Further to my previous post on Israel Katz’s comments about Israel being ready to resume its military campaign against Iran for a third time “if necessary” and vowing to do so “with even greater force”, Benjamin Netanyahu also spoke at the ceremony.

The Israeli prime minister said Iran had been weakened by the two previous military campaigns Israel launched against it, but he also said the conflict was not yet over.

The Iranian axis is weaker than ever before, while Israel is stronger than ever before. We proved that the long arm of the Israeli Air Force can reach anywhere, from Yemen to Iran. Yet we must also acknowledge that the campaign is not over.

Dozens of missiles and drones fired by Iran caused no significant damage or injuries to US personnel, a US defense official has told AFP.

The Iranian missiles and drones “were intercepted or failed to cause major damage”, the official said on condition of anonymity, adding that there were “no US injuries”.

Per my last post, the funeral procession of Iran’s assassinated former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approached the country’s holiest shrine for his burial on Thursday with a massive banner reading “We Will Kill Trump” pulled alongside in the enormous crowd.

As a week of funeral events reaches its ⁠culmination, Khamenei’s son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei ⁠is still hidden from public view after ​being injured in the strike that killed his father.

Khamenei’s body was carried by truck slowly through the crammed Mashhad streets towards the gilt dome and minarets of the Shrine of Imam Reza, flanked by white-turbaned clerics. Black-clad ⁠mourners pressed in close behind, waving Iranian flags, photographs of the late Khamenei and red placards with revolutionary slogans.

Hostilities with the United States burst out again this week despite a truce, with Iran still controlling the vital strait of Hormuz waterway and proclaiming its victory in having survived a months-long assault by its ⁠most powerful enemies.

The whereabouts of Mojtaba Khamenei, proclaimed supreme leader by a ‌clerical assembly a week after his father’s death, has remained a mystery to Iranians. He has not appeared in public since the war began with the strike that killed his father on 28 February, and while he has issued written statements, no image or video or voice recording of him has been issued.

He suffered debilitating injuries in that same strike, his face disfigured and limbs badly wounded.

Senior sources in Tehran have told Reuters he is recovering but that he has not yet been well enough to manage public appearances and state security services are also trying to limit his exposure in case of more US attacks.

As crowds jostled in Mashhad awaiting Khamenei’s funeral cortege, the crowd chanted slogans demanding revenge on Donald Trump for his ‌killing.

“I swear by the blood of the supreme leader, Trump, we will kill you!” they shouted, with women holding up placards reading “Kill Trump”.

The roads leading to the shrine were a sea of black-clad mourners on Thursday, some responding to shouted chants in praise of Khamenei and against Iran’s enemies, including the ​old revolutionary slogan of “Death to America”.

As the crowds awaited the coffins of Khamenei and his family in the sweltering July heat, hoses pumped water high into the air to spray across the mourners and keep them cool. Khamenei’s remains, along with those of four family members killed alongside him, have already been paraded through Tehran, the Shi’ite Muslim clerical centre of Qom, and the Iraqi shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala. At each event, huge crowds have thronged the streets to the mournful accompaniment of sung Shi’ite laments and chanted revolutionary slogans.

Thousands of mourners surround the convoy carrying the coffins of Iran’s former supreme leader Ali Khamenei and members of his family for the final funeral procession before he is buried at the Shrine of Imam Reza, Iran’s most revered place of worship, in his hometown of Mashhad, northeast Iran, on Thursday.

Iran’s ⁠foreign minister Abbas Araghchi held ⁠separate ⁠phone calls ​with his ⁠Omani and Turkish counterparts on Thursday ⁠and ​discussed ‌latest ‌developments in the region, ‌particularly in the strait of Hormuz, the ‌Iranian foreign ministry said.

The parties ​stressed the need to use ⁠diplomatic channels to prevent ​escalation, ​a ministry ​statement ​said.

Wall Street and oil prices are holding steadier on Thursday in the wait to see what will come next after Donald Trump declared the truce in his war against Iran “over” and the two sides exchanged tit-for-tat strikes.

The S+P 500 rose 0.2%, even though the United States launched new airstrikes against Iran, which responded by targeting US allies in the region. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 71 points, or 0.1%, as of 10:15am ET, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.

In the oil market, prices edged lower following their jumps from the day before. The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, fell 0.7% to $77.45. That’s down from $78.02 the day before but still above its $71.80 price at the end of last week.

There is concern that a return to full-blown war will block oil tankers from the strait of Hormuz and prevent the delivery of crude from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide. That could worsen inflation, which economists expected would ease with oil prices, and in turn force the US Federal Reserve and other central banks to raise interest rates.

Higher rates can keep a lid on inflation, but they also slow the economy and hurt prices for all kinds of investments.

But Trump also said on Wednesday that the latest back-and-forth fighting would not result in “long-term” military action, raising uncertainty about just what will happen.

The swings for oil prices have halted what had been a steady decline in US gasoline prices, and the cost for a gallon climbed a nickel overnight, according to motor club AAA. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.85 on Thursday, up 68 cents from a year earlier.

A picture on the newswires shows a damaged railway bridge near Aq Qala in Iran’s north-eastern Golestan province. The image taken from a social media video emerged earlier today as Iranian media reported US attacks on three bridges (the other two on the route to Mashhad city, see post at 10:21). There was no immediate comment from the US on the claims.

