US to hit Iran ‘hard,’ Trump says

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian issued a defiant message amid threats of continued strikes from his US counterpart.

“Iran, relying on the knowledge and capabilities of its specialists, national unity, and solidarity, will stand firm against any pressure or threat,” Pezeshkian said in a post on social media platform X.

The Iranian leader said any threat to target Iran’s critical infrastructure was a sign of “desperation.” 

The US Central Command (CENTCOM), responsible for military operations in the Middle East, said US forces struck an oil tanker that had violated its blockade by transporting Iranian oil.

“At 11:14 p.m. on June 9, US forces disabled an oil tanker in the Gulf of Okman for the second consecutive day,” CENTCOM said in a statement posted on X.

The US military said the Palau-flagged M/T Settebello was attacked as it made its way through the Gulf of Oman.

“A US aircraft fired precision munitions into the ship’s engine room after the crew repeatedly failed to comply with directions from American forces.”

CENTCOM said US forces have targeted and disabled eight vessels deemed non-compliant since April 13.

US forces have redirected 134 ships and have allowed 42 vessels with humanitarian aid to pass through since that date.

US President Donald Trump has indicated there will be continued attacks on Iran in the latest escalation in hostilities.

“We’re going to be attacking them — attacking them very hard,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

When questioned if bombing would resume, Trump said: “Yeah, well, we are, based on the helicopter, I guess we have the right to do that.”

Trump was referring to the US helicopter gunship he accused Iran of shooting down.

On the peace deal, Trump said he had been working with Iran for “a number of months” and urged Tehran to “sign that deal, it’s a good deal.”

Under the deal, Trump said Iran would be prohibited from having a nuclear weapon.

“We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along, they keep playing us for suckers,” the US president told reporters.

The UN nuclear watchdog on Wednesday approved a resolution demanding that Iran provide information about its uranium stockpile and production facilities “without delay.”

Iran’s nuclear sites were badly damaged by US and Israeli attacks last year.

But Iran has not informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the fate of that material or allowed IAEA inspectors to examine bombed sites.

Wednesday’s resolution, drawn up by Britain, France, Germany and the United States, was passed by 21 out of 35 members on the board of the IAEA. Ten countries abstained while three voted against: Russia, China and Niger, which also added that Venezuela was not allowed to take part in the vote.

Iran rejected the resolution. In a post on X, Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said the “attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities ‌halted ​verification activities and forced Agency inspectors to leave Iran for safety reasons.” 

“Now, America seeks to turn the consequences of its illegal attack into a case against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he added.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres likened the ceasefire involving Iran and the United States to a “lesser fire” and pointed to the escalating attacks and mounting rhetoric between the two over the past 48 hours.

“We should not minimize the risks of a lesser fire becoming full fire, or in another word — full war,” Guterres said at a meeting of the UN Security Council.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said Iran “will have to pay the price” for taking “too long to negotiate a deal.”

While Iran has accused the US of damaging diplomacy with its use of force and what it says are “repeated violations of the ceasefire.”

The latest escalation comes after Trump said Iran shot down an Apache gunship in the Strait of Hormuz region on Tuesday. This sparked retaliatory strikes from both the US and Iran overnight.

Amnesty International has accused Israel of conducting “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinian Bedouins in the occupied West Bank.

In a report released on Wednesday, the rights group said that 27 Bedouin and herding communities were forcibly displaced between 2023 and 2025 or were at risk of displacement in Area C of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which is under full Israeli control under the 1990s Oslo agreements.

“Israeli authorities are accelerating annexation through a state-driven campaign of ethnic cleansing targeting Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities,” Amnesty said in a statement.

It pointed to land grabs, financial support to settlements, and the arming of settlers, “thereby enabling a brutal state-sanctioned campaign of settler violence.”

Amnesty also refuted arguments by Israeli officials who say settler violence is caused by bad actors in that community.

The rights group said the “ethnic cleansing campaign is state-led, and state-sponsored, not driven by rogue settlers or so-called extremist ministers.”

The Israeli government did not immediately respond to the report. It has long rejected previous accusations of ethnic cleansing.

Amnesty Secretary General Agnes Callamard launched the report in Berlin, where she said Germany and other European countries had “enabled Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing.”

She said that Europe’s targeted sanctions against extremist individuals were symbolically important but had “no impact on the rate of settlement expansion” or on “the scale of settlers’ violence.”

“The EU in particular, must leverage its influence by expediting the long-overdue suspension of its association agreement with Israel,” Callamard told reporters in Berlin.

The UN human rights office will send a team of investigators to Lebanon next week to assess potential violations of international law by all parties since March 2.

“Accountability cannot be overstated. Prompt and independent investigations into alleged violations of international humanitarian law must be conducted,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Wednesday.

“It’s the first time that we are ‌sending this assessment mission, and the idea is indeed ‌to ​look at violations by all parties — violations of international law, violations of international human rights law, and to document this, and eventually ​to report back to you on our findings,” he added.

Lebanon was drawn into the wider Middle East war on March 2 when Iran-backed Hezbollah militants launched rockets at Israel, which it said was to avenge the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Israel responded with a ground invasion of southern Lebanon later that month.

