Live: Iran and US exchange attacks, blasts heard in Hormuz Strait

Qatari negotiators travelled to Tehran early Wednesday to finalise a US-Iran ceasefire agreement, Reuters reported.

According to an official with knowledge of the situation who spoke to Reuters, the negotiators made their way to the Iranian capital after consultations with the United States.

US President Donald Trump said he may order new strikes on Iran's power plants and bridges because Tehran is taking too long to make a deal, Fox News reported on Wednesday citing a phone interview.

"Iran is all talk and no action," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post earlier in the day.

"They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price," he said.

Israeli forces abducted a municipal councillor and a worker on Wednesday in the southern Lebanese town of Kfarshuba, amid continuous Israeli strikes in the area.

“An Israeli patrol took away Kfarshuba municipal council member Mohammad Hassan al-Hajj and worker Ahmad Salah Diab, taking them to an unknown location,” Lebanon’s National News Agency said.

A local Lebanese outlet confirmed that the two individuals were taken by the Israeli patrol in the morning, around 10am, while operating a water pump outside the village.

Kfarshuba is among a few southern villages whose residents chose to stay throughout the war despite Israeli expulsion orders.

On Tuesday, the association of Christian border villages in southern Lebanon issued a statement urging the Lebanese government to “immediately open safe humanitarian and medical corridors to ensure access for citizens, aid, and medical and relief teams to the affected and isolated villages”.

A tanker’s engine room caught fire off the coast of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, a UK maritime agency said, reporting two missing and one casualty.

Earlier, British maritime security company Vanguard Tech said the Palau-flagged tanker Settebello had “transmitted a distress call stating that its engine room had been struck by a missile while operating off Sohar in the Gulf of Oman” and that there was a fire on board.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency later reported an incident 37km (20 nautical miles) northeast of Sohar in Oman.

An Amnesty International report has called attention to Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign against Bedouin and herding communities in the occupied West Bank.

“Israeli authorities are accelerating annexation through a state-driven campaign of ethnic cleansing targeting Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities,” said the report released on Wednesday.

Amnesty said its research showed that 27 Bedouin and herding communities comprising hundreds of Palestinians were forcibly displaced between 2023 and 2025 or were at risk of displacement in the West Bank’s Area C, which encompasses 60 percent of the territory and is under Israeli control under the Oslo agreements.

In the report, titled "Erasing anything Palestinian: Israel's ethnic cleansing of West Bank Bedouin and herding communities", Amnesty accused Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government of catering to the settler movement's religious nationalist agenda.

"It has accelerated settlement expansion and land grabs, increased financial and logistical support to settlements, and it has armed settlers, thereby enabling a brutal state-sanctioned campaign of settler violence," the report said.

The "ethnic cleansing campaign is state-led, and state-sponsored, not driven by rogue settlers or so-called extremist ministers", the report concluded.

Following the US’s allegation that Tehran is responsible for the downing of a US army helicopter, Iranian official Ebrahim Rezaei contrasted that quick response with the Minab school attack, which killed more than 165 children and teachers.

“In just two days, the Pentagon and the White House concluded that the helicopter crash in the Strait of Hormuz was Iran’s doing,” Rezaei, spokesman for Iran’s parliamentary National Security Committee, said in a post on X.

“Yet 102 days have passed since the Minab school massacre, and the investigation into the killing of the Minab girls is still ongoing. When it comes to innocent little girls, the Epsteinian liars become this forgetful. Shame on you.”

In February, a double strike on a girls' school in Minab in southern Iran killed 165 people, mostly students aged seven to 12. Local officials say about 170 girls were at the school during the attack, which Iran attributes to the US and Israel.

A US military commander said last month that the investigation into the school strike has been “complex” given ‌that it was located on an active Iranian cruise missile base, which Iran denies. 

An Israeli air strike on the town of Tayr Debba, located in southern Lebanon's Tyre district, killed at least six people.

The Lebanese Civil Defence confirmed the casualties to Al Jazeera.

Jordanian forces intercepted five missiles launched from Iran on Wednesday, the army said.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said their missiles had targeted a US "command centre" in Azraq, a town 100km east of Amman that is home to Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base.

Jordan insists it does not host foreign military bases, but US and European air crews have operated out of the base in the past.

