to normalise its nuclear enrichment programme.

He also rejected a US demand to hand over all of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium in return for a three-month exemption from sanctions, saying: “Why would we put ourselves in such a trap and have a noose around our neck each month?”

Iran said on Saturday it was recalling its ambassadors to Britain, France and Germany for consultations.

Protests started last year after deadly collapse of rail station roof, with President Vucic accused of corruption.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets across Serbia, smashing windows of the governing party’s headquarters in the northern city of Novi Sad, where the country’s antigovernment revolt started more than nine months ago.

The protesters came out in force for a third night on Thursday, following major clashes earlier in the week that saw dozens detained or injured, demanding that President Aleksandar Vucic call an early election.

In Novi Sad, where a train station canopy collapsed last year, killing 16 people and creating public anger over alleged corruption in infrastructure projects, protesters attacked the offices of the governing Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), carrying away furniture and documents, and splashing paint on the entrance.

“He is finished,” they shouted, with reference to the president as they demolished the offices. The police and Vucic’s supporters, who have guarded the office in Serbia’s second-largest city for months, were nowhere to be seen.

In Belgrade, the Serbian capital, hundreds of protesters and SNS supporters threw flares and firecrackers at each other on one of the city’s main boulevards. Police fired tear gas at least two locations to disperse the protesters and keep the opposing camps apart.

Similar protests were held in towns across the country.

Vucic told pro-government Informer television that “the state will win” as he announced a crackdown on antigovernment protesters, accusing them of inciting violence and of being “enemies of their own country”.

“I think it is clear they did not want peace and Gandhian protests. There will be more arrests,” he said during the broadcast.

He reiterated earlier claims that the protests have been organised from abroad, offering no evidence.

The previous night, there were gatherings at some 90 locations in the country, according to Interior Minister Ivica Dacic the following day.

Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said that 47 people were arrested in Wednesday’s clashes, with about 80 civilians and 27 police officers left injured.

The EU’s Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos said on X that the reports of violence were “deeply concerning”.

“Advancing on the EU path requires citizens can express their views freely and journalists can report without intimidation or attacks,” Kos said on X.

The Serbian president denies allegations of allowing organised crime and corruption to flourish in the country, which is a candidate for European Union membership.

The Israeli cabinet’s decision to escalate its war on Gaza, disregarding the humanitarian crises it has caused there already, appears to have angered as many in Israel as in the international community, though not necessarily for the same reasons.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to backtrack on his idea of seizing all of Gaza after pushback from a military widely regarded as being exhausted.

Under the new “plan”, Israel will seize Gaza City and, according to an anonymous Israeli official talking to the Associated Press, Gaza’s “central camps” as well as al-Mawasi in the south.

Defending his new idea on Sunday, Netanyahu told journalists that Israel had “no choice” but to “finish the job and complete the defeat of Hamas”.

Israel has spent 22 months killing 61,722 people and destroying nearly all of Gaza, ostensibly for that very purpose.

Many in Israel, including the families of the remaining captives held in Gaza, object to the escalation. So why is Netanyahu doing it, and how has this landed in Israel? Here’s what we know.

Why does Netanyahu want to do this?

It’s not clear.

Many in the international community, from the European Union to the United Nations, have condemned the idea. Even many of Israel’s formerly stalwart allies, like Belgium,  Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, have condemned it.

In Israel, many suspect Netanyahu’s move aims to shore up his support among the far-right elements that his coalition needs to stay in power, and to drag out a war he feels his political survival depends on.

Do many on the far right support Netanyahu’s plan?

Not as many as he’d hoped.

While hard-right ministers like ultra-nationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir still support Netanyahu’s coalition, their loyalty seems conditional.

Both had been among a cohort of hard-right politicians who had objected to the suggestion that humanitarian aid be allowed into the enclave in May, following worldwide outrage over starvation there, before falling into line with government policy and Smotrich even diverting extra funds for aid earlier this month.

Both ministers, and their sizeable constituencies, want a full Israeli seizure of all of Gaza, the “razing” of Gaza City, and what they describe as the “voluntary” migration of Gaza’s population, once the territory has been rendered uninhabitable.

