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Middle East crisis live: Trump warns ‘clock is ticking’ for Iran to reach peace deal | US-Israel war on Iran
Trump warns ‘clock is ticking for Iran’ to reach peace deal
We are restarting our coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran and Israel’s war on Lebanon. Donald Trump has issued an extreme warning to Iran to quickly agree to a peace deal with the US or face devastation.
As Washington struggles to break an impasse on ending the war, the US president said on his Truth Social platform on Sunday: “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”
Trump is expected to meet top national security advisers on Tuesday to discuss options for military action on Iran, according to a report in the US outlet Axios.
It came as a drone strike in the United Arab Emirates caused a fire at a nuclear power plant – which the country called a “dangerous escalation” and blamed on Iran or its proxies – and Saudi Arabia reported intercepting three drones.
Tehran has demanded a lasting ceasefire in Lebanon before any broader peace deal with Washington.
Israel’s airstrikes killed seven people in Lebanon on Sunday, including an Islamic Jihad commander, Lebanese authorities and state media said, despite the fragile ceasefire as Hezbollah called US-brokered talks between the two countries a “dead end”.
In other key developments:
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Iranian media said the US had failed to make any concrete concessions in its latest response to Iran’s proposed agenda for negotiations to end the war. The Fars news agency said on Sunday that Washington had presented a five-point list that included a demand for Iran to keep only one nuclear site in operation and transfer its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to the US.
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Islamic Jihad commander Wael Abdel Halim and his 17-year-old daughter were killed in an Israeli missile strike on an apartment in eastern Lebanon on Sunday, Lebanese state media said. Israeli strikes on towns in southern Lebanon earlier killed five people, including two children, and left at least 15 people injured, the Lebanese health ministry said, despite Israel and Lebanon agreeing to extend their ceasefire by 45 days.
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Hezbollah had fired about 200 projectiles at Israel and its troops over the weekend, an Israeli military official said on Sunday.
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Israel’s cabinet approved a plan to build a defence compound on the site of the recently demolished premises of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) in East Jerusalem. Israel seized the site last year in an act the agency condemned as a violation of international law.
Key events
The Israeli military has ordered residents of three towns and villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate immediately by a “distance of no less than 1000 meters to open areas” in advance of attacks against the locations.
The affected towns and villages are: Harouf, Burj Al-Shamali and Dibal, according to a social media post by the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, who claimed the attacks are being launched due to Hezbollah, the Iranian backed Lebanese militant group, violating the US-mediated ceasefire agreement Israel signed with the Lebanese state in mid April.
International law experts say Israel’s warnings are inconsistent and often overly broad and open-ended. Sometimes there is no warning at all before the airstrikes. More than one million people have already been displaced by the renewed Israeli war on Lebanon which started when Hezbollah launched missiles at Israel on 2 March after the US-Israeli bombing of Iran in late February.
In its latest update, the Lebanese health ministry said since 2 March Israeli attacks have killed at least 2,988 people, including many women and children.
Friedrich Merz has been embroiled in a row with Donald Trump over his war on Iran ever since the German chancellor suggested the Trump team was being outplayed in its negotiations with Tehran and said he would not advise his children to study or work in the US in the current climate.
The Guardian’s Berlin correspondent, Deborah Cole, has looked at the declining relationship between the two leaders in this story. Here is an extract:
Disputes over trade and military aid for Ukraine have fuelled tensions between the US and its European allies and tested the Nato alliance.
Merz is struggling to revive an anaemic German economy and has said the impact of the US-Israeli military action in Iran and the ensuing closure of the strait of Hormuz has been severely damaging to European interests.
Late last month he stunned listeners in Germany as well as the US with blunt comments stating that the Americans were being “humiliated” by Iran’s leadership in the current conflict, angering Trump.
Days later, Washington announced a partial troop withdrawal from Germany, where it has about 36,000 military service members, and tariff hikes on cars imported from the EU, a sector crucial to the German economy.
Merz, whose popularity ratings are plumbing record depths in German polls, has since then said he was “not giving up on working on the transatlantic relationship”, while declining opportunities to retract his criticism of Trump.
German chancellor Friedrich Merz has posted the following statement on his X account:
We strongly condemn the renewed Iranian airstrikes against the United Arab Emirates and other partners. Attacks on nuclear facilities pose a threat to the safety of people throughout the entire region. There must be no further escalation of violence.
Iran must enter into serious negotiations with the USA, stop threatening its neighbours, and open the strait of Hormuz without restrictions.
