Morning recap

Morning recap

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

US president Donald Trump has said the Iranians are in talks with the United States, and that he is willing to listen, but emphasised that Tehran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

He added that he has not taken a decision on whether to go ahead with the large-scale military campaign he had warned of earlier.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has said that “the existing insecurity in the Strait of Hormuz and the region is exclusively caused by the US breach of the agreement”.

Israeli forces, meanwhile, have raided some 70 homes and arrested around 50 Palestinians overnight  in the town of Tal, southwest of Nablus, Al Jazeera reported. The raids have surged amid calls by human rights groups to stop settler ‘pogroms’  in the occupied West Bank.

Here are the latest developments: 

•    Saudi Arabia sounds three consecutive alerts in Yanbu governorate after Houthis claim they launched a missile attack on the southern part of the Kingdom.

•    The US military has said it had fired on and disabled a tanker ship that was attempting to evade the American blockade on Iranian ports.

•    A top Iranian military commander has said that one US soldier would be killed for every Iranian civilian killed in US attacks.

•    The United States has said the removal of Karim Khan as the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court will have no impact on Washington’s plans to dismantle the institution.

•    Unesco has added the archaeological site of Sebastia in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to both the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger. ...