Vance says US not at 'war' with Iran, scores killed in new Houthi offensive

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Hamas called on Arab and Muslim countries on Friday to oppose a proposal from two Israeli ministers to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and send them abroad.

"Escalating statements by ministers in the Israeli government regarding the continued adoption of plans to displace the Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip represent an extremely dangerous development," Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said in a statement.

He called on "Arab and Islamic countries to take serious and unified action to confront these plans and adopt effective positions and measures to thwart them".

Israeli far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir laid out a plan on Thursday that aims to see the departure of 250,000 Palestinians from Gaza in the first year, followed by the rest of the roughly two million residents over the following six years.

His remarks came a day after Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel was ready to remove Palestinians from Gaza by sea and land but was waiting for the United States, which he said was discussing places for the population to go.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich earlier proposed also removing Palestinians from the West Bank, where Israeli settlers have been carrying out a growing number of attacks.

Forced displacement of civilians in occupied territory is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has discussed bilateral relations and regional tensions with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan during a phone call.

The two leaders reviewed cooperation across several sectors, with Erdogan saying defence and economic ties between Turkey and the UAE would deepen significantly, according to a statement from the Turkish government.

Erdogan also addressed wider regional conflicts, saying Ankara was working to ease tensions between Iran and the US, as well as other disputes in the region.

He said Turkey’s diplomatic efforts focused on promoting peace would continue, adding that Ankara “never approves of attacks on brotherly countries” in the region.

Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, has criticised an opinion column in the Jerusalem Post that argues the US could use student loan forgiveness and financial debt relief to encourage young Americans to join the war against Iran.

Baghaei responded to the column in a post on X, questioning why American students should be offered debt forgiveness in exchange for taking part in the conflict.

“Americans, ask yourselves one question: Why should your sons and daughters be offered debt forgiveness in exchange for fighting and dying in a war Israel wants continued & expanded?” he wrote.

“Your lives. Your taxes. Someone else’s war,” he added. “Do not let anyone turn your children into mercenaries for their illegal ‘war of choice’.”

Israeli strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon late on Friday killed at least three people and injured 23, the Lebanese health ministry said.

The ministry said in a statement that strikes hit five locations in the southern Tyr and Nabatieh regions and the Bekaa region in the east.

It updated an earlier toll given by Lebanese official media which had reported two of the deaths in the south.

The strikes came despite a truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported the strike hit near the strategic Ali al-Taher ridge, which the Israeli army said it had captured, though Hezbollah did not confirm losing it.

The United States, Britain, France and Germany have drafted a resolution for possible consideration by the Board of Governors of the UN nuclear watchdog that seeks to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for failure to comply with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations, diplomats say.

Under those obligations, which are part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is legally bound to declare all nuclear material and activities and allow inspectors of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency to verify that none of it is being diverted from peaceful uses.

The diplomatic move has been under consideration since June 2025 when the IAEA board found Iran officially in noncompliance with its nonproliferation obligations for the first time in 20 years — one day before the U.S. and Israel launched attacks against Iran’s nuclear sites.

The possible referral of Iran to the U.N. Security Council shifts the responsibility to a higher authority that is able to enact further legally binding measures, including sanctions or asset freezes.

But specific punitive measures by the U.N. are unlikely in this case since Iran’s allies Russia and China hold a veto power on the U.N. Security Council.

The draft resolution requests the IAEA director general Rafael Grossi “to transmit this resolution and the previously adopted resolutions … to all Members of the Agency and to the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the IAEA Statute.”

The resolution also “stresses its support for a diplomatic solution to the challenges posed by the Iranian nuclear programme and its implications for regional peace and stability leading to an agreement that addresses all international concerns related to Iran’s nuclear activities, and encourages all parties to constructively engage in diplomacy.”

US State Department spokesperson Thomas Pigott said Washington “remains committed” to cutting Iran off from the global financial system and preventing Tehran from “threatening” regional stability.

His comments came hours after the US Treasury Department sanctioned Türkiye-based Golden Global Bank and two of its subsidiaries, accusing them of facilitating financial transactions linked to Iran.

