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Middle East crisis live: Trump increases pressure on allies over strait of Hormuz; flights suspended at Dubai airport | US-Israel war on Iran
Key events
Nick Visser
The captain of the Iranian women’s football squad has left Australia after withdrawing her claim of asylum.
Zahra Ghanbari became the fifth member of the football cohort to change her mind after initially taking up an offer to stay in the country following the Asian Cup.
The office of home affairs minister Tony Burke confirmed on Monday that another team member had left late on Sunday night.
Ghanbari’s decision to join fellow players in Malaysia was reported by Iranian state news agency Irna, which has seized on the about-face from all but two members of the cohort as a propaganda coup for the nation’s under-siege regime.
Australia initially granted asylum to seven members of the party, including one from the support staff, last week while they were in the country for the Asian Cup.
Burke said on Sunday, after three of the women decided to return to Iran, that the players were given repeated chances to talk about their options after telling Australian officials they had made this decision.
Iran’s foreign minister has claimed Israeli strikes on fuel depots across Tehran amount to “ecocide”, citing the impact on the health of the Iranian capital’s residents.
“Israel’s bombings of fuel depots in Tehran violate international law and constitute ecocide,” Abbas Araghchi said on X.
Residents face long-term damage to their health and well-being. Contamination of soil and groundwater could have generational impacts.
Israel “must be punished for its war crimes”, he added.
Japan has said it will not send warships “at the moment” to help reopen the strait of Hormuz, after Donald Trump urged countries to join a “team effort” to protect vessels from Iranian strikes.
The strait has been all but closed since the start of the war, raising global energy supply fears, and the US president repeatedly pressed countries at the weekend to help secure this weekend.
Trump specifically named China, the UK, Japan, France and South Korea – and earlier warned that Nato faced a “very bad” future if its members failed to step up.
Japan’s defence minister Shinjiro Koizumi told the country’s parliament:
In the current Iran situation, we are not at the moment considering issuing a maritime security operation.
In the UK, ministers are drawing up plans to send minesweeping drones to the strait, my colleague Kiran Stacey reported earlier, amid concerns in Whitehall that complying with Trump’s demand to send ships could escalate the crisis.
Australia has also confirmed it will not send ships. “We know how incredibly important that is, but that’s not something we’ve been asked, or we’re contributing to,” transport minister Catherine King told the national broadcaster ABC.
Donald Trump is said to be working to build a coalition of countries that will attempt to reopen the strait of Hormuz.
The US president hopes to unveil the list later this week, Axios reported, citing four unnamed sources.
Over the weekend, Trump claimed that “many countries” would send warships to the region – before publicly urging a string of countries to do so. The response has been muted, my colleague Hannah Ellis-Petersen hs reported from Dubai.
A fifth of the world’s oil supply normally passes through the strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway on Iran’s southern coast. Iran’s effective closure of it in retaliation for US-Israel attacks has been catastrophic for global energy and trade flows, causing soaring global oil prices amid what’s been called “the largest oil supply disruption in history”.
Welcome summary
Hello and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the US-Israel war against Iran and the consequences for the region, the world and the global economy.
Here are the latest developments:
Donald Trump has warned that Nato faces a “very bad” future if US allies fail to assist in opening up the strait of Hormuz, the Financial Times has reported. He also said on Sunday that he has demanded about seven countries send warships to keep the strait of Hormuz open, but his appeals have brought no commitments as oil prices soar during the Iran war. The president declined to name the countries heavily reliant on Middle East crude that the administration is negotiating with to join a coalition to police the waterway where about one-fifth the world’s traded oil normally flows. Australia and Japan have declined to send their navies to the strait.
Flights were temporarily suspended at Dubai’s airport, previously one of the world’s busiest, after a “drone-related incident” sparked a fire nearby, city authorities said on Monday. The incident impacted a fuel tank, the Gulf financial hub’s media office said, later adding authorities had extinguished the blaze that broke out. The office said no injuries had been reported.
Israel said that its military remains focused on thousands of potential targets within Iran, even as Tehran issued a stern warning to neighbouring nations against further involvement in the rapidly expanding regional war.
Oil prices have climbed again amid mounting supply fears after the US struck Iran’s vital Kharg Island oil hub and Trump demanded allies help reopen the strait of Hormuz. Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose 1.8% to $104.98 per barrel during early trading on Monday. Another weekend of violence across the Middle East compounded concerns over the conflict, and its ramifications for global energy markets.
British prime minister Keir Starmer discussed the need to reopen the strait of Hormuz to end disruption to global shipping with Trump, a Downing Street spokeswoman said on Sunday. Starmer also spoke with Canadian prime minister Mark Carney, with the leaders discussing the impact of the strait’s continued closure on international shipping, the spokeswoman told Reuters.
Italy’s military said there had been a drone attack on the Ali Al Salem airbase in Kuwait hosting Italian and US forces, but said all its personnel were safe. “This morning, Ali Al Salem base in Kuwait was the target of a drone attack that hit a shelter housing a remotely piloted aircraft of the Italian Task Force Air (TFA), which was destroyed,” the chief of the defence general staff, Luciano Portolano, said in a statement.
UN peacekeepers said they were fired upon “likely by non-state armed groups” in south Lebanon on Sunday, while a Hamas source said an Israeli strike killed an official from the Palestinian militant group.
A rocket attack on Baghdad international airport in Iraq, which houses a US diplomatic facility, wounded five people, Iraqi authorities said. The Iraqi government’s security media cell said “five rockets targeted Baghdad International Airport and its surrounding area, injuring four airport employees and security personnel, and an engineer”.
US energy secretary Chris Wright said that there was “a very good chance” gas prices could drop below $3 a gallon by summer, though that is contingent on the Iran conflict’s end. Wright told NBC’s Meet the Press that while US drivers “are feeling it right now” at the pump and “will feel it for a few more weeks”, once the Iran war is over “we’ll go to a world more abundant” and “more affordable” in energy.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a brief video to mock viral social media rumours suggesting he had been killed. Taking a sip from a steaming cup at a cafe near Jerusalem, he jokingly posted to his official X account, “I’m dead for coffee,” utilizing a Hebrew slang term that equates being “dead” for something with loving it.
The World Health Organisation said on Sunday it had released $2 m from its Contingency Fund for Emergencies (CFE) to support the health response in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria amid the Middle East crisis.
