{"id":267855,"date":"2026-01-31T23:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T23:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/267855\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T23:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T23:28:08","slug":"blast-in-iran-port-city-kills-1-wounds-14-before-strait-of-hormuz-naval-drill-watched-by-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/267855\/","title":{"rendered":"Blast in Iran port city kills 1, wounds 14 before Strait of Hormuz naval drill watched by US"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — An explosion tore through an apartment building Saturday in Iran<\/a> ‘s port city of Bandar Abbas, killing a 4-year-old girl as local media footage purportedly showed a security force member being carried out by rescuers.<\/p>\n

The blast happened a day before a planned naval drill by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil traded passes. The U.S. military has warned Iran not to threaten its warships or commercial traffic in the strait, on which Bandar Abbas sits.<\/p>\n

State television quoted a local fire official as blaming the blast on a gas leak. Media reported at least 14 others injured in the explosion.<\/p>\n

A local newspaper, Sobh-e Sahel, aired footage of a correspondent speaking in front of the building. The footage included a sequence that showed a man in a green security force uniform being carried out on a stretcher. He wore a neck brace and appeared to be in pain, his left hand covering the branch insignia on his uniform. <\/p>\n

The newspaper did not acknowledge the security force member being carried out elsewhere in its reporting. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard did not discuss the blast, other than to deny that a Guard navy commander had been hurt.<\/p>\n

Another explosion blamed on a gas explosion Saturday in the southwestern city of Ahvaz killed five people, state media reported.<\/p>\n

Iran remains tense over a threat by U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> to potentially launch a military strike on the country over the killing of peaceful protesters or the possible mass execution of those detained in a major crackdown over the demonstrations.<\/p>\n

Ali Larijani, a top security official in Iran, wrote on X late Saturday that \u201cstructural arrangements for negotiations are progressing.\u201d However, there is no public sign of any talks with the United States, which Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly ruled out.<\/p>\n

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on Saturday called for de-escalation and said Egypt is working to bring the U.S. and Iran to the negotiating table to achieve a \u201cpeaceful and comprehensive settlement to the Iranian nuclear file,” according to a statement on his phone call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.<\/p>\n

Qatar in a statement said Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani visited Tehran on Saturday and met with Larijani about \u201cefforts to de-escalate tensions in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — An explosion tore through an apartment building Saturday in Iran ‘s port city…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[139867,127,114,5411,122,42,3896,43,40,38,41,39,12526,126],"class_list":["post-267855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-139867","tag-article","tag-business","tag-fires","tag-general-news","tag-headlines","tag-military-and-defense","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-washington-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}