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Trump Renews His Threats to Target Civilian Infrastructure
As the U.S. resumed intensive bombing, President Trump resumed his bellicose rhetoric from the war’s early days. He threatened to take out Iranian bridges and power plants, which could be considered a war crime.
Published July 14, 2026Updated July 15, 2026Here’s the latest.
President Trump on Tuesday reassumed a belligerent posture toward Iran that echoed his stance at the war’s outset, threatening to destroy civilian infrastructure and refusing to rule out a ground invasion.
In the latest sign that the two sides were resuming full-scale war, Mr. Trump told Fox News that the U.S. military would continue to strike “very hard” until Iran agreed to negotiate, while insisting, “We are being very careful with the civilian population.”
Mr. Trump’s comments came hours after he walked back a plan he had announced on Monday to charge fees on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz in return for providing security — a practice his aides had previously rejected when Iran was demanding such fees — but pushed ahead with a naval blockade of Iranian ports that the U.S. military said began at 4 p.m. Eastern time.
U.S. forces carried out a new round of attacks on Iran throughout Tuesday and into Wednesday that the military’s Central Command said lasted seven hours, in another indication of a return to the intensive bombing that characterized the start of the war more than four months ago.
Mr. Trump’s path out of the conflict remained unclear. In the Fox News interview, Mr. Trump suggested that the U.S. military would strike targets including bridges and power plants. Such attacks could be considered a war crime under international law. The threats recalled comments he made in April when he threatened to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages.”
He also renewed the possibility of deploying ground troops, saying that “sometimes you need a ground campaign,” but that “you have other people that would do the ground campaign for us.”
With the preliminary U.S.-Iran cease-fire effectively abandoned, sea and air traffic to the region have been severely curtailed, threatening more disruptions to the global economy. Oil prices experienced one of the biggest daily jumps since the start of the war, and the number of vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz plummeted.
Iranian state media said American forces had fired on Qeshm Island, which has strategic military installations, and on a barracks housing Iranian soldiers in Sistan-Baluchestan Province. A local rights organization reported that at least two soldiers had been killed and 50 injured in the attack on the barracks. The U.S. military did not comment on the reports, nor did it specify its targets.
The Iranian military said it had launched strikes at U.S. military facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan. Officials from all three countries said the attacks were being intercepted.
Here’s what else to know:
Oil prices: The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, fell back after Mr. Trump dropped his plan to impose a hefty fee on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Earlier on Tuesday, the price had risen above $86 a barrel for the first time in a month. Read more ›
Iranian cyberattacks: Iran’s cyberwarfare capabilities have become more sophisticated, researchers said. Data released on Tuesday indicated that the country exploited outdated networks to track the cellphones of U.S. military personnel at the start of the war. Read more ›
European airlines: The European Union’s aviation safety regulator warned airlines to stop operating in the region, saying the increased military attacks posed a “high risk to civil flights.” The agency said that airlines should avoid the airspace of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and part of the Gulf of Oman.
Jordan’s military intercepted three Iranian missiles, according to a statement carried by the official Petra news agency. The Kuwait Army said earlier that its air defenses were intercepting hostile targets, while Bahrain’s interior ministry said warning sirens had been activated. None of the countries have reported damage or casualties from strikes on Wednesday.
July 14, 2026, 11:52 p.m. ETIran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said another retaliatory campaign against U.S. military targets in the Middle East was under way after the United States ramped up its attacks. In statements carried by state news media Wednesday morning, the Guards Corps said that it had launched strikes at bases in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.
July 14, 2026, 10:53 p.m. ETU.S. airstrikes hit a military barracks housing soldiers in the city of Bampur in Sistan-Baluchestan, a province in southeastern Iran, according to a local news channel of Iranian state television. Local residents were urged to stay clear of the area.
Haalvsh-Balochistan Human Rights Org, a rights organization focused on the ethnic Baluch minority who live there, reported that at least two soldiers were killed and 50 injured in the attack on the Iranian Army’s 88th Brigade in Bampur. The injured were transported to a hospital in the nearest large city, Iranshahr, and the city’s blood center issued an urgent request for donations, according to Haalvsh.
July 14, 2026, 10:42 p.m. ETU.S. Central Command said on Tuesday that it had completed its latest round of strikes against Iran. In a statement on social media, Central Command said it had hit “dozens of military targets” including missile and drone sites and coastal defense systems near the Strait of Hormuz and other Iranian coastal areas. The strikes lasted seven hours, it said, another sign that the United States had returned to the intensive bombing campaigns that marked the start of the war in February.
