{"id":354394,"date":"2026-03-23T21:17:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T21:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/354394\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T21:17:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T21:17:06","slug":"war-in-the-middle-east-latest-developments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/354394\/","title":{"rendered":"War in the Middle East: latest developments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                                                                Trump-Netanyahu call<\/p>\n<p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he had spoken with Donald Trump and that the US president believed the countries&#8217; military gains in Iran could be converted into a negotiated agreement that protected Israel&#8217;s interests.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;President Trump believes there is a chance to leverage the tremendous achievements of the (Israeli military) and the US military in order to realise the war&#8217;s objectives in an agreement &#8212; an agreement that will safeguard our vital interests,&#8221; Netanyahu said in a video statement.<\/p>\n<p>Israel strikes Beirut suburbs<\/p>\n<p>An Israeli strike hit Beirut&#8217;s southern suburbs, state media reported, hours after the Israeli army issued a warning for residents of the area to evacuate.<\/p>\n<p>AFPTV&#8217;s live broadcast showed a cloud of smoke over the southern suburbs, which are considered a stronghold of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistani, Iranian leaders speak<\/p>\n<p>Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he had spoken with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on &#8220;the grave situation in the Gulf region&#8221;, and promised Pakistan was committed to playing &#8220;a constructive role in advancing peace&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Israeli interceptor system malfunctions<\/p>\n<p>A malfunction in Israel&#8217;s &#8220;David&#8217;s Sling&#8221; aerial interceptor system allowed two Iranian ballistic missiles to strike the south of the country, wounding dozens of people over the weekend, the military confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>The system is a key component of Israel&#8217;s multi-layered air defence shield.<\/p>\n<p>Israel strikes Guards&#8217; site<\/p>\n<p>The Israeli military announced it struck a site in Tehran belonging to Iran&#8217;s Revolutionary Guards and used for directing battalions of the Basij paramilitary force.<\/p>\n<p>The hit came days after Israel announced it had &#8220;eliminated&#8221; the intelligence chief of the Basij in a strike that had also killed the force&#8217;s top commander, Gholamreza Soleimani.<\/p>\n<p>Israel has been targeting the Basij force as part of efforts to undermine the Iranian authorities&#8217; grip on power.<\/p>\n<p>UK summons Iran envoy<\/p>\n<p>Britain&#8217;s foreign ministry summoned Iran&#8217;s ambassador to London, Seyed Ali Mousavi, criticising what it called Tehran&#8217;s &#8220;reckless and destabilising actions&#8221; in the UK and overseas.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The summons follows the recent charging of two individuals, one Iranian national and one British-Iranian dual national, under the National Security Act, on suspicion of providing assistance to a foreign intelligence service,&#8221; a Foreign Office spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Point of no return&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>The International Committee of the Red Cross demanded a halt to the &#8220;war on essential infrastructure&#8221; in the Middle East, warning of potential &#8220;irreversible consequences&#8221; including harm to nuclear facilities.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What we have seen in recent days in the Middle East risks reaching a point of no return,&#8221; ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric warned in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>UK sends Gulf air defences<\/p>\n<p>Britain is sending short-range air defence systems to the Middle East to counter Iranian missile attacks, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re deploying short range air defence systems to Bahrain at speed,&#8221; Starmer told a parliamentary committee, adding that Britain was &#8220;doing the same with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Targeting Hormuz &#8216;economic terrorism&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>The chief of the UAE&#8217;s state energy company ADNOC slammed Tehran&#8217;s effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused a surge in oil prices, as &#8220;economic terrorism against every nation&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No country should be allowed to hold Hormuz hostage,&#8221; Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber said in virtual remarks to the annual CERAWeek conference in Houston.<\/p>\n<p>Trump claims &#8216;regime change&#8217; in Iran<\/p>\n<p>Trump announced &#8220;very good&#8221; talks with an unidentified Iranian official after abruptly shelving plans to attack the Islamic republic&#8217;s power plants.<\/p>\n<p>Trump made clear the talks &#8212; denied by Tehran &#8212; were not with Iran&#8217;s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, but with people he described as &#8220;very reasonable&#8221;, and said so many top officials had already been killed in the conflict that &#8220;there&#8217;s automatically a regime change&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Oil disruption &#8216;temporary&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said oil market disruptions are &#8220;temporary,&#8221; as costs surge on the back of the war.<\/p>\n<p>burs-jhb<\/p>\n<p class=\"t-copyright\">\u00a9 2026 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trump-Netanyahu call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he had spoken with Donald Trump and that the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-354394","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354394","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=354394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}