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Middle East crisis live: Donald Trump says Iran ‘know what not to do’ to avoid violating ceasefire with US

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRCG) navy has issued a renewed threat to ships transiting through the strait of Hormuz not to deviate from routes Iran has previously approved. In remarks reported by the Fars news agency, the IRCG said: All vessels intending to transit the strait are warned that the only safe route for passage through the Strait of Hormuz is the corridor previously announced by Iran. Any deviation from this route is unsafe and will be met with firm action by the IRGC Navy. It comes as both Tehran and Washington claim to be in control of the strait after the Unites States launched so-called “Project Freedom”, an effort to support ships to move freely through the critical waterway, and the two sides exchanged fire on Monday. US defense secretary Pete Hegseth insisted this morning that “Project Freedom” was a “separate and distinct” effort from the ongoing military operation in the region.

A veneer of normality has returned to Tehran, but fears for the future are rife

In the weeks since the fragile ceasefire with the US and Israel took hold, life in Tehran has – on the surface at least – largely returned to something like pre-war normality. Many security checkpoints have been taken down, coffee shops are bustling, parks are full of people gathering for picnics, musicians are playing again in the streets, highways are jammed with traffic and the metro - free to use since the war - runs packed. But underlying worries run deep, and many Iranians fear the war could return at any moment. The uncertainty was underlined on Monday when the US and Iran launched fresh attacks in the Gulf as the two sides continue to blockade of the strait of Hormuz. The war’s economic toll has been severe too. Many people have lost their jobs and inflation is surging. The International Monetary Fund estimates it could reach 70% this year. Sara, 24, lost her job teaching art at an after-school centre when it shut down at the start of the war on 28 February. She has had no income since, no severance pay and has little to fall back on. Online job platforms – still accessible through Iran’s restricted local network despite the wider internet shutdown – are flooded with people looking for work, and Sara knows that as a teacher, her prospects are slim. Schools have moved to online classes and after-school centres remain closed for now. “I spend my free time with friends, or on the phone with my boyfriend in Canada,” she said, but she admitted that both the prospects of renewed war and inflation worried her. Across Tehran, many are cutting back or are opting for free activities instead. Parks are crowded with people playing games and exercising, while restaurants are noticeably quieter. Larger bazaars are busy with people buying essentials or trying to earn a living. “Many vendors in the market had to shut down because of economic difficulties. The situation is very unstable,” said Sina, 25, a jewellery maker in the city’s Grand Bazaar. For some, work has resumed, at least in part. Mohammad Reza, 32, a high school Arabic teacher who also works at a private university-prep institute, said that since the ceasefire he was back to teaching online. “My students are happy to be in class again, even the ones who were never particularly interested,” he said. “The war has been exhausting for them and they genuinely want to be together, even if it’s just in front of a screen.” Alongside food and medicine, tuition fees at the private institute where he teaches have risen. “Families are still willing to invest in their children’s education, but it’s not easy,” he said. Political repression continues. More than 20 people have been executed on national security-related charges since late February, many in connection with the January protests. The UN High commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, said he was “appalled that on top of the already severe impacts of the conflict, the rights of the Iranian people continue to be stripped from them”. The head of Iran’s judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejeai, has defended the executions, saying authorities would “not neglect … the legal punishment of criminals whose hands are smeared with the blood of our people”. On the streets of Tehran, however, the executions are rarely discussed. “Everyone’s tired and exhausted from the war,” said one woman who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Most people are worried about their incomes and the economy. We know about the executions, but there are no protests, nothing. We’re just trying to live our lives.” Sara, who took part in the Woman, Life, Freedom demonstrations in 2022, said the war had shifted her perspective, and that she was now taking part in anti-US protests. “I’ve always been critical of my government,” she said. “But since the bombings and destruction, I’ve realised who our real enemies are, and we have to resist them.” Tensions between Iran and the US remain high. Negotiations have stalled, and Washington’s recently announced “Project Freedom” – intended to escort stranded cargo ships through the strait of Hormuz – risks further escalation. On Enghelab Street, one of Tehran’s main thoroughfares, none of this is visible. Jammed with traffic, home to bookshops, cafes, restaurants, and the city’s largest university, people are strolling past shop windows and catching up with friends. Ali, 38, who works at one of the bookshops, said the transformation from deserted streets at the height of the war to something resembling normal life again has been overwhelming. “I don’t think the ceasefire will collapse,” he said, perhaps trying to convince himself. “There will be no more war.”

