Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he expected an official response from the United States today to Tehran's requests to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian state media reported it.
The Qatari mediators "presented proposals and we discussed them. They will have to raise the issue again with the American counterpart, after which the final response from the United States will be communicated to us through the Qatari mediator", Araghchi said last night, "the Qataris hope that this will happen by tomorrow".
The Strait of Hormuz is open except for Iranian oil. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this in an interview with Fox, underlining that if Iran had a nuclear weapon it would use it. “Iran is a country with great potential,” it is now “exhausted” by the American blockade, he added. The Iranian economy is in "chaos and rapidly heading towards bankruptcy".
During the night, clashes broke out in the village of Jalud, in the central West Bank, between around 100 settlers and Israeli security forces, who arrived on site to enforce an order from the High Court of Justice requiring the eviction of settlers who had occupied three Palestinian houses on the outskirts of the city in July. President Herzog condemns the violence: "A moral stain".
Israeli President Isaac Herzog condemned the violence of around a hundred extremist Israeli settlers who during the night sparked clashes and set fires to prevent the IDF from allowing a Palestinian family from Jalud, in the West Bank, who had been expelled by a group of anarchist Jews, to return to their home. "The serious violence of the rioters in the dead of night is an extremely serious act that must be addressed with all the rigor of the law. It is a moral stain, a damage to the rule of law and to our most basic values as a people and as a state."
“I strongly deny that Iran has any flexibility” with respect to the nuclear deal, and “at the moment the only issue on the table is the Strait of Hormuz.” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said this, speaking to his country's press in New York. Statements other than these, for the minister, are part of "a propaganda campaign that began a few hours ago in some media that affirmed and attributed statements to Iran".
"I can say with certainty that Iran has not changed its conditions in any way - continued Araghchi - Our conditions for a return to the agreements are clear, our positions on nuclear issues are equally clear. At the moment there is no concession under discussion that could exist. Our position is clear: at the moment the only issue on the table is the Strait of Hormuz, and its reopening is linked to a series of conditions that we have made known to the other side. I invite people not to give weight to these speculations or to the deliberate misinformation that the media is spreading."
Izz al-Din al-Bik, commander of the northern unit of the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, was killed by an airstrike by the Israeli armed forces in Gaza City. Palestinian sources confirmed this to Al Jazeera. Al-Bik died along with another Palestinian in an attack on a residential office in the Al-Nasr neighborhood, the sources said.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, officially announced the elimination of the commander, who "participated in the planning of terrorist attacks against our forces and worked on the recruitment of militants for the organization", reads the statement from Tel Aviv. A third Palestinian has died in hospital after being wounded in the head by Israeli fire in Deir al-Balah, in the center of the Gaza Strip.
Iran's "apocalyptic" clerical leadership is pushing the country towards a "cataclysm" as the Trump administration intensifies economic pressure on Tehran. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News, explaining that "Iran is governed by radical Shiite clerics with an apocalyptic vision of the future. They believe that their religious vocation is to trigger the last days of the world and the apocalypse. Such people will never be able to possess a nuclear weapon, because they will use it to blackmail the world and kill people. It is an unacceptable risk."
Over 100 Israeli rioters participated in violent riots in the Palestinian village of Jalud, near Nablus, and three soldiers were slightly injured in the clashes. Spokesmen for the Israel Defense Forces and the police reported this, adding that the rioters set fire to buildings, set fire to vehicles, blocked roads, burned tires and threw stones at security forces.
A serious fire has broken out along the stretch of a gas pipeline south of the capital of the eastern Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor. Syrian public television reports it. According to the broadcaster, the flames are intense and visible from a considerable distance. At the moment no victims have been reported.
The incident at the airbase in the UK involved a "foreign actor". This was stated by the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who in an interview on Fox News declared on Monday that the alleged plot for a bomb attack near a British air base used by the United States was the work of a "foreign actor".
Two separate Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip have killed at least two Palestinians and injured several other people, health officials in the enclave said. The "Times of Israel" reports it.
