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US launches seventh night of Iran strikes as Hormuz conflict escalates

The US military said it had launched a seventh consecutive night of strikes on Iran on Friday night as fighting escalated over the strait of Hormuz. US Central Command, in a post on X, said the strikes, which began at 7pm GMT, were designed to “continue degrading Iranian military capabilities”. Iranian media reported explosions heard or strikes carried out in the cities of Sirik, Ahvaz and Yazd. And late on Friday night Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said two oil tankers had hit mines in Hormuz and exploded. The US military said that claim was false. The conflict continued on Saturday, with the IRCC saying it targeted ⁠a ⁠site where US combat aircraft ⁠were gathered at Sheikh Isa ⁠air base and ‌an ‌intelligence datacentre ‌in Bahrain known as Batelco, according to Iran’s state media. The ‌IRGC reportedly also targeted a US naval fuel-support pier at al-⁠Ahmadi port and a US signals and communications centre ‌in Kuwait, while ⁠Kuwait temporarily suspended ‌operations at ‌its international airport because of Iranian missile and ‌drone attacks. Earlier on Friday US airstrikes hit bridges in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, killing at least seven people, Iranian state TV reported. The bridges were a key transit point for Bandar Abbas, Iran’s main port. Further US airstrikes brought down a tower in Chabahar port on the Gulf of Oman that the US military claimed the IRGC used to facilitate attacks on vessels in the strait of Hormuz. The US also targeted key electrical infrastructure and Iranshahr airport. Iran’s energy ministry told citizens to reduce their use of electricity and air conditioning after the power grid came under strain due to US strikes on energy facilities. The ministry said areas in the south were experiencing “extreme heat and attacks on power infrastructure” as temperatures soared. Strikes on civilian infrastructure not being used for military purposes could constitute a war crime, human rights experts have said. Renewed US strikes had killed at least 38 people and wounded more than 400 in Iran by Friday morning, said a spokesperson for Iran’s health ministry, Hossein Kermanpour. The attacks appeared to be the follow-through of Donald Trump’s promise to expand strikes against Iran, including the targeting of infrastructure and power plants. The US president reportedly met senior department heads this week to discuss an expanded aerial campaign to force Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz. The current round of fighting has entered its seventh day and further undermined the interim deal between Iran and the US, which was meant to keep the strait open and give room for negotiations to lead to a permanent truce. Iran has shut the strait and the US reimposed its blockade of Iranian ports and ships on Wednesday. After the US strikes on Friday, the IRGC threatened a “devastating price” for countries hosting US bases if American attacks against infrastructure continued. “The American enemy and the hosts of its bases in the region should know that crossing red lines and attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure will have a very severe and devastating price to pay,” the IRGC said in a statement. The Iranian military responded to US strikes by targeting Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman and Qatar. Qatar, one of the mediators between the US and Iran, had been mostly spared from Iranian retaliation in the recent rounds of violence. Qatari authorities said falling debris wounded a child as air defences intercepted missiles. In Kuwait, authorities said Iranian strikes hit a power and desalination plant, damaging the water facility. The country relies on desalinated water for about 90% of its drinking water. Officials said they were working to assess the damage and get the plant running again. The renewed fighting has focused on the strait of Hormuz, which handled about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply before the war. Though the memorandum of understanding signed by the US and Iran last month said the strait should be open to traffic, both sides interpreted the deal differently. Washington and Tehran advanced competing plans for ships to transit the strait, with Iran attacking some ships that took the US route. Shipping in the waterway has been drastically reduced over the last few days as violence escalated, though most ships that continued to transit used the Iranian route. Iran’s ⁠Tasnim news agency had earlier cited ⁠an informed ⁠source as saying that ⁠a Thai-flagged ship was targeted in ⁠the strait ‌of ‌Hormuz on Friday ‌after it allegedly ignored warnings and attempted to ‌pass without permission