{"id":550389,"date":"2026-07-20T10:41:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T10:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/550389\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T10:41:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T10:41:10","slug":"us-expands-iran-offensive-as-diplomats-claim-talks-ongoing-us-israel-war-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/550389\/","title":{"rendered":"US expands Iran offensive as diplomats claim talks ongoing | US-Israel war on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US has expanded its aerial offensive against Iran<\/a>, hitting a city hosting a nuclear power plant, while Iran has responded with strikes on Bahrain and Kuwait, as diplomats insist talks are ongoing.<\/p>\n

Iranian media on Monday reported strikes around Tabriz, believed to hold underground missile bases, as well as Bushehr, home to the country\u2019s only operational civilian nuclear power plant as the US military said it had struck \u201cmilitary command centers, air defence and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and communications networks\u201d.<\/p>\n

Iran launched attacks against Bahrain, which hosts the US navy\u2019s fifth fleet, and Kuwait, in addition to striking tankers in the strait of Hormuz, which carried a fifth of global oil and gas supplies before the war.<\/p>\n

The tit-for-tat attacks came as the region lurched back towards a total war despite an interim peace deal<\/a> agreed last month. Shipping in the strait has slowed to a trickle due to the fighting and the price of oil reached its highest in a month, passing $90 a barrel, exacerbating the global energy crisis.<\/p>\n

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) to halt attacks and open the strait is now more than halfway through a 60-day implementation period that was intended to provide breathing room for diplomacy.<\/p>\n

\"USUS launches more airstrikes against Iran<\/p>\n

In a sign that talks could still stop the escalating round of conflict, Iran said on Monday that diplomacy with the US was ongoing despite the fighting, without giving details on the content of the discussions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been informed by mediators, we have received messages \u2013 without going into details \u2013 but the main point is that the diplomatic apparatus has been active in recent days and ideas have been conveyed to us by certain mediators,\u201d Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said at a press conference in Tehran.<\/p>\n

Hours earlier, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the US was still open to negotiations with Iran, but that \u201cit has to be real\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to respond. If the door opens to diplomacy \u2013 if the guys that want to do something productive for Iran win and take control of that system, or take control of the negotiations \u2013 that\u2019ll be a very positive development,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n

A bridge hit by a US strike in Iran\u2019s Hormozgan province, pictured on Sunday. Photograph: Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Mediators including Qatar and Pakistan have continued to speak to both sides during the current round of escalation in an attempt to bring the two sides back to the negotiating table.<\/p>\n

The US military said a service member was killed on Saturday in northern Iraq, where the US has military bases, during a controlled detonation of what was called unexploded ordnance on a downed Iranian attack drone. It was the third US death in recent days, after two military service personnel were killed in an Iranian attack on a Jordanian airbase<\/a> on Friday, with a third missing in action.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hit them very hard again tonight,\u201d Donald Trump<\/a> said as he returned to Washington after the World Cup final, adding \u201cwe did that in honour of the, probably three, it\u2019s probably three great patriots\u201d.<\/p>\n

Since the war began, 17 US service members have been killed. Iran\u2019s health ministry said on Friday that 50 people had been killed and more than 500 wounded in the current round of fighting.<\/p>\n

As the strikes began early on Monday, a ship caught fire in the strait of Hormuz near the coastline of Oman in the southern corridor the US military has encouraged ships to use to avoid Iran\u2019s control.<\/p>\n

The crew safely abandoned the vessel, while the ship was recovered by a tug boat, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed two oil tankers were blown up after attempting to transit through the southern route, but there was no independent confirmation.<\/p>\n

A vessel in the strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, on 17 July. Photograph: Reuters<\/p>\n

The IRGC also claimed to have launched a \u201csurprise attack\u201d on an enemy command centre in the al-Tanf region of Syria, in a statement reported by state news agency IRNA.<\/p>\n

After Iran targeted sites in Jordan on Sunday, Israel warned of the danger of<\/a> the strikes spilling across its borders, reigniting a direct regional conflict that had been restrained even as tensions between the Trump administration and Iran have soared again.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Iran fires missiles at Israel<\/a>, we will attack them with full force,\u201d said the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, on Sunday. The US is expected to send dozens of additional refuelling planes to Israel as part of a reinforcement of its force posture in the region, a US official told Reuters.<\/p>\n

Trump has threatened to target Iran\u2019s power stations and bridges to try to compel Tehran to loosen its hold on the strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, defended the Trump administration\u2019s strategy for the war, but argued that the mission had since shifted toward ensuring oil shipments could move through the strait of Hormuz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did a pause to try to get an agreement with the Iranian people to allow oil to flow<\/a> without them attacking it,\u201d Wright said on Sunday. \u201cThey\u2019ve proven unwilling to do that, and we\u2019ve pivoted. Now, what we\u2019re doing is assuring that that oil and gas and other products can flow through the strait of Hormuz with or without Iranian cooperation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US has expanded its aerial offensive against Iran, hitting a city hosting a nuclear power plant, while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-550389","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\/550389","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=550389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}