On Saturday, Smotrich released a video criticising Netanyahu’s plans to limit the invasion to Gaza City, saying he had “lost faith” in Netanyahu’s leadership. He later clarified that he would remain in government nonetheless.

Does the security establishment fully support Netanyahu’s plan?

No.

Israeli media reports that Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir and several senior Israeli officers oppose the plan.

According to leaked reports, Zamir told Netanyahu he was creating a “trap” that would further erode the army and endanger the lives of the remaining captives.

Earlier in the same week, more than 600 former Israeli security officials wrote to US President Donald Trump to implore him to use his influence over Netanyahu to bring the war to a close.

“Everything that could be achieved by force has been achieved. The hostages cannot wait any longer,” the Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS) group said in a post on X, where it shared the letter.

Does the Israeli public fully support Netanyahu’s plan?

No.

Tens of thousands of people, including many of the captives’ families, have taken to the streets to protest against the decision to escalate the war.

In mid-July, a poll carried out by the Israeli Democracy Institute found 74 percent of Israelis supported a negotiated end to the war that would see the return of the roughly 50 captives remaining in Gaza.

Among them were 60 percent who had previously voted for the prime minister’s coalition.

How has society responded?

Loudly.

Groups representing the families of the captives and those of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza are calling for a general strike on August 17.

Many in Israel’s vital tech industry, as well as universities and local authorities, have responded positively.

“The goal”, one of the groups organising the action explained, is “to save the lives of the hostages and soldiers, and prevent further families from joining the bereaved”.

How has the political opposition responded to Netanyahu’s plan?

They almost universally oppose it.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid – who has backed the government through much of its war on Gaza – declared the latest escalation a  “disaster that will lead to many more disasters”.

Another opposition figure, Benny Gantz, who served in the government throughout some of its fiercest attacks upon Gaza during the early stages of the war, also condemned the escalation. In a post on X, Gantz characterised the escalation as a “political failure that wastes the tremendous achievements of the [Israeli army]”.

מה כן לעשות כדי להחזיר את החטופים ולנצח?

אני רואה שוב את המחדל המדיני שמבזבז את ההישגים האדירים של צה”ל.
שוב מחכים.
שוב מנהלים משא ומתן בשלבים.
בלי שום יצירתיות.

אפשר אחרת:
קודם כל להודיע – בתמורה להשבת החטופים נהיה מוכנים להפסקת אש קבועה – עד החטוף האחרון.
כל עוד זה לא מתקבל:…

— בני גנץ – Benny Gantz (@gantzbe) August 8, 2025

Are Israelis more aware of what their country is doing to Palestinians?

Not really.

A poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute in July showed that, despite widespread coverage, a majority of Israelis described themselves as “not at all troubled” by “reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinian population in Gaza”.

An estimated 227 people have died of starvation as a result of the Israeli siege on Gaza that began in March. A total of 103 of them have been children.

When US President Donald Trump entered the war between Israel and Iran late on Saturday night, the region was braced for escalation.

The US dropped 17 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs and two dozen cruise missiles on Iran’s nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow and Esfahan, assisting Israel, which had already been trading missile fire with Tehran since July 13.

Iran’s response soon came. On Monday evening, it launched 14 missiles aimed at the US Air Force’s Central Command in the Middle East, at Al Udeid in Qatar, a neutral country. Those missiles flew over the capital, Doha, spreading alarm.

Yet instead of leading to the “rathole of retaliations” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had warned against, the attack presaged a truce that Trump announced hours later, and that was facilitated by sophisticated diplomacy involving Qatar, the US and Iran.

So, how did a ceasefire emerge from the smoke of an attack?

What options did Iran have?

A military response against a US base was an obvious choice, because the US has exposure in Iran’s neighbourhood.

Apart from Al Udeid airbase, its Fifth Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain. Both are just more than 200km (125 miles) across the Persian Gulf from Iran. There is also an air base in Kuwait and four logistics air bases in Oman. Further afield, the US has three air bases in Saudi Arabia, three air bases in Iraq, and an air base in Jordan.

“The US has 40,000 troops in the region [on] 19 US bases, eight of which are permanent, and Iran has said previously they will become legitimate targets if the US strikes Iran,” said Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari.

