Read the daily news to learn English

Middle East crisis live: Iran and Israel announce halt to hostilities as Trump claims both sides want ‘immediate ceasefire’

It is approaching 8pm in Tel Aviv and Beirut, and 9pm in Tehran. Here is a summary of the key events so far today: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Monday that he has stopped strikes on Iran, and claims The IDF’s strikes has deterred the Islamic republic from launching further attacks, leading to a pause in the hostility between Israel and Iran. This comes after earlier today, US president, Donald Trump, told Iran and Israel to stop “shooting” after the two sides attacked each other’s territory for the first time since a fragile ceasefire took effect in April. Iran launched waves of attacks on Israel on Monday, and Israel launched strikes on central and western Iran. Explosions were heard in the Iranian capital of Tehran – there were no immediate reports of casualties. Netanyahu is set to convene a full security cabinet tonight at 9pm. Despite pausing the strikes, he vowed to respond with “full force” if Israel is struck again. The Israeli Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) has said that it will reopen the Kerem Shalom Crossing back into Gaza to “gradually” allow in aid from Tuesday, after closing all crossings into Gaza and halting aid on Sunday as a response to Iran’s attacks. This move was criticised by humanitarian charities. A senior Hezbollah official has said that the group has not had any “direct contact” with the US president, despite Trump suggesting otherwise. The official said Trump was “perhaps” referring to the fact that parliament speaker Nabih Berri’s adviser “communicates with the US ambassador and passes on messages”. Lebanon’s defence minister has said that Israel has carried out nearly 3,500 airstrikes on Lebanon and hundreds of controlled explosions since the US announced a ceasefire for the country in mid April.

Iran war: who is fighting and why?

Israel and Iran have returned to active war for the first time since a ceasefire was agreed two months ago in an exchange of rocket fire that threatened efforts to end the conflict. Donald Trump, who started the war in February alongside Israel but has since attempted to present himself as a mediator, told the two sides to stop shooting and said “final negotiations” on peace were proceeding. By late afternoon on Monday, the attacks had stopped. Why did the regional arch-enemies start firing at each other again, and what has been happening with broader peace efforts? How did the war start? Trump launched the war on 28 February in partnership with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The conflict quickly spiralled out of the US president’s control, causing regional destabilisation and a global economic shock. Tehran’s effective closure of the vital strait of Hormuz disrupted energy markets and made many basic products, including food, more expensive. Despite killing the top layer of Iranian leadership on day one, including the late supreme leader Ali Khamenei, a new guard was swiftly appointed. Is there a ceasefire in place? A ceasefire was agreed on 8 April, but it is not a permanent end to the conflict. Key issues are unresolved, including the freedom of passage for ships in the Gulf, restraining Israel from attacking its neighbours, checks on Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the lifting of sanctions on Tehran. Iran says its nuclear programme is solely for generating electricity, but many governments want clear and enforceable agreements to prevent Tehran from ever making an atomic weapon. Trump ripped up an Obama-era nuclear deal but has not agreed a new version. Why did Israel and Iran start fighting again? Each side will have a version of “who started it”, but the key moment in the recent violence was Israel launching strikes on Beirut early on Sunday. Tehran had said last week that it would consider any Israeli attack on the Lebanese capital a violation of the US-Iran ceasefire and would respond by attacking Israel, which it has since done. Hasn’t fighting continued in Israel and Lebanon through the past few months? Yes. The US, Israel and Iran stopped bombing each other in April, but Israel has continued to attack its northern neighbour and Hezbollah has continued to fire drones and rockets at Israel. Hezbollah joined the war in March when it fired rockets at Israel in support of Iran, after which Israel launched an intensive bombing campaign across Lebanon. How does Lebanon play into the US-Israel war on Iran? Israel has repeatedly invaded and occupied Lebanon over the past decades, and there is an influential political movement in Israel calling for the permanent seizure of Lebanese territory. Israel’s war on Lebanon has also been highly destructive, leading to a humanitarian crisis that has shocked governments around the world. More than a million people – a fifth of Lebanon’s population – have been displaced, and Israeli strikes have killed at least 3,613 people. Hezbollah has killed at least 30 Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and three Israeli civilians. Tehran insists Lebanon be included in a broader ceasefire deal, something Israel and the US have rejected. Trump told NBC News on Sunday that he was not demanding that Lebanon be part of any peace deal with Iran. Is there a separate ceasefire in Lebanon? Sort of. The Lebanese and Israeli governments have been negotiating directly in Washington and have agreed to a ceasefire. But the deal lacks teeth because it is Hezbollah, not the Lebanese army, that is launching attacks on Israel, and the group has rejected the US-brokered truce. The Lebanese government has been trying to reassert control over parts of the country where Hezbollah is strong and to eventually disarm the group. Hezbollah says it needs its weapons to prevent Israeli aggression.

