(AFP) – The latest developments in the Middle East war:
The United States said it had approved a $4 billion sale of Patriot missiles to Gulf ally Qatar, as well as the sale of precision weapons systems to Israel for nearly $1 billion. Both sales were deemed to support US “foreign policy and national security” objectives, the State Department said in a series of notices to Congress, amid ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
The Pentagon said US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the withdrawal of about 5,000 troops from Germany within the next year. The announcement came after President Donald Trump threatened this week to remove troops from NATO ally Germany amid a row with its chancellor, Friedrich Merz, over the US-Israeli war against Iran.
Trump told top US lawmakers that hostilities in Iran had ended, after coming under pressure from Congress to seek authorization for the conflict as it headed into its third month. “There has been no exchange of fire between United States Forces and Iran since April 7, 2026. The hostilities that began on February 28, 2026, have terminated,” he wrote in letters to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate president pro tempore Chuck Grassley.
Lebanon’s health ministry said 13 people were killed Friday in Israeli strikes on the country’s south, including in a town where Israel’s army had issued an evacuation order despite a ceasefire. The strikes in Habboush — where the evacuation warning was issued — killed eight people and wounded 21. Other strikes in Zrariyeh killed four people and wounded four more, the ministry said. It also reported a strike in Ain Baal near the coastal city of Tyre that killed one person and wounded seven others.
Fourteen soldiers were killed on Friday during operations to defuse unexploded ordnance in Iran’s northwestern Zanjan province, local media reported. “Today, during one of these missions, 14 of these dedicated forces were martyred and 2 were injured,” Fars news agency reported, citing the Revolutionary Guards.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei urged his people to wage economic battle and “disappoint” its enemies, as the war with the United States and Israel and years of sanctions take a toll. In a written statement, Khamenei went on to call for “prioritising the consumption of domestically manufactured goods,” and said “the owners of damaged businesses should avoid, as much as possible, layoffs and separation of their workforce.”
Trump said he was unhappy with Iran’s new proposal for peace talks, which Iran’s state news agency IRNA said was delivered via mediator Pakistan. “At this moment, I’m not satisfied with what they’re offering,” he told reporters. “They’re asking for things that I can’t agree to.” Details of the proposal were not yet public.
The price of oil slid after reports of Iran’s latest talks proposal, but both West Texas Intermediate and the other main US benchmark, Brent, clawed back some ground and were trading comfortably above the symbolic $100 a barrel mark.
The US Treasury Department slapped new sanctions on three Iranian foreign currency exchange firms to try to stem the flow of Tehran’s “financial lifelines”.
The USS Gerald R. Ford left the Middle East after taking part in operations against Iran, a US official said. Two other aircraft carriers — the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS George H.W. Bush — are among 20 US ships still in the region.
The UN refugee agency said the war had sent freight rates soaring for delivering aid to refugees in the Middle East and Africa. Costs have shot up nearly 18 percent as shipments have had to be rerouted because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and port congestion, UNHCR said, sparking delivery delays.
Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said Tehran was open to talks with the United States but would not accept what he called policy “imposition” under threats. “The Islamic Republic has never shied away from negotiations… but we certainly do not accept imposition,” Ejei said in a video carried by the judiciary’s Mizan Online website.
© 2024 AFP
