In that same statement on X, Seyed Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, once again asserted his belief that the strait of Hormuz is an exclusively Omani-Iranian waterway and that Iran has a right to defend itself against foreign forces in its territory.

The Guardian’s Patrick Wintour has more details on how this assertion butts against the principle of freedom of navigation – international laws protecting freedom of movement at sea:

Western diplomats say Iranian proposals for the future permanent management of the strait are unlawful since they impose tolls on commercial shipping and would give Iran an arbitrary right to select the ships that are allowed passage, possibly based on the nationality of ownership.…The legal rights of coastal states to impose tolls lies at the heart of the deadlock on how to reopen the strait and whether Iran’s proposed move, by restricting freedom of navigation, is illegal and sets a precedent for other similar waterways.

Iran became a signatory to the UN convention on the law of the sea (Unclos) in 1982, very soon after the 1979 revolution, but never ratified the treaty.

This means that from Iran’s perspective it is not bound by the treaty’s transit passage rules that underpin freedom of navigation, but instead by customary international law, including a more restrictive right of innocent passage.

More here:

In a new statement on X, Iran’s foreign minister Seyed Araghchi warned that “foreign forces in proximity to our territory are at constant risk on account of their own human errors, plain accidents, or potentially being caught in crossfire.”

“To reduce risk, best solution is for them to leave. We prefer language of diplomacy but speak other languages too,” he added.

Araghchi’s statement follows Donald Trump saying on Truth Social earlier today that “last night the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache Helicopters while patrolling over the strait of Hormuz.”

Trump added that the “United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”

Although Donald Trump said that it was Iran that had shot down a US military helicopter, US Central Command posted on X that the cause is still under investigation.

The Army AH-64 Apache helicopter had gone down near the coast of Oman, with rescue efforts taking place at 7:33 p.m. EST Monday – early Tuesday local time, according to Centcom.

The two crew members, who had been patrolling regional waters, were rescued in about two hours and are in stable condition.

Just before Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran had shot down a military helicopter and the US “must” respond, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator, posted on X:

“We prefer the language of diplomacy, but we speak other languages far more fluently. Break your commitments, and we’ll switch to what we speak best. You ride the horse you saddled!”

Israel has bombed the city of Tyre, killing eight and injuring at least 32 people, and struck dozens of other villages in south Lebanon as it issued forced evacuation orders for the historic Christian quarter of the ancient city for the first time.

Israel struck the al-Masaken neighbourhood without warning on Tuesday morning, sending smoke plumes high above the city’s buildings and igniting fires. Further airstrikes were carried out across the city and a series of bombings hit Abbasieh, a village north of Tyre.

Hezbollah claimed responsibility for attacks on Israeli soldiers in the Lebanese village of Maroun al-Ras. The Israeli army said it had killed a “terrorist” who had crossed the border from Lebanon into Israel and opened fire on Israeli soldiers – the first time in this round of fighting that a fighter from Lebanon had crossed the border. It was unclear if the gunman was affiliated with Hezbollah.

Shortly after the bombings in Tyre, Israel issued a forced evacuation warning for Palestinian refugee camps in the city, as well as for the Christian quarter, claiming members of Hezbollah had infiltrated the area and could attack.

Smoke rising following an Israeli airstrike in Tyre, Lebanon, earlier today.

France has banned Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich from entering the country, as part of coordinated sanctions with other countries over settler violence against Palestinians.

Smotrich is the second member of the Israeli government to be forbidden from entering France in recent months, after national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir was barred on 23 May for mocking activists detained by Israeli soldiers from a Gaza-bound flotilla carrying aid for the Palestinian territory.

The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway already slapped a travel ban on both ministers in June last year over inciting violence against Palestinians.

Other countries have also banned the ministers, including Spain, Slovenia and most recently Ireland.

The Israeli army on Tuesday said its forces killed a gunman who had managed to infiltrate Israeli territory from Lebanon and opened fire on its troops.

“A short while ago, an initial report was received regarding a shooting toward IDF soldiers operating in the Ramim Ridge area,” the army said, referring to a mountainous area stretching between Israel and Lebanon.

“The soldiers returned fire and eliminated a terrorist in the area. No IDF injuries were reported,” the army said, confirming to AFP that the gunman had managed to enter Israel.

Britain, Canada, France and Norway announced new coordinated sanctions on Tuesday against Israeli networks involved in financing, enabling and carrying out violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The move follows escalating violence by Israeli settlers, which diplomats say is intended to undermine prospects for a Palestinian state.

In a post on X, France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot said:

With our British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and Norwegian partners, we are today imposing new sanctions against those responsible for intensifying colonization and violence in the West Bank.

At the national level, we have banned from our territory minister Bezalel Smotrich, four leaders of settler organizations, and twenty-one violent settlers.

Bezalel Smotrich actively promotes the annexation of the West Bank, which he openly claims, the creation of new settlements in the West Bank, the recolonization of Gaza, the economic collapse of the Palestinian Authority, and its deleterious consequences on the Palestinian population: this is a policy that the overwhelming majority of the international community cannot accept, firmly committed to the two-State solution.

The UK’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, is to announce that illegal settlers in the occupied West Bank will be hit with new sanctions by Britain and its allies.