‘Senior lieutenant’ in Kinahan criminal cartel jailed for 24 years by Dublin court

A leader of the notorious Kinahan criminal cartel has been sentenced to 24 years in prison at a Dublin court. Sean McGovern, 40, who has been described as a senior lieutenant in the group, pleaded guilty to two charges of directing the activities of a criminal organisation relating to a deadly feud between the Kinahan and Hutch criminal gangs. McGovern, who was extradited from the United Arab Emirates to face trial in Ireland, had been shot in the feud, the court heard. The charges related to his involvement in the lead-up to the murder of Noel Kirwan, a grandfather who was shot dead in December 2016, and the targeting and monitoring of James Gately with a view to a shooting, which did not take place. Last month a sentencing hearing was told that McGovern wanted to apologise for the hurt as a consequence of his actions. At the special criminal court in Dublin on Monday, the three-judge panel sentenced him to 24 years – backdated to his arrest in Dubai on an Interpol red notice in October 2024. After considering mitigating factors including an early plea, Mr Justice McGrath said the sentences for the separate offences should run consecutively. McGovern was sentenced to 10 years for his role in directing activities relating to the planned murder of Gately and 14 years for his role in the lead-up to the killing of Kirwan. McGrath said the court had established that McGovern was a senior member of the Kinahan gang and was a “confidant of those in the higher echelons” in the organisation, who placed a “high degree of trust and competence” in him. The judge said the Kinahan gang was a “particularly large, well-organised sinister and dangerous organisation”. He said the court had no doubt that McGovern, holding a relatively senior position of the gang, was fully aware of its identity, structure and nature. McGrath said: “Mr McGovern knew in each instance he was directing preparations for murder and did so intentionally.” Det Supt Dave Gallagher said the sentencing should be a “lesson to those who glorify organised crime and promote it as a way of life”. He said it was “significant in holding to account a key person who was engaged in directing the activities of a violent criminal organisation engaged in a campaign of ruthless murder and violence which impacted so negatively on our communities and Ireland’s national reputation.” Speaking of McGovern’s victim, Gallagher said: “I wish to pay tribute to the Kirwan family, whose innocent father, Noel, was brutally murdered, for no other reason except to portray power in the criminal underworld, by Sean McGovern, working with and directing others, who believed they were untouchable.” He added: “There are no untouchables, and law enforcement is committed to the pursuit and prosecution of those who are the leaders, the decision-makers and the facilitators. The UAE has become a base for Irish criminals and their associates partly because the state has no extradition treaty with the EU. But after a decade of lobbying by Irish officials, an extradition treaty became operational last May. It was not retrospective and did not apply to McGovern, but authorities in both jurisdictions made a separate, one-off arrangement to transfer the suspect. McGovern was shot in the stomach in 2016 when a rival gang’s hit team stormed a Kinahan-organised boxing weigh-in at a Dublin hotel.

Will Iran give up on ceasefire talks as strait of Hormuz blockade continues?

