DUBAI: Iran tried to seize two oil tankers near the strategic Strait of Hormuz early Wednesday, firing shots at one of them, the US Navy said.
It said that in both cases, the Iranian naval vessels backed off after the US Navy responded, and that both commercial ships continued their voyages.
“The Iranian navy did make attempts to seize commercial tankers lawfully transiting international waters,” said Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, spokesman for the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet. “The US Navy responded immediately and prevented those seizures.”
He said the gunfire directed at the second vessel did not cause casualties or major damage.
There was no immediate Iranian comment on the incidents.
Ambrey, a maritime intelligence service, said the tanker that was fired upon was a Bahamas-flagged, Greek-owned, US managed crude oil tanker transiting from the United Arab Emirates to Singapore. It said the firing of shots happened 28 nautical miles northeast of Muscat, the capital of Oman.
The US Navy says Iran has seized at least five commercial vessels in the last two years and has harassed several others. Many of the incidents have occurred in and around the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Arabian Gulf through which 20 percent of all crude oil passes.
In April, masked Iranian navy commandos conducted a helicopter-borne raid to seize a US-bound oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman, footage of which was aired on Iranian state TV. Iran said the tanker was seized after it collided with another Iranian vessel but provided no evidence. In the past, Iran has seized commercial vessels to use as bargaining chips with the West.
US-Iranian tensions have steadily risen since the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers and restored crippling sanctions. Iran has responded by ramping up its nuclear activities — which it says are purely peaceful — and is also providing armed drones to Russia for its war against Ukraine.
Iran tried to seize 2 oil tankers near Strait of Hormuz and fired shots at one of them, US Navy says
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Iran tried to seize 2 oil tankers near Strait of Hormuz and fired shots at one of them, US Navy says
- “The Iranian navy did make attempts to seize commercial tankers lawfully transiting international waters,” said Cmdr. Tim Hawkins
- He said the gunfire directed at the second vessel did not cause casualties or major damage
Lebanese president rules out normalization with Israel: statement
Aoun’s statement is the first official reaction to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar’s statement last week in which he expressed his country’s interest in normalizing ties with Lebanon and Syria.
Aoun “distinguished between peace and normalization,” according to a statement shared by the presidency.
“Peace is the lack of a state of war, and this is what matters to us in Lebanon at the moment. As for the issue of normalization, it is not currently part of Lebanese foreign policy,” the president said in front of a delegation from an Arab think tank.
Lebanon and Syria have technically been in a state of war with Israel since 1948, with Damascus saying that talks of normalization were “premature.”
The president called on Israel to withdraw from the five points near the border it still occupies. Israel was required to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon under a November ceasefire seeking to end its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Aoun said that Israeli troops in Lebanon “obstruct the complete deployment of the army up to the internationally recognized borders.”
According to the ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah must pull its fighters north of the Litani River, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border with Israel, leaving the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the area.
The United States has been calling on Lebanon to fully disarm Hezbollah, and Lebanese authorities sent their response to Washington’s demand this week.
The response was not made public, but Aoun stated that Beirut was determined to “hold the monopoly over weapons in the country.”
The implementation of this move “will take into account the interest of the state and its security stability to preserve civil peace on one hand, and national unity on the other,” hinting that Hezbollah’s disarmament will not be done through force.
Hezbollah, a powerful political force in Lebanon, is the only non-state actor to have officially retained its weaponry after the end of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war in 1990, as parts of southern Lebanon were still under Israeli occupation at the time.
The Lebanese group was heavily weakened following its year-long hostilities with Israel, which escalated into a two-month war in September.
798 people killed while receiving aid in Gaza, says UN human rights office
- Killings both at aid points run by the US- and Israeli-backed group and near humanitarian convoys run by other relief bodies
GENEVA: The UN human rights office said on Friday that it had recorded at least 798 killings both at aid points run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and near humanitarian convoys run by other relief groups, including the UN
The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel says had let militants divert aid.
The United Nations has called the plan “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules.
“Up until the seventh of July, we’ve recorded now 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys,” OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May and has repeatedly denied that incidents had occurred at its sites.
Kurdish PKK militants begin handing over weapons in cave in Iraq
- Disarmament ceremony marks a turning point in the transition of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party from armed insurgency to democratic politics
- Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan said peace efforts with the Kurds would gain momentum after the PKK begin laying down its weapons
SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq: Dozens of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants began handing over weapons in a ceremony in a cave in northern Iraq on Friday, officials said, marking a symbolic but significant step toward ending a decades-long insurgency against Turkiye.
Helicopters hovered above the mountain where the disarmament process got underway, with dozens of Iraqi Kurdish security forces surrounding the area, a Reuters witness said.
The PKK, locked in conflict with the Turkish state and outlawed since 1984, decided in May to disband, disarm and end its separatist struggle after a public call to do so from its long-imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan.
After a series of failed peace efforts, the new initiative could pave the way for Ankara to end an insurgency that has killed over 40,000 people, burdened the economy and wrought deep social and political divisions in Turkiye and the wider region.
The ceremony was held inside the Jasana cave in the town of Dukan, 60 kilometers northwest of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan region of Iraq’s north, according to an Iraqi security official and another regional government official.
Around 40 PKK militants and one commander were to hand over their weapons, people familiar with the plan said. It was unclear when further handovers would take place.
The PKK has been based in northern Iraq after being pushed well beyond Turkiye’s southeastern frontier in recent years. Turkiye’s military has regularly carried out operations and strikes on PKK bases in the region and established several military outposts there.
