Tensions simmer in Hormuz as war in Yemen widens

Israeli airstrikes hit a vehicle, killing at least two Palestinians, including a child, and wounding seven others in the northern Gaza Strip neighbourhood of Sheikh Radwan, the territory's health officials said.

Witnesses said some of the casualties resulted from a second strike that hit near a group of people who rushed to help in the rescue. A video shared online showed a missile exploding near at least five men.

An October 2025, US-backed, ceasefire halted large-scale fighting in Gaza, but it has not ended Israeli strikes and there has been little progress on steps towards permanent peace.

Hamas says Israel is violating the ceasefire and undermining efforts to implement US President Donald Trump's broader plan to end the Gaza conflict, which includes the Israeli withdrawal from the strip and the disarmament of Hamas.

Britain, the United States and the Netherlands issued a joint cybersecurity advisory detailing spyware they say is used by Iranian state-linked actors to target dissidents, activists and journalists.

Britain's National Cyber Security Centre said Iranian state-linked cyber actors had used a spyware family known as "CHOSEN BRICK" to steal emails, messages and other sensitive information through "spear-phishing" campaigns on messaging platforms including WhatsApp and Telegram.

"The details of this cyber campaign reveal  how Iran ruthlessly uses digital surveillance in pursuit of  its  aim  to  repress critics of the regime, stealing emails and messages and accessing devices," Paul Chichester, NCSC Director of Operations, said in a statement.

The malware, according to the advisory, can collect information from contact lists, emails and social media accounts, capture screen content and access a device's microphone. The NCSC said some victims' personal details had later appeared on pro-Iranian leak sites.

The NCSC said the attackers often posed as trusted contacts on messaging apps and tailored their approach to individual targets. In some cases, it said, they used fake documents, including fabricated MRI test results, to persuade victims to download the malware.

The NCSC, alongside the FBI and the Netherlands' AIVD intelligence service, said Iran "almost certainly" uses cyber operations to help suppress people it sees as threats.

Israel's military shot and killed a Palestinian man during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, Palestinian health officials said.

The Palestinian health ministry announced the death of 54-year-old Ziad Mohammad Jaber by "Israeli army gunfire in Umm al-Sharayet, in the city of Al-Bireh", near Ramallah in the central West Bank.

In the early hours of Tuesday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said its crews were treating someone who sustained "a critical live-fire gunshot wound to the abdomen and thigh" during a military raid in Umm al-Sharayet.

It said the casualty was being transferred to the hospital.

Jaber's brother, Ramadan Mohammad Jaber, told AFP that the military raided his home at around 4 am (0100 GMT) after blowing up the front door.

He said soldiers handcuffed him and held him with his daughter in a room before arresting his son.

He added that soldiers had also blown up the door of the adjacent apartment where his brother lived.

"I heard him screaming, but I did not hear the sound of gunfire," he said, adding that his brother "was left bleeding in the apartment for about an hour and a half before the army allowed ambulance crews to take him to the hospital".

Lebanon's recent wars with Israel have cost the country more than $20 billion, with the total expected to exceed $27 billion, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said on Tuesday.

Salam said the "first war", which began on 8 October 2023, cost around $14 billion, according to World Bank estimates. This included approximately $7.2 billion in physical damage and $6.8 billion in economic losses from disrupted activity and reduced production and revenues.

The "first war" also killed more than 4,000 people and injured more than 16,000, Salam said.

The "second war", which began on 2 March 2025, has so far incurred direct costs estimated by the World Bank at between $3 billion and $4 billion. The figure does not include indirect economic losses, which Salam said had reached at least $4 billion to $5 billion.

More than 4,000 people have been killed and over 12,000 injured in the latest war by Israel, he said.

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Oman on Tuesday said it was searching for two missing crew members who were aboard a tanker targeted in the Strait of Hormuz that was now being towed.