Merz’s comments come after a drone strike caused a fire on the edge of the UAE’s only nuclear power plant on Sunday in what authorities called an “unprovoked terrorist attack” (see post at 08.48 more details).
Iran announces new body to manage strait of Hormuz
Iran’s top security body has announced the formation of a new body to manage the strait of Hormuz, which Tehran has effectively closed to countries it deems hostile to it – and wants to charge ships to traverse.
On its official X account, the Supreme national security council shared a post for the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) saying it would provide “real‑time updates on the Hormuz Strait operations and latest developments”.
Gaza’s health ministry said in its latest update that at least six people were killed and 40 others injured in Israeli attacks across the territory over the past day.
The health ministry says 877 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire in October 2025.
It says that 72,769 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since October 2023, when Isreal launched its assault on the territory following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed.
Israel has widely been accused of committing genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza, including by human rights groups. Amnesty International has said Israel is still committing genocide in Gaza during the ceasefire by continuing to target Gaza’s now mostly destroyed civilian infrastructure and restrict access to medical supplies and humanitarian relief. Israel denies the charge of genocide.
The October 2025 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas explicitly required the immediate resumption of humanitarian aid. Over half a year into the ceasefire, the amount of aid being let into Gaza is still wholly inadequate to meet the needs of the population, despite a small increase from before the agreement.
“Israel’s intermittent closure of crossings, restrictions on the flow of humanitarian aid, and continued ban on the entry of essential supplies have produced chronic shortages of food, medicine, and basic goods across Gaza,” a recent reliefweb report noted.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has accused Israel of manufacturing a malnutrition crisis in Gaza. “The malnutrition crisis is entirely manufactured,” Mercè Rocaspana, MSF medical adviser for emergencies, said.
“Before the war, malnutrition in Gaza was almost nonexistent. For two and a half years, the systematic blockade to humanitarian aid and commercial goods, on top of insecurity, have severely restricted access to food and clean water. Healthcare facilities have been forced out of service and living conditions have profoundly deteriorated. As a result, vulnerable groups of people are placed at heightened risk of malnutrition.”
Israel has repeatedly claimed that Hamas has systematically diverted aid supplies for military or political purposes and infiltrated aid organisations but has provided limited evidence to support the allegations.
Israeli forces were intercepting a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on Monday after it set sail from Turkey last week.
“Military vessels are currently intercepting our fleet and IDF forces are currently boarding the first of our boats in broad daylight,” the Global Sumud Flotilla posted on X.
“We demand safe passage for our legal, non-violent humanitarian mission. Governments must act now to stop these illegal acts or piracy meant to maintain Israel’s genocidal siege on Gaza. Normalisation of the occupation’s violence is a threat to us all.”
About 50 ships had departed from southwestern Turkey on Thursday as part of the flotilla that set off for Gaza to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza and attempt to reach the territory – devastated by relentless Israeli attacks – with humanitarian aid. On Monday, Israel had vowed to block the vessels.
“Israel will not allow any breach of the lawful naval blockade on Gaza,” the foreign ministry posted on X. “Israel calls on all participants in this provocation to change course and turn back immediately.”
Israel and Egypt have imposed varying degrees of a blockade on Gaza since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Israel claims the blockade is needed to prevent Hamas from importing arms, but many say it amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s Palestinian population.
Revised Iranian proposal to end war shared with US – report
The Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei also confirmed in the news conference that Tehran had responded to a new US proposal aimed at ending the war.
“As we announced yesterday, our concerns were conveyed to the American side,” he told journalists.
Baghaei said exchanges were “continuing through the Pakistani mediator”, without providing details.
Citing a source, the Reuters news agency reported this morning that Pakistan had shared a revised peace proposal from Iran with the US.
“We don’t have much time,” the source told Reuters when asked if it would take time to close gaps, adding that both countries “keep changing their goalposts”.
It is not immediately clear what is in the revised proposal but Iran’s previous demands have reportedly included compensation for war damage, an end to Israel’s war on Lebanon and the US’s blockade of Iranian ports, guarantees of no further attacks on Iran and a recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the strait of Hormuz, something the US has rejected.
Washington is reportedly losing patience with Iran’s negotiators and is weighing up a resumption of military operations if Tehran does not make the sort of concessions on its nuclear programme it wants.
The Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei has been speaking at a news conference.