July 14, 2026, 8:51 p.m. ETDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Iraq’s prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi, at the Pentagon on Tuesday. In a social media post, Hegseth asserted that Iraq must “assert its sovereignty and disarm the Iran-aligned militias responsible for 600+ attacks on U.S. personnel this spring.” In a video of their meeting accompanying the post, Hegseth describes Iraq was “a strong sovereign country that we look forward to partner with based on mutual benefit.”
Air defenses in Kuwait intercepted “hostile targets” early Wednesday, according to the Kuwait Army.
July 14, 2026, 8:03 p.m. ETBahrain’s Interior Ministry said early Wednesday that its alarm sirens had been activated. Earlier in the day, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said they had launched a wave of missile and drone strikes against U.S. weapons warehouses in Bahrain.
July 14, 2026, 8:02 p.m. ETA water-bottling plant in western Iran, was struck by three projectiles early Wednesday, according to IRNA, Iran’s official news agency. The plant, near the village of Musian in Ilam Province, sits near Iran’s border with Iraq. The governor of the area said that no one was killed or injured but that the factory’s equipment was damaged.
July 14, 2026, 7:57 p.m. ETSecretary of State Marco Rubio met on Tuesday with Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, in Washington. Iran fired missiles at a U.S. air base in Jordan this week.
July 14, 2026, 7:05 p.m. ETU.S. Central Command released a statement by its commander, Adm. Brad Cooper, saying that over the past seven days, Iran had attacked seven commercial ships and that as a result, nearly a dozen civilian crew members were missing, injured or dead. “U.S. forces are holding Iran accountable for unwarranted aggression that continues to endanger innocent lives,” the admiral said.
Trump said his “representatives” spoke with Iranian officials on Tuesday and informed them they should make a deal or “you are not going to have anybody left,” he said. “We are being very careful with the civilian population,” he said.
July 14, 2026, 6:59 p.m. ETTrump said he decided to go to war because Iran wanted a nuclear weapon. When the Fox News host Trey Yingst pushed back, saying Iran had denied seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, Trump said, “Everything they say is a lie.”
July 14, 2026, 6:47 p.m. ETTrump said on Fox News that Iran would be “hit very hard” tonight and this week. “Next week, it gets really bad for them, because next week comes the power plants, next week comes the bridges,” he said, saying that the strikes would not end until Iranian officials came back to negotiations.
Such attacks could be considered a war crime under international law, and the comments recalled those he made in April when he threatened to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages.”
July 14, 2026, 6:31 p.m. ETIranian cyberattackers tracked the phones of U.S. military personnel, according to new data.
Iranian cyberattacks exploited vulnerabilities in outdated network technology to locate the phones of U.S. personnel in the Middle East, data released on Tuesday suggested.
The Mobile Surveillance Monitor, a research initiative that studies mobile espionage, detected a wave of signals across multiple networks in the Middle East at the outset of the United States and Israel’s war against Iran in February. Gary Miller, a cybersecurity researcher who founded the nonprofit that runs the research initiative, said the data was indicative of a “coordinated attack campaign.”
Tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel are stationed in the Middle East, including in Gulf nations like Bahrain, one of the countries where Mr. Miller said telecommunications networks were flooded with information requests.
Experts who reviewed the information, reported earlier by The Financial Times, said it appeared that Iran had used cellphone signals to track U.S. military personnel and contractors in the Middle East.
Iran’s dispersed network of hackers has long used cyberattacks to project power across the Middle East and to challenge — or at least annoy — the United States. But analysts say the latest reports of Iran tracking U.S. personnel across the region illustrate how dangerous its cyberwarfare capabilities have become.
The data showed a wave of signals sent through SS7 protocols, a low-security telecommunications technology developed in the 1970s, seeking location information about devices across the region. Mr. Miller said the signals seemed to target phones connected to local networks, which U.S. military members sometimes use.
Nikita Shah, a cybersecurity researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Iran’s use of phone network signals to locate targets indicated that its cyberwarfare capabilities had become more advanced — and potentially dangerous for U.S. personnel stationed within striking distance of Iranian missiles.
“Iran has become quite creative in the last couple of years, and especially in this conflict,” Ms. Shah said. “For me, this signals a step up in sophistication.”
Cyberattackers from Iran, Russia, China and other countries have long exploited vulnerabilities in the SS7 telecommunications system to spy on targets, Ms. Shah said.
Last year, researchers at Enea, a cybersecurity company based in Sweden, discovered that a surveillance company in the Middle East had exploited similar vulnerabilities to locate specific mobile phone users.
U.S. lawmakers and government agencies recently warned that Iran could use American service members’ cellphone data to target them with strikes.
Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, and Representative Pat Harrigan, Republican of North Carolina, sent a letter signed by a dozen other members of Congress to the Defense Department in May, expressing concern that the department had not adequately protected U.S. military personnel from cybersecurity threats in the Iran war. In April, the letter said, U.S. Central Command said it had “received multiple threat reports” about adversaries using commercially available location data to target U.S. personnel.
Asked about data suggesting Iran tracked U.S. personnel using SS7 vulnerabilities, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command said on Tuesday that he was “not tracking such reports,” and declined to answer questions about how the military was defending against Iran’s phone-tracking capabilities.
While typically less advanced than campaigns linked to Russia or China, Iranian cyberattacks have remained a persistent challenge to U.S. personnel in the region and closer to home. In February, a group affiliated with Iranian intelligence took responsibility for the release of emails and photographs stolen from a personal account of Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director.
And in April, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned of Iran-based cyberattacks on government services and water and energy systems that had led to “operational disruption and financial loss.”
Iran has also used phone location data to track and intimidate its own citizens. After security forces led a lethal crackdown on widespread protests in Iran that began in December, the authorities sent ominous messages to people accused of taking part in the demonstrations.
Show moreJuly 14, 2026, 6:30 p.m. ETIran’s state broadcaster, IRIB, reported that the office of Hormozgan Province’s governor had said that blasts heard intermittently in Bandar Abbas, coastal counties and Persian Gulf islands were linked to clashes and exchanges of fire in the Strait of Hormuz. An explosion was also heard near Hajiabad in Hormozgan Province, according to IRNA, Iran’s official news agency.
Hajiabad lies inland north of Bandar Abbas, along an important route connecting the port with central Iran and near military facilities, though it was not immediately clear what caused the explosion or whether it was connected to the fighting in the strait.
July 14, 2026, 6:30 p.m. ETTrump said on Fox News that the strikes on Iran would continue “until I say it’s enough.” He said Iran was like a “great boxer,” refusing to give up. “You think you have them beat, and then all of the sudden he comes back and he gives you a shot,” Trump said. “They have some fight left, but they don’t have much.”
President Trump, appearing Tuesday night on Fox News, declined to answer directly when asked if the war with Iran had resumed. But he said that Iran had to be “beat up.” He also said of the Strait of Hormuz, “We have to keep it open.”
July 14, 2026, 5:50 p.m. ETIran’s army said it had carried out a new round of drone strikes on an air base in Jordan that is used by U.S. forces, targeting areas housing fighter jets and other facilities. In a statement carried by the state broadcaster IRIB early Wednesday morning, the army said that the strike was its seventh round of drone attacks against U.S. bases in the region and pledged that there would be more.
July 14, 2026, 5:46 p.m. ETIranian state media reported a new round of U.S. attacks late Tuesday into early Wednesday along Iran’s coastline near the Strait of Hormuz.
IRNA, Iran’s official news agency, said a location near Sirik, a coastal town, was hit at about 11 p.m. local time, while the state broadcaster reported several explosions between Sirik and the nearby village of Taheroui. IRNA also reported additional strikes in Bandar Abbas, a major port city, following earlier attacks there, and an explosion on Hengam Island.
July 14, 2026, 5:06 p.m. ETThe U.S. Treasury imposed new sanctions against a shipping network headed by an Iranian, Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, that it said was a major part of Iran’s efforts to bypass trading sanctions. The sanctions apply to Shamkhani and dozens of other individuals, and several companies and ships he controls that are based in other countries. Shamkhani, whose father was a top Iranian military figure killed at the outset of the war, has been targeted in previous rounds of sanctions. He has also been accused of helping Russia evade sanctions on its oil sales.
July 14, 2026, 4:44 p.m. ETKazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, said in an interview aired on Iranian state television that Iran had held no negotiations with the United States in nearly a month. He accused Washington of “shattering” the memorandum of understanding underpinning the cease-fire, which both sides have now abandoned.
Gharibabadi described the Strait of Hormuz as a matter of national security during wartime and said Iran had asked Oman to suspend the use of a shipping route running along its coast.
Gharibabadi also said that Iranian retaliation to American attacks would make the United States “regret its actions.” He did not identify specific targets or say when such a response might occur.
The United States began enforcing a blockade against Iranian ports and coastal areas at 4 p.m. Eastern time, with more than 20 U.S. Navy warships and hundreds of military aircraft deployed across the Middle East, according to U.S. Central Command.
July 14, 2026, 3:46 p.m. ETFour members of the Kuwait Naval Force were injured in Iranian attacks, according to the country’s army. The Kuwait Army said it had intercepted one ballistic missile, five cruise missiles and 33 drones. Shrapnel damaged some civilian facilities, it added.