The package, due to be revealed in the House of Commons today, has been co-ordinated with Australia, Canada, France and Norway, who in a joint statement said they aimed to “hold extremist settlers accountable for the horrific levels of settler violence against Palestinian civilians”.

As part of the moves, the UK will impose sanctions on six entities and one individual involved in financing, enabling and carrying out settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday he was “deeply alarmed” by the renewed escalation in violence in the Middle East.

“All attacks must stop immediately. The ceasefires in Lebanon, Iran + Gaza must be fully respected,” he said in a post on X.

The son of a prominent Palestinian doctor who was detained by Israeli forces in Gaza in late 2024 and held for more than 500 days without formal charges has spoken of his deep concern for his father’s wellbeing after he was transferred without explanation to solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison.

Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, was detained at work on 27 December 2024. Physicians for Human Rights Israel said last week it had received information indicating that the 53-year-old had been transferred from Ketziot prison to Ramon prison, part of the Ganot prison complex, where he had been put in solitary confinement. PHRI said it had not been told the reasons for the transfer.

During a visit by a PHRI lawyer last month, Abu Safiya described harsh detention conditions, untreated medical problems and severe food shortages. You can read the full story by my colleagues, Lorenzo Tondo and Seham Tantesh, here:

A US navy surface drone found and rescued the two crew from a US Apache attack helicopter from the waters of the strait of Hormuz, the US military’s Central Command has told the Reuters news agency (see this post for more details about the incident).

The oil price is dropping this morning, after Donald Trump declared that negotiations towards an Iran peace deal are in their “final throes”.

The US president made the comments to reporters at JFK airport after attending the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden (where he was roundly booed by the crowd).

Brent crude has dropped by 1% this morning, to $93 a barrel – still around $20/barrel above its levels before the conflict began in late February.

You can follow the latest business and market news in our live blog here:

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are close allies with a deeply complicated and often strained relationship that has shown signs of fracturing over recent days. The Guardian’s senior international correspondent, Julian Borger, has looked into how the two leader’s diverging political priorities are undermining ceasefire negotiations. Here is an extract from his analysis piece:

Trump and Netanyahu went to war together against Iran on 28 February but fell out of step within days, as soon as it was clear that the quick victory and regime change promised by the Israelis was unlikely to materialise. From then on, their interests have increasingly diverged.

Once Iran closed the strait of Hormuz, the spike in the oil price and the interruption in the flow of globally traded chemical products became a political threat to Trump. Despite Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression, Democrats have a plausible shot at capturing at least one chamber of Congress in November elections, undermining his authority. More immediately, the president would clearly prefer to steer clear of global distractions while he hosts football’s World Cup.

The electoral pressure on Netanyahu pushes him in the opposite direction. Unless he can orchestrate a turnaround, his ruling coalition stands to lose in the vote, which must be held before the end of October. As things stand, for all the bombing of the past three years, he cannot claim to have fulfilled any of his pledges to neutralise Israel’s major adversaries: Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.

Netanyahu’s political logic drives him towards further onslaught in the hope of a breakthrough, such as regime collapse in Tehran. To secure support from the Israeli far right, Netanyahu has to show himself ready to defy Trump from time to time in pursuing that multi-front campaign, but no leader of Israel can afford to burn bridges with Washington, its principal security guarantor. That leaves a fine line to tread.

Here are some of the latest images coming out of the southern Lebanese city of Tyre after the Israeli military issued a sweeping evacuation order for residents:

Iran’s football federation (FFIRI) said on Tuesday that its ticket allocation for the World Cup has been pulled just days before it starts, leaving supporters who had already made travel plans unable to attend their team’s matches.

“This is despite the fact that many Iranian football fans, relying on the officially announced process, had already made the necessary plans to attend the matches,” the FFIRI added in a statement.

Gaza’s health ministry said in its latest update that at least 7 people were killed and 34 others injured in Israeli attacks across the territory over the past day. It said one other person died as a result of previous injuries.

The health ministry says 978 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since the ‘ceasefire’ between Israel and Hamas came into effect in October 2025.

It says that 72,988 people, many of whom were women and children, have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since October 2023, when Israel launched its assault on the territory following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

We can bring you more comments Donald Trump gave reporters last night at JFK airport. When asked about a report that a US army helicopter went down near the strait of Hormuz, the US president replied “the pilots are fine” and that nobody was injured.

“We are going to issue a report tomorrow but the pilots are fine,” he said.

It came after the NY Times reported that a US army Apache helicopter gunship went down near the strait of Hormuz yesterday, with the two crew members safely rescued.

It was not clear whether the helicopter was downed by Iranian fire or if there was some sort of mechanical issue or another problem, one of the people briefed on the incident told the outlet.

At least four people have been killed by Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon, the country’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported this morning.

The strikes were reported in the towns of Adshit, Haboush and Kfar Rumman.

In a phone interview with the BBC, Donald Trump said he had stressed the need “to use a lot of common sense” when he spoke to Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, who he has reportedly grown increasingly exasperated with during the war.

“All I did is say, ‘we have to use sense’. We’re very close to signing a very powerful deal, a very good deal,” Trump said of the conversation. “No nuclear weapons, no nothing. You know, we have to use a lot of common sense. It was fine.”

On Netanyahu firing missiles against Iran early on Monday, despite the US president’s request not to, Trump said: “They had already gone. They were already on their way.” He added: “If I tell him to do something, he does it.”