He told reporters that Iranian and Omani technical teams have met in Oman to negotiate a mechanism for safe transit in the strait of Hormuz, a strategic stretch of water located between Iran, the UAE and Oman at the heart of the impasse in the peace talks, Al Jazeera is reporting.
About a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas usually passes through the strait. But Iran closed the shipping route to so-called “hostile” countries in response to being attacked by Israel and the US on 28 February, causing global energy prices to surge and raising bills for consumers around the world.
Iran effectively closed the strait by attacking – or just threatening to attack – some ships and told others not affiliated with the US or Israel that they could pass through the waterway if they paid a toll.
Donald Trump imposed a counter-blockade of ships using Iranian ports on 13 April to try to pressure Tehran into accepting concessions to bring an end to the war – but this failed. The US has said repeatedly there can be no permanent solution to the blockade that involves the payment of a toll to Iran, and claims that Oman holds a similar view.
Oman’s foreign ministry has condemned the drone strike that caused a fire at the perimeter of UAE’s Barakah nuclear power plant on Sunday.
In a statement shared to X, the ministry expressed its solidarity with the UAE but stressed that it rejected all “hostile and escalatory acts” as it urged for dialogue to address regional issues and called for international law to be respected by all parties.
The UAE did not say who launched the attack and there was no immediate claim of responsibility. No injuries were reported and officials said there was no impact on radiological safety levels.
Trump warns ‘clock is ticking for Iran’ to reach peace deal
We are restarting our coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran and Israel’s war on Lebanon. Donald Trump has issued an extreme warning to Iran to quickly agree to a peace deal with the US or face devastation.
As Washington struggles to break an impasse on ending the war, the US president said on his Truth Social platform on Sunday: “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”
Trump is expected to meet top national security advisers on Tuesday to discuss options for military action on Iran, according to a report in the US outlet Axios.
It came as a drone strike in the United Arab Emirates caused a fire at a nuclear power plant – which the country called a “dangerous escalation” and blamed on Iran or its proxies – and Saudi Arabia reported intercepting three drones.
Tehran has demanded a lasting ceasefire in Lebanon before any broader peace deal with Washington.
Israel’s airstrikes killed seven people in Lebanon on Sunday, including an Islamic Jihad commander, Lebanese authorities and state media said, despite the fragile ceasefire as Hezbollah called US-brokered talks between the two countries a “dead end”.
In other key developments:
-
Iranian media said the US had failed to make any concrete concessions in its latest response to Iran’s proposed agenda for negotiations to end the war. The Fars news agency said on Sunday that Washington had presented a five-point list that included a demand for Iran to keep only one nuclear site in operation and transfer its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to the US.
-
Islamic Jihad commander Wael Abdel Halim and his 17-year-old daughter were killed in an Israeli missile strike on an apartment in eastern Lebanon on Sunday, Lebanese state media said. Israeli strikes on towns in southern Lebanon earlier killed five people, including two children, and left at least 15 people injured, the Lebanese health ministry said, despite Israel and Lebanon agreeing to extend their ceasefire by 45 days.
-
Hezbollah had fired about 200 projectiles at Israel and its troops over the weekend, an Israeli military official said on Sunday.
-
Israel’s cabinet approved a plan to build a defence compound on the site of the recently demolished premises of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) in East Jerusalem. Israel seized the site last year in an act the agency condemned as a violation of international law.
The family of Shaun Burton, say they are “devastated” by the loss.
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Key events
In the opening half an hour against Cape Verde, Mikel Oyarzabal, the centre-forward, did not get a single touch.
Kyle Green gets in touch: “Your highlighting of Lalas and his absurdity is something that has prevented me from wanting to watch the coverage on Fox. While every channel has its pros and cons I just can’t.
“I’m 45 and probably the youngest of anyone who remembers him as a player instead of an opinionated insert insult here. As for the match this could be more competitive than it looks on paper Spain need a win the pressure is on them. Saudi Arabia could hold out for a draw and see what happens in their last match. “
News from the England camp, and it seems to be good news on Declan Rice.
“I’m ready and fit, raring to go. I was feeling a little bit of neural pain in my hamstring, which I was managing from after Christmas with Arsenal for a very long time. Obviously, not a lot of people would have known that. It was all behind-the-scenes stuff but it was a smart decision.
“In the end, that last 20 minutes is probably where you pick up the most, and it’s where you play a 70-minute match. But that last 20 is where you really feel your body going for it. And I think it was a smart decision because the last few days I felt really, really good.”
