Iran-US war latest: US military carries out strikes on Iran after ships struck by drones in Strait of Hormuz – UK Times

After weeks of reported tensions, Trump has repeatedly insisted that his relationship with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “good”.

The US strikes Iran to respond to drone attack on ship that Trump said violated ceasefire, the US military has said.

US aircraft struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations and coastal radar sites after Iran hit M/V Ever Lovely on June 25 with a one-way attack drone.

The Singapore-flagged cargo ship was exiting the Strait of Hormuz along the Omani coast at the time of Iran’s attack.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined Israel and Lebanon’s ambassadors to the US Friday to announce a framework agreement that was described as a first step toward peace following months of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The officials shared few details on the agreement, which does not include Hezbollah and prompted one of the group’s officials in Lebanon to warn of civil war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said that the framework would allow Lebanese forces to eventually retake control of territory from Israel’s military.

The agreement was signed in front of Rubio in Washington by Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, and Nada Hamadeh Moawad, the Lebanese ambassador to the United States.

Moawad said the framework “is a first step on the road to restoring Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity, securing a permanent and final cessation of hostilities, enabling our people to go back to their land and allowing all Lebanese to live in peace, security and prosperity.”

Iranian media has reported that a sound of an explosion was heard in Sirik in southern Iran, adding the source of the sound was not immediately clear.

The reports came right ‌after President Donald ‌Trump hinted at a US ⁠response to an Iranian attack on a cargo ship, saying “you’ll find out” ‌when asked ​if ‌there would ⁠be consequences ⁠for Tehran.

President Donald Trump has promised American farmers they will soon be able to sell their crops to the “lovely country of Iran” now that he has signed a memorandum of understanding to end his war.

Speaking in the White House Rose Garden Thursday, the president said: “After years of getting ripped off by other countries on trade, we’ve reduced the agricultural trade deficit, just this year, by 42 percent, opening markets to the American exports, and all over the world, we’re opening up markets for the farmers.

“And we have another one, a new market, coming up. And that’s called the lovely country of Iran. It’s a beautiful place. Would anybody like to go there?

Defence minister Israel Katz wrote on social media on Friday that Tehran would “commit its biggest mistake” if it attacks Israel, following threats from the leader of a branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

“Neither Hormuz nor attacks on civilians will help them; nothing will stop us. Our forces are ready to finish the job,” he said.

Despite a renewed ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah, Israel has continued operations across the border.

Israeli forces dropped leaflets over a town in southern Lebanon on Friday ordering residents to leave, Lebanese state media reported, in a first such order issued since the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect.

Israel and Lebanon are expected to sign a framework agreement in Washington on Friday, senior Israeli officials said.

The ⁠Israeli officials did not ‌provide ​further details.

The UN’s International Maritime Organisation paused its plans to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday after a vessel reported an attack.

Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine said on Friday its ship was hit close to Oman by an “unknown object” while on a route recommended by the British navy agency UKMTO.

Two US officials told Reuters that Iran had fired on the ship, while Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority, which Tehran established to manage requests for ships to travel through the strait, said vessels outside routes it has set will not be guaranteed safe passage.

The IMO was helping to get hundreds of stranded ships and thousands of seafarers out of the strait where they had been stranded for months since the start of the war on February 28.

It decided “to temporarily pause its implementation in order to reconfirm that the necessary safety guarantees continue to be in place for the ships on our evacuation list and all those in the region,” IMO Secretary General Arsenio Dominguez said in a statement.

The IMO said the ship in the suspected attack was not part of its evacuation initiative, a voluntary option it launched on Tuesday to enable ships and their crew to sail out of the Gulf using two routes — one via Iranian waters and the other via Omani waters, with US oversight.

Iraq’s Oil Ministry said on Friday that OPEC has begun gradually restoring Iraq’s pre-war production allocations, a move it said would strengthen Iraq’s output capacity and support recovery of its oil sector.

In a statement carried by the state news agency, the ministry said Baghdad supported a reassessment of OPEC production quotas to better reflect member states’ conditions, including Iraq’s economic and security circumstances. It added that Prime Minister Ali Faleh al-Zaidi had not discussed the possibility of Iraq leaving OPEC.