Israeli army chief admits discrimination against Palestinians in the West Bank

The Israeli army chief in the West Bank has said his troops were “killing like we haven’t killed since 1967”, including fatally shooting Palestinian stone-throwers, according to an Israeli report of his comments. The remarks by Maj Gen Avi Bluth, head of the army’s central command, were made in a recent closed forum but were leaked to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. Bluth has so far not denied the authenticity of the Haaretz account. The Israel Defense Forces did not respond to a request for comment. Bluth, who was born in a West Bank settlement and educated in a religious military academy in the occupied territory, spoke bluntly about the discriminatory military justice his soldiers administer. He said they had shot 42 Palestinian stone-throwers on West Bank roads last year, insisting that such acts amounted to terrorism. Bluth said the army does not shoot Jewish settler militants for doing the same thing, noting that on one occasion when a settler throwing stones at motorists had been wounded by army gunfire, there was a public “ruckus”. “Any such incident has very serious consequences from a societal perspective,” Bluth said, according to the reported remarks, openly admitting: “Yes, it involves discrimination.” Palestinians are subjected to military law in the West Bank and to extended detention without trial, while Israelis are judged by civilian courts. Bluth said another way he had loosened legal constraints on Israeli soldiers in the West Bank was to allow the maiming of Palestinians caught trying to cross the separation barrier into Israel in search of work. “At the [separation barrier], it is currently permitted to detain a suspect by shooting him at the knee or below to create ‘barrier awareness’,” Bluth said, adding that it served as a deterrent. “There are a lot of ‘limping monuments’ in Palestinian villages of those who tried to [cross the barrier], so there is a price being paid,” he said. As with stone-throwers, Bluth justified his rules of engagement on the grounds that each illegal Palestinian worker was a “potential terrorist”. The general also portrayed his actions as part of a “survival of the fittest” struggle. “If someone comes to kill you, kill them first is the norm in the Middle East, so we’re killing like we haven’t killed since 1967,” Bluth said, in reference to the war against Arab states that resulted in the permanent occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Thousands of Palestinians were killed in the second intifada from 2000 to 2005. “His apartheidist approach, under which the army shoots only Palestinian stone-throwers, not Jewish ones, was justified on the grounds of the ‘sociological consequences’ of shooting at the latter,” Haaretz said in an editorial, asking: “Did he take into account the ‘sociological consequences’ of these ‘lame monuments’ on the Palestinians?” Since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the resulting war in Gaza, Israeli settlers have conducted an escalating campaign of violent intimidation of Palestinians in the West Bank with the aim of driving them off their land. In that campaign, they have routinely been abetted by the Israeli army, which is increasingly made up of soldiers and officers drawn from the settlements. According to UN figures, some 230 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces and settlers in 2025. Bluth had sparked controversy a few days earlier with a warning, also reported in Haaretz, that “Jewish terror” carried out by extremists, known as “hilltop youth”, would ultimately trigger an uprising. “These people don’t see Arabs as human beings and think it’s possible to burn people alive, to burn houses down with their occupants inside, and unfortunately, they do this frequently,” Bluth said, according to the Haaretz account. The general said “it’s almost a miracle that the Palestinians are still indifferent” but added they “won’t remain indifferent indefinitely” and warned of the possibility of a West Bank uprising. “Bluth has now revealed what everyone already knew: the Israel Defense Forces is working hand in hand with the settlers who are carrying out the daily pogroms,” Haaretz commented. “Bluth calls it Israeli terrorism, but not only does he not try to prevent it in the same way that the IDF prevents Palestinian terrorism, but he is actually abetting it.”

Expert brands rescue of Timmy the whale ‘an all-round catastrophe’ over deficient tracker