Iran’s reversion to large-scale military exchanges with Israel broadened the conflict that began in February not only by making the Israeli attacks on Hezbollah a direct casus belli for Iran for the first time, but also by drawing the Houthis in Yemen back into the conflict with as yet incalculable consequences. Some in Tehran, buoyed up by past perceived military success and emboldened by the chokehold of the strait of Hormuz, would like to turn this moment into the point of no return in the conflagration with Israel. A minority would welcome the abandonment of ceasefire talks with the US, an outcome for which they have been agitating for weeks. But even now there are other voices in Tehran that believe Iran can instead exploit the tensions between Israel and the US to accelerate a deal from a US president desperate to extricate himself from a war that is turning into an alarming show of American diplomatic and military impotence. Donald Trump’s social media post urging Iran and Israel to stop firing at each other did not reek of a man in control of events. Iran’s decision to announce it was ending its operations so long as there were no further Israeli attacks shows the advocates of all-out war are in the minority. There are many such as Hesamodin Ashna, an adviser to the former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, who argued in a speech this weekend that social cohesion and trust inside Iran were still fragile. This camp says the return of Iran’s frozen assets and the gradual lifting of US sanctions are imperative to rescue the Iranian economy from near-collapse, arguing that the economic situation was the incubator for the protests in January. Esmail Baghaei, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, was forced to ride both horses at his weekly press conference in Tehran. At one point he challenged the whole idea that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had mounted the attacks on Iran in defiance of Trump, but then suggested it was possible that Israel was trying to sabotage talks with the US since it feared the terms of the deal would weaken it. Baghaei was careful to insist that the dialogue with the US, conducted indirectly via Pakistan, was continuing and had not been suspended. He was adamant the US was involved in the strikes, saying: “No one in our region believes that an action by the Zionist regime would be taken without prior coordination and cooperation from the United States.” He continued: “The US state department clearly stated during the 40-day war that the reason for this country’s imposition of war on Iran was its support for the Zionist regime, and now, despite the claims of American officials, we know that Centcom [US Central Command] cooperates and coordinates with the Zionist regime in the areas of defence and offence.” At other points he was more circumspect, saying it was possible to debate whether Israel acted independently of the US, or was “riding the US”. In either event Baghaei cautioned all Iran’s allied groups in the region against premature disarmament by drawing a comparison with Jean de La Fontaine’s The Lion in Love, a fable about a lion who, blinded by love, agreed to clip his claws only to be mauled by his enemies. Few doubt Iran’s propensity to bare its claws, and now as a matter almost of strategic doctrine to try always to respond by not just threatening but imposing escalation. For instance, Hassan Ahmadian, one of Iran’s most frequent commenters in Arab media, warned: “The era of strategic patience has ended, and there is no turning back. Iran and its allies are determined to impose and solidify new rules of engagement against their adversary – and I do not see them backing down. For retreat in the face of those who practice genocide will only unleash annihilation across the length and breadth of the region. Resistance, on the other hand, is the only civilized response that holds any meaning against them.” The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it was prepared to target Gulf state energy installations. “In the event of continued attacks toward energy infrastructure all oil and gas facilities associated with Israel, the United States and their allies, including regional energy facilities, will be a target for the armed forces of Iran.” Iran’s negotiating demands have been remarkably consistent: a ceasefire in Lebanon including the withdrawal of Israel forces and the unfreezing of half of Iran’s frozen assets, about $12bn; a form of Iranian management over the strait of Hormuz; and detailed discussions later about how Tehran assures the US it is not seeking a nuclear weapon, including the down-blending of its highly enriched uranium stockpile. Trump has been very close to agreeing these terms, but is trying to find ways to phrase them to make them more palatable to his domestic audience. That is because on balance, the battle of blockades in the strait of Hormuz is trending in Iran’s favour. World oil inventories slowly running out, crashing the global economy from Japan to Brazil, seems more dangerous than Iran running out of cash and oil exports. The democratic west’s capacity to absorb economic pain does not match that of the Iranian regime. The intervention by the Houthis tips the scale further in Iran’s direction. The precise impact will depend on whether the Houthis decide to expand the announced blockade, currently confined to Israeli shipping in the Red Sea, into a broader blockade of hostile shipping. The Bab al-Mandab strait connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden has acted as a crucial relief valve for oil exporters. Saudi Arabia oil flows surged through its east-west pipeline after Hormuz closed, redirecting millions of barrels a day to the Red Sea. The Houthis have not said they would block this flow, but this could change. The Red Sea route is responsible for 15% of global naval shipping trade and the strait of Hormuz about 20%. The simultaneous full closure of both waterways would put huge pressure on the Cape of Good Hope route around South Africa. The Houthis started blockading ships in the Red Sea heading for Israeli ports from November 2013, leading to the bankruptcy of the Israeli port of Eilat. The number of ships going through the Suez canal more than halved in 2024, leading to a massive decline in revenues for the canal and Egypt. The Houthis, involved in behind-the-scenes peace talks with Saudi Arabia about ending the Yemen civil war, have not relished rejoining the conflict, partly because they suffered such serious blows to their command structure last year. The movement now faces a choice of mounting the blockade or waiting for a lead from Iran.

