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Key events
The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said its Mina al-Ahmadi refinery was hit by drones early on Friday, setting off fires at several operating units, according to the state news agency. Emergency teams are reportedly still trying to put out the fires, but no injuries have been reported.
Donald Trump has again mocked the UK’s Sir Keir Starmer as weak and had a fresh dig at the UK’s navy as Britain leads diplomatic efforts to reopen the critical strait of Hormuz shipping lane, closed by the Iran war.
In a video that has emerged from a private Easter White House lunch, the US president impersonated the British prime minister as he recounted Sir Keir saying he had to ask his team about sending “two old broken-down aircraft carriers” to the Middle East.
Mr Trump said Britain “should be our best” ally, but had not been, in his latest sideswipe over the UK’s refusal to be drawn into the conflict with Tehran. It is not the first time Trump has criticised the UK’s aircraft carriers, having previously dismissed them as “toys” that “aren’t the best”.
Welcome summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the US-Israel war on Iran, the crisis in the Middle East and its wider repercussions around the world.
US President Donald Trump warned late on Thursday about striking and destroying bridges and electric power plants in Iran in his latest threat to hit the country’s infrastructure.
The US military “hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran. Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants,” Trump wrote on social media. His post said that Iran’s leadership “knows what has to be done, and has to be done, FAST!”
Here is a summary of recent developments. Stay with us for the latest news.
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Trump shared footage on his Truth Social of a bridge strike near Tehran that reportedly killed at least eight people, and appeared to take US responsibility for the attack. He warned there was “much more to follow” and urged Tehran to “make a deal before it is too late”. Strikes hit the B1 bridge between Karaj and Tehran on Thursday, which had already been hit around an hour earlier, Iranian state TV reported.
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The UN security council has postponed a vote scheduled for Friday on authorizing the use of “defensive” force to protect shipping in the strait of Hormuz from Iranian attacks, according to the official program. The 15-member body was set to vote Friday morning on a draft resolution brought by Bahrain, but by Thursday night the schedule shifted. The reason given was that the United Nations observes Good Friday as a public holiday, according to diplomatic sources – despite this fact being known when the vote was first announced.
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The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has hit out at Donald Trump, saying he was undermining Nato by creating “daily doubt about his commitment” to the alliance. Macron said: “You have to be serious. When you want to be serious, you don’t go around saying the opposite every day of what you just said the day before. And perhaps you shouldn’t talk every day.” The US president, in interviews to various media yesterday, made disparaging comments about Nato, calling it a “paper tiger” and threatening to pull the US out of the alliance.
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The UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper convened a virtual meeting of more than 40 countries on the strait of Hormuz crisis on Thursday, in which officials from every continent discussed possible ways to increase pressure on Iran to reopen the critical waterway.
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Randy George, the US army’s top officer, is stepping down from his role after the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, reportedly requested that he retire immediately. The Pentagon confirmed on Thursday that George, who had been serving as the army’s 41st chief of staff, was retiring.
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Iran is drafting a protocol with Oman to monitor traffic in the strait of Hormuz, the official IRNA news agency cited deputy foreign minister Kezem Gharibabadi as saying. Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, apparently told Sputnik, the Russian government-owned news agency, that Iran has nearly completed its draft protocol, which would establish a new navigation regime in the strait of Hormuz.
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UN secretary general António Guterres warned that the Middle East conflict risked spiralling into a wider war, as he called for an immediate halt to US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Iranian attacks on its neighbours. “We are on the edge of a wider war that would engulf the Middle East with dramatic impacts around the globe,” he said in New York.
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Wall Street’s main indexes pared declines and were muted on Thursday, in the last session of the week, as investors assessed latest indications that energy shipping through the strait of Hormuz could be restored. Iran was drafting a protocol with Oman for traffic through the Strait, its foreign ministry said. Britain also said that about 40 countries are discussing joint action to reopen the strait to stop Iran from holding “the global economy hostage.”
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Israeli defence minister Israel Katz has warned that Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem would pay an “extraordinarily heavy price” for escalating attacks during the ongoing Jewish holidays. “I have a clear message for Naim Qassem … you and your associates will pay an extraordinarily heavy price for the intensified rocket fire directed at Israeli citizens as they gathered to celebrate Passover Seder,” Katz said in a video statement.
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Germany and China both want to restore the freedom of navigation in the strait of Hormuz and agree that individual states must not control sea lanes or levy tolls for passage, the foreign ministry in Berlin said on Thursday. China can exert its influence on Iran to bring about a negotiated solution and an end to hostilities against the Gulf states, added the ministry.
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The Lebanese prime minister, Nawaf Salam, said there was no end in sight to the war that has killed hundreds of people and left a million more displaced. Marking one month since Lebanon was dragged into the Middle East war, with the Israeli military fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants along the southern Lebanese border, Salam said his country was committed to “employing all available means to stop the war”.
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The Philippines said Iran has pledged to allow safe passage of oil shipments through the strait of Hormuz. Officials said a “productive phone conversation” between the Philippine foreign secretary, Theresa Lazaro, and her Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, had opened the door to crucial oil shipments.
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Strikes in Iran have caused extensive damage to a century-old medical centre in the capital Tehran, the country’s health ministry spokesperson said. “The aggression against Pasteur Institute of Iran – a century-old pillar of global health and member of International Pasteur Network – is a direct assault on international health security,” Hossein Kermanpour wrote in a post on X, with images of a heavily damaged building.
