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Middle East crisis live: Trump says Iran talks could resume ‘over next two days’ as sanctioned ships pass through strait of Hormuz

A drone struck an Iranian Kurdish group on Tuesday wounding three people, a party official told AFP, in the first such attack in northern Iraq since a fragile ceasefire took effect in the region. Commander Mohammed Hakimi from the exiled Komala party blamed the attack on “Iran and its affiliated militias.” “A drone struck at 4.45pm Camp Sordash” which belongs to the Komala party, Hakimi told AFP. “Three Iranian Kurdish refugees were wounded, including a woman who is in a critical condition,” Hakimi added. The camp is located 40 kilometres west of the city of Sulaimaniyah. Another opposition group, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), told AFP that a drone attack targeted its camp in the Koysinjaq district near Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region, with no casualties reported.

Israeli ambassador to Germany condemns Bezalel Smotrich’s tirade against chancellor

Israel’s envoy to Germany has criticised a far-right Israeli cabinet member who made historically charged accusations against the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, saying the attack “[eroded] the memory of the Holocaust”. In a rare rebuke of a top Israeli official by an active ambassador, Ron Prosor said he wished to “unequivocally condemn” Bezalel Smotrich’s tirade against Merz, in which he made reference to the Nazi regime and said: “You will not force us into ghettos again.” The row, which erupted after the chancellor raised objections to settlements in the occupied West Bank, marks the latest clash between Berlin, seen as Israel’s closest ally in Europe, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over its actions toward Palestinians. Merz’s office released a statement late on Monday after telephone talks with Netanyahu, saying he had urged Israel to stop military attacks on southern Lebanon and expressed “deep concern about developments in the Palestinian territories”. A “de facto annexation” of the West Bank must not be allowed, he added. In response, Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister, invoked the Nazis’ murder of 6 million Jews during the second world war. “On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day [on Tuesday], the German Chancellor should bow his head and apologize a thousand times on behalf of Germany, rather than daring to preach morality to us on how to conduct ourselves against the Nazis of our generation,” he said on X, apparently equating the Hamas-led attackers of 7 October 2023 with all Palestinians. Smotrich, a self-declared “fascist homophobe” who has called for government reprisal attacks on Palestinians, criticised “hypocritical leaders in Europe” and told Merz: “Mr Chancellor, the days when Germans dictated to Jews where they were permitted or forbidden to live are over and shall not return. You will not force us into ghettos again, certainly not in our own land.” On Tuesday, Prosor said Smotrich’s attack “erodes the memory of the Holocaust and presents it in a completely distorted way”. “It is possible and completely legitimate to argue with the Germans, especially on this day, which is very emotional,” Prosor told Kan public radio. “There is a political debate all the time, but Merz is a great friend of Israel,” he added. “Many things that Germany does are unacceptable to us, and things that we do are unacceptable to them. But Germany has proven, especially with all the criticism against Israel in Europe, that it is our number one friend.” Germany views Israel’s security as integral to its own Staatsräson, or bedrock policy based on a solemn bond between the nations after the Holocaust. However, Israeli officials in recent months have bridled at even cautious criticism from Berlin, while Germany has distanced itself from the US-Israeli military action against Iran. Merz drew fire last August from Netanyahu’s government and members of his own conservative CDU party when he announced Germany would stop exporting military equipment that could be used in Gaza, due to the unfolding humanitarian disaster there. Germany has long condemned Israel’s expanding settlement activity in the West Bank, and recently urged Israel to halt a sprawling construction project Smotrich has championed, which he said would help prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. Last month, the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, berated Germany’s ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, over his opposition to deepening Israeli control in the West Bank, accusing the envoy of an “obsession” with Jewish settlers. At the same time, he asserted, Seibert found it “very difficult to condemn attacks against Israelis without bringing up the Palestinians”. Seibert had previously spoken of a “day of outrage and sadness” after the death of an Israeli by Hezbollah fire and hundreds injured by Iranian missiles. “And in a parallel reality: the violent settler rampage in Palestinian villages following the tragic and to be investigated death of one of their own,” he posted on X, referring to reprisal attacks. Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst on Israel at the International Crisis Group, said on Tuesday that the Israeli government had repeatedly targeted Germany “for invoking the basic human rights of Palestinians”. “They do so even at the expense of alienating their strongest European ally,” he wrote on social media. Zonszein called on Berlin to recalibrate its approach to the Netanyahu administration in light of the open conflict. “It’s time for Germany to reassess its support for Israeli actions that not only contradict its policies but are now the basis for vitriol against state leaders,” he wrote.

