Iran military threatens Red Sea, Gulf trade

The head of Iran’s military central command, in a statement broadcast by Iranian state television, said it would act to disrupt trade in the Red Sea and elsewhere if the US continues its blockade of Iranian ships.  

Iran said the US blockade “creates insecurity for Iran’s commercial vessels and oil tankers” and it is a “prelude” to violating the ongoing two-week ceasefire. 

“The powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic will not allow any exports or imports to continue in the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, and the Red Sea,” commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters Ali Abdollahi said. He said Iran will “act decisively to defends its national sovereignty and its interests.” 

The US began its naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday. Some ships have reportedly managed to move through the Strait amid the blockade. 

UNHCR chief Barham Salih visited Beirut on Wednesday, where he warned of the humanitarian consequences of the Israel-Hezbollah war on Lebanon. 

“I call upon the international community to provide urgent support and relief to Lebanon,” Salih said after talks with Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. 

“The humanitarian consequences of this war are immense, and I emphasize the need to spare civilians and civilian infrastructure from the ravages of attack. Lebanon does not deserve to be trapped in a recurring cycle of violence, it deserves support and stability,” Salih said. 

The UNHCR has called for $61 million (€51.7 million) to reach 600,000 people in Lebanon with protection, shelter and core-relief items. Salih said that only “a portion” of this money has been received. 

Over a million people have been displaced by the ongoing fighting in Lebanon, or a fifth of the Lebanese population, with 140,000 people in government shelters.  

Israel and Hezbollah traded attacks on Wednesday, one day after Israeli-Lebanese talks in Washington, DC. 

Lebanon’s National News Agency reported fatalities from Israeli airstrikes and drone attacks in southern Lebanon.  

Israel has said that “targeted ground operations” are still underway in southern Lebanon.  

Meanwhile, the Israeli military told AFP news agency that it detected “approximately 30 launches” toward Israel in the early morning. 

Hezbollah had claimed responsibility for the attacks on northern Israel. The Israeli ambulance service Magen David Adom said one man was slightly wounded in shelling from Lebanon. 

The attacks come one day after Israeli and Lebanese officials met in Washington for rare talks which Israel says aim for Hezbollah’s disarmament and potential normalization. 

Hezbollah is an Iran-backed paramilitary group and political party in Lebanon which maintains a powerful influence over the country. It is considered a terrorist group by Israel, Germany, the US and several other countries.  

Several Lebanese leaders have criticized Hezbollah for attacking Israel amid the latest conflict with Iran and are pushing for its disarmament.  

Lebanese Ambassador to the US Nada Hamadeh Moawed has called for a ceasefire and has underscored Lebanon’s territorial integrity. 

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk has criticized recent Israeli strikes on Lebanon, saying the “the scale of the killing and destruction in Lebanon today is nothing short of horrific.” On Wednesday alone last week, Israeli strikes killed over 350 people, most of whom were killed in some 100 strikes on central Beirut in merely 10 minutes.

Over 200 Iranian sailors on two warships who were saved by Sri Lanka have come home, Sri Lankan Deputy Defense Minister Aruna Jayasekera told Reuters and AFP news agencies. 

The IRIS Dena was attacked by a US submarine on March 4 while in the Indian Ocean. The strike killed 104 sailors onboard the Dena.

The Iranian vessels were returning from a naval exercise organized by India at the time of the attack. 

Sri Lanka rescued 32 Iranian sailors from the Dena after it was struck. Sri Lanka also saved 208 crew from a second ship, the IRIS Bushehr, after it witnessed engine trouble. 

“The crew of both ships were flown out about 11 p.m. on a special flight on Tuesday night,” Jayasekara told Reuters. 

Jayasekara said there are still about 8-10 Iranian sailors onboard the IRIS Bushehr, which is now off the eastern coast of Sri Lanka.  

Sri Lanka had housed the Iranian sailors in Sri Lanka military camps before their repatriation. 

Another Iranian vessel, the IRS Lavan with 183 sailors on board, had docked in India in early March. Over 100 of the sailors have since departed from India. 

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. (IRGC) used a Chinese military satellite to monitor US military bases amid the ongoing war, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Wednesday.

