{"id":540036,"date":"2026-07-13T23:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T23:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/540036\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T23:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T23:41:07","slug":"us-launches-third-night-of-strikes-on-iran-as-trump-announces-hormuz-blockade-us-israel-war-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/540036\/","title":{"rendered":"US launches third night of strikes on Iran as Trump announces Hormuz blockade | US-Israel war on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US has launched its third consecutive night of strikes on Iran<\/a> hours after President Donald Trump said Washington would reinstate a maritime blockade on the country and, in an apparently policy reversal, charge ships for safe passage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the strait of Hormuz,\u201d the US military\u2019s Central Command said.<\/p>\n

Trump had earlier told the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt: \u201cWe\u2019re going to hit them very hard tonight and we\u2019re going to hit them hard tomorrow \u2013 and there\u2019s not a damn thing they can do about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThey have nothing. They have nothing going, other than they have big mouths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until now, the US had said the strait should remain open to all without tolls \u2013 as it was before it and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February. Any attempt by the US or Iran to charge fees would violate global norms on freedom of navigation and would be likely to cause further economic disruption far beyond the region.<\/p>\n

Oil price graph<\/a><\/p>\n

The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose 7.8% to $81.92 a barrel on Monday, still well below the $120 (\u00a390) reached at the height of the war.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Monday, Trump had said the US would demand a 20% tariff on all cargoes shipped through the key passage. He suggested in a post on his Truth Social platform that the US should be known henceforth as the \u201cguardian of the strait of Hormuz\u201d, as Iran and the US engaged in some of the heaviest drone and missile exchanges since an interim deal was negotiated to bring an end to the conflict.<\/p>\n

Trump has made numerous claims and threats during the war on Iran, including frequent claims of victory, many of which have had little grounding in reality.<\/p>\n

On Monday evening the US Navy-led Joint Maritime Information Center said the US would begin enforcing the blockade on Iran, covering all ports, oil terminals and coastal areas, on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

A statement read: \u201cAny vessel suspected \u200cof entering or departing the blockaded area without authorisation \u200bis subject to interception, diversion and capture. Noncompliant vessels may be legally compelled with \u2060force.\u201d The centre \u200bsaid \u200bneutral transit through \u200bthe strait of \u200bHormuz heading to \u200cor \u200bfrom \u200bnon-Iranian destinations will not be impeded.<\/p>\n

It remains unclear in practical terms how easy it would be for the navy to do this.<\/p>\n

A US one-way attack surface drone reached a submarine and ship maintenance facility in Bandar Abbas, Iran, according to US Central Command. Photograph: US Central Command\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s demand for a 20% tariff comes despite his administration\u2019s previous insistence that no country should be allowed to charge fees for passages used for international navigation.<\/p>\n

That stance was reiterated last month by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who said: \u201cNo country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That\u2019s existing international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accused the US on Monday of jeopardising global oil and gas supplies by interfering in the strait, as Tehran threatened that any US moves would be \u201cstrongly contested\u201d.<\/p>\n

The IRGC spokesperson Hossein Mohebi said Washington had \u201cseriously endangered the security of the world\u2019s oil and gas supply and must be held accountable\u201d, adding in a post on X that Tehran would \u201ccontinue to exercise sovereignty over and management of the strait of Hormuz\u201d.<\/p>\n

The International Maritime Organization, the UN agency that oversees safety and security measures in international shipping, said it was waiting to find out more about Trump\u2019s proposal, but added: \u201cWe have always been consistent on our stance on fees \u2013 IMO stands firmly against charging fees for passage through straits used for international navigation. There is no legal basis through which to introduce mandatory tolls simply to transit through a strait.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump said \u2060the \u2060US \u200bwould probably take over \u2060the strait and should \u2060be reimbursed for \u200bcontrolling \u200cthe waterway. \u201cWe\u2019re going to \u200ckeep the strait, and we\u2019ll probably run it,\u201d Trump \u200bsaid in \u200ba \u200cphone interview \u200bon Fox News. \u201cWe\u2019ll become the guardian \u200cof the strait. Maybe we\u2019ll \u200bcall it the guardian angel of the strait. And \u2060we should be \u200breimbursed \u200bfor that.\u201d<\/p>\n

A vessel at the strait of Hormuz, seen from Musandam, Oman. Photograph: Reuters<\/p>\n

The exchanges marked an escalation in the pace and geographic scope of attacks over the past week after the near-total collapse of an interim ceasefire.<\/p>\n

\u200bTrump earlier said the US was \u201cbeating up\u201d Iran, while also apparently leaving a door open for yet another round of talks. His administration has struggled to get a grip on the Middle East crisis triggered by the US-Israeli attack on Iran earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, posted on social media on Sunday: \u201cThe era of one-sided deals is OVER. We told you: keep your \u200cword or pay the price. Reality is knocking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran and the US are in theory nearly halfway through the 60-day period of an interim deal that was supposed to set up talks for a permanent end to the war, which began in February with the assassination of Iran\u2019s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in US-Israeli airstrikes.<\/p>\n

In reality, that deal has devolved into a series of attacks over the strait of Hormuz, worrying world leaders that the conflict could fully resume.<\/p>\n

The war has spread across the region, with Iran attacking US bases in multiple countries. Thousands of people have been killed, mainly in Iran and Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s strikes on Sunday extended to Qatar, a mediator in ceasefire talks that had not come under attack since April. The United Arab Emirates, \u2060which had not been targeted since early May, said its air defences had engaged missiles and drones from Iran.<\/p>\n

The conflict has caused global economic shock waves since it began in late February, driving energy prices higher and fuelling global inflation. Higher prices \u2013 especially for petrol \u2013 are politically sensitive for Trump in the run-up to November\u2019s US congressional elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US has launched its third consecutive night of strikes on Iran hours after President Donald Trump said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-540036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540036","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=540036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}