No footage of the ceremony has been made available yet, but Turkish broadcasters have been showing the crowds gathered near Sulaymaniyah and landscapes of the mountainous region as part of their coverage of what they said was a historic moment.
The arms are to be destroyed later in another ceremony attended by Turkish and Iraqi intelligence figures, officials of Iraq’s Kurdistan regional government, and senior members of Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish DEM party – which also played a key role in facilitating the PKK’s disarmament decision.
Next steps
The PKK, DEM and Ocalan have all called on Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s government to address Kurdish demands for more rights in regions where Kurds form a majority, particularly the southeast where the insurgency was concentrated.
In a rare online video published on Wednesday, Ocalan also urged Turkiye’s parliament to set up a commission to oversee disarmament and manage the broader peace process.
Ankara has taken steps toward forming the commission, while the DEM and Ocalan have said that legal assurances and certain mechanisms were needed to smooth the PKK’s transition into democratic politics.
Omer Celik, a spokesman for Erdogan’s AK Party, said the disarmament process should not be allowed to drag on longer than a few months to avoid it becoming subject to provocations.
Erdogan has said the disarmament will enable the rebuilding of Turkiye’s southeast.
Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek has said Turkiye spent nearly $1.8 trillion over the past five decades combating terrorism, endorsing the peace steps as an economic boon.
The end of NATO member Turkiye’s conflict with the PKK could have consequences across the region, including in neighboring Syria where the United States is allied with Syrian Kurdish forces that Ankara deems a PKK offshoot.
Washington and Ankara want those Kurds to quickly integrate with Syria’s security structure, which has been undergoing reconfiguration since the fall in December of autocratic President Bashar Assad. PKK disarmament could add to this pressure, analysts say.
Gaza civil defense says Israeli strikes kill six
- In central Gaza on Friday, the Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat said it received several casualties after Israeli forces had opened fire at civilians near an aid distribution point
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli strikes on Friday killed at least six people in the Palestinian territory’s north, including five at a school-turned-shelter.
“Five martyrs and others injured in an Israeli strike on Halima Al-Saadia School, which was sheltering displaced persons in Jabalia Al-Nazla, northern Gaza,” the agency said in a brief statement.
In a separate strike on Gaza City, to the south, the agency said at least one person was killed and several others wounded.
In central Gaza on Friday, the Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat said it received several casualties after Israeli forces had opened fire at civilians near an aid distribution point.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has recently intensified its operations in the Gaza Strip as the war against Hamas militants entered its 22nd month.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency and other parties.
A Palestinian speaking to AFP from southern Gaza on condition of anonymity said there were ongoing attacks and widespread devastation, with Israeli tanks seen near the city of Khan Yunis.
“The situation remains extremely difficult in the area – intense gunfire, intermittent air strikes, artillery shelling and ongoing bulldozing and destruction of displacement camps and agricultural land to the south, west and north of Al-Maslakh,” an area to Khan Yunis’s south, said the witness.
Francesca Albanese, UN investigator and critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza, shocked by US sanctions
- Francesca Albanese: The powerful are trying to silence me for defending those without any power of their own
- Albanese accuses US officials of receiving Israeli leader with honor and standing side-by-side with someone facing an arrest warrant
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina: An independent UN investigator and outspoken critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza said Thursday that “it was shocking” to learn that the Trump administration had imposed sanctions on her but defiantly stood by her view on the war.
Francesca Albanese said in an interview with The Associated Press that the powerful were trying to silence her for defending those without any power of their own, “other than standing and hoping not to die, not to see their children slaughtered.”
“This is not a sign of power, it’s a sign of guilt,” the Italian human rights lawyer said.
The State Department’s decision to impose sanctions on Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, followed an unsuccessful US pressure campaign to force the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, the UN’s top human rights body, to remove her from her post.
She is tasked with probing human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories and has been vocal about what she has described as the “genocide” by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza. Both Israel and the US have strongly denied that accusation.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on social media. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
The US announced the sanctions Wednesday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was visiting Washington to meet with President Donald Trump and other officials about reaching a ceasefire deal in the war in Gaza. Netanyahu faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, which accuses him of crimes against humanity in his military offensive in Gaza.
In the interview, Albanese accused American officials of receiving Netanyahu with honor and standing side-by-side with someone wanted by the ICC, a court that neither the US nor Israel is a member of or recognizes. Trump imposed sanctions on the court in February.
“We need to reverse the tide, and in order for it to happen – we need to stand united,” she said. “They cannot silence us all. They cannot kill us all. They cannot fire us all.”
Albanese stressed that the only way to win is to get rid of fear and to stand up for the Palestinians and their right to an independent state.
The Trump administration’s stand “is not normal,” she said at the Sarajevo airport. She also defiantly repeated, “No one is free until Palestine is free.”
Albanese was en route to Friday’s 30th anniversary commemoration of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica where more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys in a UN-protected safe zone were killed when it was overrun by Bosnian Serbs.
The United Nations, Human Rights Watch and the Center for Constitutional Rights opposed the US move.
“The imposition of sanctions on special rapporteurs is a dangerous precedent” and “is unacceptable,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
While Albanese reports to the Human Rights Council – not Secretary-General Antonio Guterres – the US and any other UN member are entitled to disagree with reports by the independent rapporteurs, “but we encourage them to engage with the UN human rights architecture.”
Trump announced the US was withdrawing from the council in February.
The war between Israel and Hamas began Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people captive. Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which says women and children make up most of the dead but does not specify how many were fighters or civilians.
Nearly 21 months into the conflict that displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, the UN says hunger is rampant after a lengthy Israeli blockade on food entering the territory and medical care is extremely limited.