Pope uses Spain speech to warn of global ‘spiritual and cultural crisis’

Pope Leo XIV has used an address to the Spanish parliament to warn the world is undergoing “a deep spiritual and cultural crisis” and to urge the international community to tackle the causes and consequences of what he termed “the tragic drama of migration”. In a wide-ranging speech delivered to lawmakers in Madrid, the pontiff also touched on conflict, artificial intelligence, the climate emergency, and the issues of abortion and euthanasia. “The world is undergoing a deep spiritual and cultural crisis, which manifests itself in multiple forms of violence, polarisation and mutual mistrust,” he said. “Given this context, peace is not just a political aspiration but a true moral need.” The pope told the politicians on Monday that the search for peace would require “diplomatic courage, ethical responsibility” and a determination to solve problems using international law rather than resorting to “the temporary silence” achieved by weapons. “That is why it is concerning that in various parts of the world – including Europe – rearmament is once again being presented as an almost inevitable response to the fragility of the international landscape,” the pontiff added. “True security, on the other hand, stems from justice, patient dialogue, respect for international law, and a policy capable of prioritising the lives of people over the interests that profit from war.” Much of his speech, the first such address by a pope to the Spanish parliament, was devoted to migration. Leo intends to highlight the issue on his week-long visit to Spain, which will include meetings in the Canaries with people who have taken the perilous Atlantic route from Africa to Europe. The pontiff, the first US pope, has already clashed with the Trump administration over its war in Iran and over treatment of migrants. His presence in Spain comes at a time when the country’s socialist-led government is bucking European trends by regularising the status of more than 500,000 undocumented migrants and asylum seekers. Santiago Abascal, the leader of Spain’s far-right Vox party, which last year floated the idea of deporting up to 8 million people of foreign origin including the children of immigrants, has decried the regularisation scheme as part of a government plan to accelerate an immigrant “invasion”. Vox is currently seeking to enact a “national priority” policy that favours Spaniards over foreign-born people when it comes to housing and benefits in the regions where it governs in coalition with the conservative People’s party. Leo told Spanish MPs and senators that countries had a moral duty to accept and protect migrants, saying: “The tragic drama of migration … challenges the conscience of nations and the ethical foundation of the international order. Numerous men, women, and children are forced, often by dramatic circumstances, to leave their communities and abandon loved ones, their histories, and their connections.” He added that the “universal principle of the equal dignity of all human beings” was violated if people found themselves discriminated against “because of their national, ethnic, religious or linguistic origin, or because of their economic or social status”. Leo went on to call for the creation of “safe and legal pathways” and for “real possibilities of integration”. But he also urged the international community to tackle the root causes of migration by working to ensure “that no one has to leave their home because of a lack of peace, security or decent living conditions, because of economic inequalities, or because of the effects of the climate crisis”. The pontiff, whose address met with a seven-minute ovation, also pointedly reminded his audience of the church’s teaching on the sanctity of human life. “All human life must be recognised and protected from conception to natural death, in every circumstance of its existence,” said Leo. “When this certainty is obscured, the most vulnerable become the first victims, and the law loses its deepest meaning: to serve and protect every person. Therefore, the moral greatness of a nation is shown, above all, in its capacity to accompany, protect, and love those lives that are most fragile.” Abortion was decriminalised in Spain in 1985 and legislation was relaxed in 2010 to give women the right to a termination up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. A euthanasia law was introduced in 2021. The pope is due to attend a meeting later on Monday with survivors of sexual abuse by members of the Roman Catholic clergy. Speaking to Spanish bishops ahead of the meeting, he described the abuse as “a scourge” and said the church needed to respond “with listening, with truth, with justice and with reparation”. However, some groups representing victims of sexual abuse have complained of being excluded from meetings with Leo. “We don’t want a photo with the pope – we want rights and reparations for all the victims,” a coalition of the groups said in a joint statement. “Excluding survivors and groups who have been working for years for truth, justice and reparation only serves to deepen the feeling of abandonment and weariness through a negligence that has lasted for too long.”