Carney says it’s Canada’s ‘time to come together’ after Liberals secure majority

Mark Carney has said he will govern with “humility, determination and a clear understanding of what this moment demands” after his Liberals swept three byelections Monday evening, forging a parliamentary majority just more than a year after he took power. Carney has achieved only the third majority government in two decades – and has done so in a highly unusual fashion, cobbling together both ballot box wins and defections from rival parties. While the Liberals were heavily favoured in two of three byelections on Monday, they outperformed in all contests at the expense of a struggling Conservative party. Danielle Martin won easily in University-Rosedale and Doly Begum, who Carney’s team wooed from the provincial New Democratic party, captured nearly 70% of the vote in Scarborough Southwest. Tatiana Auguste, whose 2025 victory of a single vote made headlines, came out on top after a close battle in the Montreal-area riding of Terrebonne. Ahead of Monday’s special elections, the Liberals held 171 seats in the House of Commons. Five of those came from lawmakers who had defected from other parties. The Liberals now hold 174 of 343 seats. The Conservatives have 140, the Bloc Québécois 22, the NDP six, and the Greens one. “This is a time to come together so we can build a Canada strong for all,” Carney said in a statement shortly after midnight, calling for bipartisan “collaboration, partnership, and ambition” in the coming months. “We will build a Canada that is not just strong, but good; not just prosperous, but fair; not just for some, most of the time, but for all, all of the time,” he said. “That is the responsibility we have been given by Canadians. We will achieve it together.” Carney’s Liberals were handed a minority government mandate by voters last year. But the constant threat of Donald Trump’s protectionist trade policies – and the highly erratic and unpredictable nature of how those policies are implemented – has shored up support for Carney, who has pledged a steady economic hand. A string of floor crossings from parties to both the ideological left and right of the Liberals has produced a feat without modern precedent: building a majority government from a legislative minority. Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader who has lost four of his parliamentary members to the Liberals, condemned the outcome on Monday evening. “The Carney Liberals did not win a majority government through a general election or today’s byelections. Instead, it was won through backroom deals with politicians who betrayed the people who voted for them,” he wrote on social media. “Liberals expect Canadians to give up, get complacent and go away, so Carney can have total power without any accountability. That will not happen. Our country and its people are worth fighting for.” With an election now likely three years away, Poilievre must contend with reduced political power – and persistent rumours that more Tories are preparing to abandon the party. Electoral results underscored the challenge he faces: the Conservative vote share dropped by double-digits in all three ridings, including one of the party’s worst-ever performance outside a major city in Quebec. An aggregate of national polls show the Liberals far ahead of the Conservatives –dramatic reversal for the Tories who, less than two years ago, were on the cusp of a historic majority government. Liberals will now control committees in the House of Commons and dictate both the scope and pace of their legislative agenda. One of the main focuses of the government is minimizing the economic impacts of the US war with Iran, which has pushed up fuel costs across Canada. On Tuesday, Carney said his government would suspend the federal fuel excise tax ‌on gasoline and diesel later this month until early September, telling reporters the move was a “responsible measure” to cut fuel costs. Canada also is bracing for what experts suspect will be a bitterly fought set of trade negotiations with the United States in the coming months as the two sides look for a renewed free trade pact.

People in the US: how has the surge in gas prices affected what you do?

