Iran war update: US launches sixth consecutive day of strikes against Iran

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We will be closing this live page shortly. But before we do, here’s a recap of the day’s major developments:

• The US launched a sixth consecutive night of strikes against Iran “to further degrade Iranian military capabilities”.
• US Central Command said its forces redirected three commercial vessels trying to bypass the blockade on Iranian ports.
• Iranian media reported a suspected US attack on a bridge in the Bandar-e Khamir region, alongside explosions across southern Iran, including 10 on Qeshm Island, and others in Bushehr and Ahvaz.
• US Vice President JD Vance has accused Israel of funding campaigns aimed at ruining US negotiations with Iran to end the war.
• An Iranian military spokesman accused the US of working to destabilise security in the Strait of Hormuz, declaring that the situation in the strategic waterway will never return to how it was before the war.
• Two people are dead and eight others are injured following US air strikes on the Kehvarstan Bridge and a residential area in Bandar Abbas, according to Iranian media.
• Tehran has accused the US of carrying out a “barbaric attack” after a cancer hospital in southwestern Iran was forced to evacuate more than 200 patients during heavy air strikes nearby.
• Israeli attacks have killed at least five Palestinians in Gaza as Israel continues to violate the ceasefire with Hamas.
• UN chief Antonio Guterres has expressed deep alarm after Israel granted city status to the illegal settlement of Givat Ze’ev in the occupied West Bank.

Syrian authorities announced they intercepted a shipment of weapons, including long-range missiles and drones, at the border crossing with Iraq, Al Tanf.

The shipment was intended for Hezbollah in Lebanon, a significant development under the new leadership of Ahmed al-Sharaa after the fall of the al-Assad government, officials said.

Watch Heidi Pett’s report below:

The report, citing Bushehr’s deputy governor Ehsan Jahanian, comes as US Central Command said it had launched its sixth consecutive night of attacks on Iran.

“Iran does not control the SoH [Strait of Hormuz],” Pentagon chief Pete Hesgeth says in a post on X.

His post is accompanied by images of soldiers boarding a vessel in the Gulf of Oman, shared earlier by US Central Command as part of the US’s military blockade of Iran.

Earlier, we reported that US forces have redirected three commercial vessels attempting to run the blockade.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has met with representatives from oil companies in Houston, Texas, a day after meeting with Trump in Washington, DC.

The prime minister’s office said that al-Zaidi met with representatives of Halliburton, Shell, Honeywell, Weatherford, and Baker Hughes and “discussed opportunities for cooperation in developing Iraq’s oil and natural gas sectors”.

Trump had promised “a lot of deals” during al-Zaidi’s visit to the US and a boost to the country’s oil output.

Pipelines, including the Iraq-Turkiye crude oil pipeline, also called the Kirkuk-Ceyhan Pipeline, have been reported as possible alternatives to oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, although their combined capacity is much lower than what passed through the waterway before the war on Iran.

Trump has refused to rule out sending US troops into Iran as fighting resumes and US strikes continue. But what could a ground invasion actually involve?

Al Jazeera’s Ava Warriner breaks down how such an operation could unfold and the difficulties analysts say it could pose for the US Army.

Watch more below.

Iran’s Fars news agency reports that two people have been killed and eight others wounded in a US strike on the Kehvarstan Bridge and another on a residential neighbourhood in Bandar Abbas.

Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB said that surface-to-surface HIMARS missiles were fired from Kuwait towards Iran.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric has said that UN peacekeepers continue to observe Israeli military fire in southern Lebanon, despite a ceasefire there.

The UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, recorded “thirteen trajectories of projectiles attributed to the [Israeli military]” this morning, Dujarric said.

It also recorded six trajectories yesterday and 13 on Tuesday, all attributed to Israeli forces, he said.

“Since 21 June, UNIFIL has not detected any trajectories originating from non-state actors, including Hezbollah,” Dujarric added.

Separately, the Israeli military said just after midnight local time on Friday (21:00 GMT Thursday) that air raid sirens that sounded in northern Israel’s Kiryat Shmona were “false alarms” activated in an area where Israeli forces “operate in southern Lebanon”.

The US has continued its attacks against Iran for a sixth consecutive night, with strikes targeting infrastructure in the country’s south, according to local media reports.

The US military said it initiated its latest round of attacks at 18:00 GMT on Thursday, as Iranian media reported explosions and attacks in Qeshm Island, Bandar Abbas, Chabahar, Iranshahr and Bandar-e Khamir.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that a US missile attack targeted an airport in Iranshahr, while another “enemy” attack hit a communications tower in Bandar Abbas, cutting off power in the area.

Iran’s Fars news agency reported a suspected US attack on a bridge in Bandar-e Khamir.

Read more here.

The signalling from US officials is that, right now, military pressure and diplomacy are not mutually exclusive.

The argument, especially from diplomats, has been that diplomacy is the preference, but we’re also hearing again and again from officials that it is Iran that violated the recent MoU by targeting commercial vessels transiting through the Strait of Hormuz.

The framing from US officials is that this has left the military with little other option than to increase, or focus more on military pressure, on economic pressure, when it comes to the ongoing situation.

We should note here that this doesn’t mean that just because the momentum in diplomacy has stalled or slowed, it has lost its pulse.

There is still a diplomatic track. We’ve seen it with the recent meeting President Trump had with Iraq’s new prime minister, which took place on Tuesday.

The talks between the US Secretary of State and Jordan’s foreign minister also took place on Tuesday.

There are also ongoing talks between Israel and Lebanon that took place in Rome this week.

Preliminary images coming out of the Iranian city of Bandar Abbas show signs of destruction in the city, following the latest US strikes, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting.

The US is “terrified” of Iran’s “sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz”, says Iranian armed forces spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaghari.

“The United States is the one working to destabilise security in the Strait of Hormuz,” he said. “The situation in the Strait of Hormuz will never return to what it was before the 40-day war.”

Iran has asked countries in the Gulf “not to allow America to use their territories to attack us”, he added.

“If the countries of the region cooperate with us and refrain from cooperating with America, we will achieve collective security together.”

Iran’s Fars news agency, citing Iraqi media, is reporting a “series of explosions” in Kuwait.

The blasts could be heard as far away as Basra in southern Iraq, the report said.