“This action sends a clear message to financial institutions worldwide: facilitating Iran’s illicit financial activity carries serious consequences,” Pigott said.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency has reported a series of Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon, including areas in the Nabatieh and Tyre districts.

The agency said Israeli forces carried out a large explosion in the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiya, near Nabatieh.

Israeli warplanes also struck a house in al-Ramadiya in the Tyre district, causing injuries. Ambulances were sent to the scene, according to the agency.

Separately, Israeli warplanes carried out an airstrike on the Rweiss neighbourhood of Nabatieh, near an orphanage, the National News Agency reported.

An Israeli strike on south Lebanon killed two people on Friday, Lebanese official media said, despite a truce with Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported the strike hit near the strategic Ali al-Taher ridge, which the Israeli army said it had captured, though Hezbollah did not confirm losing it.

Two young men were "targeted while riding a motorcycle" in the city of Nabatieh, NNA said, adding that rescuers transported their bodies to a local hospital.

Israel announced on Thursday it had taken control of the ridge. Defence Minister Israel Katz said the military would work to "prevent the enemy from re-establishing itself in the area".

Israel stepped up strikes in the Nabatieh region on Friday and also targeted the village of Rmadiyeh in the Tyre area, located more than 10 kilometres from the Israeli border, according to the NNA.

The United States on Friday announced the approval of a $5 billion sale of bombs, guidance kits and other equipment to Saudi Arabia, which has been repeatedly attacked during the US-Israeli war against Iran.

"The proposed sale will improve Saudi Arabia's airborne defense capability to counter current and future regional threats, strengthen its homeland defense, and improve interoperability with systems operated by US forces and other Gulf region partners," the US State Department said in a statement.

The sale will also "support the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a Major non-NATO Ally," the department said.

Saudi Arabia has been targeted with drone and missile strikes by Iranian forces and Yemen's Tehran-backed Houthi rebels since the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran earlier this year.

The State Department has notified Congress of the proposed sale of the bombs to Riyadh, which still needs to be approved by US lawmakers.

The Yemeni armed forces' air force has entered the fighting in Taiz, providing air support to ground forces and, for the first time, striking Houthi militia positions on the Hays front in western Taiz.

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on Friday that the United States may hit Iran's Pickaxe Mountain very soon.

Pickaxe Mountain, located ​near Iran's heavily damaged Natanz uranium enrichment facility, is ​a heavily fortified site that hosts two deeply buried tunnel complexes.

President Donald Trump said Friday that the Iran war was "small potatoes" for the United States, a day after Vice President JD Vance said he wouldn't describe the conflict as a war.

"A lot of people don't call it a war. I call it a military conflict because it's small potatoes for us. It's not a big thing. We did Venezuela, and we did this," Trump told reporters when asked about Vance's comments.

Yemen's Ministry of Human Rights on Friday condemned a military escalation by the Houthi group in Taiz province in southwestern Yemen, accusing the group of targeting residential areas, displacement camps and an educational facility, as well as killing a civilian sniper fire.

In a statement carried by the state-run Saba News Agency, the ministry said the escalation involved artillery and missile attacks and drone strikes targeting areas in the districts of Maqbanah, Jabal Habashi, Al-Kadha and Al-Dhubab.

It said the attacks violated international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

Iranian army spokesperson Mohammad Akraminia said on Friday that Tehran exercises full sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, stressing that Iran is "standing firm" against US "arrogance".

He added that management of the strategic waterway would "continue with full strength until all foreign forces leave the region".

As Israeli authorities and settlers move to annex more Palestinian land, a non-profit group is threatening to sue the UK government's tax agency for allegedly allowing products from illegal Israeli settlements to enter the United Kingdom tariff-free.

The Global Echo Litigation Centre, a non-profit legal group dedicated to using litigation to take on Israeli occupation, wrote to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) saying that agricultural goods from these illegal settlements in areas like the occupied West Bank entered the UK while violating trade rules.

A four-year investigation by the non-profit found that some products that were labelled “Israeli” actually came from the occupied Palestinian territories. After the findings, the group slammed HMRC's process for verifying the origin of Israeli products as “flawed".

