Paris (France) (AFP) – Here are the latest developments in the Middle East war:
– **War’s end?**
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a press conference he saw “this war ending a lot faster than people think.” “I’m not sure who’s running Iran right now. Mojtaba, the replacement ayatollah, has not shown his face… What we see is that there is a lot of tensions inside the people who are edging for the top.” “We’re seeing cracks, and we’re trying to propagate them as fast as we can, not only in the top command, we’re seeing cracks in the field.”
– **’Winning’**
Netanyahu said “we are winning and Iran is being decimated,” adding that it was no longer able to enrich uranium or to build ballistic missiles. Netanyahu also denied that Israel “dragged” the US into the war. “Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do?”
– **Israel ‘acted alone’**
Netanyahu said Israel acted on its own when it struck an Iranian gas field, which sparked a retaliatory strike by Tehran on Qatar’s main gas hub. “Israel acted alone against the Asaluyeh gas compound… President Trump asked us to hold off on future attacks and we’re holding out.” Earlier, US President Donald Trump said that he told Israel not to carry out any more such strikes. “I told him, don’t do that, and he won’t do that,” Trump told reporters.
– **Hormuz ‘blackmail’**
Netanyahu said that attempts to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz would fail. “The death cult in Iran is trying to blackmail the world by closing a key international maritime route, the Strait of Hormuz. It won’t work.”
– **Lebanon truce**
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun renewed his call for a truce and the opening of negotiations with Israel to stop the war between it and Hezbollah, as he received France’s foreign minister. Earlier, Lebanon’s health ministry said that Israeli attacks have killed 1,001 people in the country since the war erupted, including 79 women, 118 children, and 40 health workers, with 2,584 other people wounded.
– **US airbase in Germany**
Iran said it had asked Germany to clarify the role of the Ramstein airbase in the war. “We have asked them to clarify or explain regarding the role of Ramstein,” Tehran’s ambassador to Germany Majid Nili told AFP, charging that “the role of Ramstein is not officially clear for us.”
– **Migrant warning**
The prime ministers of Denmark and Italy have called for tougher border controls, warning that the war in the Middle East could trigger an influx of migrants and refugees into the European Union. Mette Frederiksen and Giorgia Meloni wrote in a joint letter that Europe “cannot risk a repeat” of 2015-2016, when hundreds of thousands of people arrived — many fleeing the civil war in Syria.
– **No US ground troops**
US President Donald Trump said he was not sending ground troops to Iran, telling reporters: “If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you. But I’m not putting troops.”
– **$16 bn arms sales**
The US announced that it has approved $16 billion in arms sales to the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, which have been hit hard as a result of the war.
– **’Safe’ Hormuz passage**
The UN maritime body called for a safe shipping “corridor” in the Gulf to evacuate stranded vessels and seafarers, at the end of a two-day emergency session on the war. Some 20,000 seafarers are stuck on approximately 3,200 vessels, according to the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
– **Israel refinery hit**
Israeli media reported that an oil refinery in the northern city of Haifa was hit after the military warned of incoming missiles from Iran. Israel’s Kan 11 public broadcaster aired images on television showing a thick plume of dark smoke rising from the area of the refinery. In a post on X, Kan reported that there were no concerns that hazardous materials had leaked.
– **Caspian Sea strikes**
The Israeli military said that its fighter jets had struck several Iranian naval vessels in the Caspian Sea the previous day, including vessels equipped with anti-submarine missiles. “We have for the first time carried out strikes in northern Iran in the Caspian Sea,” a military spokesman said. “This is the first time we have done that in our history.”
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© 2024 AFP