In the past, Iran’s proxies in the region have been Tehran’s “primary Iranian means of retaliating against adversary attacks,” wrote The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, on Friday.

Houthi militias could resume attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, and Iran could itself attack shipping in the Strait of Hormuz – thus menacing two of the world’s most economically important shipping chokepoints simultaneously.

But the proxy attacks never came, demonstrating the limitations of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance”, and “how exhausted it is after months of fighting the United States and Israel”, said the ISW in a comment on its website.

Still, even as the world prepared for Iran to respond to the US attacks, an Iran historian at St Andrews University in the UK, told Al Jazeera on Monday that he thought “an ‘off ramp’ with the United States” was likely.

“There will be a lot of public bluster, but privately, I think feelers will be put out,” he said, before the Iranian strike later that evening.

How did the strike unfold?

At around 7pm local time (16:00 GMT) on Monday, Iran struck Qatar.

Qatar condemned the attack as “an extremely dangerous escalation that represents a flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the State of Qatar”. It issued a demarche to the Iranian ambassador in Doha.

But the “feelers” Ansari had talked about appear to have been put out beforehand.

“I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice,” wrote Trump on social media, “which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured.”

The warning also allowed Qatar to prepare its air defences, shooting down 13 of the missiles and allowing one to fly “in a nonthreatening direction”, according to Trump.

Satellite images suggested the US had evacuated staff and aircraft from Al Udeid even before it struck Iran, so targeting it represented a low risk of casualties. Neither the US base at Al Udeid nor the Qatari Air Force suffered few material losses.

“I am pleased to report that NO Americans were harmed, and hardly any damage was done. Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system’,” wrote Trump three hours after the attack.

A mere two hours later, he announced the ceasefire.

“CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE! It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE (in approximately 6 hours from now, when Israel and Iran have wound down and completed their in progress, final missions!),” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform.

Trump later revealed that “Israel & Iran came to me, almost simultaneously, and said, ‘PEACE!’”

Iran’s government was eager to put the war behind it, issuing a statement early on Tuesday saying it had delivered a “humiliating and exemplary response to the enemy’s cruelty”, and framing the ceasefire as a “national decision to impose the cessation of war on the Zionist enemy and its vile supporters”.

How are Qatar’s relations with the US and Iran?

Qatar hosts the largest US airbase in the Middle East and has worked closely with Washington on a series of tricky diplomatic negotiations, involving the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hamas in Gaza, among others.

At the same time, it enjoys warm diplomatic and economic ties with Iran. “The South Pars and North Pars and North Field have been a joint [venture] for a long time – over 25 years,” Doha-based energy expert Roudi Baroudi told Al Jazeera, referring to gas fields that Qatar and Iran share.

The South Pars gas field alone holds almost as much gas as all the other known gas fields on the planet, said Baroudi.

Right after he announced the ceasefire, Trump thanked the emir of Qatar.

“I’d like to thank the Highly Respected Emir of Qatar for all that he has done in seeking Peace for the Region,” he wrote on Truth Social. Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian telephoned the Qatari emir on Tuesday to express “regret” over the attack the previous day.

Pezehkian clarified that Qatar and its people were not the target of Iran’s strikes. “[Pezeshkian] stressed that the State of Qatar will remain a neighbouring, Muslim, and sisterly state, and expressed his hope that relations between the two countries will always be based on the principles of respect for the sovereignty of states and good neighbourliness,” the emir’s office said in a statement.

Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani said on Wednesday that “Qatar undertook significant diplomatic efforts with regional and international partners to defuse tensions.”

And the impact of those efforts will be felt well beyond just Israel and Iran, Baroudi suggested.

“Washington and Doha defused an unseen economic and ecological bomb,” he said, because the Gulf is a powder keg of highly inflammable oil and gas wellheads, offloading terminals and tankers.

“The whole region has over 34 refineries along the coast. We have over 105 power plants and desalination plants, so a ceasefire will put away any danger to the water and electricity [supply] of the whole region,” he said, suggesting Qatar be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Iran has no clear off-ramps to end its war with Israel, which could soon drag in the United States and lead to a new quagmire in the Middle East, analysts told Al Jazeera.

