US military says it's striking targets in Iran, and other Mideast news

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The United States military said Tuesday that it struck new targets in Iran as hostilities flared again after a month without military action.

The attacks came after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran is ready to return to the ceasefire deal reached with the U.S. in June if Washington does the same.

Here’s a look at the latest developments in the Iran war and the wider Middle East. Full coverage can be found here.

U.S. Central Command said that the new strikes come after Iran's Revolutionary Guard recently attempted attacks of “commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region.”

On Sunday, the U.S. military said it struck rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran responded by launching missiles at U.S. sites in Jordan, which were intercepted, while the United Arab Emirates said it stopped an Iranian drone over its waters.

“If the U.S. returns to its commitments in the memorandum of understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately reciprocate,” Iranian state media cited Pezeshkian as saying at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kyrgyzstan.

His comments came before the latest U.S. strike in Iran.

The June memorandum of understanding called for an immediate ceasefire and started a 60-day period for negotiations aimed at reaching a wider peace deal. Iran agreed to clear the Strait of Hormuz of mines and allow ships to pass during the period, and the U.S. agreed to end its naval blockade, lift sanctions, issue waivers for Iranian oil exports and begin work on a reconstruction package for Iran, among other things.

The agreement broke down quickly, and while there had been a lull in fighting, the two sides exchanged fire.

Iran has been working with Oman, which sits on the south side of the Strait of Hormuz, on a framework for managing shipping traffic, though it remains unclear whether the plan would be acceptable to the U.S.

Other Gulf nations have stressed the need to reopen the strait unconditionally. On Tuesday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, met with Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, according to the Saudi Press Agency, which said the two discussed “ongoing efforts to maintain regional security and stability,” but did not mention the Strait of Hormuz specifically.

Scott Bessent said the Strait of Hormuz will be a “worthless piece of water in two years,” after predicting that shippers and other users of the narrow strait will find alternative means of transit as they conduct less and less business with Iran.

The Trump administration launched “Operation Economic Outcast” against the Islamic Republic in August as a means to economically punish the country and encourage other nations to do so.

He made the comments on the sidelines of the G20 Tuesday morning as he spoke with Fox Business host Larry Kudlow.

Israel said it detained a senior Hamas security official in a special forces raid in Gaza City on Tuesday. The operation killed at least four people, including two children, hospital officials said.

In a joint statement, Israel’s military and national security agency said the operation targeted the head of Hamas’ internal security.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that the detainee, who he did not name, is “one of the most senior Hamas leaders” and that he was most recently “engaged in efforts to restore Hamas’s governance in Gaza.”

Yemen’s state security said that Islamic State spokesperson Abu Huzayfah al-Ansari was killed in Yemen in a joint operation by Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces and the Yemeni counterterrorism forces.

He was killed at dawn Tuesday while he was hiding in a house in Seiyun city in the Yemeni province of Hadramout, according to a security statement published by state-run SABA news agency.

A U.S. official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was no U.S. military involvement in the operation.

— Ben Finley in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

The British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre said it received reports of an attack on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, and a second report of an incident involving a nearby tanker.

The UKMTO said a tanker was hit by three projectiles on Monday on its way out of the Persian Gulf through the strait east of Oman. In the second incident on the same day, the center received a report “involving a tanker and military forces” off the coast of Oman, east of the Strait of Hormuz.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said Tuesday that Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz.

The Strait of Hormuz “is a place where at least 120 ships used to transit every 24 hours,” he said in a video posted on a state TV Telegram channel. “Even if two or three ships manage to pass through on some nights now, that in fact shows that we have control over the entire Strait of Hormuz.”

“The information we have — open and covert, visible and hidden — shows us that after failing in the military and diplomatic arenas, the enemy has added a very broad economic war and cognitive war to its military campaign,” Qalibaf said.

“The enemy’s objective in this hybrid war is to create unrest and chaos inside the country. That is their malicious intention. ... Or they may try to force us to surrender through diplomacy. Never.”

The United Nations food agency warned Tuesday that further escalation of the conflict in Yemen could deepen the country’s already dire hunger crisis unless international actors intervene.

Increases in global food prices are having an impact on “what is already one of the biggest humanitarian crises in the world,” Carl Skau, the Acting Executive Director of the World Food Program, told The Associated Press.

President Xi Jinping of China arrived in Cairo on Tuesday, marking his first visit to the Middle East since before the region plunged into a series of devastating conflicts.

Xi and his spouse received a warm welcome by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and his spouse at the Cairo international airport.

The leaders are expected to discuss bilateral relations, ways to deepen “their strategic partnership” and regional and international developments, el-Sissi’s office said in a statement ahead of the trip.