July 14, 2026, 2:30 p.m. ETThe office of Iran’s former leader denies a New York Times report on an Israeli plot to elevate him.
A statement on the social media page of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president known for his hard-line anti-Israel stance, denied on Tuesday that he was at the center of a secret Israeli operation to groom him as an intelligence asset.
A New York Times investigation, citing American and Iranian officials familiar with the operation, reported that Israel had orchestrated a yearslong plan to install Mr. Ahmadinejad as Iran’s new leader when the time came.
The plan included arranging a climate change conference in Hungary as a front that would allow the former president and Israeli intelligence operatives to meet for secret discussions. The operation culminated in a dramatic rescue attempt early in the Iran war after Mr. Ahmadinejad’s home was hit in an airstrike, but he became disillusioned and left the safe house where he was being kept, the Times reported, according to people with knowledge of what happened.
The statement from Mr. Ahmadinejad’s office denied what it called “Hollywood-style claims” designed to undermine his popularity. The Times investigation, he said, “sought to exploit the political sensitivities arising from military threats,” and was an example of “psychological warfare” against the public.
The degree of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s direct involvement in the statement could not be confirmed. The statement was signed by the former leader’s office, and at times referred to him in the third person. It was also published by a news outlet close to Mr. Ahmadinejad.
The Times cited four senior Iranian officials as saying that Mr. Ahmadinejad was under house arrest in the custody of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence wing, though his current status is unclear. The statement on Mr. Ahmadinejad’s social media page denied that he was under house arrest.
“The office of the former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made blatantly false accusations about our reporting in an attempt to manipulate public opinion,” said Nicole Taylor, a spokeswoman for The New York Times, in a statement. “Our July 13 exclusive was the ongoing work of a team of deeply sourced, expert reporters who first broke the story that the U.S. and Israel had tapped Mr. Ahmadinejad to assume power in Iran as part of a regime change; we stand by their revelatory reporting as it continues.”
Israeli officials have not commented publicly about the plan to install Mr. Ahmadinejad as Iran’s leader. Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a spokesman for Mr. Ahmadinejad, had declined to comment before the story was published.
As the president of Iran from 2005 to 2013, Mr. Ahmadinejad had threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.” But in recent years, he had clashed with regime leaders, accusing them of corruption, and toned down the anti-Israel rhetoric.
On Feb. 28, early in the war, an Israeli airstrike hit Mr. Ahmadinejad’s compound, targeting the building of his bodyguards and his armored vehicle. After the strike, according to four senior Iranian officials, a black Peugeot car arrived, picked up Mr. Ahmadinejad and whisked him away at high speed. At a safe house, the former Iranian leader became agitated by the operation and disillusioned with the plan, according to people with knowledge of what happened. It is not clear when he left the safe house and under what circumstances.
After the strike, Iran’s intelligence agencies began investigating and piecing together his connection to Israel, The Times reported.
Show moreJuly 14, 2026, 2:08 p.m. ETTrump’s U-turn on fees for passage through the Strait of Hormuz raises new risks for the shipping industry.
One day after proposing a fee for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump on Tuesday said the United States would instead guarantee safe passage to vessels from Persian Gulf states that agree to invest in the United States.
It’s not clear how Mr. Trump’s plans would play out, and the president’s latest comments left questions unanswered.
But the flip-flop shows how far the debate over the strait, the vital waterway in the Middle East, has strayed from longstanding practices in the shipping industry and underscores the level of unpredictability that businesses working in the region are facing as the conflict between the United States and Iran lurches back to war.
“The fact that things are changing all the time, itself, means that it’s hard to make a decision to normalize trade,” said Lasse Kristoffersen, the chief executive of Wallenius Wilhelmsen, a car shipping and logistics company based in Norway.
Jakob Larsen, the chief safety and security officer at BIMCO, the world’s largest shipping association, said that Mr. Trump’s plan raises the risk that other countries will try to monetize the international waterway that they border.
“That is, of course, really, really problematic from a shipowner’s perspective and for shipping in general,” Mr. Larsen said. “It will only drive up the cost of transportation across the globe, and that will eventually hit the end customer and create inflationary pressure.” Ultimately, when leaders make comments that undermine international conventions, the conventions become weaker, he said.
The changing plans and at times contradictory approaches show how Mr. Trump has struggled to confront Iran, which has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to endure attacks and exert its own control of the strait, using drones and missiles to strike ships. The result has been a drawn-out conflict that’s roiled the global economy and sent oil prices soaring.
On Tuesday, a day after saying he would charge 20 percent fees to ships in exchange for U.S. military protection when using the waterway, Mr. Trump said he would scrap his proposed fees if Gulf countries invested in the United States.
“Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States,” he said on social media. “Those Investments will be MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future.”
Mr. Trump’s post did not say which countries he was referring to or whether countries outside the Persian Gulf that use the strait, including allies like Japan and South Korea, would also be asked to make U.S. investments.
His remarks came weeks after his administration, in response to Iran threatening to impose tolls in the strait, said such levies were unacceptable.
The International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency that regulates global shipping, said Tuesday that it was aware of Mr. Trump’s announcement about seeking trade and investment deals in exchange for safe passage through the strait and was awaiting more details.
“We have always been consistent on our stance on fees — I.M.O. stands firmly against charging fees for passage through straits used for international navigation,” said Natasha Brown, a spokeswoman for the agency, in a statement on Tuesday. “There is no legal basis through which to introduce mandatory tolls simply to transit through a strait.”
Shipping is the cheapest way to move goods, and more than 80 percent of world trade is transported by ship. While neither the United States nor Iran has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the treaty that calls for shipping through international waterways to be free, they have generally followed its norms for decades.
Before the war, the Strait of Hormuz was an international shipping route that vessels sailed through without charge. But since the start of the war, Iranian officials have repeatedly said they intend to monetize the strait.
Iran immediately seized on Mr. Trump’s comments as confirmation that governments that offer security for vessels have the right to charge. “POTUS is absolutely right. Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service,” Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on social media on Monday. “20% is of course too much. We will be fair.”
Iran fired on three vessels moving through the strait overnight. Two seafarers were killed and 14 were injured, including four seriously, according to the International Maritime Organization.
Traffic in the strait slowed nearly to a halt on Monday, as Iran and the United States exchanged strikes for a third straight day, and the fragile truce between the countries appeared to collapse. Only 10 vessels passed through the strait on Monday, the lowest level in a month — a fraction of the more than 130 vessels a day that would pass through the strait before the war, according to Kpler, a maritime data company.
Iran is unlikely to back down in response to U.S. pressure, according to Eurasia Group, the geopolitical risk consultancy. The firm predicted that Iran would continue to attack ships to pressure Oman and the other Gulf states to agree to give Iran permanent influence in the strait.
Mr. Kristoffersen said that any limitation on freedom of navigation would be against the rules that had governed international shipping for decades.
“Any breach of this principle, of course, could make others tempted to try to do the same,” he said. “And that is why we hold that principle so high.” Mr. Kristoffersen, whose company had one vessel stranded in the Persian Gulf that exited in early July, said he would not be sending vessels into the gulf until there was no longer a risk that vessels would be attacked. “If the intention is still there, military protection is not sufficient for us.”
Peter Eavis contributed reporting from New York.
Show moreJuly 14, 2026, 11:34 a.m. ETIndia condemns a deadly Iranian strike on a commercial ship.
India sharply criticized Iran on Tuesday and called for de-escalation in the Strait of Hormuz, after an attack on an oil tanker killed an Indian sailor and injured dozens more, as the United States and Iran reignited their war and fight for control of the waterway.
The Iranian military said it had struck two U.A.E.-registered tankers overnight that were transiting the strait near Oman rather than via a route in Iranian-controlled waters. Iran has warned commercial vessels to only use routes it has approved.
The Indian foreign ministry said in a statement that 30 of the 46 crew members on the two vessels were Indian nationals. One Indian sailor was killed and 10 others were injured, two seriously.
The deadly attack has once again highlighted the vulnerability of Indian sailors, who account for about 12 percent of the global commercial shipping work force, according to the Indian government.
Indian sailors have suffered a disproportionate share of the violence on the seas during the war between the United States and Iran. Since Iran effectively blockaded the waterway more than four months ago, many civilian mariners have been stranded on vessels waiting to pass through the strait.
An Indian crew member of a Cyprus-flagged ship has been missing since it was hit by an Iranian strike over the weekend. Last month, the Indian government said that a U.S. military strike on a commercial tanker in the Gulf of Oman had killed three Indian sailors, and lodged an official protest with the United States.
The Indian foreign ministry said it had lodged a “strong protest” with Iran’s deputy ambassador in New Delhi after the deadly attack overnight. It also reiterated its call for “the targeting of commercial shipping and civilian infrastructure in the region” to stop, saying that “free and unimpeded navigation and commerce through international waterways in the region” be allowed as required under international law.
Shipping through the strait, which had rebounded somewhat after a truce was reached last month, has plummeted again in recent days, as the United States and Iran have renewed their attacks. On Monday, only 10 ships passed through the waterway, according to Kpler, a maritime data tracking firm. That was the lowest in a month and well below the more than 130 ships than transited daily before the war.