from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards navy. Iranian state media also said the US struck an oil tanker that was empty and docked at Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal on the strait. US forces boarded a ship in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday as part of the renewed blockade of Iran’s ports that began earlier this week, the US military said. US Central Command also said it had “redirected” three commercial vessels “trying to run the blockade” since it took effect at 8pm GMT on Tuesday. The previous day, a US aircraft fired on and disabled an unladen oil tanker that tried to break the blockade. Iran has asked its allies in Yemen, the Houthis, to be prepared to close the oil route through the Red Sea if the US targets Iranian energy infrastructure, Reuters reported – a threat that, if followed through, could paralyse the global energy market. The Houthi leader, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, also threatened that all Saudi oil and other critical facilities could be targeted by the group if Riyadh intervened in Yemen. The threat came after Saudi Arabia struck Sana’a airport, leading to retaliatory missile strikes from the Houthis on Saudi Arabia. Week-to-week cargo shipments through the strait of Hormuz dropped by almost a quarter at the beginning of the month, according to the maritime data firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence. And that was before the recent rise in tit-for-tat attacks. Given the risks, some oil shippers are sailing through the strait with their location devices turned off but many are just staying put, Lloyd’s said on Thursday. A growing amount of the region’s energy is being shipped through pipelines but not nearly enough to offset the decline in shipping through the strait. On Thursday Pakistan’s foreign ministry said efforts were still under way to bring the US and Tehran to the negotiating table but acknowledged that was becoming increasingly difficult. Despite the escalating conflict and interruption of trade, Trump said the war was going well for the US. “We are likewise winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labour very, very shortly,” Trump said in an address to the American public. The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Israeli ministers announce plans for new illegal settlements in Gaza and West Bank

Israel’s defence and finance ministers announced plans for three illegal settlements in Gaza and more than $400m (£300m) in funding to expand construction in the occupied West Bank, as Israel’s military commander for the region celebrated violent outposts as his “security partners”. With national elections scheduled for 27 October, Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is racing to expand control of land in occupied Palestine and drive out Palestinians before its mandate expires. The defence minister, Israel Katz, said he intended to set up three “Nahal” outposts in northern Gaza, a type of military community that for decades has paved the way for Israeli civilian settlements. The finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced 1.3bn shekels (£318m) in funding for dozens of new Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The cabinet allocated the money last month but kept the decision secret because of expected US opposition, Israeli media reported. Maj Gen Avi Bluth, who commands Israeli forces in the West Bank, told residents of extremist outposts that he “appreciates their work” and considered them to be partners in security with the military. Bluth, who grew up in a West Bank settlement himself, spoke on Wednesday at a meeting of the euphemistically named Farms Association, which represents settlements that are illegal even under Israeli law. These play a key role in campaigns of terror that have driven Palestinians from their homes and lands across the occupied West Bank. Dozens from Israel’s political and military elite, including two former prime ministers and former heads of all its security services, have threatened legal action against their government over support for Jewish terrorism in the West Bank. “Settler violence is state violence,” the UN human rights office for Palestine said in a new report published this week that detailed how Israel used settlers to lead annexation efforts, while systematic impunity for perpetrators ensured violence could grow unchecked. Hagit Ofran, from the Israeli activist group Peace Now, said bulldozers were working on at least seven settlements that would be populated before polling day. “The government is on a reckless pre-election sprint to raid the public purse in order to create facts on the ground,” Ofran said. Katz outlined his settlement plans for Gaza during a visit to Israeli-controlled parts of the territory. He