Marine biologists and whale experts have stepped up their criticism of a privately funded operation to release a humpback whale that was stranded for weeks off Germany’s Baltic Coast after it emerged that a tracker fitted to the whale was not working. The whereabouts and health of the young male whale – nicknamed Timmy after one of the sandbanks that it was stranded on – remain unknown three days after it was transported in a water-holding barge pulled by a tugboat to waters off the coast of Denmark. The rescue initiative, estimated to have cost about €1.5m , was funded in part by Karin Walter-Mommert, the owner of one of the largest racehorse portfolios in Europe. Walter-Mommert, who confirmed to German media on Tuesday that the tracker was not working, had previously claimed that device was also supposed to transmit information on the animal’s vital signs. This was disputed by some experts and environmental activists, including Greenpeace. The whale was first spotted stuck on a sandbank on 23 March near the city of Lübeck, on Germany’s Baltic Sea coast, before freeing itself and then becoming stuck again several times. The mammal’s health deteriorated as it became repeatedly stranded in shallow waters near the coastal city of Wismar, and unsuccessful efforts to coax it toward deeper seas were livestreamed across the globe. The environment minister for Germany’s Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state gave the green light for the attempt to save the whale, despite some warnings from the scientific community that it may be too much for the animal. “If it turns out that device doesn’t yield any information, it would be an all-round catastrophe, for the whale and the rescue team,” the whale researcher Fabian Ritter told German media. Ritter said if it was not possible to determine if the whale had died then the entire operation will have been in vain. In a statement the German Oceanographic Museum in Stralsund said it believed the whale was “highly likely” dead and called on organisers of the rescue mission to release data from the tracker so that the operation could be assessed. Its scientists had been sceptical of the attempts to rescue the whale from the start, referring to it as animal cruelty, and stressing the likelihood that the whale would drown if it was not strong enough to swim in deep waters. The whale was last photographed swimming in the strait of Skagerrak. Danish authorities said in advance they would make no attempt to rescue the whale if it was subsequently found to be in difficulty, arguing that nature should be allowed to take its course. Danish marine biologist Peter Madsen said that the lack of data from all stages of the operation was unusual and ill-advised. He told the German Press Agency that it appeared data was being guarded by a small group of people, including the initiators of the operation and the environment ministry for the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, calling it “very strange and unprofessional”. The environment ministry said it was still waiting to receive data from the private initiative, as well as information about the animal’s condition. Neither the rescue initiative nor the environment ministry responded to requests for information about which tracking device was being used. There were also confusing reports surrounding the decision to release the whale. A vet who had been on board the Fortuna B., one of two rescue ships accompanying the whale, was reportedly barred from witnessing the second and final release attempts. Kirsten Tönnies said that tensions had been high between the experts on board and the ship’s crew. She said she disagreed with how the whale was released backward from the barge and with the fact she had been barred from giving the medical all-clear beforehand. The ship’s operators were unavailable for comment. The Fortuna B.’s tracking signal appears to have been switched off, according to authorities and vessel trackers. In a joint statement, Walter-Mommert and her co-financier, Walter Gunz, one of the founders of a leading electronics chain, distanced themselves from the manner of the whale’s release. “We hereby expressly distance ourselves from the events and the manner in which the whale was abandoned,” they wrote, calling for “any consequences” to be borne “by the owner, the operators, and any crew members of the ships Fortuna B and Robin Hood”.

‘Think before sharing,’ Giorgia Meloni says as AI-made lingerie image of her goes viral

Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has criticised the circulation of AI-generated deepfake images of her, including one depicting her in lingerie, after they were widely shared online. Meloni wrote on Facebook on Tuesday: “In recent days, several fake images of me have been circulating, generated using artificial intelligence and passed off as real by some overzealous opponents. “I must admit that whoever created them … even improved my appearance quite a bit,” she joked. “But the fact remains that, in order to attack and spread falsehoods, people are now willing to use absolutely anything.” In her post, Meloni shared an AI-generated image showing her apparently dressed in lingerie, seated on a bed – a fabrication that had gone viral and prompted a wave of condemnation from users who believed it to be genuine. One user wrote: “That a prime minister should present herself in such a state is truly shameful. Unworthy of the institutional role she holds. She has no sense of shame.” In her statement, Meloni denounced what she described as a form of cyberbullying, warning that AI-generated images were an increasingly dangerous tool capable of misleading and harming individuals. “The issue goes beyond me,” she added. “Deepfakes are a dangerous tool, because they can deceive, manipulate and target anyone. I can defend myself. Many others cannot. For this reason, one rule should always apply: verify before believing, and think before sharing. Because today it happens to me, tomorrow it could happen to anyone.” The fight against the risks posed by AI and deepfakes has become a central plank of the agenda of Meloni’s far-right government. Last September, Italy became the first EU country to approve a comprehensive law regulating the use of AI, introducing prison terms for those who deploy the technology to cause harm — including the creation of deepfakes — and placing limits on children’s access. Meloni’s government said the legislation, aligned with the bloc’s landmark EU AI Act, marked a decisive step in shaping how artificial intelligence was developed and used across the country. The law followed a scandal over a pornographic website that published doctored images of prominent Italian women, including Meloni and the opposition leader Elly Schlein, which triggered outrage in Italy. The images – lifted from social media or public appearances and altered with vulgar, sexist captions – were shared on a platform with more than 700,000 subscribers. Many showed female politicians across party lines, manipulated to emphasise body parts or imply sexualised poses. The Italian police ordered the site to be shut down, while prosecutors in Rome opened an investigation over alleged offences including the unlawful dissemination of sexually explicit images (so-called revenge porn), defamation and extortion.

