Iran and US hit tankers in biggest wave of attacks on shipping since war began

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By Enas Alashray, Idrees Ali and Jana Choukeir Reuters Iran said on Wednesday it had attacked 10 ships near the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S. sank five Iranian oil tankers, in the biggest wave of attacks on shipping by both sides since the start of the six-month-old war. The attacks sent the price of ‌oil surging, with benchmark Brent crude futures breaching $100 a barrel for the first time since July. At least one seafarer aboard a tanker was reported killed and another listed as missing. The ‌incidents follow a month of relative calm, during which the U.S. has sought to pressure Iran through economic means. Iran said it had fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. military base in Jordan. Jordan said it intercepted 18 missiles, with the remaining two ​falling harmlessly in unpopulated areas. A U.S. official said all American troops were accounted for. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it would sharply escalate its response to any further attacks, and said I...
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Israeli strikes on Lebanon kill eight fighters, one child, security sources say

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Israeli airstrikes across southern Lebanon on Friday killed at least eight fighters and one child, according to security sources, as armed group Hezbollah responded with artillery rounds and rockets across the border.

The Israeli military has been trading fire with Iran-backed Hezbollah across Lebanon’s southern border in parallel with the Gaza war, with hostilities ramping up recently amid fears that a full-scale regional war could erupt.

Israeli strikes killed six Hezbollah fighters in various towns across the south, according to the party’s death notices and a security source.

Another fighter was killed in a separate strike outside Aitarun, according to the security source. It was not immediately clear if the combatant was a Hezbollah member.

A separate Israeli strike on the village of Aita, approximately 14 km (nine miles) north of the border with Israel, killed a Hezbollah fighter and a child, the security source told Reuters. Hezbollah identified the fighter killed in Aita as Mohammad Najem.

The Israeli military, in a statement posted online, said it had targeted Najem in Aita because he was a member of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile unit. It said it had targeted two other Hezbollah fighters across the south.

Its statement said “a number of projectiles fired from Lebanese territory” had crossed into northern Israel but that no injuries were reported.

Hezbollah’s press office said the group had fired rockets and artillery fire onto various Israeli military positions throughout the day.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been shuttling from Jerusalem to Cairo to Doha… pressing mediators and representatives of Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire deal that would pause fighting in Gaza and bring Israeli captives home.

More than 600 people in Lebanon have been killed since the start of the clashes last October, including more than 400 Hezbollah combatants and over 130 civilians, according to a Reuters toll.

SOURCE: REUTERS AND AGENCIES



from The Times Of Earth https://ift.tt/45EM9eh

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