One consequence of the US-Israel war on Iran has been a surge in gas prices in the US: The average gas price is now more than $4 per gallon, up from about $3 a year ago. We would like to hear how this has affected you. Has it changed where you’re going and what you’re doing? Perhaps it has caused you to alter your vacation plans. Or maybe you’re cutting back on other expenses to manage the extra fuel costs. Tell us. If you’re having trouble using the form click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here.

Zelenskyy hails Magyar’s win over Orbán as ‘the victory of light over darkness’ in Hungary – as it happened

… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today! Hungarian election winner Péter Magyar told the European Commission his “top priority” will be to unfreeze the €17bn of frozen EU funds in his early diplomatic engagements following Sunday’s historic win over Viktor Orbán (14:36, 15:50). European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said “there is swift work to be done to restore, realign and reform” Hungarian institutions as part of a change of the regime. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has hailed the opposition win in Hungary as “the victory of light over darkness,” as he called for “pragmatic, friendly” relations with the new administration (13:45). Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz also welcomed Péter Magyar’s decisive victory, saying it would have “implications for our support for Ukraine” (14:30). Magyar is set to make a rare appearance on the Hungarian state media on Wednesday as he prepares to overhaul the broadcasters ending years of what he said was Orbán-friendly coverage (12:56). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Reeves hits out at ‘folly’ of US going to war without clear exit plan

Rachel Reeves has hit out at the “folly” of Donald Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran without a clear exit plan. Speaking to the Mirror before a trip to Washington for the International Monetary Fund spring meeting, the UK chancellor renewed her criticism of the war, which has pushed up oil prices and threatens a new jump in inflation across the west. She was speaking after a turbulent few days in which the US and Iran abandoned peace talks in Islamabad without a deal and the US officially started a blockade of Iranian ports on the strait of Hormuz, through which Iranian oil ships have been passing in recent weeks. Reeves said: “This is a war that we did not start. It was a war that we did not want. I feel very frustrated and angry that the US went into this war without a clear exit plan, without a clear idea of what they were trying to achieve. And as a result the strait of Hormuz is now blocked.” She added: “Obviously no sensible person is a supporter of the Iranian regime but to start a conflict without being clear what the objectives are and not being clear about how you are going to get out of it, I do think that is a folly and it is one that is affecting families here in the UK but also families in the US and around the world. “I don’t think it was the right decision. But it was absolutely the right decision for Keir Starmer – our prime minister – to keep us out of this conflict.” While Reeves has previously expressed her frustrations about the war, her comments on Tuesday go further than anything either she or the prime minister had previously publicly said. Starmer told the Commons on Monday: “My decision has been very clearly that whatever the pressure – and there’s been some considerable pressure – we’re not getting dragged into the war.” Reeves was speaking before the IMF meeting, where foreign ministers from around the world will talk about the economic fallout from the Iran war. The fund published a new set of forecasts on Tuesday afternoon showing the UK would suffer the biggest economic impact of any G7 country, with GDP expected to rise by just 0.8% this year rather than 1.3% as previously forecast. Reeves has promised to help poorer households with their energy bills if they rise later in the summer and is also under pressure to cancel a planned rise in fuel duty in September. Starmer meanwhile has set up a committee of ministers to discuss the impact of the war on Britain, which met for the first time on Friday. Officials said they had spoken about the situation in the strait of Hormuz. Downing Street said: “It’s clear that the impacts of this crisis will be felt here in the UK for a long time to come, and resilience is at the heart of his approach.” The prime minister will travel to Paris this week for an international summit of more than 40 countries to discuss how to safeguard shipping through the strait. Officials say they will talk about how to de-mine the waterway, how to rescue ships stranded there and, eventually, how to make sure ships can pass through it. The US is unlikely to attend, while many world leaders will do so virtually rather than in person.