Zelenskyy condemns Russian ‘cynicism’ over parade truce as 23 killed in attacks

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused the Kremlin of “utter cynicism” for seeking a truce so it can stage a military parade in Moscow as 23 people were killed in attacks on Ukraine. At least 12 people were killed on Tuesday in a strike on southern city of Zaporizhzhia, the regional governor said. “Russia ended the life of 12 people,” Ivan Fedorov posted on Telegram. Five people were killed in a Russian attack on the eastern city of Kramatorsk in Donetsk, which Zelenskyy said “hit right in the city centre, targeting civilians”. Overnight from Monday to Tuesday, three employees of the state energy firm Naftogaz were also killed in an initial attack on a gas facility in Ukraine’s central Poltava region, and two emergency service workers died at the scene in a follow-on bombing. Thirty-seven people were injured in the strikes. One person was killed in the north-eastern Kharkiv region. The Ukrainian president said: “It is utter cynicism to ask for a ceasefire in order to hold propaganda celebrations while carrying out missile and drone strikes every single day leading up to it. Russia could cease fire at any moment, and this would stop the war and our responses.” Vladimir Putin has announced a unilateral ceasefire around Russia marking the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany on Friday. For the first time in almost 20 years, the Red Square parade will take place without military hardware, amid fears Ukraine will target the event with long-range drones. Zelenskyy has offered his own 24-hour ceasefire, beginning at midnight on Wednesday. He said Ukraine would “act reciprocally” in the event that Russia stopped firing – something it has failed to do during previous temporary truces. Zelenskyy wrote on social media: “It is time for Russian leaders to take real steps to end their war, especially since Russia’s defence ministry believes it cannot hold a parade in Moscow without Ukraine’s goodwill.” Without an agreement, Moscow faces the embarrassing prospect that Kyiv could disrupt the parade, which will be attended by Putin and VIPs. The annual ceremony is a bombastic show of military strength that Putin has exploited to seek to justify his 2022 Ukraine invasion, casting both wars as fights against fascism. In recent weeks, Ukraine has intensified its long-range retaliatory strikes on Russia’s interior, hitting oil refineries, terminals and even fighter jets. Drones have struck military objects in the Urals, more than 1,000 miles from the frontline. The Poltava attack triggered outrage in Ukraine. The foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said: “Two of the killed were first responders, killed in a vile double-tap strike targeting those who arrived to help people at the scene of the attack. Only a terrorist state like Russia employs inhuman and criminal tactics like these.” Russia fired 11 ballistic missiles and 164 drones across the country in the wave of strikes, according to officials. Direct hits and falling debris were reported at two sites in the Poltava district, the regional governor, Vitalii Diakivnych, said on the messaging app Telegram. He said the attack cut gas supply to nearly 3,500 people. Russia’s defence ministry said it had downed more than 300 Ukrainian drones between late Monday and early Tuesday. On the battlefield, Russia’s progress has stalled. Its army lost more territory than it captured in April, for the first time since summer 2023, according to Agence France-Presse analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War.