The Iranian judiciary’s official Mizan news agency has reported that three members of the IRGC were killed in US attacks today.

They were killed in Khuzestan province in south-west Iran, according to the report. No further details were provided.

The US launched airstrikes against Iran overnight on Thursday, killing at least 14 people, while Tehran responded by hitting Gulf countries in the most intense exchange of fire since a shaky ceasefire was extended last month.

The tit-for-tat strikes on Thursday were the largest since Tehran and Washington signed a memorandum of understanding on 17 June aimed at extending the ceasefire and giving space for negotiations for a permanent truce.

Sirens sounded at least three times in Bahrain, where the US navy’s fifth fleet is headquartered, while Iranian missiles also targeted Kuwait and Qatar. There were no immediate reports of any damage.

The attacks came hours after Donald Trump said the memorandum of understanding was “over” because of Iranian attacks on ships in the strait of Hormuz. After the strikes, the US president posted videos of explosions in Iran and threatened the country once again.

“This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Hours before, he had promised that strikes would not lead to long term fighting but would be “very-fast”.

A drone attack ⁠hit ⁠a ​camp belonging ⁠to an Iranian Kurdish ⁠opposition ​group ‌north-east ‌of ‌Iraq’s Erbil, security sources told Reuters ‌on Thursday.

No casualties ​were immediately ⁠reported in ​the attack.

We have a gallery here showing some incredible pictures from Gaza, where crowds of Egypt supporters were able to watch the World Cup on a giant screen thanks to Palestinian aid worker Mohamed al-Wahidi.

But good times are only a moment away from tragedy for the Palestinians, who have come under near-daily attacks by the Israeli military despite a truce signed in October. One of those attacks killed al-Wahidi on Tuesday, just before the World Cup game between Egypt and Argentina.

The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying al-Wahidi had not been its intended target, and that the missile had been aimed at a “terrorist in Hamas’ military wing”.

The 57-year-old director of the Egyptian Committee in Gaza had worked for years on aid and development projects in the Palestinian territory and helped organise screenings of the World Cup in Gaza City, where people turned out in large numbers to support Egypt.

According to his family, he had been in a taxi on the way to a screening of the Egypt-Argentina match in Tel al-Hawa in southern Gaza City when a missile hit the car he was in.

In the months since the October ceasefire, Israeli attacks have killed 1,084 people, including nine killed by strikes and gunfire across Gaza yesterday, according to local health officials.

The coffin of former Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei is pictured here at Najaf airport in central Iraq – where a funeral procession took place yesterday – as it makes its way back to Iran for burial in Mashhad.

Kuwait’s foreign ministry has issued a statement condemning the Iranian attacks against the country. It reads almost identical to the statement issued yesterday, although emphasises Kuwait’s sovereignty is “a red line”.

“The state of Kuwait reserves its full rights to take all necessary measures to protect its security and preserve its sovereignty,” it said.

In a separate statement, the Kuwaiti defence ministry said one person was injured from falling debris after the armed forces intercepted three ballistic missiles, a cruise missile and 10 drones in the latest attack.

The prime minister of Qatar, a country that has played a key role mediating between the US and Iran in recent weeks, held a phone call with the Iranian foreign minister this morning, according to a statement by the Qatari foreign ministry.

The statement came mere hours after the Iranian military announced it struck a US target in Qatar, with the gulf state alerting its population of an elevated threat level for the first since the start of an April ceasefire between the US and Iran.

Detailing the phone call between the Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, and Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, the Qatari foreign ministry said:

During the call, the latest developments in the military escalation between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran over the past two days were reviewed.

[The] prime minister expressed the State of Qatar’s condemnation and rejection of the attacks that targeted commercial ships in the strait of Hormuz despite the atmosphere of calm and the efforts made to reduce escalation in the region. His excellency stressed that such actions would undermine trust, threaten international maritime security, and harm efforts to consolidate regional security and stability.”

The statement did not mention any specific Iranian attack on Qatar.

Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency has reported “several explosions” in the southern Bushehr province, home to Iran’s nuclear power plant complex on the Gulf coast.

We will bring you more as we get it.

Also in Mashhad, Iranian state media reported a US strike on two railway bridges on the route to the city from the capital Tehran.

Train services in Mashhad were suspended as technical and operational teams were dispatched to the scene, Iran’s official Irna news agency reported.

The Iranian foreign ministry denounced the attack and said it amounted to a war crime.

Bombing civilian infrastructure could constitute a war crime if they “are not military objectives”, according to international humanitarian law. My colleague Peter Beaumont explains more about the laws of armed conflict here:

In a statement, Iran’s foreign ministry said:

The ministry of foreign affairs condemns in the strongest terms the aggressive attacks of the US terrorist army on several points in the southern coastal provinces and two bridges in the eastern provinces on the railway route to the holy Mashhad on Thursday morning, which undoubtedly constitutes a gross war crime, and emphasises the resolute determination of the brave Iranian nation to defend its territorial integrity, sovereignty and national security.”

Massive crowds have begun marching through streets of Mashhad in north-east Iran where the slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei will be buried later today.

It follows a week of funeral processions around Iran and Iraq that has coincided with the fresh bout of fighting with the US.