LIVE War in the Middle East: Despite Trump’s optimism, the fighting…

The US military announced on Tuesday that it had foiled several actions attributed to Iran in the Gulf region, claiming to have intercepted missiles aimed at Bahrain, neutralized drones threatening civilian ships and carried out strikes against positions located on the Iranian island of Qeshm, in the Strait of Hormuz.

According to the US military command for the Middle East, several Iranian ballistic missiles were also fired towards countries in the region, without reaching their objectives. No American military personnel were injured, according to American authorities.

The Kuwaiti army announced on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday that it had activated its air defense systems to counter a new wave of missiles and drones targeting the country.

In a message published on X, the armed forces indicated that interceptions were underway against these hostile devices. Two days earlier, Kuwait had already claimed to have neutralized similar attacks, which it then blamed on Iran.

Hezbollah will not accept a “partial ceasefire” with Israel, a senior official of the pro-Iranian group told AFP, threatening a response from the movement in the event of an Israeli attack on Beirut and its suburbs.

“We will not accept any partial ceasefire agreement,” assured Mahmoud Qomati in a written statement. “The Zionist enemy must know that any aggression against the suburbs may result in a stronger response” from Hezbollah.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Tuesday that the United States had validated the principle according to which Israel would strike the southern suburbs of the capital, a stronghold of Hezbollah, if the latter targets its territory.

The United States believes that Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is “alive” and “increasingly involved” in the direction of the country, says the head of American diplomacy, Marco Rubio, while negotiations to end the war stall.

“I think there are signs that he is becoming more and more involved at a certain level, even though all of his communications have been in writing and through third parties,” Marco Rubio told the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.

The Israeli Prime Minister affirms that Israel will work to put an end to the Iranian “regime of terror”, in a video released by his office.

Speaking during the induction ceremony of the new head of Mossad (Israeli foreign intelligence) Roman Gofman, Benjamin Netanyahu castigated a “regime of terror which is doomed to disappear”. “And we will help make that happen – this regime will no longer threaten us with nuclear weapons and thousands of deadly missiles,” he added.

He spoke after apparently taking a “soap” from Donald Trump:

A container ship sailing in the Gulf was hit by two projectiles as it left a port in Iraq, the transport company MSC, headquartered in Geneva, said on Tuesday, the day after the incident.

The MSC and the British maritime safety agency UKMTO, which first reported the incident on Monday, said no crew members were injured.

In Iran, a spokesperson for the Revolutionary Guards declared that a cruise missile had targeted the MSC Sariska V, flying the Panamanian flag and belonging according to him “to the American-Zionist enemy”. According to this spokesperson, the container ship was targeted in retaliation for an American attack on the Iranian ship Lion Star in the Arabian Sea.

The ambassadors of Israel and Lebanon were received at the State Department on Tuesday for a new session of direct talks, while Israel and Hezbollah exchanged fire after Donald Trump claimed to have received a commitment to appeasement from the two camps.

This fourth meeting between representatives of the two countries, which do not maintain diplomatic relations, takes place at the State Department and is scheduled to last two days.

It brings together Israeli representatives Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese Nada Hamadeh Moawad, as well as Daniel Holler, a senior advisor to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is not participating in this session.

Israeli strikes on the southern Lebanese city of Tire on Monday killed four people and injured 127 others, including 39 hospital staff, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

The strikes seriously damaged the Jabal Amel hospital, one of the city’s main establishments, the ministry said in a statement. “Four doctors, 27 nurses and eight staff members were injured, four of whom are in intensive care in critical condition,” he said.

Israeli arms exports have reached a record level for the fifth consecutive year, exceeding 19 billion dollars (around 16.5 billion euros) in 2025 thanks in particular to anti-aircraft defense systems, the Israeli government announced on Tuesday. Israeli Ministry of Defense.

According to the ministry, this is the highest amount ever recorded by Israel in this sector, “up nearly 30% compared to the previous year.” Missile, rocket and anti-aircraft defense systems represented 29% of contracts concluded by Israel, according to the same press release.