The Iran war has posed a severe risk to the wider Indian economy. The country is one of the world’s biggest importers of oil and gas and has been badly hit by soaring energy prices and supply chain disruptions, which have caused shortages of cooking gas and led some Indian industry to pause operations.
Show moreJuly 14, 2026, 10:55 a.m. ETReporting from Beirut, Lebanon
Israel and Lebanon meet to advance their peace talks, as a broader cease-fire unravels.
Israeli and Lebanese officials met for a new round of U.S.-mediated talks on Tuesday in an effort to advance a fragile cease-fire and pave the way for Israel to withdraw from the south of the country, even as prospects of a breakthrough remain limited.
Months of intense fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, has killed thousands of people, uprooted more than a million and left Israeli forces occupying swaths of southern Lebanon. The fighting began shortly after the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, when Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel in support of its patrons in Tehran.
The two-day meetings are being held at the U.S. Embassy in Rome and follow a preliminary agreement reached last month aimed at ending the fighting in Lebanon. The deal, signed on June 26, has faced criticism in Lebanon, largely because it does not include a fixed deadline for Israel’s withdrawal.
Instead, the agreement ties Israel’s departure to the disarmament of Hezbollah, a process led by the Lebanese government that has had limited success. It says that as Israel withdrew from the south, the Lebanese Armed Forces would take control of those areas, enabling displaced residents to return to their homes.
The talks are taking place at a precarious moment for the broader region. The U.S.-Iran framework cease-fire agreement signed last month was predicated on an end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon. In the past few days, both Iran and President Trump have said that the deal was over. As the two sides have traded escalating attacks, it’s unclear how Hezbollah — Iran’s most powerful regional ally — will proceed.
President Joseph Aoun of Lebanon said on Monday that he hoped the talks would produce “concrete and practical steps on the ground” and urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to recognize that military action would not bring lasting security.
Mr. Netanyahu “must understand that war will not achieve security,” Mr. Aoun said in a statement released by the Lebanese presidency. “Therefore, any stability can only come through negotiations and through recognizing that continuing the war will lead to nothing but more killing, destruction and displacement.”
The war has killed more than 4,300 people in Lebanon, along with dozens of Israeli soldiers and several Israeli civilians, according to officials. More than one million people have been displaced in Lebanon, adding pressure to a country already strained by economic challenges, political instability and years of accumulated crises.
The conflict has also revived a long-running question in Lebanon about whether the government has the ability to disarm Hezbollah without triggering further instability or tipping the country into civil war. Hezbollah, which is not participating in the negotiations, has rejected the preliminary cease-fire agreement, and the group has repeatedly opposed efforts by the Lebanese government to strip it of its weapons.
Israel has said it will continue to occupy the more than six miles into Lebanese territory under its control as long as Hezbollah retains its military capabilities. Doing so, it has argued, is a necessary measure to safeguard communities in northern Israel from Hezbollah’s attacks.
A key issue in the talks is likely to be how the withdrawal is implemented. Under last month’s agreement, two initial “pilot zones” were identified for Israeli withdrawal, with additional areas to be determined later through joint discussions.
Show moreJuly 14, 2026, 10:28 a.m. ETReporting from Washington
The House’s top Democrat will oppose a measure to cut off aid to Israel, but calls for a ‘reset’ in relations.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, told fellow House Democrats on Tuesday that he plans to oppose a measure to eliminate United States aid to Israel but called for a “major reset” between the two nations, weighing in on a debate that has bitterly divided his party.
The proposal, which the House is expected to vote on as early as Wednesday night, will mark House Democrats’ first up-or-down vote in this Congress solely on the issue of cutting taxpayer subsidies to Israel. It comes as the United States and Iran have restarted their war, which Mr. Trump entered with Israel’s urging.
The measure has highlighted an intense rift among Democrats over support for the Jewish state, which has become a major liability with young and left-leaning voters who are an important constituency in the party. Dozens of Democrats are expected to vote for the amendment, which would eliminate all $3.3 billion the United States provides to Israel, and many are struggling on a personal level over how to vote on a sensitive and delicate issue.
Mr. Jeffries announced his position in a letter to Democrats that underscored the squeeze. He made clear that he opposed the measure, calling it “overly broad,” but said he would not seek to persuade other Democrats to vote against it. And he hinted that Democrats would insist that any future security aid to Israel be contingent on reining in human rights abuses against Palestinians.
“There are good faith reasons that will result in members voting in a variety of different ways with respect to the amendment,” Mr. Jeffries wrote, asserting that because of the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, “a major reset is necessary.”
