An American intervention in the Bab el Mandeb Strait would be considered a "red line" by the Houthis. The military advisor of the Yemeni group, Abed Mohammed al-Thawr, told AFP. If the United States "dared to support Saudi Arabia with raids or air support, we would consider all American interests in the region as targets," added al-Thawr, an advisor to the defense minister of the self-proclaimed Houthi government.
Trump's Board of Peace will present today, during a meeting of member states, a plan for the initial reconstruction of Gaza worth $2.45 billion and lasting six months. Barak Ravid writes it on Axios and the Israeli channel N12. The proposal, which includes 66 projects, is one of the most comprehensive roadmaps yet for the reconstruction of post-conflict Gaza. According to a copy of the plan from News 12, the document includes projected spending on temporary housing, rubble removal, hospital rehabilitation, economic recovery and the deployment of a multinational security force.
On the Iranian nuclear issue, Egypt believes that we must "continue to support efforts aimed at containing the escalation, favoring political and diplomatic solutions". Egyptian Minister Badr Abdelatty said this during a conversation with IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, now also a candidate for the UN summit. In this regard, Abdelatty called for "the strengthening of the role of the United Nations in supporting efforts for the peaceful resolution of conflicts and to intensify international commitment to de-escalation and crisis management". Speaking on the sidelines of the high-level session of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York, the Egyptian minister and Grossi expressed satisfaction with the close coordination between Egypt and the IAEA, underlining how "this partnership demonstrates a common commitment to support the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and the strengthening of the nuclear non-proliferation regime". There was also talk of the seventh session of the United Nations Conference on the creation of a zone free from nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, scheduled in New York for next November, an event which - it was said - "will support efforts aimed at guaranteeing the universality of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in the Middle East and at subjecting all nuclear installations and activities in the region to the system of generalized guarantees of the International Atomic Energy Agency".
Iran is in contact with the United States through Qatar and has reiterated its requests to Washington for an end to the war. "The confrontation with the United States took place through a Qatari mediator," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said, as reported by Tehran public television. "Iran's conditions were conveyed, including: the end of the war on all fronts, the cessation of US aggression, the cessation of the maritime blockade and economic warfare, as well as the release and return of frozen Iranian assets," he said. Iran therefore rejected suspicions of having abandoned the previous conditions for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz during yesterday's surprise talks in New York between Tehran's Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, and Donald Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, mediated by Qatar. Trump had been positive about the talks and suggested that new meetings could be set up soon. Iran has set seven conditions to return to negotiations and yesterday assured that, if met, the Strait of Hormuz could be reopened within seven days. The United States and Gulf states are likely to be forced to accept ships entering the strait along a corridor under Iranian control.
Major Iranian airlines were forced to cancel international flights today, on the first day of new US sanctions coming into force, the impact of which remains difficult to assess. But not all the planes remained on the ground. A plane from Mahan Air, one of the two main Iranian companies operating international connections, landed around 8.40 GMT in China. In fact, yesterday Beijing rejected the United States' threats to impose sanctions on anyone maintaining relations with the Iranian aviation sector, defining these measures as "unilateral and illegal".
With these new, unprecedented sanctions, the United States intends to further increase economic pressure on Tehran. In early September, Washington blacklisted Iran's entire aviation sector, aiming to cripple Iranian airlines "around the world." The sanctions have already produced some effects. Yesterday Mahan Air announced the suspension of all its flights to neighboring Turkey, at the request of the Turkish authorities. And today a major travel agency in Tehran told AFP that flights to Baghdad (Iraq), Muscat (Oman), Qatar, Georgia and Azerbaijan were suspended and that no tickets were being sold. "The situation is unstable and at the moment we are no longer selling tickets for fear of cancellations", a travel agent told AFP.
Iran has a total of 27 airlines, but most operate exclusively domestic flights. The two main ones, the national airline Iran Air and the private Mahan Air, normally carry out the majority of connections abroad, mainly to neighboring countries, but also to Russia and China. Iran Air stated in a statement released before the sanctions came into force that it had not received any official instructions from Turkey, Azerbaijan or Iraq prohibiting it from serving these countries neighboring Iran.
At the time of launching the war against Iran, the situation in the Strait of Hormuz "was probably underestimated, and today we must resolve the issue". Thus Emmanuel Macron, in an interview granted to Abcnews while the French president is in New York for the UN General Assembly, reiterates how his "main objective" of last Monday's meeting with Donald Trump was to "find the right agreement" to reopen the most important global energy hub, the closure of which is causing a surge in fuel prices throughout the world.
Macron underlined that when the war broke out last February, "the Iranian regime discovered that it had this card in its hand", namely the closure of Hormuz. And when asked if this was something that Donald Trump had not considered, he replied: "I'm not here to give responsibility to anyone, we are in the situation we are in. And I think that the USA, his country, is the one that can resolve the crisis, and we need you".
Regarding the possibility that France could participate in military action to reopen the Strait, the resident of the Elysée replied: "I don't want to start a military confrontation with any country, but we are ready to be more involved to protect some capabilities to make the transit possible, yes." He then defended his decision not to participate in the conflict with Iran: "having a regime change with bombs is not something that I think is feasible, for me it is not a good option, because it doesn't work. And we have made this mistake many times in the past decades." And he then concluded with a lunge at Trump and his criticism for the lack of help from allies with Iran: "but when you want to dialogue with people you have to strategise with them and ask before starting the war".
France's position towards Iran, particularly that relating to US and Israeli military aggression, "is unacceptable". Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said this in a statement published on Telegram, after the conversation he had with his French counterpart, Jean-Noel Barrot, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Araghchi criticized France's "interventionist" positions towards Iran and urged the French embassy to respect national laws and regulations.
Referring to what he called France's "double standards" on human rights, Araghchi said Paris cannot profess concern for human rights while remaining silent about "crimes against humanity" committed by the United States and Israel against the Iranian people. Previously, President Macron told US media that he did not want to "enter into conflict with any country, but we are ready for greater commitment to protect transit in the Strait of Hormuz".
The Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, condemned Israel's rejection of the roadmap to complete the implementation of the plan aimed at ending the conflict in the Gaza Strip. He said this during a closed-door meeting between heads of state and government convened in New York, on the sidelines of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, by French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Al Jazeera reports it. According to Qatar's Foreign Ministry, Al Thani stressed the need for the international community to "fulfill its responsibilities" and put pressure on Israel to respect its obligations under the Gaza ceasefire agreement and end violations of Palestinian rights. The objective, he added, is to complete the roadmap and achieve peace and stability in the Strip. The Qatari prime minister also reiterated Doha's support for the Palestinian cause and the right of Palestinians to an independent state within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on the basis of international resolutions and the two-state solution.