Alex Reid has penned today’s weekend special Football Daily.
Portugal v Uzbekistan on Tuesday enticingly pits the incredibly nice, incredibly 41-year-old-superstar-tolerant Roberto Martínez against Fabio Cannavaro, who’s won a Ballon d’Or as a player and the Chinese Super League as a coach. While the fixture following that game really does see the dream of Thomas Tuchel – in his first international job with England – taking on Queiroz, who is in charge of his ninth national side with Ghana.
The expected formations are 4-2-3-1 for Spain, and 5-3-2 for the Saudi Arabians.
The Saudi team features two Donis changes: Ali Lajami, a defender, and Nasser Al Dawsari, a midfielder, are preferred to Mohammed Abu Al Shamat and Mohamed Kanno. You may recall Salem Al Dawsari, the Saudi captain, as the man who scored the winner against Argentina.
An entertaining read, even for those of us who have just seen the clips.
In a conversation where his co-panelist is casually reminiscing about his days playing alongside Messi or exchanging shirts with Ronaldo Nazário at the World Cup, what exactly is Lalas going to talk about – coming on as a second-half substitute for Earnie Stewart in a friendly against Scotland in 1998? Helping the Kansas City Wizards finish last in the 1999 MLS Western Conference? Did Lalas enjoy an elite playing career? No. But does he do the background reading that could compensate for his relative lack of standing in a conversation with titans like Henry and Zlatan? Also no. But is he charming or funny or charismatic or otherwise magnetic on screen? Eh, no.
For the record, I once interviewed Alexi Lalas on the challenge of playing against Romario in the 1994 World Cup. He had this to say:
“He could kill you in so many different ways. If you remember from that World Cup, he scored so many types of goals. That ranged from solo adventures to an outside-of-the-right-foot half-volley off a corner kick. Romario was both the most difficult to play against and the best that I have faced.
“Roberto Baggio was doing his thing, but in terms of consistency and living up to the hype, he [Romario] was the best. As with all stars, there was a moment when the fans sit up in their seats, and that was a feeling I got with Romario. When it got close to him and the potential for his involvement in a play was there, everybody sat up in their seat. They knew that something spectacular would be happening.”
Saturday’s match reports here.
The Saudi Arabia coach, and Blackburn legend, Georgios Donis, spoke about the challenges facing his team: “Spain is not the same team when Yamal or Williams are on the bench.
“While they still have plenty of possession, they lack the individual one-on-one penetration when these two are missing. I’m not saying it’s a problem for Spain, but when those players are missing, they play in a different way. We saw this very clearly against Cape Verde.
“We are playing against one of the best teams in the world, and it’s very important that when you play against these kinds of teams, you should enjoy the experience and respect the opponent, but not too much.
“It is very hard for any team playing against Spain to have any time in possession. So what we must do is to be more in control of our movement and compact, and when the ball goes through the lines, be able to defend dynamically.
“It’s nice to see miracles in football, and we’ve seen favourites losing against underdogs. Of course, it’s great for Saudi football to have a great memory of the result against Argentina, but we aren’t drawing anything from that.
“I think we’ll feel more pressure in that [Cape Verde] game than we will against Spain.”
The Spain coach, Luis De La Fuente had this to say in his Saturday press conference: “This generation of footballers is highly competitive and really fired up… It’s going to be a completely different story,” he said at his pre-match press conference on Saturday. There is no drama or crisis. The bottom line is simply that we need to win tomorrow.”
Four changes for Spain: Lamine Yamal, Pedro Porro, Dani Olmo and Alex Baena also come into the side with Marcos Llorente, Fabian Ruiz, Ferran Torres and Gavi dropping out.
The teams – Lamine Yamal starts
Spain: Simon, Porro, Cubarsi, Laporte, Cucurella, Gonzalez, Rodri, Yamal, Olmo, Baena, Oyarzabal. Subs: Raya, Joan Garcia, Pubill, Grimaldo, Eric Garcia, Llorente, Merino, Torres, Fabian, Gavi, Pino, Williams, Zubimendi, Munoz, Iglesias.
Saudi Arabia: Al Owais, Abdulhamid, Tambakti, Lajami, Al Amri, Al Harbi, Nasser Al Dawsari, Al Khaibari, Al Juwayr, Al Buraikan, Salem Al Dawsari. Subs: Al Aqidi, Al Kassar, Majrashi, Yahya, Al Shehri, Al Boushal, Kadesh, Al Johani, Al Ghannam, Al Hajji, Al Hamdan, Mandash, Kanno, Thakri, Abu Al Shamat.
