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Middle East crisis live: US fires on two Iranian-flagged oil tankers it claims tried to violate blockade; US to mediate Israel-Lebanon talks | US-Israel war on Iran
US fires on Iranian-flagged oil tankers it claims were trying to violate US blockade
The US Central Command (Centcom) claims it has struck two “unladen” Iranian-flagged oil tankers it said were attempting to violate the US blockade by entering an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman.
“U.S. forces disabled M/T Sea Star III and M/T Sevda, May 8, prior to both vessels entering an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman in violation of the ongoing U.S. blockade,” it said in a statement on social media.
Centcom claimed it had “disabled both tankers after firing precision munitions into their smokestacks”. The statement added that US forces had also disabled a third Iranian-flagged vessel on Wednesday. “All three vessels are no longer transiting to Iran.”
On Thursday Iran accused the US of violating the ceasefire by targeting two ships at the strait of Hormuz and attacking civilian areas. The US insisted it struck in retaliation.
Key events
Trump said Friday that he expects a response from Iran soon as negotiations continue on a potential proposal to end the US-Israel war.
Trump told pool reporters that he expects to hear from Iran “tonight” on a potential deal that could end the fighting.
More details could be forth coming as Trump wraps up his remarks to pool reporters.
US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said that the department is prepared to take financial actions against those providing weapons to Iran’s military, in a statement shared by Reuters.
Bessent’s latest comments came after the US Treasury announced sanctions against 10 individuals and companies, including many based in China and Hong Kong.
“Under President Trump’s decisive leadership, we will continue to act to Keep America Safe and target foreign individuals and companies providing Iran’s military with weapons for use against U.S. forces,” said Bessent.
Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said on Friday that having control over the strait of Hormuz is an asset “on the scale of an atomic bomb”.
“Indeed, having in one’s hands a position that allows you to influence the global economy with a single decision is a major opportunity,” he said.
The US Treasury has announced sanctions against 10 individuals and companies, including several in China and Hong Kong, for aiding efforts by Iran’s military to secure weapons and raw materials used to build Tehran’s Shahed drones.
The Treasury move, first reported by Reuters, comes days before Donald Trump plans to travel to China for a meeting with president Xi Jinping and as efforts to end the war in Iran have stalled.
These sanctions are part of a broader pressure campaign by the US against Iran’s ability to finance, manufacture, and transport military supplies.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told his United Arab Emirates counterpart on Friday that US-Iran talks needed to be supported to prevent a resumption of hostilities in the Middle East.
“The Russian side emphasized the need to focus on supporting the ongoing negotiations between Iran and the USA,” a foreign ministry statement said of Lavrov’s telephone conversation with UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
The statement said Russia did not want “to jeopardize the prospects for stabilization by resuming hostilities.”
Qatar prime minister calls for Iran talks in meeting with Vance
Qatar’s prime minister called for renewed diplomacy on an agreement with Iran as he met with US vice-president JD Vance in Washington earlier.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met with Vance and discussed Pakistani-led efforts to broker a permanent peace amid a shaky ceasefire.
The Qatari prime minister “stressed the need for all parties to engage with the ongoing mediation efforts, to pave the way for addressing the root causes of the crisis through peaceful means and dialogue, leading to a comprehensive agreement that achieves lasting peace in the region,” the Qatari foreign ministry said on X.
US to mediate two days of talks between Israel and Lebanon next week
The United States will facilitate two days of “intensive talks” between Israel and Lebanon on 14-15 May, the US state department has said.
The talks will be aimed at establishing long-term border security, and reaching a “comprehensive”, lasting peace agreement to prevent further conflict, the state department said.
They will also seek to address Hezbollah’s ability to “entrench and enrich themselves”, which has allowed the group to “undermine the authority of the Lebanese state, and endanger Israel’s northern border”.
As we reported earlier, US secretary of state Marco Rubio met the Italian prime minister Giorgia Miloni in Rome on Friday at a moment of unusual strain between Trump and Italy, driven largely by the war against Iran.
Rubio also met with Pope Leo for a meeting he described as “cordial and important” and said he had explained the US position on Iran, in a fence-mending visit to Rome after sharp disagreements over the US-Israel war on Iran and Trump’s criticisms of the pontiff.
Here’s the clip.
