Iran declares 'new order' in Middle East; Israel kills 9 in Gaza

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The US military has set up a covert corridor to transport millions of barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz each day, Axios has reported, citing two US officials.

Between 15 and 20 tankers have entered and exited the waterway each night over the past several weeks using a route in Oman's territorial waters.

The officials said that about 10 million barrels of oil a day — roughly half the pre-war volume — are being exported.

Australia on Thursday summoned Israel's ambassador over the Israeli military's decision not to pursue criminal proceedings in connection with the death of an Australian aid worker in a 2024 airstrike in Gaza.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday it had found no basis to open criminal investigations into the killings of seven aid workers with the World Central Kitchen charity, including Australian Zomi Frankcom.

"This decision falls far short of the accountability we expect," Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a statement, adding Australia was "outraged" by the Israeli government's decision. 

Syria's interior ministry said authorities took custody of a former general under deposed ruler Bashar al-Assad who was extradited from Lebanon on Wednesday and is accused of crimes including murder and torture.

"Today, Syrian authorities received from the Lebanese authorities the former officer in the defunct regime army, major general Adel Issa," a ministry statement said, after Syria issued an arrest warrant in absentia for him.

Issa was formerly the commander of the army's 17th division and commander of ground forces in eastern Deir Ezzor until 2016.

He is accused of crimes including murder, "torture leading to death, and crimes of aggression with the aim of inciting civil war and sectarian fighting", the ministry added.

A Lebanese judicial official had told AFP a day earlier that Lebanon had decided to extradite Issa "to stand trial for crimes he is accused of committing on Syrian soil" during the Assad era.

President Donald Trump's administration has told Congress it is sending more than $206 million for a proposed Gaza peacekeeping force, the first significant funding for the stalled US plan to rebuild the devastated enclave.

In two 30 July-dated notifications seen by Reuters, the State Department informed Congress it will provide $200 million for the International Stabilization Force's (ISF) equipment, infrastructure, vehicles and operational costs. An additional $6 million would repurpose US armored vehicles to support the force.

The notifications, which were addressed to key appropriations and foreign affairs committees in Congress, have not been previously reported.

The funding is the first concrete US spending on the peacekeeping force and signals the administration's determination to press ahead with Trump's Gaza roadmap even as both Israel and Hamas have balked at conditions needed to advance the plan.

"The ISF will lead security operations, support comprehensive demilitarization, and enable the safe delivery of humanitarian aid and reconstruction material to Gaza," one of the notifications said, while noting the final composition of the force was still being negotiated.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted Wednesday that Israel sent a message to Turkey against setting up a base in Syria, tacitly acknowledging a strike the day before.

"We will not tolerate a Turkish military entrenchment moving southward, because it threatens us," Netanyahu told an army radio podcast.

He said that Israel had initially sent a message "in general terms" against a Turkish military presence at an airfield near Aleppo, close to the Turkish border.

"Apparently they didn't hear it, so we made sure they understood it more clearly," he said.

Netanyahu's office on Tuesday stopped short of claiming Israeli responsibility for the strike, but said that Turkish forces had recently toured the base and warned that Israel would not tolerate a "threat" from a Turkish presence.

US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, who is also the US pointman on Syria, blamed Israel for the attack and condemned it.

The head of Israel's Mossad spy agency, Roman Gofman, held a phone call with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani last week in which they discussed Turkey's military presence in Syria, three people familiar with the matter said.

The call, which the sources said took place on 14 August, came days before Israel launched airstrikes on a Syrian military airbase in the north of the country on Tuesday.

It marks one of the highest-level contacts yet between Israel and the new Syrian government since the fall of former dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

The Israeli prime minister's office, which handles queries regarding Mossad, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did a spokesperson for Shaibani.

Germany, France and the UN on Wednesday condemned remarks by Israel's far-right national security minister, who declared that Israel should kill "30 or 40" people every night in Gaza and described Palestinians as "not even people".

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz "strongly condemns the inhumane appeals made by Minister (Itamar) Ben Gvir, which violate international law," German government spokesman Sebastian Hille said. "They are unacceptable."

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot also slammed the remarks, calling them "intolerable and inhumane" in an interview with the La Montagne regional newspaper.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described them as "appalling. They're outrageous. They're dehumanising, and they're dangerous," his spokesman said.

The Israeli military on Wednesday admitted its troops fired on a car carrying five-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza in 2024, saying it had ordered a criminal investigation into the killing which drew international outrage.

Hind Rajab's body was recovered from a car riddled with bullets in Gaza City days after she was last heard from in a desperate, hours-long phone call to the Palestinian Red Crescent on January 29, 2024.

The Israeli military had previously denied its troops were present in the area near the incident.

Hind Rajab had made the emergency call after her family's car came under fire during an attempt to flee Gaza City amid an Israeli advance in the Palestinian territory's north. Her body was eventually recovered along with those of six relatives and two Red Crescent rescue workers sent to find her.

Her death sparked international outrage and calls for an independent investigation, and the original audio recordings of her emergency call were incorporated into the Oscar-nominated feature film "The Voice of Hind Rajab".

The Hind Rajab Foundation, a Brussels-based legal organisation seeking to address alleged Israeli violations in Gaza, said it had "no confidence" in the move by the Israeli military.

"These reported investigations, even if they do occur, should not be mistaken for a genuine step toward justice," it said in a statement, adding that Israel's internal investigations were "fundamentally flawed and cannot be regarded as credible mechanisms of accountability".

Israel's army chief said Wednesday during a visit to an Israeli-occupied security zone in southern Syria that the military would not allow threats to "establish themselves" on the border.

On Tuesday, Israel bombed a base in northwestern Syria, accusing Damascus of violating an agreement by accepting Turkish troops on it, drawing condemnation from the US and Turkey.

• President Donald Trump said that no talks are scheduled with Iran and that the US naval blockade remains in full force in the Strait of Hormuz. This came after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the US is "begging" to negotiate with Iran.
   
• Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has declared a "new order" in the Middle East and called on countries to reject "foreign interference".
   
• The UAE has cut all economic ties with Iran after claiming Tehran launched two ballistic missiles at maritime traffic. Iranian officials deny the attack.
   
• Israel has killed at least nine people in an airstrike on a police station in Gaza.