Since June 13, Israel has killed at least 240 Iranians, many of them civilians. Top Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists have been among the dead.

Israel has struck Iran’s state television station, hit a hospital, targeted apartment blocks, and damaged the country’s air defences.

In response, Iran has fired barrages of ballistic missiles at Israel, targeting military and security installations, and hitting the Haifa oil refinery, residential buildings, and a hospital. At least 24 people have been killed in Israel as a result of the attacks.

Israel aims to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme and potentially go as far as bringing about regime change, analysts say.

These goals make it difficult for Iran to navigate a quick end to the conflict. Iran’s official position is that it will not negotiate while under attack, fearing it will be forced to fully surrender to US and Israeli terms.

Iran may instead have to hope that US President Donald Trump can be persuaded to rein in Israel, which may be in his interest to avoid getting entangled in a far-away war, even if the US leader has recently appeared to favour striking Iran, and has reiterated that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.

“If the United States recognises the urgency of de-escalation and manages to persuade Israel to halt its military campaign, then – given the mounting costs of war for Iran and the fact that Iran’s primary goal is to stop, not expand, the conflict – it is highly likely that Iran would agree to a ceasefire or political resolution,” said Hamidreza Aziz, an expert on Iran for the Middle East Council for Global Affairs think tank.

Few viable options

In theory, Iran could return to the negotiating table and sign a deal while under fire.

However, Iran would be forced to entirely give up its nuclear programme, enabling its enemies to then aggressively pursue regime change without fear of consequence, analysts previously told Al Jazeera.

This is an unlikely scenario, according to Reza H Akbari, an analyst on Iran and the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia Program Manager at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

“[Iran’s nuclear] program continues to remain a leverage for Iran, which enables them to even engage with the US. Giving it up would be a shocking development which I don’t foresee for the time being,” he told Al Jazeera.

The US and Iran had already engaged in five rounds of negotiations before Israel instigated the conflict.

The two sides had reached an impasse when Trump demanded that Iran give up its entire nuclear programme, which every country has an “inalienable right” to use for peaceful purposes, according to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which Iran is a signatory to.

Trump has since warned Iran to quickly surrender to a deal or face even more dire repercussions, hinting at regime change.

Iran has few good options, said Negar Mortazavi, an expert on Iran with the Center for International Policy (CIP).

She believes Iran has little to lose by retaliating against Israel, but also notes that the strategy would not necessarily give Tehran a way out of the conflict.

“If Iran does not retaliate after each attack, [Iranian officials] think [the Israeli attacks] will get harder and I think they’re correct,” Mortazavi told Al Jazeera. “But every time [Iran] retaliates, they give Israel the excuse to attack them again.”

Pressuring the US?

Over the last year, Iran’s regional influence has suffered major setbacks, leaving it geopolitically vulnerable.

Iran had long relied on its ally, the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, to provide deterrence from direct Israeli attacks, but Hezbollah was significantly weakened after fighting an all-out war against Israel last year.

In addition, Iran lost another ally when Syria’s former President Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December 2024.

Iran could still direct attacks against US bases and personnel through a web of Iranian-backed armed groups in the region, particularly in Iraq, said Barbara Slavin, an expert on Iran and a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Centre think tank.

She believes Iranian-backed groups in Iraq could fire “warning shots” to try and exploit US public opinion.

Trump’s nationalist “America First” base remains staunchly opposed to any US involvement in wars abroad, which they view as unrelated to their domestic concerns.

And anti-interventionist sentiments are likely to increase if US troops are put in harm’s way as a result of any attacks related to the conflict with Iran.

“The thought of Americans dying in this would make it even more controversial for [the US] than it already is,” Slavin told Al Jazeera.

Iran could also make Americans feel the impact of the war economically. It has threatened to attack commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, which would affect global trade and increase oil prices. But Slavin said this move would badly hurt Iran’s economy, too.

Slavin added that Iran also relies on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which lies between Iran and Oman and is one of the most important shipping routes in the world, to export oil. Instead, Slavin said that Iran’s best option was to contain the war with Israel and wait out the conflict, arguing that any manoeuvre to escalate against US personnel, even as a warning, is a risky gambit.