Xi Jinping arrives in Pyongyang on trip to revitalise China-North Korea ties

Xi Jinping has arrived in North Korea for a two-day trip, his first in nearly seven years, as China’s leader looks to revitalise ties with his junior ally. Footage published by China’s Xinhua state news agency showed an Air China plane carrying Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, touching down at Pyongyang’s Sunan international airport. A red carpet lined with North Korean honour guards greeted Xi and his entourage, which included the foreign minister, Wang Yi, and Cai Qi, the Chinese leader’s de facto chief of staff. Xi and Peng made their way to Kim Il-sung Square in central Pyongyang, where they were greeted by the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and his wife, Ri Sol-ju. Children presented them with flowers at a colourful welcome ceremony featuring a military band playing the countries’ national anthems along with a 21-gun salute. Crowds of people carrying flags, flowers and balloons were flanked by banners reading: “We warmly welcome Comrade Xi Jinping” and hailing the countries’ “unbreakable friendship”. After the ceremony, Kim and Ri reportedly escorted Xi and Peng to the Kumsusan guesthouse, a luxurious state-owned villa compound completed in 2019 to host visiting world leaders. There, the leaders held talks on trade and cooperation. On Monday evening, Xi released a statement in which he affirmed China’s support for North Korea “no matter how the international situation changes”. Xi also called on China and North Korea to “expand pragmatic cooperation in economy and trade”, according to the state media agency Xinhua. “The two sides should take the opportunity of the full reopening of border ports and the resumption of operation of civil aviation flights and international passenger trains to expand personnel exchanges and realise two-way travel,” he said. Kim congratulated Xi on China’s “amazing development achievements” and his efforts to promote “world peace”, according to Xinhua. North Korea is China’s only formal treaty ally but in recent years their relationship has been strained by a virtual freeze in trade during the Covid-19 pandemic and Pyongyang’s increasingly close relationship with Russia. Xi’s trip comes ahead of the 65th anniversary of the signing of the friendship and mutual assistance treaty between China and North Korea, a pact that is still China’s only defence agreement with another country. Chinese and North Korean troops fought alongside each other against South Korea in the Korean war in the early 1950s. But North Korea and Russia have a much more recent history of military cooperation. North Korea has sent more than 10,000 soldiers to fight for Russia in the Ukraine war, and in 2024 Moscow and Pyongyang signed a mutual defence pact. “Within North Korean propaganda, there are really over-the-top paeans to the closeness with Russia forged in fighting a war together. Whereas with China it’s kind of nostalgic,” said John Delury, a senior fellow for the Asia Society. “They don’t want to let North Korea’s closeness with Russia outpace the ties with China too much.” Xi, Kim and Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, stood side by side at a massive military parade in Beijing in September last year. That event projected a show of strength from the would-be leaders of a new, autocrat-led world order. But behind the scenes the men navigate a delicate balancing act to preserve their individual self-interests. More so than Russia and North Korea, China also wants to maintain a strategic relationship, at least when it comes to trade, with the US. The Chinese leader’s visit to Pyongyang comes less than one month after the US president, Donald Trump, visited Beijing for a highly anticipated summit that was framed by China as re-stabilising the fraught US-China relationship. Although the Trump-Xi summit was low on tangible deliverables, the US president later said that that he discussed North Korea with Xi. There has been some speculation that Trump could have asked Xi to pass on a message to Kim. Trump has repeatedly said he would like to meet the North Korean leader again. In recent years Beijing and Washington have departed from their previously united front of opposing North Korea’s nuclear buildup. When Xi and Kim met in Beijing last year, their official readouts omitted any mention of denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula for the first time, and although the White House said Trump and Xi “confirmed their shared goal to denuclearise North Korea” after their meeting in May, Beijing did not confirm this statement. On Sunday, Kim Yo-jong, Kim’s sister who wields considerable power within the regime, said claims that Xi and Trump had discussed denuclearisation were “false”. Last week North Korea unveiled a new nuclear material production factory and Kim called for an “exponential” expansion of the country’s atomic arsenal. A bigger priority for Xi than nuclear talks will be defending China’s own security interests in north-east Asia, most likely the threat he sees from Japan. Xi is understood to have become unusually animated when discussing the issue of what China sees as Japan’s increasing militarism with Trump, and with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, who visited Beijing in January. Japan rejects the claim that a more proactive defence policy amounts to the “new militarism” described by China. Delury said any cooperation between Beijing and Pyongyang on Japan was likely to be rhetorical rather than practical. The visit is also notable for being a trip abroad for Xi. In recent months he has hosted a flurry of world leaders and now travels internationally less frequently than before the pandemic. That he is willing to travel to North Korea reflects both the proximity of China’s ally – just a short flight or even a train journey from Beijing – and the importance of the bilateral relationship.

