On the place Enghelab de Tehran, le 26 mai 2026 ( AFP / ATTA KENARE )
The United States shot down four Iranian drones and carried out strikes on a ground base in the south of the country overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, the second American operation of this type this week.
Four attack drones that posed a “threat around the Strait of Hormuz” were shot down, a US official said, adding that the US military had also struck “a ground control station in Bandar Abbas which threatened to launch a fifth drone.”
“These actions were measured, only defensive and carried out with the intention of maintaining the ceasefire,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Iranian media previously reported that three loud explosions were heard near Bandar Abbas, a port city on the Strait of Hormuz, around 1:30 a.m. Thursday (10 p.m. GMT Wednesday).
During the night from Monday to Tuesday, Washington had already announced that it had bombed missile sites in the south, with Iran denouncing a violation of the ceasefire.
If the weapons have almost fallen silent in the Gulf since April 8 after more than a month of Israeli-American strikes which left thousands dead, the negotiations are laborious, and the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked by Iran, which has made black gold more expensive and shaken the world economy.
At the same time, the Israeli army called on Thursday at dawn for residents of several areas of the city of Tyre, in southern Lebanon, to evacuate in anticipation of a future “use of force” against buildings it presented as being used by the Shiite movement pro-Iranian Hezbollah.
Thursday’s strikes in Iran come as Donald Trump once again threatened a resumption of hostilities in the event of failure of negotiations.
Iran “really wants to conclude an agreement. They are not there yet. We are not satisfied but we will end up being (…). Or we will simply have to finish the job”, said the American president on Wednesday.
The price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the American benchmark for crude oil, increased slightly on Thursday before the opening of stock markets in Asia, while remaining firmly below the symbolic threshold of one hundred dollars per barrel.
– Going “from worst to bad” –
In Iran, internet access has been partially restored after a cut of almost three months. Connections remain erratic, with mobile data still largely cut off, many sites filtered and messaging services difficult to access.
Passers-by cross a street in front of a billboard affixed to the facade of a building representing the Strait of Hormuz, with a caption in Persian indicating “Forever in the hands of Iran”, in Tehran, May 25, 2026 (AFP / ATTA KENARE)
“It’s not happiness or joy (that I feel, Editor’s note), I just have the impression that we have gone from worst to bad,” reacted to AFP Bahareh, 32, nutritionist in Tehran.
“We ask ourselves every day: + Will there be missile strikes tonight? +”, describes Amir, a 27-year-old software developer, also from the Iranian capital.
The Revolutionary Guards judged the probability of a resumption of the war “low due to the weakness of the enemy”. But “the armed forces are on alert,” warned Mohammad Akbarzadeh, a senior naval force official quoted by the Tasnim news agency.
– Access to assets –
Iran said it was finalizing a 14-point framework agreement with the United States, prioritizing ending the war “on all fronts”, including in Lebanon.
“The draft framework agreement (…) is a total invention,” reacted the White House.
A woman walks past an anti-American and anti-Israeli mural on May 26, 2026 in Tehran (AFP / ATTA KENARE)
According to Iranian television, the protocol under discussion notably provides for a commitment by the United States to lift its blockade of Iranian ports in return for the re-establishment of commercial traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, through which normally passes a fifth of the crude oil and liquefied natural gas consumed in the world.
Tehran is also seeking the release of 24 billion in assets frozen abroad, “with half made available upon announcement of the memorandum of understanding”, according to the Iranian agency Isna.
This is one of the main points of contention, alongside the nuclear aspect which Iran wishes to address in a second step.
The United States is demanding the destruction of its stock of highly enriched uranium, the fate of which is uncertain. Tehran, for its part, denies that it wants to acquire an atomic bomb.
In Lebanon, where Israeli strikes have killed 3,269 people in Lebanon since March 2, according to the latest count from the Ministry of Health, violence continues despite a ceasefire theoretically in force since April 17.
Israel warned on Wednesday that it considered as a “combat zone” all the Lebanese territory located south of the Zahrani, a river flowing about forty kilometers from the border between Israel and Lebanon.
