US strikes Iranian tankers plus other key Mideast news

The U.S. destroyed five Iranian tankers in response to more attempted missile attacks on a Navy warship, according to a U.S. official, who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.

It marks the latest tit-for-tat strikes as Washington and Tehran lurch back toward fighting during more than six months of war.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy has warned crews of oil tankers near ports in Kuwait and Bahrain to immediately leave their vessels, saying the ships could be targeted in retaliation for U.S. attacks on Iranian tankers.

The warning, carried by Iranian state television, said the U.S. military had targeted several Iranian oil tankers. It accused Kuwait and Bahrain of hosting U.S. forces and assisting in the attacks.

Iran strikes US targets in Jordan in tit-for-tat retaliation

Iran has launched missiles toward U.S. targets in Jordan, Iranian state-run media said, following the latest American strikes.

It’s the latest tit-for-tat retaliation after the U.S. military said it destroyed five Iranian crude oil tankers following two attacks on a U.S. warship by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard over the past two days.

U.S. Central Command, when asked about the strikes on the Jordanian airbase, said it had no information to offer.

Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia injure at least 73

A wave of Houthi attacks ignited fires at several oil facilities and utilities in Saudi Arabia’s southern region, injuring at least 73 people, officials said.

The attacks early Tuesday marked a major escalation in the renewed conflict between an important U.S. ally and the Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen. They follow weeks of intensifying clashes between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen, which shattered a four-year truce in the country’s civil war.

The flare-up brings further instability to a region scarred by nearly three years of wars and threatens to squeeze shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a critical trade route that has helped cushion the blow from Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.

The attacks hit “civilian and economic facilities” in the Saudi cities of Abha, Jazan, Najran and Khamis Mushait, said Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, a spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen.

UK announces Israeli settlement sanctions

The U.K. announced it is banning trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, saying an expansion program there is endangering efforts to establish a Palestinian state.

British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said that “settler terrorists” are carrying out “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians. He said the U.K. will ban imports of all goods from the settlements as well as some services.

Israel will close the British consulate in Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Tuesday. He said Israel will also expel U.K. representatives from a joint military center monitoring the Gaza ceasefire and end U.K. training of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces in the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘s government has presided over a surge of settlement construction in the West Bank, which Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war and which would make up the main part of a future Palestinian state.

The international community considers the settlements illegal or illegitimate, and the Palestinians say they are the main barrier to lasting peace. Netanyahu’s government views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people and opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.

Iran says it seized a US underwater drone

Iran’s navy captured one of the U.S. military’s underwater drones at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, Iranian state television reported, saying the unmanned vessel had been “seized as a prize.”

Asked about the report, U.S. Central Command spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said that an Anduril Dive-LD drone malfunctioned “more than a day ago” while surveying waters in the region and that the U.S. military no longer had possession of it.

Hawkins said the drone was a defective, older model that “neither collected sensitive data nor carried any classified sonar or radar equipment.”

“It was in a commercially available configuration so we aren’t concerned,” Hawkins said.

A child is among 2 people killed by gunfire in Gaza

A child was among at least two people killed on Tuesday by Israeli troops in Gaza, according to hospital officials.

A 10-year-old boy died after forces opened fire near tents sheltering displaced Palestinians east of Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital. It said Israeli fire also killed a 69-year-old man south of Khan Younis.

Hospital officials said both victims died on the Palestinian side of the “yellow line” that separates areas of Gaza occupied by the Israeli military. Palestinians near the dividing line have faced heightened danger from Israeli fire.

Separately, an Israeli strike in Nuseirat refugee camp wounded 10 people, Al-Awda Hospital said.

Residents in several areas said they received evacuation warnings, followed by strikes in Khan Younis, Bureij refugee camp and Gaza City.

US strikes Iranian tankers plus other key Mideast news

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