JERUSALEM, Israel – Pressure is mounting on Iran as the United States enforces a blockade of Iranian ports and the Iranian-backed Houthis target shipping near the strategic Bab el-Mandab Strait. President Trump claims the U.S. has the upper hand while Pakistan pushes for a U.S.-Iran deal.
The president said on Tuesday that the U.S. controls the Strait of Hormuz. However, he doesn’t trust the Tehran regime.
“They’ve lied to me constantly. We have total control over the Hormuz Strait right now… we own it,” he declared.
The U.S. military confirms that it fired on a Panamanian-flagged ship in the Gulf of Oman after the vessel ignored warnings and attempted to run the blockade of Iranian ports. U.S. CENTCOM announced that a Navy MH-60 helicopter fired Hellfire missiles into the engine room of the M/V Vela Nova, disabling the ship.
Meanwhile, Houthis in Yemen claim to have attacked a Saudi ship carrying military equipment near the Bab el-Mandab Strait. A separate Houthi ballistic missile attack on an Egyptian-owned vessel reportedly killed four crew members, three Pakistanis and an Indonesian national, along with two Yemeni rescuers.
That comes as Pakistan is engaging diplomatically with Tehran. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Moshin Naqvi met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Tehran.
Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif suggested that the U.S. and Iran may be nearing an agreement.
“Things are shaping up again in favor of a peace arrangement or a deal,” Asif said.
During a United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation in Judea and Samaria on Tuesday, Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon defended Jewish communities there. He rejected claims that they are obstacles to peace.
Danon noted, “They are permanent homes, thriving neighborhoods where families live. Judea and Samaria is where our people’s eternal connection to the Land of Israel began.”
He added, “Those committing violence are a tiny, a tiny fraction of the people living there.”
The Israel Defense Forces condemned what it called “illegal and unacceptable” Israeli activity involving Palestinian property near Nablus, where, since Sunday, two Palestinian families have been prevented from entering or leaving their homes, and have also had their electricity lines cut.
In Syria, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is reportedly preparing to remove nuclear material left from the Assad era, following Israeli and American concerns that Turkey is helping the Syrian government access the material.
And Israeli intelligence revealed that it warned Washington of an Iranian assassination plot targeting President Trump’s departure from the NATO Summit in Turkey last month.
Trump stated, “So, I go by Secret Service and the military. They wanted me to go on a different flight and different planes…I do what they say.”
The president was secretly transferred to a smaller military aircraft via an airport catering truck while senior aides remained on Air Force One as a decoy.
