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Middle East crisis live: US and Iran in blockade stalemate as Washington’s navy secretary leaves office ‘immediately’ | US-Israel war on Iran

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Interim summary

If you’re just joining us, here’s a recap of the latest developments to bring you up to speed.

  • Iran has seized two ships in the strait of Hormuz a day after Donald Trump announced he was indefinitely calling off US attacks, while there is no sign of peace talks restarting.

  • In a U-turn after threatening to renew bombing, Trump made what appeared to be a unilateral announcement on Tuesday that the US would extend the ceasefire with Tehran until it had discussed an Iranian proposal in peace talks to end the two-month war.

  • Iranian officials did not say they had agreed to any extension of the truce, and criticised Trump’s decision to maintain the US navy blockade of Iranian ports. Lead Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said a full ceasefire only made sense if the blockade was lifted.

  • Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps seized two vessels on Wednesday for what it called maritime violations and escorted them to Iranian shores, according to the shipping companies and Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency – the first time Iran has seized ships since the war began in late February.

  • Trump was “satisfied” with the US naval blockade and “understands Iran is in a very weak position”, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. The US president had not set a deadline on Iran submitting a peace proposal, she said, after Trump on Tuesday said he was indefinitely extending the ceasefire at the request of mediator Pakistan until Tehran responded to the US’s negotiating positions or until talks were concluded “one way or the other”.

  • The Pentagon announced that the US secretary of the navy, John Phelan, would depart the office “effective immediately”, without providing an explanation for his sudden exit amid the naval blockade.

  • The US-Israeli war against Iran is “starting to weaken Europe”, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has told his German counterpart. Erdoğan said: “If we do not address this situation with an approach that prioritises peace, the damage caused by the conflict will be far greater.”

  • Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed a Lebanese journalist, Amal Khalil, and wounded a photographer accompanying her, a senior Lebanese military official and Khalil’s employer said. The death of Khalil, 43, brought the death toll to five people on Wednesday – the deadliest day since a 10-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah was announced on 16 April. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on Khalil’s death.

  • Khalil and freelance photographer Zeinab Faraj were covering developments near the town of al-Tayri when an Israeli strike hit the vehicle in front of them, Reuters reported. They ran into a nearby house that was then also targeted by an Israeli strike, said Lebanon’s health ministry. Lebanese prime minister Nawaf Salam said Israeli targeting of journalists and obstructing relief effort constituted war crimes.

  • Oil prices leapt 4% on Thursday after Iran vowed not to reopen the Hormuz strait amid the US naval blockade despite the truce extension. Around 0025 GMT, the benchmark US oil contract West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose 4.06% to $96.73 a barrel, while the international oil benchmark Brent North Sea crude climbed 3.62% to $105.63. Both eased back minutes after.

  • Two Palestinians, including a 14-year-old schoolboy, were killed in the occupied West Bank after Israeli settlers opened fire near a school amid mounting assaults on education in the territory, witnesses and local officials have said.

  • United Airlines implemented broad-based rises of 15-20% on fares as it sought to offset the surge in petrol prices while protecting profits, executives said. The big US carrier has also cut its 2026 flying capacity by 5%.

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EU needs playbook on helping members under attack, says Cypriot president

EU leaders meeting in Cyprus on Thursday need to start preparing a playbook on what should happen if a member country facing attack puts out a call for help from bloc partners, the president of Cyprus said.

Nikos Christodoulides said EU leaders would discuss “giving substance” to article 42.7 of the bloc’s treaties, which oblige all 27 member states to assist each other in such times of crisis.

“We have article 42.7 and we don’t know what is going to happen if a member state triggers this article,” he told the Associated Press ahead of an EU-Middle East summit he is hosting later this week which is expected to focus on the Iran war and its fallout.

The issue resonates particularly with Christodoulides, who appealed for help from fellow EU countries last month when a Shahed drone struck the British air base RAF Akrotiri in southern Cyprus early in the Middle East war. Cypriot officials said the drone was launched from Lebanon.

Greece, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal dispatched ships with anti-drone capabilities to help defend the island.

UK defence secretary John Healey talks to a pilot at RAF Akrotiri on 5 March after the airbase was targeted by Iranian drones. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Christodoulides said he was pleased to see that fellow EU leaders now “understand the importance” of bringing the bloc closer to the Middle East with such initiatives as the Mediterranean Pact that implements specific projects on a range of issues including health, education and energy in Middle Eastern countries.

Attending the informal EU leaders’ summit later this week will be the leaders of Egypt, Lebanon Syria and Jordan, affording the opportunity “not just to exchange ideas but to see in action how we elevate our cooperation in a strategic level”, Christodoulides said.

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Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv hails frontline position as ‘strongest in a year’ | Ukraine

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  • Ukraine’s frontline position is “the strongest” it has been in a year due to superiority in drones and enhanced air defence, said Andriy Sybiha, the foreign minister. Agence France-Presse said its analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed Russian troops made almost no territorial gains across the frontline in March – the first time this had occurred in two and a half years.

  • “We have minimised the Russians’ advantage in manpower through the use of drones,” Sybiha added. “For us, the situation on the battlefield is about strengthening our negotiating position. We can shoot down up to 90% of the targets that strike our cities … [Ukraine’s] position on the battlefield is indeed the strongest, or the most solid, it has been over the past year.”

  • Turkey is trying to revive negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and bring together their leaders at the request of Kyiv, the office of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said on Wednesday. Erdogan told the Nato head, Mark Rutte in a meeting in Ankara that “we are working to revive negotiations and start talks at leaders’ level”.

  • Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister, confirmed Ukraine is pushing for the face-to-face talks between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin. While Turkey was asked to facilitate, Ukraine would consider any venue outside Russia and Belarus. “We are … advocating for a meeting now to bring new momentum to diplomacy,” Sybiha said.

  • Russian news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Putin would only meet Zelenskyy “for the purpose of finalising agreements”. The Kremlin instead appealed for the US to again send Donald Trump’s delegates Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Moscow. The pair have repeatedly listened to Putin’s maximalist demands, to which Witkoff has appeared pliant, and produced no outcomes while declining to visit Kyiv and hear Ukraine’s side. Peskov said Russia was ready for any new talks on a settlement to the war with US negotiators “even tomorrow”.

  • A woman and child were killed in the Russian oil refining city of Syzran, about 1,000km (621 miles) from the border with Ukraine, after a Ukrainian drone hit their apartment building, the regional governor said on Wednesday. Russian media reports said a Rosneft oil refinery is located on the same street as the damaged building.

  • Russian drones attacked infrastructure in the Black Sea port of Odesa damaging berths, warehouses, railway infrastructure, port operators’ facilities and a ship, Ukraine’s deputy PM Oleksiy Kuleba said on Wednesday. Preliminary reports said no one was hurt and the port was still operating.

  • Kuleba said a Russian drone attack at a sorting yard at the Zaporizhzhia-Live station in the southern Zaporizhzhia region killed an assistant train driver while the driver was hospitalised.



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    Fairway or driveway? The furious debate over building houses on golf courses

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    “Very cross… very sad,” is how David sums up his feelings. For him, the club (where monthly fees for a full seven day membership were around £130), was “very much a community-based” place, and its closure has left many locals having “lost a friendship group”. A former county planner in Oxfordshire, he argues: “Planning and health are inextricably linked. People need to exercise, they need to have somewhere to walk, go, play, commune. Mental health and physical health are exceedingly undervalued at the moment by planning.”





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