The U.S. military on Thursday said it seized another tanker transporting oil from Iran in the Indian Ocean, a day after Iran took control of two commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
President Trump said in a new social media post he ordered the Navy to “shoot and kill any boat” laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. He also said the U.S. is ramping up minesweeping in the strait.
This comes after Trump on Tuesday said he was extending the ceasefire with Iran indefinitely, hours before it was set to expire. He told Fox News on Wednesday there was “no time pressure” either on the truce or setting a new date for talks to end the war.
Iran dismissed Trump’s ceasefire extension as meaningless, saying the continued U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports is a violation of the deal and it will not return to negotiations until the blockade is lifted. The U.S. Central Command said it has directed 31 vessels to change course since imposing its blockade earlier this month.
Brent crude oil, the international standard, was again trading at over $100 a barrel Thursday as the impasse continued to disrupt shipping through the strait, a chokepoint for roughly a fifth of the world’s crude oil and natural gas.
Hours after Trump’s announcement, Iran attacked three commercial vessels in the narrow waterway and seized two of them, further tightening its grip on one of the world’s most important shipping lanes.
Lebanon, meanwhile, is set to pursue an extension of its U.S.-brokered ceasefire with Israel during a second round of talks in Washington on Thursday. The talks come a day after Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed at least five people, including a Lebanese journalist.
The latest regional turmoil coincided with a shakeup at the Pentagon, where U.S. Navy Secretary John Phelan was dismissed following months of tension with senior Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Asif Hassan/AFP via Getty Images
Here are the latest developments on Day 55 of the Middle East war:
Israel-Lebanon talks | Navy Secretary dismissed
Second round of Israel-Lebanon talks in Washington
Israel and Lebanon are set to hold a second round of ambassador-level talks in Washington on Thursday, as both sides explore extending the fragile 10-day ceasefire that took effect last week.
The talks follow the first high-level contact between the two countries in decades and come as Lebanon seeks to stop the fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
Lebanon is also trying to secure the withdrawal of Israeli troops still occupying parts of the country’s south, where Israel wants to establish a “buffer zone” to keep Hezbollah from launching strikes into northern Israel.
Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP via Getty Images
The Israeli government has called on the Lebanese government to do more to pressure Hezbollah into disarming.
Salman Harb, a Hezbollah spokesperson, told NPR that the group maintained its “right to resist” if Israel refused to withdraw from Lebanon.
Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Wednesday killed at least five people, including Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil. Lebanese officials said Khalil and another journalist took shelter in a house after a nearby vehicle was targeted, but the building was then struck as well. Medics said they were able to rescue a wounded journalist accompanying her. They then came under fire and were forced to retreat before they could save Khalil, who later died under the rubble. The Israeli military said it was responding to an “imminent threat” and was reviewing the incident.
Lebanon Prime Minister Nawaf Salam accused Israel of targeting journalists.
“Israel’s targeting of media workers in the south while they carry out their professional duties is no longer isolated incidents, but has become an established approach that we condemn and reject, as do all international laws and conventions,” Salam wrote in a post on social media.
At least eight journalists have been killed by Israel in Lebanon since the start of the conflict, according to the Committee to Project Journalists.
U.S. Navy secretary dismissed
The latest regional turmoil coincides with another shakeup at the Pentagon, where Navy Secretary John Phelan was dismissed on Wednesday.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images North America
The Pentagon said only that Phelan was “departing the administration, effective immediately,” and said that Undersecretary Hung Cao would serve as acting Navy secretary.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), who heads the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Phelan’s dismissal “another example of the instability and dysfunction that have come to define the Department of Defense under President Trump and Secretary [Pete] Hegseth.”
Phelan, a billionaire investor with no naval experience, was the service’s top civilian official who oversaw the Navy’s budget, personnel and effort to build more ships. He was not, however, responsible for day-to-day operations taking place in the Middle East.
Phelan’s departure puts him on a list of over 30 Pentagon officials who have been ousted since Hegseth’s arrival at the Pentagon, many of them generals and admirals.
Jane Arraf in Amman, Jordan, Kat Lonsdorf and Jawad Rizkallah in Beirut, Lebanon, Rebecca Rosman in London and Greg Myre Washington contributed reporting to this story.
