Israel strikes Lebanon again, 11 dead; Iran still defiant on Hormuz control

Lebanon saw its deadliest day of fighting in months as Iran and the United States (US) appeared to be at a standstill in negotiations ahead of the Monday expiration of their ceasefire agreement.

The Israel Defense Forces said on Sunday that it killed Abu Hassan Alaa, a senior Hezbollah commander, in southern Lebanon a day earlier. A total of 11 people died in the Israeli strikes — including several children, according to AFP — making them the deadliest since the sides agreed to a ceasefire at the beginning of June.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said the strikes were in retaliation for a Hezbollah attack that had injured three soldiers early on Saturday. Israel said on Sunday that if it feels threatened again, it would strike the Lebanese armed militia.

The fighting on the periphery of the Iran war may further complicate what appear to be deadlocked negotiations between Washington and Tehran ahead of the nominal end of their own June ceasefire on Monday. Iran has long argued that Israeli attacks on Lebanon violate the agreement.

Central to the stalled talks is control of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran and Oman appear to be finalising a “shipping map” as part of a broader agreement on how to govern traffic in the strait. The US is not involved in those talks and is unlikely to agree to terms that don’t restore free passage through the waterway.

Although Iran is in contact with mediators from Qatar and Pakistan, who are passing messages between Tehran and Washington, “this does not constitute negotiation,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday. “We have not yet made a decision to resume negotiations with the US,” he added.

The price of Brent crude rose almost 6 per cent last week as a number of vessels were attacked in and around the Strait, further dashing hopes of a quick resolution to the impasse that’s disrupted the flow of oil and other key commodities to global markets.

US President Donald Trump told Fox News on Friday that the US plans to hit Iran’s economy hard and that he didn’t care if the conflict ends before the November US midterm elections, which will hinge on voter perceptions of the economy. In a speech in Long Island on Friday, Trump said a US blockade of Iranian ports was a “wall of steel” that enabled Washington to effectively govern Hormuz. “Pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” he said.

It’s unclear what additional measures the US could implement without resorting to secondary sanctions. China buys more than 90 per cent of Iranian oil, but sanctioning Beijing would likely spark retaliatory action, risking blowback on the US economy and even more uncertainty on global energy prices.

Iran called on the US to accept defeat while Trump blasted Tehran as “very evil” and told Americans to brace for continued high fuel prices due to ??the war. He said on Friday that paying “a tiny little bit more for your gasoline” is worth the cost of ensuring “a very evil country” could not have a nuclear weapon.

In a trend that has sparked inflation and disappointed voters, the average US price of a gallon of gasoline was about $4.08 on Friday, up 29 per cent from a year earlier, according to the American Automobile Association.

Meanwhile, volatility tied to the US-Iran conflict continues to extend. Citing a military official, Iran’s state-run IRNA reported on Saturday that Doha has for months barred an Iranian delegation from investigating the fate of three pilots who crashed in Qatar earlier in the war. “We categorically deny the claims circulating regarding the detention of Iranian pilots,” the spokesperson for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in a post on X late Saturday. 

Iran’s parliament approved a bill on Sunday that would criminalise interviews and other communications with media deemed hostile to the Islamic Republic, including US or Israeli media and outlets financed by them, Iran’s Shargh newspaper reported. Under the bill, which must still be reviewed by the Guardian Council before it can become law, interviews or participation in discussions with such media would be banned and violations punishable by six months to two ??years in prison.