Trump’s administration, which includes many war hawks, has explicitly warned Iran against targeting its assets or soldiers.

Iran is also wary of giving the US any easy pretext to directly enter the war on behalf of Israel, Akbari said.

“Iran’s leadership knows that drawing the US further into the war could be catastrophic for both the regime and in terms of industrial damage. [It would risk destroying] everything Iran has built over the last 40-plus years,” Akbari said.

Strategic calculus

Iran’s formal position is to inflict significant political, military and material cost on Israel for instigating the war.

This position was echoed by Hassan Ahmadian, an assistant professor at Tehran University, who suggested Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may stop the war if Israelis feel the impact of a crisis he instigated.

“Iranians are quite confident that they can inflict enough retaliatory pain to make Israel stop [its attacks],” Ahmadian told Al Jazeera.

It is unclear how much damage Iran is doing to Israel’s military infrastructure since the latter bars the media from reporting such information.

Furthermore, it’s hard to assess how long Iran can sustain a war against Israel.

But Israel itself may struggle to attack for a protracted period without the US, said Slavin.

She referenced media reports that Israel is running low on defensive interceptors, which could make it more vulnerable to long-range strikes by Iran.

The challenges facing both foes could prompt them to end the fighting sooner rather than later – at least that appears to be what Iran is betting on.

“Right now, Iran is trying to hunker down and somehow get through this,” Slavin said.

“No outside power will save Iran. It’s up to them [to save themselves],” she told Al Jazeera.

At a news conference Thursday, Mayor Karen Bass made a startling claim.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had appeared at a homeless shelter that day, among other sensitive locations in Los Angeles, she said.

But what actually happened at the Whitsett West Tiny Home Village in North Hollywood remains murky. The shifting narratives reflect the anxiety of Angelenos amid ICE raids targeting immigrants at Home Depots, churches and retail centers.

In L.A., a “sanctuary city” where local officials do not participate in federal immigration enforcement, tensions with the federal government are at an all-time high. After some protests against the raids turned violent, the Trump administration called in the National Guard and the U.S. Marines.

With federal officials keeping the city in the dark on immigration enforcement actions, City Council members and the mayor sometimes rely on the rumor mill.

ICE’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, quickly responded to Bass’ comments, saying they were “false.”

“[ICE] is not in homeless shelters,” the agency wrote on X. “This rhetoric from [the mayor] and California politicians demonizes the brave men and women of law enforcement.”

The Whitsett West Tiny Home Village, which is on city property and is run by the nonprofit Hope the Mission, has beds for about 150 people in shed-like structures off the 170 Freeway near Whitsett Avenue and Saticoy Street.

According to Laura Harwood, Hope the Mission’s deputy chief program officer, people in a car tried to get access to the tiny home village on Thursday afternoon, telling security guards that they were American citizens who wanted to see how their taxpayer dollars were being used. The guards did not admit the visitors, who were wearing civilian clothes.

“This is a really unusual situation. This really doesn’t happen,” Harwood said.

Other employees saw some men looking into the complex from different sides and taking pictures.

A worker at the tiny home village, who requested anonymity because he has family members who are undocumented, told The Times that he was returning from lunch when he spotted two DHS SUVs with tinted windows down the block.

Tiny home staffers were concerned enough that they reached out to City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, who came to the complex.

“We got reports that some ICE agents were around in the area viewing the location from both the front and the backside entryways,” Nazarian said on Instagram.

Nazarian said that immigration agents appearing at the tiny home village would be a “fear mongering” tactic.

The targeting of interim homeless housing could dissuade people from moving off the street, or push those in shelters to leave out of fear, said Rowan Vansleve, Hope the Mission’s president.

“Last Thursday, ICE entered our city, and provoked the city, by chasing people through Home Depots and car washes and showing up at schools. And today, showing up at emergency rooms and homeless shelters,” Bass said at the Thursday press conference.

Bass’ team confirmed to The Times that she was referring to the incident at the Whitsett West Tiny Home Village.

City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said that community organizations and local elected officials have been sorting through reports of DHS sightings to see if they are credible.

“We have seen situations where people say federal agents are here, and then when someone goes, it turns out they were never there or were gone an hour ago,” Hernandez said.