"We intercepted and shot down five missiles launched from Iran towards Azraq. The interception resulted in debris falling, but there were no casualties or material damage," the Jordanian Armed Forces said.

The army reiterated that its forces "will not allow any violation of Jordanian airspace by any party whatsoever".

Following comments from US President Donald Trump, Israel's Likud party announced on Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to run in the next election, according to Haaretz.

Netanyahu will run in the upcoming election and "will win, God willing," the party said in a statement.

Speaking to ABC News's chief Washington correspondent on Monday, Trump said it was unclear whether Netanyahu "even wants to continue" in his role as prime minister.

"I don't know, he's had an amazing career," he said.

"Does he want to continue? Because, you know, he's a wartime prime minister."

Diplomatic efforts with the United States cannot advance under repeated ceasefire violations, a senior Iranian official said on Wednesday, following overnight strikes in the Gulf between Tehran and Washington.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei accused the US of undermining diplomacy through contradictory messages, shifting positions and repeated ceasefire violations, adding that Israel was also damaging the process through repeated ceasefire breaches in Lebanon.

"Following overnight events, we need to re-assess [the diplomatic path with Washington] ... any diplomatic process requires a minimum stable environment," Baghaei said.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps released new footage documenting the launch of its long-range missiles that it said were used to target US bases across the region. 

Footage shows the firing of Qadr, Emad, and Kheibar Shekan long-range solid and liquid-fuel missiles at American targets in the region, responding to Wednesday morning's attack. pic.twitter.com/3BQ8C3Jbuo

— IRNA News Agency ☫ (@IrnaEnglish) June 10, 2026

A cargo vessel reported being approached by a small craft carrying six armed people around 88 nautical miles from Yemen's industrial port town of Balhaf on Wednesday, the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) monitor said.

The UKMTO reported that an exchange of fire occured between the small craft and the vessels armed security team, before the craft turned away. 

Good morning, Middle East Eye readers,

Overnight and early on Wednesday, the US and Iran exchanged attacks, raising concerns over a renewed conflict in the Middle East. 

US Central Command (Centcom) said it targeted various Iranian air defence, ground control stations and surveillance radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz, while Tehran hit back at American bases across the region - including in Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait.

Below are some of the latest developments: 

• Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has warned that the country's army would respond to any US hostility. "Leave our region if you want to be safe," Araghchi said in a post on X. 

• American House Speaker Mike Johnson said that he and several cabinet members were earlier notified of the Trump administration's decision to launch strikes targeting Iran. He told reporters that the action was "proportional and limited", and was in response to "unjustified Iranian aggression". 

• Iran's foreign ministry stressed that countries in the region - especially those in the Gulf - had a "legal and moral responsibility" to prevent the US military and Israel from "using their territory or facilities to plan, organise, execute, or support hostile actions against Iran".

• US President Donald Trump was reportedly not keen on attacking Iran earlier on Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal. In a phone call with the newspaper, he downplayed Iran's downing of a US helicopter. He later changed his mind after military suggestions made by War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine.

• Israel launched renewed strikes in southern Lebanon, particularly targeting the city of Tyre, despite UN warning of a "deteriorating" humanitarian situation in the city. On Tuesday, at least 11 people were killed in the city and its surrounding areas.

Iran's foreign ministry stressed that countries in the region - especially those in the Gulf - had a "legal and moral responsibility" to prevent US and Israeli strikes launched from their territories.

The ministry said in a statement that the countries had a responsibility to "prevent the US military and Israel from using their territory or facilities to plan, organise, execute, or support hostile actions against Iran".

Israel struck the town of Tayr Debba in the southern city of Tyre early on Wednesday, state news media reported. 

On Tuesday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) warned that the humanitarian situation in the city and its surrounding areas is "deteriorating" amid continued Israeli attacks and displacement orders. 

It noted that many civilians remain in the area, including local residents, people displaced from other parts of the country and those living in Palestinian refugee camps.

"The displacement order issued by the IDF today for the entire city of Tyre, including all neighbourhoods and Palestinian refugee camps, will affect nearly 44,000 people, many of whom were already displaced," Ocha said in its latest update.

"The UN reiterates the urgent need to protect civilians, ensure safe and sustained humanitarian access, and respect international humanitarian law."