Middle East

US Central Command refutes media claims that several ships evaded the Strait of Hormuz blockade, providing details of US military interceptions and orders for vessels to return.

Roya Hakakian, who fled Iran as a teenager, warned that watching two major militaries fail to bring down the regime would have a devastating impact on the Iranian opposition.

The New York Post reported that US President Donald Trump, when asked via text message about the possibility of talks happening on Friday, said: “It’s possible!”

Israeli ambassador Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese ambassador Nada Hamadeh Mouawad will return to meet at the US State Department after meeting for the first time last week.

"The silence of European Union leaders and member states in the face of this wave of political executions in Iran is unjustifiable," Maryam Rajavi said in a speech at the European Parliament.

It will be Gaza's first vote of any kind since 2006, when Hamas won the PA's legislative elections and later seized control of Gaza following a brief civil war with PA President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah.

The US-Iran talks are now tied to wider regional issues. For instance, Iran wanted a ceasefire in Lebanon. The US wants to see Iranian support for proxies ended.

"We caught a ship yesterday that had some things on it, which wasn’t very nice. A gift from China perhaps, I don’t know, but I was a little surprised," Trump said during an interview with CNBC.

The Houthis have declared that Yemen will not remain neutral in the Middle East conflict and are preparing to turn the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and even the Indian Ocean into active theaters of war.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards seized two vessels, the MSC Francesca and Epaminodes, for operating without authorization and manipulating navigation systems, transferring them to Iranian shores.