FT, which cited leaked Iranian military documents in its report, said the IRGC secretly acquired the TEE-01B spy satellite in late 2024. The satellite was manufactured by Chinese firm Earth Eye Co.

FT said the IRGC has a contract with Chinese company Emposat which is responsible for the ground infrastructure pertaining to the satellite.  

The report said the satellite had taken images of in and around US bases in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain and Iraq. The capturing of the images coincided with the timing of IRGC attacks on those military facilities.  

In response to the FT’s article, the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Washington DC told the London-based outlet “we firmly oppose relevant parties spreading speculative and insinuative disinformation about China.”

US President Donald Trump has previously warned that China could face “big problems” if it supplies Iran with air defense systems. 

DW could not independently verify the FT report. 

US President Donald Trump told DW he wants to “see a success” in the ongoing Washington-mediated talks between Israel and Lebanon, adding: “we’ll have them in Washington very soon.”

“I think we’re going to get them together. We’re going to make a success out of it. They have to get rid of Hezbollah — Hezbollah’s the trouble,” Trump told DW’s US correspondent Misha Komadovsky in a phone call.

Israel and Lebanon agreed to open direct talks after meeting in Washington on Tuesday, in what is seen as a rare diplomatic breakthrough.

Canada and the United Kingdom are among 10 countries which issued a joint statement calling for “an urgent end to hostilities in Lebanon.”

The nations are also “deeply concerned by the worsening humanitarian situation and displacement crisis” in the Middle Eastern country.

In addition to Cananda and the UK, the statement was signed by Australia, ‌Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Sierra Leone and Switzerland. 

Their statement also condemned the killing of three UN peacekeepers in Lebanon in March. 

The UN released preliminary findings last week into the deaths of the three Indonesian peacekeepers. They found the two attacks were likely from an Israeli tank projectile as well as from an ⁠improvised explosive device most likely placed by Hezbollah.

US Vice President JD Vance has said that mistrust between Iran and the United States can’t be resolved overnight. 

But Iranian negotiators wanted to make a deal, he said on Tuesday evening.

Earlier on Tuesday, President Donald Trump suggested talks between Iran and the US could resume within the next two days. 

Vance led the US delegation in the first round of talks last weekend in Pakistan. The talks ended in apparent failure after less than a day.

On Tuesday, however, Vance said he felt “very good about where we are.”

“There is a lot of, of course, mistrust between Iran and the United States of America. You are not going to solve that problem ⁠overnight,” Vance said. 

Vance also said that Trump didn’t want to make “a small deal,” but a “grand bargain.”

According to Vance, Trump was telling Iran: “If you guys commit to not having a nuclear weapon, we are going to make Iran thrive.”

The deal would make Iran “prosper and join the world economy,” the US vice president said.

An Iranian student convicted in France has arrived in Iran after being released from French prison.

Mahdieh Esfandiari was sentenced to four years in prison in February 2026 for glorifying terrorism in anti-Israel social media posts.

Esfandiari was released from French custory after Tehran allowed two French nationals to leave ‌Iran last week. The two were facing charges of spying for France and Israel. Paris has dismissed the charges as baseless.

Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris had been held in Iran since May 2022.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that it’s “highly probable” that talks between Iran and the United States will restart. 

Guterres said that he met with Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar on Tuesday, without giving further details.

Pakistan hosted unsuccessful US-Iran negotiations at the weekend. In the following days, Pakistani leaders said they were not giving up efforts to help end the conflict. 

Speaking to reporters at the UN in New York on Tuesday evening, Guterres stressed that there was “no military solution” to the conflict and that “serious negotiations must resume.”

You join our reporting on the Iran war as President Trump suggests a second round of negotiations between Iran and the United States could take place in Pakistan “over the next two days.”

Lebanon and Israel have also agreed to direct negotiations after the country’s two ambassadors to the US met on Tuesday for talks mediated by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. 

This was the first direct diplomatic contact between the countries in more than three decades. 

The US military said that no ships passed through its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in the past 24 hours. However, an analysis of ship-tracking data by BBC Verify showed that at least seven ships crossed the strait since the blockade began. Four of these vessels were linked to Iran, while three weren’t, BBC said. 

If you feel you missed out on what happened yesterday, you can find Tuesday’s Iran war updates here.