The Omani Maritime Security Centre said it was overseeing a towing operation for the Panama-flagged oil tanker ELGAIA to a port in Oman after a fire was extinguished in its engine room following an attack northeast of Musandam.

The centre, which is affiliated with Oman's ministry of defence, added in a statement on X that "a Royal Navy of Oman vessel evacuated 23 crew members from the tanker and provided them with the necessary medical care".

A search continues for two crew members who remain missing, it added.

Oman did not say when the ship was attacked.

However, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), a marine monitor, said a vessel had been on fire on Saturday after it was struck by an "unknown projectile" in the Strait of Hormuz.

British maritime security firm Vanguard Tech also reported that a Panama-flagged tanker had been struck that day and that the Omani navy was evacuating the crew.

An Israeli official has called for an international coalition to confront Yemen's Houthis, warning that failure to form one could lead to chaos in the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait, according to Israel's public broadcaster Kan.

The call comes as Israel grows increasingly concerned over Houthi advances around Bab al-Mandab, while the Israeli military has advised the government against launching direct attacks on the group or placing Israel at the forefront of military action.

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The global trading system is enduring its most sustained disruption in living memory amid challenges to trading rules that could batter living standards in a "geo-fragmented world", the WTO warned Tuesday.

The system is now in a decisive phase, the World Trade Organisation said in its annual report, which "provides new evidence that a reversion to unilateral trade policy would impose large costs".

Such a reversal could slash global GDP by around five percent and drag down exports 18.6 percent by 2050, it warned.

"Global trade policy and the WTO are experiencing the most serious and sustained disruptions since the multilateral trading system was created 80 years ago," the report said.

It echoed a warning by its director general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in March, shortly after the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

"We have seen trade rules challenged on a scale unseen since multilateral institutions were created to underpin open, stable and predictable global trade in the wake of the Great Depression and the Second World War," Okonjo-Iweala wrote in a preface to the report.

Shipping traffic at the Strait of Hormuz dwindled further at the start of this week after attacks intensified in the Middle East, shipping data showed.

Commodity vessel transits at Hormuz totalled four on Monday, down from ten during the previous day, preliminary data from Kpler showed on Tuesday.

The Maritime Security Centre in the Sultanate of Oman said on Tuesday that the Panama-flagged oil tanker "El Gaia" was being towed to an Omani port, after a fire broke out in its engine room following an attack.

The centre added that the tanker was about 103 nautical miles northeast of Musandam Governorate when it was attacked, and that an Omani Naval ship evacuated 23 members of the tanker's crew, while two were still missing.

Qatar on Tuesday warned of dire consequences if the vital Bab al-Mandeb waterway were to close, after a months-long blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and recent Houthi gains on the Red Sea coast.

"The world is suffering enough with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, so we cannot also afford to add the Bab al-Mandeb into that equation," Qatar foreign ministry official Ibrahim Al Hashmi told reporters.

He said a closure of the southern entrance to the Red Sea would be "catastrophic for the entire world. And we are already seeing the consequences... so Qatar is pushing for diplomacy, dialogue".

A Houthi official said Tuesday that Saudi warplanes struck Yemen, killing three people, including two children, while Human Rights Watch accused the Houthi rebels of possible war crimes with its attacks on commercial vessels.

The UN's humanitarian agency reported that the new round of hostilities in Yemen have displaced at least 125,000 people since the beginning of September, and civilian casualties continue to grow.

A vessel has been struck by an unknown projectile in the Strait of Hormuz, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said.

The UKMTO said it received a delayed report of the incident from a verified source.

The United Nations called Tuesday for international investigators to be granted to access to all of Gaza "to assist with evidence-gathering" as hundreds of bodies are pulled from the rubble.

"The discovery of extensive remains under the rubble in Gaza City resurfaces these concerns of war crimes and other atrocity crimes," UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.

 Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi will visit China on September 16, China's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, adding that he would meet Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

The strategic province of Marib could become Yemen's next frontline, potentially determining the course of the entire conflict, writes Fakhr al-Azb.