“A meaningful change in direction is needed,” he added, regarding the soon-to-expire 10-year memorandum of understanding that commits billions of dollars of security aid to Israel annually.
He noted that the amendment was also opposed by Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, an outspoken progressive on Israel, as well as J Street, the center-left, pro-Israel lobbying group.
The timing of the upcoming vote is precarious for lawmakers, months before the midterm elections and only weeks after three incumbent Democrats lost primaries in which their support for Israel became a major issue.
Over the past few weeks, Democrats have twice huddled privately to discuss the measure, which is being offered by Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who opposes foreign intervention. He recently lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger who made Mr. Massie’s opposition to aiding Israel a major line of attack.
Democrats had asked Mr. Jeffries to hold off on announcing his position on the amendment until after the July 4 break.
In a caucus meeting on Tuesday morning, Mr. Jeffries told Democrats that they must run toward the issue of rethinking U.S. support for Israel, not away from it, calling the status quo unacceptable, according to a person in the room who insisted on anonymity to describe private discussions.
He said he did not view Mr. Massie’s amendment as a genuine effort to change U.S. backing for Israel, but that things did have to change.
In an interview last week with The New York Times, Mr. Jeffries, who represents one of the largest Jewish communities in the country and is endorsed by both the right-wing, pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC and J Street, defended his relationship with AIPAC, which has drawn derision from progressives.
“Nobody can point to a single instance of me taking a vote that had anything to do with being influenced by any outside group,” Mr. Jeffries said. “I challenge people to do that.” He blamed “people outside of Congress” for pushing a narrative that he was beholden to lobbying groups.
J Street issued a statement on Tuesday acknowledging the difficulty of the vote.
“For many Democrats, this is one of the few opportunities to cast a recorded vote expressing opposition to the way American military assistance and American-supplied weapons have been used by the Israeli government in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and elsewhere,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, the group’s president, said in a statement.
Mr. Ben-Ami added that members could vote “no, present or yes” to “reflect those competing concerns.”
In his letter on Tuesday, Mr. Jeffries also noted that he supports a bill that would seek to prevent settler violence in the West Bank and punish people who committed those acts. That, and his call for a change in direction on security assistance, hinted at the kind of legislation he might bring to the floor next year if Democrats win back the House and he is elected speaker.
And he stated plainly a clear commitment to an independent Palestinian state.
The amendment vote will serve as something of a preview of the fissures in the Democratic caucus that Mr. Jeffries will have to navigate next year. A crop of new Democratic Socialists who have been winning primaries across the country want the party to unify around halting military aid to Israel, and they view Mr. Jeffries as the kind of establishment politician standing in the way of their progressive goals.
Show moreJuly 14, 2026, 5:46 a.m. ETTrump canceled a plan to charge a toll in the Strait of Hormuz. Here’s what to know.
President Trump on Tuesday walked back his statement that the United States would levy steep fees on cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, adding to a string of about-faces that have highlighted his lack of a clear path out of the war with Iran.
Mr. Trump’s reversal came just one day after he announced that the United States would charge fees worth 20 percent of a ship’s cargo, despite months of public insistence from his own administration that any such fees would violate international law.
Mr. Trump has decided instead to move forward with trade and investment deals with Persian Gulf states, he said on Tuesday. The idea of such deals, the details of which remain scarce, are the latest turn in an intensifying battle between Iran and the United States to control the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial artery for global energy supplies. The two countries have traded attacks over the waterway for the past week, in effect shattering their month-old cease-fire and sending oil prices on a roller coaster.
Here’s what to know.
What did Trump say?
Mr. Trump announced his reversal in a lengthy social media post on Tuesday.
“Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform.
Mr. Trump later told reporters in the Oval Office that various “kings and emirs” of Gulf allies had called him and convinced him to allow them to invest in U.S. companies instead of paying the fees, which experts said could more than double the cost of shipping oil through the strait if levied at 20 percent.
“I don’t think anybody should be able to charge a fee for the strait,” Mr. Trump said, adding that he felt his new plan was “much better.”
When he initially announced his plan for the toll, the president had described it as a way for the United States to recover the cost of providing military protection to vessels using the waterway. It was “a matter of FAIRNESS,” he wrote in a social media post.
In walking back the notion, Mr. Trump wrote that the United States was set to restart a “FULL Blockade” of Iranian ports and the strait was “open to ALL Ship traffic except for Iran.” (In fact, shipping traffic through the waterway has nearly entirely ceased as the two countries exchange strikes.)
What had Trump administration officials said about a U.S. toll?
After Iranian officials repeatedly said that they intended to monetize the strait, senior U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, spent months insisting that the Trump administration was vehemently opposed to the imposition of any tolls or fees in the waterway.“No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That’s existing international law,” Mr. Rubio said.