‘We were never friends’: Kremlin plays down loss of ally following Orbán’s election defeat

The Kremlin said on Tuesday it was pleased that Hungary’s prime minister-elect, Péter Magyar, appeared open to pragmatic dialogue, as Moscow adopts a wait-and-see approach after the election loss of its closest partner in Europe, Viktor Orbán. “For now, we can note with satisfaction, as far as we understand, his [Magyar’s] willingness to engage in pragmatic dialogue,” said the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. “In this instance, there is mutual willingness on our part, and we will then proceed to take our cue from the specific steps taken by the new Hungarian government.” Moscow, a day earlier, did not congratulate Magyar on his election victory. Instead, Peskov made clear that Hungary no longer enjoys any special status and now falls into the category of “unfriendly countries” alongside the rest of Europe. But the scale of Orbán’s defeat has left Moscow with little choice but to acknowledge the loss of a key partner in Europe. “Hungary made its choice. We respect that choice,” Peskov said on Monday. Moscow appears to be playing down the loss of a key ally in Europe, striking a tone reminiscent of its messaging after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Then, the Kremlin moved quickly to distance itself from Assad as it sought to preserve whatever leverage it could with Syria’s new leadership. “We were never friends with Orbán,” said Peskov, adding that Moscow remained open to dialogue and to building good, mutually beneficial relations with Budapest. Magyar signalled in his first statements on Monday that a dramatic rupture with Russia should not be expected. He suggested Hungary would maintain a pragmatic foreign policy – continuing to buy Russian oil and remaining cautious on Ukraine – even as he seeks to rebalance relations with the west. “We cannot change geography,” he told reporters, adding that Hungary would need to find a way forward on energy imports, including those from Russia. The incoming prime minister will inherit a struggling Hungarian economy that remains heavily dependent on Russia, which supplies more than 80% of its fossil gas and crude oil – a reliance that is expected to give Moscow leverage in Hungary for years to come. “Russia will be there, Hungary will be here. But we will try to diversify,” Magyar said. But he has made it clear that he has little interest in playing the role Orbán did for Putin. Most notably, the incoming prime minister left no room for interpretation that he sees Russia as the aggressor in the conflict with Ukraine. “If Vladimir Putin calls, I’ll pick up the phone,” he said. “If we did talk, I could tell him that it would be good to end the killing after four years and end the war.” It marked a notable break from Orbán’s rhetoric towards Russia’s full-scale invasion. For years, Orbán and Putin made no secret of their mutual admiration – and usefulness to one another – both in public and in private. Since the start of Russia’s war in 2022, Hungary has systematically worked to blunt the EU’s response – lobbying to weaken sanctions, repeatedly blocking aid to Kyiv, and most recently vetoing an EU loan worth billions of euros that Ukraine urgently needs to withstand Russian aggression. Behind closed doors, according to leaked phone calls, Orbán had gone so far as to tell the Russian leader: “I am at your service.” Russian intelligence and state-linked media were also reported to have tried to sway the vote in Orbán’s favour. Russia’s loss of political capital was also felt on the streets of Budapest and beyond, where chants of “Ruszkik, haza” (Russians, go home) echoed long into the night in celebration. The slogan, rooted in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, was revived by Orbán’s critics during the campaign as a protest against his government’s close ties to Moscow. For the Kremlin, the Hungarian election result was a sobering moment, said Alexander Baunov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He argued that Orbán’s ousting would reinforce a long-held view among more hawkish elites that betting on Kremlin-friendly leaders in Europe – where democratic systems can still produce sudden changes of government – is a risky strategy. “In Moscow, the takeaway is that only truly authoritarian systems are reliable partners, and hopes that the west might one day resemble Russia are illusory,” Baunov said. That lesson, Baunov argued, extended well beyond Hungary. “It also serves as a reminder not to place too many bets on figures like Donald Trump. He may disappear as suddenly as he emerged,” he added. Some pointed to Trump’s weakening polling numbers in the US and questioned whether the Kremlin had a strategy if the US president was succeeded by a conventional politician who was more hostile to Russia. “I wonder whether there’s a clever plan for that,” wrote Fighterbomber, a Russian military aviation Telegram channel linked to the air force. “In Trump’s place would come an ordinary, unremarkable American president who will supply Ukraine with every weapon it needs and offer every form of support available.” But the prevailing conclusion across Russia’s sprawling ecosystem of commentators and pro-war bloggers was that Moscow could rely only on itself in the war in Ukraine. “Neither the Hungarians, nor the Slovaks, nor anyone else will be breaking through the enemy’s defences for us,” wrote the pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda reporter Alexander Kots, referring to the Slovakian prime minister, Robert Fico, who will now be the most pro-Moscow leader in the bloc. “By the fifth year of the war, it should be clear that external factors have only an indirect bearing on our situation in Ukraine,” Kots added.