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Iran's security chief on Tuesday rejected any talks with the United States after President Donald Trump said he was open to resuming discussions on the Middle East war.

"Don't get distracted by the U.S. president's mixed signals -- from 'no negotiations' to 'we're ready to talk'," the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, posted on X.

"The stakes around oil and the straits have changed. Damage control won't stop what's coming. No talks until Iran's conditions are met. Period!" he added.

Trump on Monday said he was open to holding talks with Iran, after weeks of saying it was too early to make a deal to end the war.

"The failing Nation of Iran wants to make a deal, quickly and badly. I will determine whether or not the U.S.A. will choose to engage -- The concept of which we are open to," Trump said on his Truth Social network.

Iran has repeatedly listed demands including war reparations and the lifting of sanctions as preconditions for ending the war and its blockade on the Strait of Hormuz.

The Saudi Civil Defense announced that the danger has passed after issuing warnings of potential dangers in six cities, including Yanbu, which is the Kingdom’s main oil port on the Red Sea, where millions of barrels are loaded daily.

The Civil Defense reported that the danger had passed in Jeddah, Abha, Jazan, Al-Ula, and Taif, after these areas had received emergency warnings amid the escalation of attacks launched by the Houthis.

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen announced that at least 13 civilians were injured by Yemen's Houthi attacks on Saudi cities of Khamis Mushait, Abha, and Taif on Monday.

The United States on Monday accused Russia's VTB bank of supporting Iran's efforts to evade sanctions, taking aim at an institution it already blocked over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In a symbolic move, the US Treasury Department said it has now imposed additional sanctions against VTB Bank for actions "including establishing correspondent relationships with sanctioned Iranian banks."

The agency warned foreign financial institutions against dealing with VTB, urging them to cut ties immediately.

Washington has sought to step up economic pressure on Tehran as the war enters its seventh month since the United States and Israel launched strikes at Iran in late February.

The conflict saw Tehran retaliate by choking off the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for energy transit, sending oil prices soaring.

Prices at US gasoline pumps have in turn surged, keeping American households under growing financial pressure weeks ahead of US midterm elections.

Since US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent vowed an "economic D-Day" on Iran, Washington has imposed sanctions on other institutions including Turkish bank Golden Global.

VTB, however, already faced US sanctions in 2022, with the Treasury Department imposing "full blocking sanctions" on the bank, meaning that its US-held assets would be frozen and inaccessible to the Kremlin.

At the time, the department added that VTB was "one of the largest financial institutions Treasury has ever blocked".

The US Defense Department's inspector general revealed Monday that the United States is facing a shortfall in ammunition as a result of its costly war in Iran.

In a first-of-its-kind mandatory report to Congress, the inspector said that between February 28 and June 30, Operation Epic Fury (OEF) had an estimated cost of $33.4 billion, with $22.3 billion of that spent on expended munitions alone.

The report noted "the munitions expenditure on OEF has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply."

It also lists losses to the American fleet, including four F-15s destroyed, one F-35 damaged, seven KC-135 tanker aircraft damaged and up to 30 MQ-9 Reaper drones destroyed.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly brushed off concerns of depleted weapons stores during the six months of war, saying the US has "virtually unlimited" ammo just a couple weeks ago.

On Monday Trump posted to his Truth Social platform saying again the US is producing "more Exquisite and Elite Weapons than at any time in our History."

CNN has previously reported shortages of long-range guided missiles and air-defense interceptors had affected Trump's strategy in the conflict with Iran, with the US military having "nearly exhausted 80%" of its stock of THAAD interceptors.

During the first 24 hours of war against Iran, the United States struck more than 1,000 targets, US Central Command (CENTCOM) has said, and has not returned to such large scale attacks in recent months.

The report notes that "Iranian strikes damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan during the conflict," but does not include those costs in the cost estimates, saying it's not yet clear if all the bases will be built, or who will foot the bill.