US strikes Hormuz for first time in weeks as Israel attacks Gaza, Lebanon

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Iran is attacking US forces stationed in Jordan, Fox News reporter Trey Yingst said on Sunday, citing a US source.

There has been no significant impact so far, the reporter's X post said, adding that nearly all incoming missiles "have been intercepted at this point."

The number of visible commodity vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz dropped to five per day over the weekend, shipping data showed on Monday, as companies tread cautiously amid continued attacks on ships.

The actual number of ships passing the strait could be higher as some vessels have switched off their automatic identification system to evade attacks.

The US military has said it redirected 83 commercial ships, "disabled" three others and boarded two as part of the ongoing blockade against Iran as of 30 August.

The Trump administration plans to impose sanctions on another bank this week in an effort to clamp down on Iran transactions, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday.

Bessent spoke with The Associated Press ahead of Group of 20 meetings in Asheville, North Carolina, where he will meet individually with his counterparts from the world’s major and developing economies to encourage participation in the economic isolation of Iran.

"This is going to be financial violence if we have to," Bessent said in the interview. "We are showing people that we know who you are, you know who you are, and this has got to stop."

Bessent had recently announced a new campaign to push countries that still do business with the already heavily sanctioned Islamic Republic to sever their financial ties or face retaliation from the United States.

Lebanese media reports Israeli forces have launched phosphorus shells in Nabatiyeh el-Fawqa in southern Lebanon.

Syria's Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani hailed on Sunday the reopening of his country's embassy in the Libyan capital Tripoli, which had been closed for more than a decade.

Shaibani was welcomed by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, who leads the UN-recognised administration in Tripoli, and held talks with Taher al-Baour, Libya's acting foreign minister.

"Today, this embassy returns to reaffirm the importance and value of the Syrian-Libyan relationship," Shaibani said.

Last year, a delegation from Damascus symbolically reopened the embassy, which was shut in 2012, but it did not immediately resume consular services.

Relations between the two countries had been upended by Syria's civil war and the chaos that followed the fall of longtime Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

Syria's new authorities took power in December 2024 when they ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad after nearly 14 years of war.

"This embassy will handle the administrative follow-up for Syrians who took refuge in Libya during the years of war, at a time when there was no longer any diplomatic representation, since Tripoli had broken off relations with the former regime," Shaibani said.

According to Syria's state news agency SANA, the Syrian community in Libya is estimated at around 200,000 people.

Shaibani said the two countries "also agreed to strengthen security coordination to combat illegal immigration, as well as drugs and terrorist organisations".

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said a U.S. attack on Larak island on Sunday killed and wounded several Iranian fighters and civilians, and vowed to respond and punish those responsible, state broadcaster IRIB reported.

The Guards did not provide a precise casualty toll.

France is preparing for its presidential election in eight months, with analysts telling The New Arab that  Palestine has become an increasingly important domestic litmus test in the battle for political power. 

With President Emmanuel Macron constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term, the 2027 race is more open than it has been in years.  

From left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, whose pro-Palestine rhetoric has helped bolster his support, to National Rally (RN) figures seeking closer ties with Israel, analysts said Palestine could emerge as not only a major foreign policy issue but also a defining electoral fault line during the campaign. 

Read the full story here.

US forces struck Iranian rocket launchers on the Strait of Hormuz in first military action in weeks, US official says.

An explosion was heard near Iran's Larak Island, the Fars news agency reported Sunday, adding that the cause was unknown.

Earlier, Axios reported that US forces struck two Iranian launchers on Iran's Larak island: "Revolutionary Guard forces were observed preparing to launch rockets carrying sea mines toward the Strait of Hormuz," Axios reporter Barak Ravid quoted the official as saying.

A passenger ferry capsized and sank off Northern Cyprus Sunday, killing at least eight people and leaving more than a dozen missing, officials and media reports said, as police took the captain and seven crew members into custody.

Several rescued passengers told local media a blast had gone off at the bow of the ferry before it rolled over, and said the boat had an insufficient supply of life-vests.

The vessel capsized 6.5 kilometres (four miles) off the coast of Cyprus, shortly after leaving a Northern Cyprus port bound for Turkey's mainland.

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On Sunday evening, four Palestinians were wounded by live bullets during an attack by settlers on the village of Al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said its teamns treated four people with live bullet injuries before hospitalising them.

Local sources added that Israeli forces also closed the only entrance to the village, amid a continued presence of soldiers and settlers there.

Syrian forces killed a former Assad-era commander during a security operation in Safita, east of Tartus, authorities said on Sunday, as the government intensifies its campaign against armed groups it says are linked to remnants of the former Assad regime.

Firas Abdul Karim Hammoud, known as "al-Khal", was the former commander of special forces in the unit once known as the 25th Division, the Syrian Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said Internal Security forces raided Hammoud’s hideout in the town of Safita in Tartus province after tracking his movements across several areas.

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Two civilians were killed near the Druze-majority city of Sweida in southern Syria on Sunday, two local security sources told AFP, during suspected clashes between local armed groups and government forces.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor reported the same death toll, adding that government forces and armed groups from the Druze minority group had been exchanging fire since Saturday night.

Tensions have been high in Sweida province since clashes between Druze and government-aligned forces last year led to some of the worst communal violence since the fall of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in 2024.

A Druze security source told AFP on condition of anonymity that a shell launched from a government-controlled area "targeted the outskirts of the city of Sweida, striking a tractor and killing two people on board, the driver and a woman who was with him".