Survivors ask why busy market bombed in Nigerian anti-terror campaign

Survivors and observers have questioned the Nigerian military’s rationale for a devastating airstrike on a busy market that killed as many as 200 people, many of them civilians. The hit on Jilli market on the border of the north-eastern Borno and Yobe states on Saturday is the latest in a string of attacks by the country’s air force over the past decade with a high civilian death toll. The military said it had been targeting members of the Islamic State West Africa Province (Iswap) jihadist group. A local councillor said more than 200 people had died, while Amnesty International said the death toll was above 100 and rising. Nigeria has struggled to suppress multiple conflicts, including an insurgency in the north-east by the Islamist group Boko Haram, which it has been battling for 17 years. The group split in 2016, with Iswap forming in its place. Meanwhile, the country’s north-west region is beset by armed groups of bandits, and there are regular fatal clashes between herders and farmers in the country’s middle belt. Nigeria’s military said in a post on X on Sunday that it had “successfully conducted a precision airstrike on a known terrorist enclave and logistics hub located near the abandoned village of Jilli … [that] followed sustained intelligence”. The statement, attributed to the military spokesperson Sani Uba, said: “Post-strike assessment confirmed that the target area was struck with high accuracy, resulting in the destruction of the identified terrorist logistics enclave. Scores of terrorists were neutralised in the strike.” However, local traders denied that Islamist fighters had been among them. “I don’t know if there were jihadists at the market. We are just ordinary people,” Mala Garba, 42, told Agence France-Presse while recovering from injuries at a hospital in Maiduguri, Borno’s state capital. He was among 46 victims of the airstrike at the hospital. Some were heavily bandaged, while others had IV drips attached. Lawan Zanna Nur Geidam, the area’s local councillor and traditional leader, said: “It’s a very devastating incident at Jilli market. As I’m speaking to you, over 200 people have lost their lives from the airstrike at the market.” Yobe state officials later admitted that civilians had been affected. “Some people … who went to the Jilli weekly market were affected,” Brig Gen Dahiru Abdulsalam, a military adviser to the Yobe state government, told Reuters. It was likely there had been Iswap members or supporters at the market, said Malik Samuel, a researcher with Good Governance Africa. “That area is particularly known for the presence of Iswap,” he said. “It’s a major logistics route for the group.” However, he said it would have been “impossible” for an airstrike to distinguish between fighters and civilians at a busy market frequented by hundreds or even thousands of people, adding: “Would it not be better to trace people leaving the market and going to known areas occupied by this group … instead of just hitting a market that you know clearly that there would be civilians in this place?” Nigeria’s military has killed at least 500 civilians in airstrikes since 2017, according to the Associated Press. At least 115 people were killed in 2017 when a camp housing displaced people in Borno was bombed. More than 120 people were killed in two airstrikes on a religious gathering in Kaduna state in December 2023. “The lack of accountability is a big problem, because it emboldens the military to continue doing that,” Samuel said. Isa Sanusi, Amnesty International Nigeria’s executive director, said: “You cannot trust the military to investigate themselves. Whenever they investigate themselves, the outcome is as usual: they exonerate themselves.” He added: “These deadly airstrikes will undermine trust in public institutions and will even undermine the fight against insurgency and banditry.” The US has previously accused Nigeria of failing to protect Christians from jihadists, although Muslim civilians are also killed by Islamist groups. On Christmas Day 2025, the US carried out airstrikes on an Islamist group known as Lakurawa in north-west Nigeria.