has also pushed for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza through the large-scale migration of Palestinians. “I intend to establish three Nahal outposts, which is also a military entity, in those places that were [Israeli settlements] in northern Gaza,” he told Channel 14 TV. Nahal outposts were not intended for military use in the long term, said Dror Etkes, the founder of the advocacy group Kerem Navot, which monitors Israel’s land grab in the occupied West Bank. “The military is only the first phase, which aims to prepare it for future settlement,” he said. “All together, dozens of Israeli settlements in the West Bank were established in this way.” Nahal settlements were first established in border regions in the 1950s, including surrounding the Gaza Strip, Etkes said. From 1967, the same system was used in the occupied West Bank, initially along the Jordan valley and then spreading to other areas. Smotrich also said last month that plans for three settlements in Gaza were complete and work could begin as soon as Netanyahu gave a green light. The prime minister’s office did not respond to requests for comment on Katz’s plans. Katz also told Channel 14 that he “felt good” seeing the wasteland of rubble that had replaced Palestinian homes and communities in most of Israeli-occupied Gaza. Israel now controls 65% of Gaza, Israel’s deputy chief of staff, Maj Gen Tamir Yadai, told Katz in an on-camera briefing. This is far beyond the 53% agreed under the ceasefire brokered last year by the US president, Donald Trump. About 2 million Palestinians who survived Israel’s war of annihilation are crowded into the remaining third of Gaza’s territory. “I don’t know how to describe this, other than victory, when you control 65% of the territory, when you have killed over 70,000 terrorists here,” Yadai said. His figures appeared to label 21,000 Palestinian children killed by Israeli attacks as “terrorists”, including more than 1,000 babies who never reached their first birthday. Israel’s military has recognised that a database of Gaza’s war dead compiled by Palestinian health authorities is broadly accurate. It contains more than 73,000 people listed by name, with their Israeli-issued ID number. More than 21,000 were children; more than 10,000 were women under 60 years old, and more than 5,000 were elderly people. Asked whether Yadai’s data counted women, children and elderly people as “terrorists”, the Israeli military declined to comment directly. A spokesperson said the military was still assessing casualty numbers in Gaza, and despite Yadai’s comments to Katz, had not briefed civilian officials on this issue. “The IDF is currently conducting a staff assessment regarding the breakdown and categorisation of its casualties. The process has not yet been completed and has not been presented to the political echelon,” the spokesperson said. The spokesperson declined to comment on Bluth’s backing for settler militants and said decisions on settlements were a political issue.

‘We are preserving a tradition’: how Ghana’s sensationalist film posters became collectible art

Sitting on his porch in Teshie near Accra, Heavy J dipped a brush into red oil paint and dabbed it carefully on to his canvas – a flour sack – adding blood to a knife being wielded by a man. Higher on the canvas, he had started on an outline of a skull. Heavy J was creating a poster, but not as you might have expected for a horror film. Instead, it was for the animated fairytale The Little Mermaid. The man with the knife wasn’t a killer but the film’s kind-hearted prince, Eric. The skull was also unrelated to the story. “We add more to make people interested,” said Heavy J, whose real name is Jeaurs Affutu. Hand-painted film posters by local artists were a hallmark of Ghanaian film culture from the late 1970s to the early 2000s, used to advertise screenings for neighbourhood venues known as video clubs after organisers realised that the original posters were not attracting audiences. Plot lines were regarded as little more than jump-off points for humorous and surreal flights of fancy. Artists working for different video clubs competed to make the best “forgery”, as they described their interpretations. The practice began to wane around the turn of the century as more Ghanaians gained access to electricity and their own TV sets and video players. Many video clubs went out of business and painters pivoted to create other work. But by then the posters had attained global interest, popularised in books and foreign exhibitions, and old and rare paintings became prized collectibles. There was a lull in interest in newly painted posters in the early part of the 21st century, but demand has risen, driven by online marketing and a receptive customer base of film lovers in the west. Deadly