Sweida city and other parts of the surrounding Druze-majority province are run by armed groups and are the last major areas outside the grasp of Syria's new Islamist authorities, who have been trying to unite the country after toppling Assad.

A tanker was struck by an unknown projectile while transiting inbound through the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said on Sunday.

The incident occurred 12 nautical miles north of Oman's Khasab, UKMTO said in an advisory note, adding that no casualties or environmental impact were reported.

The United Arab Emirates and Egyptian central banks are coordinating on Banque Misr, they said on Sunday, after the US imposed sanctions on the  bank's UAE branches over its alleged dealings with Iran.

The US Treasury on Friday said it was cutting off the bank's UAE operations from dollar transactions after accusing it of ties with Iran.

Banque Misr will take all necessary measures to conduct its business as usual, the central banks said in their joint statement.

US military officials have warned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that a prolonged war against Iran is unsustainable and jeopardising the military’s ability to respond to other threats around the world, the Washington Post has reported, citing anonymous sources.

In a 14 August report, army, navy and air force chiefs told Hegseth that the war has been "too much for too long" and is putting military readiness under strain.

Israeli forces have raided Qalandia refugee camp north of Jerusalem and the UNRWA-run Qalandia vocational training centre in East Jerusalem for the second time in a week, according to Palestinian news agency WAFA.

Security forces seized the UN-run centre on Tuesday and expelled dozens of staff, drawing international condemnation.

The Israeli military has claimed it killed a Hamas commander in today's drone strike in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

It identified him as Hussam Osama Hussein Nasir, who it said was a member of Hamas's military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades.

Medics said two people were killed in the attack, including a man and a three-year-old boy.

Iraq sentenced a US-sanctioned oil official to seven years in prison after he was arrested as part of a government-led anti-corruption campaign, the country's anti-graft body said on Sunday.

Deputy oil minister for distribution affairs Ali al-Bahadli is among dozens of officials who were detained in June during anti-graft raids that took place in several areas, mostly in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.

The Commission of Integrity said in a statement that an anti-corruption court sentenced Bahadli to seven years in prison for "illicit gains".

The ruling requires Bahadli to return to the state an amount equivalent to more than $20 million in ill-gotten gains, in addition to paying a fine of the same amount.

The United States imposed sanctions on Bahadli in May, accusing him of fraudulently mixing Iraqi and Iranian oil as part of a scheme to help Iran avoid sanctions.

Turkey will host Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for the first ministerial meeting of their new regional defence grouping on Monday, Turkish sources said Sunday.

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement signed earlier this month commits the three countries to mutual defence in the event of any of them being attacked.

The pact came against a backdrop of war between the United States and Iran and attacks in the region from Tehran-backed Houthi rebels.

The meeting in Istanbul will set up a "political and defence strategic committee" involving foreign and defence ministers and military chiefs, Turkish foreign ministry sources said.

The agreement unites NATO's second-largest army, Turkey, with the Islamic world's only nuclear-armed state, Pakistan, and the leading Gulf power in Saudi Arabia.

Monday's meeting will be chaired by the Turkish foreign and defence ministers as well as the chief of the general staff.

Pakistan is sending Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, along with the defence minister and the commander of the defence forces.

Saudi Arabia will be represented by its foreign minister, the defence minister and the chief of the general staff, Turkish sources said.

As well as international security, the participants plan to address boosting defence capabilities, the interoperability of their armed forces, and their cooperation in the defence industry, Ankara said.

The Israeli strike in Gaza's Deir al-Balah earlier this morning killed a three-year-old child and a man, according to local health officials.

Medics said the Israeli airstrike near a bakery killed one man, Hussam Nusair, a three-year-old boy, Tayyem Hamdan, and wounded several others.

Israel has killed at least five Palestinians in Gaza over the past 24 hours, according to Gaza's health ministry.

At least 1,318 people have been killed by Israeli forces since the "ceasefire" was supposed to come into effect in October, the ministry said in its daily bulletin.

The Israeli army has carried out a "massive" explosion in the border town of Houla in Lebanon's Marjayoun district, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.

Israel's far-right national security minister on Sunday boasted of worsening conditions for Palestinian prisoners as he visited female inmates.

Two months before elections, Itamar Ben-Gvir posted a video in which a veiled woman, her face blurred out, said that prisoners had "extremely bad" conditions and "don't get any rights, and we have particular needs as women".

"We haven't bathed for three days and we haven't changed our underwear," she said, warning of the risk of disease.

Ben-Gvir responds approvingly as he compares the treatment to that of captives held for up to two years by Hamas and other fighters in Gaza following the 7 October 2023 attack.

"Our hostages had no shampoo and had no such conditions. I am proud that we have succeeded in reducing the terrorists' prison conditions to the bare minimum. The summer camps in the prisons are over," Ben Gvir said.

Militant settlers are continuing to rampage in the occupied West Bank as pogroms against Palestinians intensify across the territory. Attacks against Palestinian civilians were reported in a dozen locations on Sunday, including in villages near Nablus and Ramallah, Masafer Yatta and Al-Mughayyir.

Hundreds of settlers raided Islamic religious sites in the village of Awarta, southeast of Nablus, under the protection of Israeli forces.

Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers began destroying Palestinian-owned land in the town of Deir Ballut, in the central West Bank.