This didn’t deter Mr. Trump from announcing his own toll. He raised the possibility last month after signing a temporary cease-fire agreement with Iran, even though that deal included language that Tehran has interpreted to mean it has authority over the strait. The memorandum of understanding also said that no country would collect tolls for 60 days, though it left open the possibility for such charges beyond that.
What do we know about the new investment deals?
Very little, beyond what Mr. Trump has promised. It remained unclear on Tuesday which countries had agreed to invest in the United States and how exactly they would do so.
The investments from the Gulf states would be “MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future,” Mr. Trump said on social media.
“We will see Factories, Plants, and Equipment pour into the United States at Historic levels, which will create additional millions of High Paying AMERICAN Jobs!” he added.
Show moreJuly 14, 2026, 4:53 a.m. ETJason KaraianKatie Robertson and Jenny Gross
Oil rises above $85 a barrel as Gulf clash escalates.
Oil prices climbed on Tuesday, hitting their highest levels in a month amid escalating strikes between the United States and Iran, before pulling back after President Trump announced changes to a plan to charge fees on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, had breached $87 per barrel Tuesday morning. The price surged on Monday after Mr. Trump said that the United States would reinstate a naval blockade of Iran’s ports, while also charging a 20 percent levy on cargo shipped through the strait as a reimbursement for military protection.
On Tuesday, the president said in a social media post that he would replace the fees with “Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States.” His post left many issues unresolved, including which countries had agreed to invest in the United States in exchange for free passage through the strait and whether the offer applied to countries outside the Persian Gulf.
Rising oil prices slow after President Trump’s comments.
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, rose more than 2 percent on Tuesday, to around $85 a barrel. On Monday, it had settled 9 percent higher, surging after President Trump’s comments on reinstating the blockade.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, rose to between $79 and $80 a barrel on Tuesday.
China’s imports of crude oil fell more than 40 percent in June compared with the previous year, the Chinese government reported on Tuesday, to the lowest level in a decade. As the world’s largest importer of oil, China’s import levels can influence the global oil market. Beijing has slashed purchases in recent months, helping to keep downward pressure on global prices.
Price of Brent crude oil
How much the international benchmark costs
Ship traffic plunges to the lowest level in a month.
Shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has slowed to a near halt. Only 10 vessels passed through the waterway on Monday, the lowest level in a month and a fraction of the more than 130 vessels a day that would pass through the strait before the war, according to Kpler, a maritime data company.
“We are now in a situation where shipowners are disincentivized from transiting through the Strait of Hormuz,” said Jakob Larsen, the chief safety and security officer at BIMCO, the world’s largest shipping association.
Iran’s recent attacks on commercial vessels have put seafarers in serious danger. Two Emirati tankers were hit by Iranian cruise missiles while passing through Omani territorial waters, resulting in the death of one crew member and the injury of eight others, including four serious injuries, the U.A.E.’s defense ministry said. A third vessel, the Stolt Magnesium, caught fire after being hit by “an unidentified external device,” according to the vessel’s manager Stolt Tankers. All crew members are safe.
Daily ship crossings through the Strait of Hormuz
U.S. stocks gain on cooling inflation.
The S&P 500 was up nearly 0.4 percent when markets closed for trading on Tuesday. Earlier in the day, new data showed U.S. consumer prices slowed from the previous month. Also on Tuesday, Kevin M. Warsh reiterated his commitment to bringing down inflation at his first congressional hearing as chairman of the Federal Reserve. The S&P 500 closed down about 0.8 percent on Monday.
Stocks in Asia, where countries import vast quantities of oil and gas, were mostly higher, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 and South Korea’s KOSPI both up about 0.7 percent.
In Europe, stocks were higher. The Stoxx 600, a broad index that tracks the region’s largest companies, was up about 0.2 percent.
How stocks are trading in the United States
Gasoline prices remain high.
Gas prices stayed elevated on Tuesday, with a national average of $3.86 a gallon, up from $3.79 a week ago, according to the AAA motor club. The increase has raised the cost for drivers nearly 30 percent since the war began.
Gas prices don’t move in lock step with crude, usually trailing increases or drops by a few days.
The average price of diesel ticked higher on Tuesday to $4.88.
What they are saying: The cease-fire looks ‘well and truly dead.’
“The return of the U.S. blockade is much more impactful for markets than the previous suspension of the sanction waiver on Iranian oil,” Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a report for the bank ING.
The truce deal reached between the United States and Iran last month, they wrote, “is starting to look well and truly dead.”
Eric SchmittMax Bearak and Ishani Desai
Breaking news reporter