Referee: Raphael Claus (Brazil)
Perhaps one of the Saudi -players can write themselves into this high-grade selection?
Perhaps it can be their goalkeeper.
Madrid screening of Spain v Saudi Arabia cancelled due to heat
The public screening of Spain’s World Cup match against Saudi Arabia in Madrid on Sunday has been cancelled because of extreme heat forecast for the Spanish capital, officials said.
The match, due to kick off at 6pm local time on Sunday, had been scheduled to be shown on a giant screen installed by the Spanish football federation (RFEF) at a fan zone in Plaza de Colón in central Madrid.
Madrid city council and the federation decided to cancel the screening after national weather agency AEMET issued an orange heat warning – the second-highest level – for the Madrid region, with temperatures forecast to reach 40C.
“The decision has been taken with the aim of protecting the health of attendees, event staff and support services involved in the event,” Madrid city hall said in a statement, apologising for any inconvenience.
Officials urged supporters to watch the match indoors in air-conditioned spaces and avoid prolonged exposure to the heat.
Large parts of Spain are experiencing unusually high temperatures for June as a mass of hot air from North Africa moves across the Iberian Peninsula.
A total of 13 of Spain’s 17 regions are on orange alert for heat on Sunday, while the northern Basque Country bordering France is on red alert, the highest level.
Authorities advised residents and visitors to take precautions during the heatwave, including drinking water regularly, staying in cool environments, limiting outdoor physical activity during the hottest hours of the day and taking extra care of vulnerable people. AFP
Can Saudi Arabia repeat the magic of 2022?
Argentina arrived in Qatar on a 36-game unbeaten run. When Lionel Messi opened the scoring from the penalty spot after 10 minutes, a comfortable afternoon seemed in the offing. Saleh al-Shehri and Salem al-Dawsari had other ideas, Argentina had three goals disallowed for offside in the space of 13 minutes and the greatest comeback in Saudi Arabia football history was made. Argentina went on to lift the trophy, while defeats to Poland and Mexico meant the Saudis did not reach the knock-out stage.
Unai Simon over David Raya is a controversial choice for De la Fuentes. The Arsenal keeper could lay claim to being Europe’s best this season.
“Those at the Champions League final had a few more days, so I got there on the Wednesday night,” Raya says. “I arrived a bit before Fabián [Ruiz]. I was saying hello to some of the others in reception when he arrived. I went to say congratulations; that was almost the first thing I did. I couldn’t really talk [to him] after the final; I just didn’t have it in me. The next day we talked about the game properly. Just two mates chatting … I was happy for him that he could lift the trophy for a second time.”
A high pressure game for the European champions, as Sid Lowe reports.
“If we had scored one, the game would have changed,” Martín Zubimendi said. Immediately after the game, De la Fuente had offered a simple analysis: when the ball doesn’t want to go in it doesn’t want to go in, he insisted. Spain had racked up 27 shots, after all. Ferran Torres had hit the bar and seen another clear opportunity saved. Vozinha, the 40-year-old goalkeeper who stopped that, saved six more and was named the man of the match. “There’s nothing to reproach the team for,” Rodri said. “We generated chances but couldn’t put it away; the good thing is they created almost nothing.”
We wait to see what role Lamine Yamal will play today. His coach would surely like to be able to use him.
The worst mistake we could make would be to compare him to anyone. He is the midst of a process. He has exceptional footballing maturity and lives it all with total naturalness. He has great serenity and strength. We have to let him follow his path but those players who have something different are ready for that. They’re geniuses, like Dalí [who] can paint a picture, or Michelangelo. They’re different. What is exceptional to us, isn’t to them. In those extremes, they feel comfortable. Why? Because they are different. What we think is exceptional, they consider normal.
Preamble
Spain’s campaign did not get off to a flying start, and Luis de la Fuentes may wake up in the night to visions of Cape Verde’s Vozinha. He will have Georgia on his mind ever since Monday. Saudi Arabia are no pushovers and gave Uruguay a scare in their opening match. Memories of downing Argentina four years ago still abound, and so Spain might beware. They can ill afford to go into the final game with Uruguay at a disadvantage. All eyes on Lamine Yamal, whose fitness situation remains opaque, though Spain need their other forwards to come to the party.
Kick-off 5pm UK, 1pm ET, 2am AEST. Join me.
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