European countries will receive 36% of Israeli arms exports in 2025, ahead of those in the Asia-Pacific region (32%) and the Middle East and North Africa (15%).

“The Prime Minister and I led, with the Israeli army, a process aimed at establishing an equation according to which the fate of Dahiyeh in Beirut would be linked to that of the localities in the north of Israel. If Israeli communities continue to be attacked, we will evacuate and strike the Shiite neighborhood of Dahiyeh in Beirut, a stronghold of Hezbollah,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said.

“The United States has validated this principle and communicated it to the Lebanese government as well as to all parties concerned […] Either the shooting against the localities stops, or, if it continues, we will hit Dahiyeh in Beirut,” the minister continued.

Lebanese state media announced Tuesday that an Israeli strike had killed a man and his two children who were driving in southern Lebanon the day before.

“A dentist from the village of Qlayaa […] was killed with his son and daughter” when an Israeli drone “targeted their car” on a road in southern Lebanon, said the National Information Agency (official Ani).

The Christian village of Qlayaa, bordering Israel, is caught in the crossfire of Israel and pro-Iranian Hezbollah but some of its inhabitants have chosen to stay despite the advance of the Israeli army.

“The man and his two children had gone to the university in the morning to take exams, and on the way back, the Israeli drone hit their car,” Father Antonios Farah, priest of their parish, told AFP.

The Israeli army on Tuesday called on the Lebanese population to evacuate the town of Nabatiyé, before planned attacks against Hezbollah, despite the current truce.

“Hezbollah having violated the ceasefire agreement, the Israeli army is forced to intervene,” said Avichay Adraee, an Arabic-speaking military spokesperson, urging residents of this town in southern Lebanon to leave their homes.

Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon are almost daily despite the truce theoretically in force since April 17, with the army accusing Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire.

The Lebanese Civil Defense announced on Tuesday that it had removed the bodies of six people from the rubble of a house targeted the previous evening by an Israeli strike in a village in the south.

In a press release, Civil Defense specified that rescuers were able to “extract six bodies from the rubble, as well as three injured people”, in the village of Marwaniyé, near Saida.

The National Information Agency reported Monday evening a strike on the village, targeted like 15 others by an Israeli evacuation order early in the morning.

The President of the Lebanese Parliament, who plays an intermediary role between Hezbollah and the United States, will guarantee the pro-Iranian formation’s adherence to a “global ceasefire” with Israel, his advisor declared to AFP on Tuesday.

“President Berri’s main demand is a comprehensive ceasefire. If a global ceasefire agreement is obtained, it guarantees compliance by Hezbollah,” his advisor Ali Hamdan told AFP.

He specified that “the global ceasefire means the cessation of air strikes, from land or from the sea, and that there be no dynamiting or demolition” in southern Lebanon, where Israel is accused of razing localities whole.

A resumption of the war against the United States is “inevitable”, a senior Iranian military official said on Tuesday, at a time when discussions between Tehran and Washington to put a lasting end to hostilities in the Middle East seem to be stalling.

“The United States demands our total surrender and the Iranian nation will never capitulate,” declared a deputy of the Khatam al-Anbiya joint command, Mohammad Jafar Assadi. “Without capitulation, war is inevitable. So we are waiting and the war does not scare us,” added Mohammad Jafar Assadi, according to comments reported by state television (Irib).

“Nothing can justify” the continuation of military operations and a prolonged occupation of Israel in Lebanon, said this Tuesday the head of French diplomacy, while Israel and Hezbollah continued their clashes into the night despite Donald Trump’s announcement of an agreement.

“There is no question that Lebanon is in some way an expiatory victim of an agreement which is struggling to be concluded between Iran and the United States,” underlines Jean-Noël Barrot on France TV, who says he spoke Monday evening with his American counterpart Marco Rubio.

According to the official Lebanese Ani Agency, Israeli strikes targeted the villages of Marwaniyeh, Sidiqine, Yater and Mansouri in the south during the night. And a “very violent explosion” was heard in Debbine.

Earlier Monday, the Israeli army struck more than 40 locations in the South, including in Tire near a hospital, causing damage and several injuries, according to Ani.