There were no reported strikes overnight in Iran, in an apparent break from nearly two weeks of consecutive nights of US attacks.<\/p>\n
The Houthis have said they would close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Saudi-linked shipping in retaliation for the kingdom\u2019s blockade on Yemen and a recent attack on the international airport in Yemen\u2019s rebel-held capital, Sanaa.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing short of ending the aggression and lifting the blockade, otherwise, it\u2019s all illusion and mirage,\u201d Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthi-led Supreme Political Council governing rebel-controlled territories in Yemen, said of what it would take for the Houthis to not blockade the Bab-El-Mandeb.<\/p>\n
That strait, at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is a vital shipping chokepoint connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. Around 12 percent of the world\u2019s trade, including a quarter of its container traffic, passes through the narrows.<\/p>\n
The Houthis targeted two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea this week. In response, Saudi Arabia struck Hodeida, the Saudi-led coalition opposing the rebels said Saturday. The strikes late Friday hit the port and the state-run telecommunications corporation, injuring two people, said Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry.<\/p>\n
The Saudi-led coalition said it didn\u2019t hit the port but struck \u201clegitimate military targets\u201d in Hodeida province that \u201cwere linked to threats to commercial vessels in the Red Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called for \u201cdiplomacy and dialogue\u201d to solve the Yemen conflict without \u201cmilitary confrontations\u201d in an interview published Saturday by the state-run newspaper called Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cIran had a peaceful night,\u201d Hossein Kermanpour, a spokesperson for Iran\u2019s Health Ministry, posted on X.<\/p>\n
US Central Command didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment. Unlike the previous 13 nights, it didn\u2019t announce new strikes.<\/p>\n
But Iran\u2019s foreign ministry condemned what it called a Ukrainian attack Saturday on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, saying one person was killed and another was hurt and calling it an act of aggression.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier said on X that Ukraine \u201cachieved very strong results with long\u2011range strikes in the Caspian Sea \u2014 including vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n
While efforts at mediation between the US and Iran continue, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to travel to the United States next week and meet with President Trump in Washington on Tuesday, his office said Friday. They last met in Washington in February, weeks before they launched the war.<\/p>\n
A tenuous cease-fire that halted major operations for weeks has seemed to unravel this month. The United States accused Iran of striking three ships in the Strait of Hormuz and responded by striking dozens of targets in Iran, which retaliated by firing at US-allied Gulf Arab states.<\/p>\n
The US military has renewed its blockade of Iran\u2019s ports. Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard has advised residents of neighboring countries to stay away from bases with US troops.<\/p>\n
The war has killed more than 3,400 people in Iran, according to its Health Ministry. Eighteen US service members, 24 civilians in Israel, and smaller numbers of civilians, including foreign workers and mariners, have been reportedly killed across the region.<\/p>\n
In Lebanon, more than 4,000 people have been killed since Iran-backed Hezbollah militants fired at Israel in support of the Islamic Republic two days after the war began and Israel responded with strikes and ground forces. Thirty-eight Israeli troops have also died.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There were no reported strikes overnight in Iran, in an apparent break from nearly two weeks of consecutive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[1402,197,34,196,768,9411,200,82],"class_list":["post-222710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-drone-surveillance-and-warfare","tag-general-news","tag-iran","tag-iran-war","tag-military-and-defense","tag-oceans","tag-war-and-unrest","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116982786494744258","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}