In correspondence seen exclusively by, a letter from law firm Leigh Day, representing the non-profit, said the flawed process meant settlement products “unlawfully benefitted” from tax treatment.

"Our client believes HMRC’s approach to compliance and enforcement regarding such imports to the UK risks leaving the preferential tariff system open to misuse," Tom Short, solicitor at Leigh Day, told The New Arab.

More than 120 people have been killed since Yemen's Houthis launched an advance a day ago on the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait, in the deadliest clashes for years between the rebels and government forces.

The toll rose to 129 on Friday, according to AFP news agency, up from an earlier count of 81.

A Yemeni military official speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP that 66 of his men had been killed, while medical and military sources close to the Houthis said at least 62 militants had died. Another medical source said a civilian had also been killed.

Egyptian-Turkish poet Abdulrahman Youssef al-Qaradawi was pardoned by United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Friday, state news agency WAM said, a week after receiving a 10-year jail sentence following his extradition from Lebanon.

Qaradawi, the son of late senior Muslim cleric Youssef al-Qaradawi, was arrested in Lebanon in December 2024 after making critical comments about the UAE, Saudi Arabian and Egyptian authorities in a video posted online.

He was extradited in January 2025, facing charges of "engaging in activities that aim to stir and undermine public security", WAM said at the time.

Rights groups and UN experts had called for Qaradawi's release, saying he had been arrested after exercising his right to free expression.

His father, who died in 2022, was a spiritual guide to the Muslim Brotherhood, championed the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, and drew the ire of rulers in Egypt and the Gulf with his Islamist preaching.

The US Treasury on Friday announced new sanctions targeting a Turkish bank over its alleged ties to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), part of Washington's renewed attempts to economically isolate Tehran.

"Financial institutions continue to find out the hard way that we are serious about Operation Economic Outcast," said US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a statement. "While we hope no more banks will need to be sanctioned, that ultimately depends on how quickly the international community comes to its senses and ceases support of the murderous Iranian regime."

Israel has released four Lebanese civilians detained by its forces in southern Lebanon, handing them over to Lebanese authorities on Friday.

The release follows US-mediated talks between Israel and Lebanon, with another round of negotiations expected in Rome later this month.

Meanwhile, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains low following renewed US-Iran attacks, while US diesel prices reached a record average of $5.85 a gallon.

Fighting has also intensified in Yemen between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and government forces near Taiz. Both sides have suffered casualties, officials said.

The price of diesel -- the vital fuel used for road hauling, agriculture and construction -- hit a new record Friday in the United States.

The cost is now $5.85 a gallon, up from $3.71 a year ago, the AAA motorists' association said.

Prices at the pump have jumped since US-Israeli strikes targeting Iran from late February sparked Tehran's retaliation in blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for energy transit.

Global oil prices have remained high, and surged this week on a fresh escalation in fighting.

US Vice President JD Vance blamed Iran when asked about earlier comments by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that Americans could potentially see $3 gas again by Labor Day, which falls on September 7.

Israel's defence minister on Friday hailed the capture of a strategic highland in Lebanon as solidifying Israel's "security zone" in Lebanon and vowed that troops would not leave it.

"The capture of the Ali Tahar ridge marks the completion of the phase of securing control in the security zone in southern Lebanon," Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.

Four Lebanese citizens held by Israel were released and handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross Friday as part of a deal between the two countries. In return, Lebanon agreed to search for the bodies of Jewish Lebanese citizens who went missing during the country's civil war decades ago.

Dozens of Lebanese prisoners are believed to be held in Israeli detention centers, including civilians. A total of five detainees are being released under the current deal, all civilians.

Israeli police killed a Palestinian man in central Jerusalem, accusing the man of attempting to carry out a knife attack.

The incident took place overnight near Damascus Gate, which leads into Jerusalem's Old City, Israeli police said, adding that the dead man was a 33-year-old from Jerusalem.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa also reported the death, saying police had set up a military cordon around Damascus Gate and the Old City.