US Central Command said in a post on X that its forces have redirected 57 commercial vessels and disabled 4 others to prevent them from entering or leaving Iranian ports.
Two of the disabled ships were oil tankers struck by a US navy jet earlier on Friday, Centcom said in an earlier update.
Israeli strikes kill five people in Lebanon, as Hezbollah fires rockets at northern Israel and Israeli military base
Lebanese authorities reported five people including a rescuer killed in fresh Israeli strikes.
The Lebanese health ministry said in a statement that an Israeli raid on the town of Toura in the southern Tyre district killed four people, including two women, and wounded eight others in a preliminary toll.
Lebanon’s civil defence said earlier that one of its members was killed in an Israeli attack on the south.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has said it launched missiles at a military base in Israel earlier on Friday in response to Israeli attacks that killed a top commander.
In a statement, the Iran-backed militant group said the missiles targeted a base south of the Israeli city of Nahariya “in response to the Israeli enemy’s violation of the ceasefire, the targeting of Beirut’s southern suburbs and the attacks that affected villages and civilians in southern Lebanon”.
Air raid sirens had sounded earlier in several cities in northern Israel, according to the Israeli military, which said it “intercepted one launch, and the additional launches fell in open areas”, adding that no injuries were reported.
Israel has kept up its attacks on Lebanon despite a truce agreed last month, and its strike on the capital’s southern suburbs on Wednesday – its first there in nearly a month – killed a senior Hezbollah commander.
In The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, the award-winning author imagined a plot to kill the PM.
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Plaid Cymru ready to run Wales, leader says, after Labour's historic Senedd election collapse
Plaid Cymru becomes the biggest party in the Welsh Parliament, ending Labour’s century long election winning streak in Wales.
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Well, that was pretty good, but it still didn’t feel like quite enough. So much of Attenborough’s archives are on iPlayer, going all the way back to Zoo Quest, and perhaps the best way to celebrate an occasion like this is to put aside a weekend to immersing yourself in them. He really is the greatest broadcaster we have ever had. That’s all from the liveblog. See you for his 150th birthday, everyone.
The last word goes to Attenborough himself, delivering the lyrics to What a Wonderful World like he’s creeping through the jungle. It’s a clip he recorded 15 years ago, and it’s still absurdly affecting.
And now everyone sings Happy Birthday to David Attenborough, who looks absolutely giddy about it. He gets another standing ovation, one that goes on and on and on. A long, rolling round of applause and surges on and on, and it couldn’t be more deserved.
As the show wraps up, Young announces that Blue Planet III is coming this year. We get a clip of Attenborough narrating some of it with exactly the same care and precision that he always has. This will be good.
Time for the final performance of the night. It’s Sienna Spiro, singing Nature Boy. Because David Attenborough likes nature and was a boy, presumably.
More birthday wishes now, from the Secretary-General of the United Nations and also Cate Blanchett. From the curator of the Natural History Museum to Louis Theroux. And also Camilla Cabello and Alan Titchmarsh and Phoebe Waller Bridge. And Nile Rogers. What a weird mix of people.
It’s a long speech, delivered monotonously like a church service. When it is over, David Attenborough stands up, and he gets a standing ovation just for doing that.
And now here’s the Prince of Wales to deliver a tribute. He gets a standing ovatio too, but it takes a lot longer to happen than Attenborough’s. He begins by promising that he won’t be taking his top off, and then points out that Attenborough was ahead of his time in his environmental warnings.
As they make this wonderful non-Paddington, they tell us what Attenborough means to them, and how he has inspired a love of nature to them. The ‘something beautiful’ turns out to be a number 100 made out of moss and sticks, by the way.
And now, Blue Peter viewers scavenging a beach to make ‘something beautiful’ fir him. They’re not revealing what it is yet, but if it’s Paddington I’m going to flip my television over.
Clips of his extracurricular activities now. He plays the piano! He acts! He advises the royal family! He has inspired several imitators! He flirts with Cameron Diaz something rotten!
And now a bit about Blue Planet II, and how it affected a global crackdown on single-use plastic. This alone would be a tremendous legacy.
When the final marine iguana escapes the snakes, the entire Albert hall erupts in cheers like it’s a World Cup final. Am I suggesting that we replace organised sport with setting animals on each other for entertainment? Apparently I am.
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