Prey Gallery has been working with artists to preserve the culture of making hand-painted film posters, while helping meet the increased demand. Named after an action film, the business was co-founded in 2012 by Robert Kofi, a Ghanaian who, as a child, used to work as a “hype man” for video centres in his home town of Winneba. He later started collecting and selling posters, then set up the business with Brian Chankin, then a video rental store owner in Chicago, after selling him some works. Deadly Prey Gallery works with 15 artists, including Heavy J, who has been painting posters for four decades, connecting them to online customers and shipping the artwork on completion. Most orders come from the US, Kofi said. Old action, science fiction and horror films have the highest demand. Popular titles include The Exorcist and the Star Wars and Terminator franchises. And prices for commissioned pieces start at $600 (£450). Kofi, who is based in Accra, is part manager and part editor. He identifies the artists most suited for each work, shares his vision of the posters with them and makes regular visits to their workspaces to review works in progress. In a studio in Ashaiman, 11 miles from Heavy J’s house, another artist called Stoger was working on two commissions: one for the horror film Poltergeist, and another for the 1997 experimental drama Gummo, which contained multiple acts of violence against cats and a scene in which a character eats spaghetti in a bath tub. The poster showed three cats and a man in a bath with a plate of spaghetti in front of him. In his feedback that day, Kofi, speaking in Ga, a primary language of Ghana, told Stoger two of the cats were not aggressive enough and the food was too clean. “I want uglier cat scenes,” he later explained. “The spaghetti has to be dirtier.” Stoger, born Benjamin Amartey, was a sculptor before developing an interest in films and becoming a poster painter in 1992. “I use my imagination to make scenes that will attract people so that they’ll love the poster,” he said. The emphasis on exaggeration comes from an African tradition of “visualising the invisible”, said Joseph Oduro-Frimpong, the director of the Centre of African Popular Culture at Ashesi University and a poster collector himself. “The posters’ audiences have not seen the film, so it’s impossible for them to know [whether they are accurate]. Therefore, the artists tap into what they call imaginative painting,” he said. “They will highlight these things and in doing so they incorporate things that are not in there. There is a kind of sensationalism to it.” The reinterpretations at times resulted in threats, insults and even physical attacks from viewers who felt duped. Kofi laughed when he recalled an incident in the 1990s when people beat him up after they watched the action film Double Impact and realised it did not have a scene showing Jean-Claude Van Damme carrying out a beheading, as was illustrated on the poster. At the Centre for National Culture in Accra, dozens of colourful posters from Deadly Prey Gallery are pinned on wooden walls. They include Jennifer Lopez launching an arrow at a snake in Anaconda, and a mouse coming out of Jamie Lee Curtis’ mouth in Halloween. “We are preserving a tradition,” Kofi said of the poster-painting craft. “We are preserving a history.”

Ukraine war briefing: Protests of Fedorov’s dismissal continue as Zelenskyy tries to repair rift with Poland

For a second day, thousands of Ukrainians have taken to the streets to protest against the sudden removal of popular and innovative defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who has clashed with the more conventional military chief of staff, Oleksandr Syrskyi. Several thousand people gathered outside ⁠the presidential office after Fedorov was not reappointed in the surprise government reshuffle. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has defended his decision, saying he was forced “to choose between sides [when honestly] what I want most is unity”. The move, which comes just as Kyiv appeared to be gaining some advantages in its war with Russia, has exposed a troubling flaw in the president’s leadership, and startled senior European officials. As Guardian senior international correspondent Peter Beaumont writes, the move is shocking because Fedorov had successfully leveraged drone and missile technology. “With hindsight, the conflict between the two men and their ideas about how to fight the war was inevitable: between an older – and old-school general – micromanaging a bruising war of attrition against a more numerous foe, and Fedorov, with his tech-driven, more improvisational approach that appeared in recent months to be showing dividends.” Meanwhile, Zelenskyy on Friday took steps to repair a rift with key ally Poland over his decision ⁠in May to name a Ukrainian army unit in honour of second world war fighters who killed Poles. Zelenskyy pledged to expand investigations into those killings by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a pro-independence armed group, and open intelligence files. Zelenskyy ⁠told a meeting of senior officials that improved ties were critical in view of Poland’s help to Ukraine against Russia. Polish prime minister Donald Tusk wrote on X that Poland was “ready for a serious and friendly dialogue on the issues that unite us and those that divide us”. A Ukrainian drone attack on a logistics centre in the town of Kotovsk in western Russia killed seven people and wounded 24, while more than 370 drones were launched towards Moscow overnight. Governor of the Tambov region, Evgeny Pervyshov, said on Saturday the workers were killed when enemy UAVs hit a Wildberries logistics centre. In Moscow, the mass drone attack was mostly neutralised by air defence forces, the Russian capital’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said on Saturday, with 64 enemy UAVs destroyed on approach to Moscow. In Russia, authorities cracked down on dissent, detaining a blogger who criticised President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine, and fining ⁠an anti-war politician, a warning to Kremlin critics that Putin would brook no opposition ahead of September’s parliamentary election. The president and the dominant United Russia party are under pressure because of a slowing economy and fuel shortages triggered by Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries. The blogger, Ilya Remeslo, was detained on Friday on suspicion ⁠of spreading false information about the Russian army, the TASS state news agency reported. RIA news agency quoted Remeslo’s lawyer, Sergei Badamshin, as saying the blogger denied the charges. Separately, Boris Nadezhdin, a politician who attempted to run against Putin in the 2024 presidential election on an anti-war ticket, was fined 1,000 roubles ($13) for displaying “extremist ‌symbols”. The case was among a series of steps against Nadezhdin that could signal more serious consequences if he continues to criticise the government. Russia continued its attacks in the Black Sea, hitting two Ukrainian port cities on Friday that killed three people, Ukrainian ⁠officials said. Russia has repeatedly attacked Ukraine’s maritime export arteries during the war, but the strikes have intensified in past weeks and focused on deepwater ports that handle grain and other cargo. A Russian drone attack on port infrastructure at the southern city of Mykolaiv damaged three civilian foreign-flagged vessels, ⁠regional prosecutors said. One of the strikes, early on Friday, killed two Ukrainians on board a foreign vessel, they said. Another man was killed in a Russian attack on ⁠Odesa, Ukraine’s biggest seaport, local officials said. Odesa Regional Governor Oleh Kiper said a later Russian strike hit a Marshall Islands-flagged vessel in one of the ‌Odesa region ports, damaging the ‌vessel, triggering a fire and injuring four of its 17 crew members. The strikes have led to a partial halt in grain shipments and an almost complete suspension of grain purchases at port terminals, traders and analysts say.

‘A revolutionary act to watch it’: the film India’s censors do not want you to see

For as long as he has been a film-maker, there is one story Honey Trehan has wanted to tell above all. Growing up in the Indian state of Punjab, Trehan saw firsthand the devastation wrought by police who carried out tens of thousands of killings and illegal cremations in the 1990s, as they cracked down on a separatist insurgency. To those in Punjab, the period remains one of the darkest in India’s modern history. Jaswant Singh Khalra, the activist who exposed the crimes and was murdered in the process, is a national hero. By 2022, Trehan’s movie about Khalra and the crimes of Punjab police was completed under the title Ghallughara – a reference to a historical massacre of Sikhs – but the film would never reach Indian cinemas. For more than three years, India’s film censorship board, which must approve all cinematic releases, blocked the film from release. When it was finally launched straight to a streaming platform last week, under a new title, Satluj, it was taken down within 48 hours and banned on government orders as a threat to national security. Trehan describes the ordeal of trying to get Satluj released as “dystopian” and decries “undemocratic censorship” and alleged political interference under the Narendra Modi government re-shaping India’s film industries. He claims Indian cinema has been widely co-opted as a propaganda arm for the government’s rightwing, religious nationalist agenda, where there is “only room for one kind of story to be told”, particularly