Israel’s strike on military and nuclear sites, and Iran’s retaliation, have rocked already strained global supply chains.

As airlines suspend flights to Tel Aviv, Tehran and other airports across the region, oil companies, shipping firms, and regulatory agencies are scrambling amid growing concerns that key trade routes like the Strait of Hormuz could be caught in the crossfire.

Merchant shipping is still passing through the Strait of Hormuz, but with increased caution. Iran has previously threatened to close this critical trade route in response to Western pressure. Even the suggestion of such a move has already sent shockwaves through global markets, and the price of oil has risen.

United States President Donald Trump’s latest rhetoric has done little to ease those concerns. He warned that if Iran does not “make a deal”, there could be more “death and destruction”.

“If the United States is perceived to be involved in any attacks, the risk of escalation increases significantly,” Jakob Larsen, chief safety and security officer with shipping association BIMCO, told the Reuters news agency.

Oil Prices Rise

As of 4:00pm in New York (20:00 GMT), Brent crude prices, which are considered the international standard, are 5 percent higher than yesterday’s market close.

Oil futures spiked more than 13 percent at one point, reaching their highest levels since January.

Any closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic trade route between the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s global oil output travels, would likely drive oil prices even higher. This could intensify inflationary pressures globally, and particularly in the US.

The price surge comes on the heels of a better-than-expected Consumer Price Index report in the US earlier this week, which showed prices increased by just 0.1 percent for the month. Energy costs remain a key inflation driver. Petrol prices, in fact, fell 2.6 percent during the period. Consumer sentiment, too, jumped for the first time in six months as tariff fears eased. However, the new conflict could cut short the relief that US consumers had expressed, according to analysts from JPMorgan Chase.

Wait and see 

“Sustained gains in energy prices could have a dire impact on inflation, reversing the months-long trend of cooling consumer prices in the US,” commodity researchers for JPMorgan Chase said in a note released on the heels of the strike. “We continue to believe that any political policies that might drive oil and inflation higher would likely yield to Trump’s primary objective of maintaining low energy prices—a campaign promise,” analysts Natasha Kaneva, Prateek Kedia, and Lyuba Savinova wrote.

The markets more broadly dropped on the news. The S&P 500 tumbled 1.1 percent, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 1.7 and the Nasdaq is 1.3 percent lower.

“Today, as you can see from the markets, whether it’s the S&P, whether it’s Bitcoin, things have been kind of stable or flat. So there’s a little bit of a wait-and-see approach. Oil is acutely affected simply because Iran is such a significant part of the global oil supply. But thus far, Israel has refrained from hitting in any severe fashion the oil infrastructure of Iran. Should that change, that will obviously have a much more dramatic impact,” Taufiq Rahim, an independent geopolitical strategist and Principal for the 2040 Advisory, told Al Jazeera.

If shipping through the critical seaway were suspended, even temporarily, the International Energy Agency said it is well supplied to release emergency reserves, if needed. However, that comes with the risk of depletion.

There are 1.2 billion barrels in its strategic reserves. The world uses about 100 million barrels of oil per day.

“If it does rise to the level of closing the Strait of Hormuz, well, now that’s going to be the biggest oil shock of all time,” Matt Gertken, chief geopolitical strategist and senior vice president at BCA Research, a macroeconomic research firm, told Al Jazeera.

OPEC Secretary-General Haitham al-Ghais criticised the IEA for its statement that it could release strategic reserves, saying it “raises false alarms and projects a sense of market fear through repeating the unnecessary need to potentially use oil emergency stocks”.

This comes amid increased pressure for the group of oil-producing nations to increase output. Earlier this month, OPEC+ members agreed to raise production by 411,000 barrels for the month of July.

The Strait of Hormuz remains open for now. Countries, including Greece and the United Kingdom, have advised ships to avoid the Gulf of Aden, the body of water between Yemen and Somalia that connects to waterways that are close to Israel, and to log all voyages through the Strait, according to documents first seen by Reuters.

Further escalation on the horizon?

Iran could attack Iraq to reduce the global oil supply to further escalate tensions. In January 2024, Iran attacked Iraq, which it said was in retaliation for armed attacks within its own territory, The New York Times reported.

