(AFP) – Here are the latest events in the Middle East war:
**- Trump warship call**
US President Donald Trump urged other nations to send warships to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, the critical chokepoint for global oil supplies disrupted by the Mideast war. “Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area,” he wrote on Truth Social.
**- Lebanon ‘genocide’ fear**
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said his country feared Israel was “moving toward a new genocide under the pretext of fighting Hezbollah” in its ongoing assault on Lebanon.
**- Ukraine role ridiculed**
Iran’s envoy to Ukraine, Shahriar Amouzegar, dismissed the support Kyiv has offered to the United States and its Gulf allies in combating drones as “a joke,” in an interview with AFP.
**- Energy site threat**
Iran will target the facilities of American companies in the region if its energy facilities are attacked, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was quoted as saying by state television, after US attacks on military infrastructure on Iran’s crude oil export hub of Kharg Island.
**- Lebanon war toll**
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes have killed 826 people, including 65 women and 106 children, since the start of the latest war with Hezbollah, adding that 2,009 others were wounded.
**- UN Lebanon diplomacy**
UN chief Antonio Guterres said on a visit to Beirut that diplomatic channels remained open to end the war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah and urged the international community to support Lebanon. “There is no military solution, only diplomacy, dialogue and full implementation of the UN Charter and Security Council resolutions,” he said.
**- Hamas appeal to Iran**
Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas called on Iran to refrain from targeting neighboring countries, while affirming Tehran’s right to defend itself against Israel and the United States, in its first such public appeal to Tehran.
**- Jerusalem blasts**
Explosions rang out over Jerusalem, AFP reporters heard, shortly after the Israeli military warned that it had detected incoming missiles from Iran. The military said its “defence system is operating to intercept the threat.”
**- Kharg exports ‘normal’**
Oil export operations from Iran’s Kharg island in the Gulf were “continuing as normal” after US strikes on the crude export hub which caused no casualties, said regional official Ehsan Jahaniyan, quoted by the IRNA news agency. The Fars news agency, citing sources on the island, earlier reported there had been no damage to oil facilities after Trump said US strikes had destroyed only military targets.
**- UAE consulate targeted**
“The United Arab Emirates expressed its strong condemnation and denunciation of the treacherous terrorist attack by a drone, which targeted the UAE Consulate General in Iraqi Kurdistan, for the second time in a week, and resulted in the injury of two security personnel and caused damage to the consulate building,” the UAE foreign ministry said in a statement.
**- UAE energy hub hit**
Smoke could be seen rising from the direction of a major United Arab Emirates energy installation, in what appeared to be the latest strike targeting the Gulf’s petroleum facilities hours after the US struck Kharg Island. An AFP journalist said clouds of dark black smoke were seen coming from Fujairah, home to a major port and oil export terminal where Iranian attacks have already targeted an oil storage and trading hub.
**- US embassy attacked**
A drone struck the US embassy in Baghdad, an Iraqi security official said, as an AFP journalist saw smoke rising from the complex. Strikes earlier targeted the powerful Iran-backed group Kataeb Hezbollah, killing two members including a “key figure,” security sources told AFP.
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© 2024 AFP