in mainstream Hindi films. “It is clear to me that there is no creative freedom in India today,” says Trehan. “When you see the level of censorship happening, films getting blocked by the film board and banned from release, it makes you question: does democracy exist in this country any more?” Even today, discussions of Punjab’s separatist movement – which raged in the 1980s and 1990s, fighting for an independent Sikh homeland called Khalistan, before it was crushed by the state – remain highly sensitive for the Modi government. A ministry of information committee backed the ban on Satluj on the grounds that it lacked “balance” and had “whitewashed” the acts of Punjabi separatist militants, with the potential to incite national security issues. “Show Muslims in a bad light and your film will get a standing ovation in the parliament,” says Trehan. “But if you dare to try and tell an uncomfortable part of our history, suddenly you are a criminal and a threat to national security.” Trehan is not the first Indian film-maker to fall foul of India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) in recent years. The body is legally mandated to be independent, but it has faced growing accusations by those in the industry of pushing an agenda aligned with the Hindu nationalist politics of the Modi government. The CBFC has not responded to the allegation and was not available for comment. “From what I’ve experienced, the film board is hand in glove with the government,” says Trehan. “They are being used as a backdoor entry to control the narrative of the film industry.” Film-makers have complained of an opaque process in which films that make any reference to government oppression, certain religions, police brutality or caste violence are blocked by censors or face demands to make impossible cuts. Film-makers have even been told to cut images of meat in films, to avoid offending Hindus. There is no official figure for the number of films that have languished due to censor demands. One recent example was Santosh, which debuted at Cannes to acclaim but was blocked by the CBFC for its negative portrayal of police. Writers and directors privately acknowledge that self-censorship has become a norm in the industry in order to ensure their movies get a cinema release, and not lose huge sums in profits. Meanwhile, Bollywood films with an alleged pro-government slant such as The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story, which some have accused of telling a highly distorted version of historical events – and of fuelling Islamophobia and Hindu-Muslim division – have sailed past the board and been backed with government tax breaks and promotion. Anna MM Vetticad, an Indian film journalist who has written about censorship, said that the treatment of Satluj encapsulated what many film-makers now have to endure. She described a culture where film-makers were reprimanded by the censor board for realistic portrayals of social oppression or for simply “showing India in a bad light”. “The goal is to create an atmosphere of fear and encourage self-censorship among those who have not boarded the rightwing bandwagon,” says Vetticad. “The effect on Indian cinema is potentially devastating.” Trehan says few in the industry are willing to be as vocal as him, fearing retribution. “I know many other film-makers who have faced similar issues but we lack unity as an industry. Most people are too worried about speaking out, especially because there is often a lot of money and careers at stake. If you criticise, suddenly a police case could be filed against you.” In total, CBFC demanded 127 cuts to Trehan’s film, some of which appeared impossible for him to execute. As well as changing the name, the censors wanted the removal of all mention of Punjab police, the killings, government, the crematoriums where the bodies were illegally burned, the name of a former prime minister, the dates the events took place, images of the Indian flag and any scenes that showed the police in a “bad light”. They even requested the removal of Khalra’s name and a scene showing his murder inside a police station – an incident of historical record. Trehan was particularly concerned by an insistence that he change the name of Trilokpuri – a real area in Delhi where Sikhs were massacred in the 1980s – to the invented name of “Khanpuri”, which is a name associated with Muslims. “This incident had nothing to do with Muslims, so why change to this name?” says Trehan. “You could clearly see them trying to insert their Hindu-Muslim political agenda into each and every film.” The censors also questioned whether the film was really based on true events, prompting Trehan to hand them a file of more than 1,800 pages of research, including witness statements and court testimony. Trehan says that “afterwards one of the people on the board said to me: ‘To my surprise, it’s a true story. But Mr Trehan, I want to ask you one thing. Who speaks the truth so loudly in today’s time?’” As Trehan continued to be stonewalled by the CBFC, he eventually opted for a digital-only release earlier this month which does not require censor approval. He never thought the government would go as far as immediately banning the film, describing the effect as “chilling”. He says that far from provoking a “law and order situation” in Punjab, Satluj has in fact brought communities in the state together. Since it was banned, guerilla screenings have been held across Punjab and surrounding states in village squares, gurdwaras, schools, community halls and fields, sometimes with thousands turning out. “It’s become a revolutionary act to watch it,” says Trehan. At an event this month in remembrance of Khalra’s 1995 disappearance, people gathered on the banks of the Sutlej River in Punjab – where police are believed to have dumped his body and many others – and families of victims protested against the banning of the film. Ranjit Singh, 38, was three years old when his father was tortured to death by police. “This film is, for me, an archive of him – of the injustices he bore on his body,” says Singh. “It may be the only archive that all this happened. I cried for days after watching it.” Anuj Behal contributed reporting from Punjab

Cuban dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara cleared to travel to US

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, a prominent Cuban dissident artist whose whereabouts remained unknown after his prison sentence ended last week, has been given permission to travel to the US, according to his official Facebook page. Otero Alcántara, designated a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2022 for insulting national symbols, contempt and disturbing the public order. He was detained in July 2021 as he was leaving his home in Havana to join unprecedented mass protests across the communist island. On Friday, a post on a Facebook page managed by his close friends read: “The parole application of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara to enter the United States has been approved.” In this instance, “parole” refers to entering and temporarily residing in the US. The 38-year-old was transferred from a prison to a state security force facility on 7 July, two days before finishing his term. Cuban authorities have not provided any information about his whereabouts since then. Cubalex, a Miami-based charity, on Thursday denounced what it viewed as an “illegal denial of freedom”. Communist officials wanted to isolate the artist while he awaited permission to be exiled to the US, according to Cubalex. Havana has accused him of acting on behalf of Washington to destabilise Cuba. Prisoners Defenders, a human rights organisation, said earlier this month that it documented a total of 1,306 political prisoners in Cuba. It added that 40 were arrested as minors, the highest number recorded by the organisation to date, of whom 16 remain in prisons and detention centres intended for adults. In March, Cuban officials held talks with the US government amid a punishing US fuel blockade and frequent power failures. After the US military’s abduction of Venezuelan president and Cuba ally Nicolás Maduro in January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order effectively placing the Caribbean island under an oil blockade.

Israeli strike on Gaza funeral killed at least seven people, hospital says

An Israeli strike on a funeral in the Gaza Strip has killed at least seven people and injured another 22, according to a local hospital. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Al-Awda hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp confirmed the number of casualties, saying the strike hit the funeral of a Palestinian killed in another Israeli attack earlier on Friday. Israel and the Hamas militant group agreed to a ceasefire deal in October aimed at halting their two-year-long war. The heaviest fighting has subsided but at least 1,123 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect, according to its health ministry. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts. An independent UN inquiry has found that Israel continues to commit genocide by deliberately targeting Palestinian children in Gaza. Militants have carried out shooting attacks on troops, and Israel has said its strikes are in response to that and other violations. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire. The war began after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023 in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, including those killed since the ceasefire, Gaza’s health ministry said.