“We should assume that we’re going to lose both Iranian and Iraqi oil production, which brings us to the point where we could be seeing five to seven million barrels per day taken offline,” Gertken told Al Jazeera.

Gertken believes Iran would do this to provoke the West.

“They have to take out some oil supply, but not attack Saudi Arabia or close the Strait of Hormuz because, of course, that would ensure that the US enters the conflict. They need to target some regional production [where] they can have plausible deniability [and blame] some militant group.”

MIAMI — President Trump’s new ban on travel to the U.S. by citizens from 12 mainly African and Middle Eastern countries took effect Monday amid rising tension over the president’s escalating campaign of immigration enforcement.

The new proclamation, which Trump signed last week, applies to citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also imposes heightened restrictions on people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela who are outside the U.S. and don’t hold a valid visa.

The new ban does not revoke visas previously issued to people from countries on the list, according to guidance issued Friday to all U.S. diplomatic missions. However, unless an applicant meets narrow criteria for an exemption to the ban, his or her application will be rejected starting Monday. Travelers with previously issued visas should still be able to enter the U.S. even after the ban takes effect.

During Trump’s first term, a hastily written executive order mandating the denial of entry to citizens of mainly Muslim countries created chaos at numerous airports and other ports of entry, prompting successful legal challenges and major revisions to the policy.

In the hours after the new ban took effect, no disruptions were immediately discernible at Los Angeles International Airport. And passengers appeared to move steadily through an international arrival area at Miami International Airport, where green card holder Luis Hernandez returned to Miami after a weekend visiting family in Cuba.

“They did not ask me anything,” said Hernandez, a Cuban citizen who has lived in the U.S. for three years. “I only showed my residency card.”

Magda Moreno and her husband also said things seemed normal when they arrived Monday in Miami after a trip to Cuba to see relatives. Asked about the travel restrictions for Cubans, Moreno, a U.S. citizen, said: “It is difficult not being able to bring the family and for them not being able to enter into the U.S.”

Many immigration experts say the new ban is more carefully crafted and appears designed to beat court challenges that hampered the first by focusing on the visa application process.

Trump said this time that some countries had “deficient” screening for passports and other public documents or have historically refused to take back their own citizens. He relied extensively on an annual Homeland Security report of people who remain in the U.S. after their visas expired.

Measuring overstay rates has challenged experts for decades, but the government has made a limited attempt annually since 2016. Trump’s proclamation cites overstay rates for eight of the 12 banned countries.

Trump also tied the new ban to a terrorist attack in Boulder, Colo., saying it underscored the dangers posed by some visitors who overstay visas. U.S. officials say the man charged in the attack overstayed a tourist visa. He is from Egypt, a country that is not on Trump’s restricted list.

The ban was quickly denounced by groups that provide aid and resettlement help to refugees.

“This policy is not about national security — it is about sowing division and vilifying communities that are seeking safety and opportunity in the United States,” said Abby Maxman, president of Oxfam America, a nonprofit international relief organization.

Haiti’s transitional presidential council said in a social media post Monday that the ban “is likely to indiscriminately affect all Haitians.” Acknowledging “fierce fighting” against gangs controlling most of the capital city of Port-au-Prince, the council said it is strengthening Haiti’s borders and would negotiate with the U.S. to drop Haiti from the list of banned countries.

Gang violence has prevented many Haitians from risking a visit to the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince. Sheena Jean-Pierre, a 27-year-old civil engineer, went recently to see whether long lines had formed because of the ban. She had previously requested a visa three times to study in the U.S. but was rejected.

Jean-Pierre is now looking to continue her studies in other countries such as Brazil and Argentina. She said she doesn’t oppose the travel ban, saying the U.S. “has law and order,” unlike Haiti.

The inclusion of Afghanistan angered some supporters who have worked to resettle its people. The ban does make exceptions for Afghans on Special Immigrant Visas, generally people who worked most closely with the U.S. government during the two-decade-long war there.

Afghanistan had been one of the largest sources of resettled refugees, with about 14,000 arrivals in a 12-month period through September 2024. Trump suspended refugee resettlement his first day in office.

Solomon writes for the Associated Press. AP journalists Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, contributed to this report.