US-Iran war as it happened: Australia will help; Ships attacked as Strait of Hormuz closed again; Iran reviews new US proposals

Thank you for joining today’s live coverage of the war in the Middle East. This is where we will end our coverage.

Here’s a recap of what we covered today:

• US President Donald Trump said Iran “can’t blackmail us” over the Strait of Hormuz after Iran closed the waterway again in retaliation for the US blockade on Iranian ports.
• Two gunboats from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard opened fire on a tanker attempting to cross the strait on Saturday, and a container ship was damaged after being hit by an unknown projectile.
• Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said in a statement that Pakistan’s army chief, serving as an intermediary, had presented new US proposals to Iran when he recently visited Tehran, and they were still under review.
• One French soldier was killed, and three others wounded, after a UN peacekeeping force came under attack in southern Lebanon on Saturday. French President Emmanuel Macron said the evidence suggested Hezbollah was responsible, but the terrorist group has denied links. Two Israeli solders also died, according to the Israel Defence Forces.

Join us again tomorrow morning for more rolling coverage across the day.

The United States and Israel launched their war against Iran on the argument that if Iran one day got a nuclear weapon, it would have the ultimate deterrent against future attacks.

It turns out that Iran already has a deterrent: its geography.

Iran’s decision to flex its control over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic choke point through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil supply flows, has brought global economic pain in the form of higher prices for petrol, fertiliser and other staples.

It has upended war planning in the US and Israel, where officials have had to devise military options to wrest the strait from Iranian control.

You can read the full analysis here.

Two Israeli soldiers have died during combat, according to their national military, as a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon continues to hold.

Barak Kalfon, 48, and 31-year-old Lidor Porat both died in southern Lebanon, according to press releases from the Israel Defence Forces published earlier on Sunday (AEDT).

The two deaths come after the leaders of Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 10-day ceasefire late last week.

Since the announcement, thousands of Lebanese people have been trying to return to their homes in the south of the country, The New York Times reported.

Iran broadcast to ships in the Strait of Hormuz that the vital oil and gas channel is once again closed to maritime traffic, with owners reporting gunfire in the waterway and ships abandoning efforts to transit after a brief spell when it appeared it might reopen.

The radio transmission, heard by two owners with vessels in the area, came around the time as state-run news agency Nour reported that the strait had gone back to “strict management and control by the armed forces”.

The decision to close it again was because of a separate blockade that the US had been imposing on Iran’s shipping since Monday, Nour said.

The fresh closure was the culmination of hours of chaos and confusion that resulted in some ships racing to get out, only to U-turn. One supertanker had issued a radio broadcast that it was coming under gunfire, the two shipowners said, asking not to be identified because of the security situation.

A UK naval group also warned that a tanker had been approached by two Iranian gun boats and fired on without warning. It subsequently reported another ship had been hit by an unknown projectile.

Bloomberg

Australia is calling on Iran and the United States to intensify efforts to negotiate an end to their war after the Iranian regime again closed the Strait of Hormuz and began firing at ships, just a day after reopening the critical waterway.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps announced on Sunday that it would prevent ships passing through the strait while a US blockade on Iranian ports remains in place, a move Iran says violates the terms of a ceasefire agreement.

As the regime claimed victory in the war, Iranian state media confirmed reports that two Indian ships came under fire and had to turn around after trying to pass through the strait at the weekend, underlining the precarious situation in an area crucial to the global oil trade.

Defence Minister Richard Marles said the closure of the strait was “a disappointing development” that highlighted the fragile nature of the ceasefire agreement struck this month.

Read the full article by foreign affairs and national security correspondent Matthew Knott here.

Iranian warships sunk by US and Israeli attacks litter naval harbours along the Persian Gulf coast, but what is sometimes called a “mosquito fleet” lurks in the shadows.

The flotilla – small, fast, agile boats designed to harass shipping – forms the heart of the naval forces deployed by the Revolutionary Guard, separate from Iran’s regular navy.

These boats, and especially the missiles and drones that the Guard can launch from them, or from camouflaged sites onshore, have been the main threat stymieing shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

You can read the full article from the New York Times here.