More than 3,600 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Lebanon and more than 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced due to the fighting.

The Israeli military has said 17 soldiers have been killed since a ceasefire with Lebanon took effect.

Iran has taken too long to negotiate a deal and will now “have to pay the price,” US President ‌Donald ⁠Trump wrote in a social media post on Wednesday.

He gave no further details on what that price might be.

His comments come after the US targeted several sites in Iran in response to the crash of a US Army attack helicopter off Oman that the US has blamed on Iran.

Those attacks, and Iran’s retaliatory strikes on US bases in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, came despite a ceasefire that took effect on April 8 but appears ever more fragile.

Trump’s post on Wednesday marked a stark contrast from his comments to reporters just a day earlier that negotiations to end the war were in their “final throes” and could be wrapped up in “two or three days.”

The engine room of a tanker located off the coast of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz caught fire on Wednesday, with two crew missing and one casualty from the incident, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said.

“Local authorities have reported a tanker has experienced a fire in their engine room and are on the scene assisting with the evacuation of the crew,” it said. 

“The vessel is reporting 1 casualty and 2 crew members missing. No environment impact reported,” it added, saying the incident occurred 20 nautical miles (37 kilometers) northeast of Sohar in Oman.

Earlier, British maritime security company Vanguard Tech said the Palau-flagged tanker Settebello had “transmitted a distress call stating that its engine room had been struck by a missile while operating off Sohar in the Gulf of Oman” and that there was a fire onboard.

UKMTO did not report ​the ⁠cause of the ⁠fire.

The Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which some 20% of the world’s oil and about 25% of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) normally passes,  has been virtually closed since the US-Israeli war on Iran began on February 28.  

Diplomatic efforts with the US cannot progress if Washington continues to undermine them with contradictory messages and repeated violations of a ceasefire agreed to in April, ⁠Iranian ⁠Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said ​on Wednesday.

“Following overnight ​events, we ‌need to reassess (the diplomatic path with ​Washington). … ⁠Any diplomatic process
requires a ⁠minimum ​stable environment,” he said, referring to the recent US strikes on Iran.

“Unfortunately, the United States is damaging this diplomatic process through the contradictory messages it sends, its repeated shifts in positions and demands, and, worst of all, through repeated violations of the ceasefire,” Baghaei said in a video message carried by Iranian media. 

“Any diplomatic process is damaged by the use of force and by resorting to unlawful actions on the ground,” he said.

US President Donald Trump has frequently repeated that a peace deal with Iran is within reach, without providing evidence to back up his claims.

So far, Tehran and Washington have held several rounds of indirect talks mediated by Pakistan and Qatar, but the two sides still seem far apart on key issues, such as reopening the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program.

US strikes on two reservoirs near the southern Iranian port town of Sirik have cut off the water supply to thousands of people in the region, Iranian state media reported on Wednesday. 

The strikes reportedly caused damage to two reservoirs providing drinking water for the Bemani and Kouhestak areas of Sirik. 
       
“Unfortunately, following this attack, 20,000 residents of the region have lost access to safe drinking water, and with temperatures ranging between 45 and 50C (113 and 122F), conditions have become extremely difficult and critical for local inhabitants,” Iran’s state television quoted local water company officials as saying.

“The destruction of these reservoirs has created a major problem for the region’s water supply network,” it added.

The US carried out the strikes on Iran after an American attack helicopter crashed near the Strait of Hormuz in an incident Washington blamed on Tehran.

Tehran has condemned the strikes as having been carried out “under false pretext.”  

The government of China said on Wednesday that it was “deeply concerned” about escalation in the conflict in the Middle East after the United States carried out strikes on Iran following the the crash of a helicopter US officials blamed on Tehran.

“Various relevant parties should maintain calm and exercise restraint, stop intensifying the conflict and escalating the situation, take concrete measures to ease and cool down tensions,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a news briefing.

Lin said the disputes should be resolved by political and diplomatic means and called for a “total and lasting” ceasefire to be agreed to “as soon as possible.” 

US media have reported that the Pentagon now considers Israel to pose a major espionage threat.

The governments of the United States and Israel, which, at least on the surface, are steadfast allies, have denied the reports.

But recent history has many examples showing that spying among allies is by no means uncommon.

Read the full story here.

Security guards on a cargo vessel 88 nautical miles (163 kilometers) southwest of Yemen’s port town of Balhaf have exchanged fire with armed people on a small vessel, the British military reported on Wednesday. 

The cargo vessel reported being approached by ‌a ⁠small ⁠boat carrying six ​armed people before the incident, according to the United Kingdom ‌Maritime ​Trade Operations (UKMTO), a maritime security organization sponsored by the Royal Navy.

The craft turned away after the exchange of fire, it said.

There has been no immediate claim of responsibility.

However, Yemen’s Houthi rebels have said they will resume attacking ships affiliated with Israel, while Somali pirates have also stepped up their activities.

Jordan reported on Wednesday that it had shot down five incoming missiles launched by Iran.

Iran said the missiles targeted the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, which has hosted American F-35 fighter jets and other aircraft.

According to a statement from the Jordanian military carried by the state-run Petra news agency, there were no injuries in the attack.