US hits civilian infrastructure as it expands strikes against Iran

The US hit bridges, energy facilities and a key Iranian port on Friday, expanding its aerial campaign against Iran, and prompting swift Iranian strikes against US allies in the Middle East. US airstrikes hit bridges in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, killing at least seven people, Iranian state TV reported. The bridges were a key transit point for Bandar Abbas, Iran’s main port. Further US airstrikes brought down a tower in Chabahar port on the Gulf of Oman that the US military claimed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) used to facilitate attacks on vessels in the strait of Hormuz. The US also targeted key electrical infrastructure and Iranshahr airport. Iran’s energy ministry told citizens to reduce their use of electricity and air conditioning after the power grid came under strain due to US strikes on energy facilities. The ministry said areas in the south were experiencing “extreme heat and attacks on power infrastructure” as temperatures in Iran soared. Strikes on civilian infrastructure not being used for military purposes could constitute a war crime, human rights experts have said. Renewed US strikes had killed at least 38 people and wounded more than 400 in Iran by Friday morning, said a spokesperson for Iran’s health ministry, Hossein Kermanpour. The attacks appeared to be the follow-through of Donald Trump’s promise to expand strikes against Iran, including the targeting of infrastructure and power plants. The US president reportedly met senior department heads this week to discuss an expanded aerial campaign to force Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz. The current round of fighting has entered its seventh day and further undermined the interim deal between Iran and the US, which was meant to keep the strait open and give room for negotiations to lead to a permanent truce. Iran has shut the strait and the US reimposed its blockade of Iranian ports and ships on Wednesday. After the US strikes on Friday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened a “devastating price” for countries hosting US bases if American attacks against infrastructure continued. “The American enemy and the hosts of its bases in the region should know that crossing red lines and attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure will have a very severe and devastating price to pay,” the IRGC said in a statement. The Iranian military responded to US strikes by targeting Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman and Qatar. Qatar, one of the mediators between the US and Iran, had been mostly spared from Iranian retaliation in the recent rounds of violence. Qatari authorities said falling debris wounded a child as air defences intercepted missiles. In Kuwait, authorities said Iranian strikes hit a power and desalination plant, damaging the water facility. The country relies on desalinated water for about 90% of its drinking water. Officials said they were working to assess the damage and get the plant running again. Strikes in Iraqi Kurdistan killed eight members of armed Kurdish opposition groups, which blamed Iran for the strikes. Tehran also claimed to have struck the al-Tanf military base in Syria, although Syrian authorities denied this to Agence France-Presse. The renewed fighting has focused on the strait of Hormuz, which handled about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply before the war. Though the memorandum of understanding signed by the US and Iran last month said the strait should be open to traffic, both sides interpreted the deal differently. Washington and Tehran advanced competing plans for ships to transit the strait, with Iran attacking some ships that took the US route. Shipping in the waterway has been drastically reduced over the last few days as violence escalated, though most ships that continued to transit used the Iranian route. A tanker travelling through the strait, on the route closest to Oman, came under attack on Friday, according to the British military. The tanker sustained minor damage but none of its crew were hurt. Iran did not claim responsibility for the attack. Iranian state media also said the US struck an oil tanker which was empty and docked at Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal on the strait. American forces boarded a ship in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday as part of the renewed blockade of Iran’s ports that began earlier this week, the US military said. US marines boarded the M/T Wen Yao “to ensure full compliance with the ongoing US naval blockade”, US Central Command (Centcom) said in a post on X. Centcom also said it had “redirected” three commercial vessels “trying to run the blockade” since it took effect at 8pm GMT on Tuesday. The previous day, a US aircraft fired on and disabled an unladen oil tanker that tried to break the blockade. Iran has asked its allies in Yemen, the Houthis, to be prepared to close the oil route through the Red Sea if the US targets Iranian energy infrastructure, Reuters reported – a threat that, if followed through, could paralyse the global energy market. The Houthi leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, also threatened that all Saudi oil and other critical facilities could be targeted by the group if Riyadh intervened in Yemen. The threat came after Saudi Arabia struck Sana’a airport, leading to retaliatory missile strikes from the Houthis on Saudi Arabia. Week-to-week cargo shipments through the strait of Hormuz dropped by almost a quarter at the beginning of the month, according to the maritime data firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence. And that was before the recent rise in tit-for-tat attacks. Given the risks, some oil shippers are transiting the strait with their location devices turned off, but many are just staying put, Lloyd’s said on Thursday. A growing amount of the region’s energy is being shipped through pipelines, but not nearly enough to offset the decline in shipping through the strait. Pakistan’s foreign ministry on Thursday said efforts were still under way to bring the US and Tehran to the negotiating table but acknowledged that was becoming increasingly difficult. Despite the escalating conflict and interruption of trade, Trump said the war was going well for the US. “We are likewise winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labour very, very shortly,” Trump said in an address to the American public. The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report