US and Iran trade fresh strikes as Tehran declares Strait of Hormuz closed

WASHINGTON (MNTV) – The United States and Iran exchanged a new wave of attacks over the weekend, pushing an already fragile truce to the brink of collapse, after Washington carried out its third round of airstrikes in a single week and Tehran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed to shipping.

US Central Command said American forces struck about 140 Iranian military targets late Saturday, bringing the week’s total to more than 300 across three separate rounds.

The strikes hit missile and drone launch sites, naval assets, ammunition depots, communications networks and coastal surveillance posts, the command said, describing the campaign as an effort to weaken Iran’s capacity to menace commercial vessels in the strait. The munitions were delivered by fighter aircraft, drones and naval ships operating from land and sea.

The latest American action followed an attack by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on a Cyprus-flagged container ship, the GFS Galaxy, as it moved through the waterway.

US officials said one civilian crew member was left missing and the vessel was disabled by a fire and heavy damage to its engine room. Iran said it had fired only a warning shot at the ship for using what it called an unapproved route, and shortly afterward announced that it was shutting the strait entirely.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Iran had made a poor decision and would pay for it. Iranian officials, in turn, cast the American strikes as unlawful aggression.

The country’s parliament speaker and chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, warned that any US attack would draw an Iranian response and insisted the strait would stay open only on terms set by Tehran, not under what he called American threats. Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, told the Security Council that the strikes violated the UN Charter and Iran’s sovereignty.

Ceasefire that never fully held

The renewed fighting marks the sharpest escalation since Iran and the United States signed the so-called Islamabad Memorandum on June 17, an understanding brokered with the help of regional mediators that opened a 60-day window for the two sides to negotiate a permanent settlement. The agreement was meant to end the wider conflict that erupted on Feb. 28, when joint US-Israeli strikes launched what Washington described as major combat operations against Iranian military, government and infrastructure sites.

Under the memorandum, the United States agreed to lift its naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and roll back sanctions, while Iran committed to guaranteeing safe passage for ships and reaffirmed that it would not pursue nuclear weapons. The deal also called for a halt to military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.

That arrangement began to fray almost immediately.

Iran has repeatedly sought to assert control over traffic through the strait — pressing vessels to follow routes it designates and signaling its intent to charge transit fees, a demand rejected by most of the international community. The friction turned violent again in early July, when a series of ships were struck near Hormuz. On July 7, a Qatari-owned liquefied natural gas tanker and a Saudi-flagged supertanker were hit by projectiles, with the LNG carrier evacuated after a fire broke out in its engine room.

Washington accused the IRGC of firing missiles at the vessels and responded by reimposing oil sanctions it had suspended under the memorandum, followed by its first round of strikes on roughly 80 to 85 targets, including more than 60 IRGC small boats.

Iran retaliated by striking US military facilities in the Gulf. Air defenses in Kuwait and Bahrain were activated against incoming missiles and drones, and the IRGC said it had targeted a base in Jordan housing American forces; the Jordanian military reported intercepting eight missiles on July 9. A second US round of about 90 strikes followed along Iran’s coastline, with Iranian media reporting that a firefighter was killed at an airport in the country’s southeast.

President Donald Trump, speaking at a NATO summit in Ankara, declared that the memorandum was effectively over, even as other US officials stressed that Washington still preferred a negotiated outcome and wanted talks to continue.

Gulf states on alert as diplomacy stalls

The weekend’s exchanges again spilled across the region. Qatar’s Defense Ministry said its forces intercepted several ballistic missiles early Sunday, and Kuwait reported confronting hostile aerial targets in its airspace. Iranian state media said the IRGC had launched retaliatory strikes on the Prince Hassan Air Base in Jordan.

Roughly a fifth of the world’s crude oil and gas passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and the months of conflict have already rattled global energy markets, forced shipping lines to reroute and driven up war-risk insurance for tankers.

US Central Command has disputed Iran’s authority over the passage, saying American forces have helped hundreds of commercial vessels transit safely in recent months and insisting the strait remains an international waterway.

Mediation efforts, led primarily by Oman and Pakistan, have continued despite the violence. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, met his Omani counterpart in Muscat on Saturday, where the two agreed to pursue further technical and political talks and discussed a tentative Omani proposal for managing traffic through the strait.

Araghchi also spoke by phone with Pakistan’s army chief, warning against further US military action.

Whether those channels can hold remains uncertain.

Trump said Iran had reached out seeking a fresh agreement but questioned whether Tehran was a worthy partner, while Iranian negotiators have signaled they are braced for a prolonged confrontation. For now, the guns — and the missiles — have drowned out the diplomacy.