Israel and Iran exchange strikes as Middle East crisis threatens to escalate

The Israeli military has launched airstrikes on Iran after the Iranians fired missiles at northern Israel in the first exchange of fire between the two countries since a ceasefire was reached on 8 April, raising fears of a return to a full-scale regional war in the Middle East. Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels also fired at Israel and warned they would target Israeli-affiliated ships in the Red Sea, further escalating tension. The Israeli strikes came in apparent defiance of Donald Trump, who told Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that he did not think Israel needed to respond further. He added that Netanyahu did not “call the shots”. In a message on his Truth Social platform on Monday, Trump wrote: “Israel and Iran must immediately stop ‘shooting’. President DONALD J. TRUMP.” Trump has leaned on Israel to stop its attacks in Lebanon to allow room for a deal to end the wider war with Iran, including an obscenities-filled rebuke of Netanyahu in a phone call to the Israeli leader last week. However, Israel launched strikes on the Beirut area early on Sunday, the first since the US announced a truce plan for Lebanon last week. Iranian officials said they did not believe Israel launched its attacks on Iran without the approval of the US, rejecting any suggestion that Netanyahu had defied an instruction from Trump. “No one believes that the Zionist regime would carry out any action without prior coordination and cooperation with the United States,” said Esmaeil Baqaei, a foreign ministry spokesperson. “It is perfectly natural that the diplomatic process initiated to put an end to this imposed war would be affected.” The White House did not respond to messages about the Israeli strikes and whether they were done in coordination with the US. Israel’s attacks included a strike on an Iranian petrochemical complex. The Israeli military said it had also struck and dismantled Iran’s defence systems deployed across several areas in the country. Iranian state television reported the sound of explosions being heard in Isfahan, Karaj, Tabriz and Tehran. Officials offered no details on what had been struck, nor any information about the damage. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said Israel used air-launched ballistic missiles in its attack on Monday morning, without elaborating. The IRGC said it had targeted two military bases in Israel, describing the attacks as being part of Operation Nasr, or “Victory”. The Israeli army said it had worked to intercept a fresh wave of Iranian missiles. A series of explosions were heard in Jerusalem, where people took shelter. An Iranian missile fragment caused damage to several homes in a West Bank settlement, but no injuries were reported. A senior US official told Associated Press that Trump had called Netanyahu to urge him not to retaliate immediately after the Iranian missile attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Trump believed he had convinced Netanyahu to wait. The US president “got Bibi to hold off for the time being”, the official said. The official would not offer any other details about the call, and there was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office. Speaking to the Financial Times before Israel hit Iran, Trump said he dictated terms to Netanyahu on how the war should be prosecuted. “He won’t have any choice,” Trump told the newspaper in a telephone interview, adding that he called “all the shots”, not Netanyahu. Houthi rebels announced a missile attack on Israel on Monday, the first since early April, and declared a ban on Israeli shipping in the Red Sea, raising the spectre of a return to significant disruption on the main trade route. “We declare a complete and total ban on Israeli maritime navigation in the Red Sea,” said a statement from the Houthis’ armed forces. Trust between Iran and the US has been at a minimum for a long time, but if Tehran feels there is evidence the White House covertly endorsed the Israeli attack there is likely to be consequences for the stalled peace talks that Trump has claimed could end in a deal in days. The Iranian negotiators have been under pressure internally from a small but vocal group of hardliners based in the parliament to abandon the talks altogether. Others claim specific aspects of the deal are too ambiguous and need to be tightened. Ehsan Movahedian, an international relations specialist at Tehran University, pointed to videos he claimed proved the US did not just approve but was involved in Israel’s attack on Iran. ‘Footage shows the launch of cruise missiles from the eastern Mediterranean toward Iran, meaning Trump has lied again,” he wrote. “American warships are deployed in the eastern Mediterranean … Israel lacks the capability to launch long-range ship-fired cruise missiles.” Brent crude jumped $3.50 to $96.59 a barrel on Monday, while stocks in Asia, a region heavily dependent on oil imports, fell sharply in early trading. Additional reporting by Associated Press and Reuters