Paris (France) (AFP) – Here are the latest developments in the Middle East war:
**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.”
**Israel told not to attack**
US President Donald Trump said he had told his ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, not to carry out any more strikes on gas fields in Iran, which retaliated to an earlier attack by hitting Qatari energy sites. “I told him, don’t do that, and he won’t do that,” Trump told reporters as he met Japan’s prime minister. “We get along great. It’s coordinated, but on occasion, he’ll do something” that the United States opposes.
**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. “If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you. But I’m not putting troops,” Trump told reporters as he met Japan’s prime minister in Washington.
**$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.
**Gas hub attack**
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani warned that Iran’s attack on the country’s main gas hub risked “significant repercussions for global energy supplies” and was “clear proof” that Iran wasn’t only targeting US interests in the war.
**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.”
**Bahrain blasts**
At least two loud explosions rocked Bahrain’s capital of Manama after warning sirens sounded, according to an AFP correspondent.
**Food security, trade**
The World Trade Organization warned that the war posed a dire threat to global food security and could weigh heavily on already slowing global trade. “Sustained increases in energy prices could increase risks for global trade, with potential spillovers for food security and cost pressures on consumers and businesses,” WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in a statement.
**Iran vows ‘zero restraint’**
Iran vowed to hit hard if its energy facilities were attacked again. “ZERO restraint if our infrastructures are struck again,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on X.
© 2024 AFP
