Iran accuses US of breaking April ceasefire after overnight strikes as Israel pushes past its Lebanon line
Iran accused the United States of violating the April ceasefire with overnight strikes, and its Revolutionary Guard reserved what it called the 'legitimate and definite' right to retaliate, claiming it had downed a US MQ-9 drone. Israeli forces meanwhile began operating beyond their 'Yellow Line' inside southern Lebanon, where an airstrike on the Bekaa Valley killed 12 people. Brent crude rose 3 percent on renewed uncertainty over the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran accused the United States of breaking the ceasefire agreed in April after overnight US strikes, an escalation that tested a truce both sides had been negotiating to extend after weeks in which Iran warned of a widening war and asserted expanded control over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it reserved the "legitimate and definite" right to retaliate against any violation, and said its air-defence units had shot down a US MQ-9 drone and fired on a fighter jet that entered Iranian airspace.
Iran's supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, wrote on his Telegram channel that Gulf powers would no longer be "a shield" for US bases and that Washington would have no safe haven in the region.
The strikes coincided with an expansion of Israeli operations in Lebanon. A military official told AFP that Israeli forces had begun operating beyond the so-called Yellow Line, a demarcation running about 10km (six miles) inside Lebanese territory, "in order to remove direct threats to the citizens of the State of Israel and IDF troops." An Israeli airstrike on a village in the eastern Bekaa Valley killed 12 people, the Associated Press reported, citing Lebanon's state National News Agency, after an intense wave of overnight strikes; the Israeli military warned residents of Nabatieh to leave ahead of possible attacks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said on Monday that Israel would escalate its campaign against Hezbollah.
Brent crude rose 3 percent after the strikes, adding to uncertainty over whether a deal would reopen shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. UK Maritime Trade Operations said a tanker 60 nautical miles off Muscat had reported an external explosion on its port side; the vessel and crew were safe, though some bunker fuel spilled into the sea.
Iran's vice-president, Mohammad Reza Aref, said the government had taken "the first step toward free and regulated access to cyberspace" after a near-total internet blackout in place since war with the United States and Israel broke out in late February. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian by phone that Turkey would continue supporting peace talks, saying the regional conflicts had cast a shadow over the Eid holiday.
Separately, Israel issued an expropriation order for land in the occupied West Bank near Nabi Samuel, a site north of Jerusalem revered in Jewish, Christian and Muslim tradition that includes a mosque held by the Palestinian Waqf. Israeli forces also killed a Palestinian man inside the Jenin refugee camp, the Palestinian health ministry said.