Political row as report calls for sweeping cuts to French public broadcasting

French politicians on the left and centre have criticised a parliament inquiry report that recommends sweeping cuts to public broadcasting, with a row over culture wars building before next year’s presidential election. State broadcasting is a key topic in the run-up to April’s vote, with the far right, which is leading in the polls, highly critical of public TV and radio and vowing to privatise it. Charles Alloncle of the Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR) party, which is allied to Marine Le Pen’s far-right, anti-immigration National Rally (RN), published a report on Tuesday after setting up a five-month parliament inquiry into the “neutrality, workings and financing” of public broadcasting, after far-right politicians claimed that state TV and radio were biased against them. Alloncle recommended that the French president should directly nominate the heads of public broadcasting, backed up by votes in parliament and the senate. He also suggested reducing the public broadcasting budget by 25%, merging several major channels, cutting youth broadcasting, cutting the gameshow and entertainment budget by 75%, and cutting the sport budget by 33%. Alloncle said that French state TV and radio is “ill-adapted to our era”, faces a financial crisis, has “lost touch with what French people want”, and must be completely reformed. But the report faced harsh criticism on the left and centre, after inquiry hearings were marred by heated rows and suspensions, with critics saying his questioning was factually incorrect and biased towards the far right. Alloncle denied this. The Socialist MP Ayda Hadizadeh, who sat on the inquiry panel, said during the hearings that the process had turned into a “tribunal” by politicians who wanted “to kill public broadcasting”. RN MP Anne Sicard said her party was “treated like the enemy” by the state broadcaster. Meanwhile, Le Pen praised the parliament inquiry, and said it had “shone a light” on what she called public broadcasting’s “downward spiral, misguided financial management and multiple attacks on political neutrality”. The public broadcaster France Télévisions, which includes four national TV channels and 24 regional channels, is a key financier of films, drama and documentaries, as well as the country’s top media outlet. Radio France has several national and local stations and dominates podcasting. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has been critical of the public broadcaster in the past and scrapped the TV licence fee in 2022, while a long-term funding model is yet to be defined. Jordan Bardella, RN’s party president and a potential presidential candidate, has reiterated that his party “would begin a process of privatisation” if it wins the next election. The government is not obliged to adopt the recommendations in Alloncle’s report. The prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said reform was necessary but brushed aside the report as a “missed opportunity”. The head of France Télévisions, Delphine Ernotte, who gave evidence in the hearings, said the report was a biased “ideological reading of the public service”, and its recommendations would lead to a historic weakening of public broadcasting. The centre-right MP, Jérémie Patrier-Leitus, who served as president of the inquiry hearings, said Alloncle had been “dishonest” and his report served only to “prepare the mood” for the privatisation of state media sought by the far right. Alloncle denied this, saying his report stopped short of recommending privatisation. Agnès Pannier-Runacher, an MP in Macron’s centrist party and a former minister, described the parliamentary inquiry as “shameful”. She said Alloncle’s main problem with state TV and radio “was that it was not sufficiently promoting the ideas of the far right”. She said this was an attack on media independence, like in Hungary under former prime minister Viktor Orbán or the US under Donald Trump. The backdrop to the inquiry is the rising dominance in France of the private media empire owned by the Catholic conservative industrialist Vincent Bolloré, which critics say is giving a platform to reactionary voices and boosting the rise of the far right. Bolloré’s CNews was the most-watched news channel on TV last year and is highly critical of the state broadcaster. This week, an NGO called AC !! Anti-Corruption filed a legal complaint in Paris, alleging that the media group Lagardère News, part of Bolloré’s empire, had tried to influence the inquiry by sending several MPs lists of questions hostile to public broadcasting. Alloncle denied receiving any questions or being influenced by external parties. Lagardère News has not commented publicly on the allegations.

MV Hondius: the ice-breaking expedition cruise hit with suspected hantavirus outbreak

With a fortified hull that can break through ice, the MV Hondius – the scene of a suspected hantavirus outbreak – is not the average cruise ship. The 107-metre polar explorer vessel is small, nimble and made for touring the natural wonders of Arctic and Antarctic waters. In place of the amusement arcades, ballrooms and deck-top waterparks that may be found on larger vessels, such as those where thousands became marooned during the Covid pandemic, the Hondius has an open observation lounge and lecture room in which biologists, geologists and glaciologists give lectures. Its 85 passengers are told to be in good health before their voyage, and “able to walk several hours per day”. Age can range up to people in their 80s, but the majority are between 45 and 65. Two inflatable Zodiac boats can be launched to take passengers for expeditions to rocky shores. “Remember, you will be traveling in remote areas without access to sophisticated medical facilities, so you must not join this expedition if you have a life-threatening condition or need daily medical treatment,” the operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, says on its website. Three people – a Dutch couple and a German man – are now dead from what health authorities say could be an outbreak of deadly hantavirus, which is usually spread from rodents via their faeces, saliva or urine and can cause severe respiratory illness. Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the World Health Organization (WHO), said on Tuesday that the assumption was that people had initially been infected off the ship during an excursion. “This was an expedition boat and many of the people onboard were doing bird watching; they were doing a lot of things with wildlife,” she said. It is rarely transmitted between people, but the WHO said it believed there could be some human-to-human transmission among “really close contacts”. Another person, a British national, has became seriously ill. They were evacuated to South Africa, and remain in intensive care in Johannesburg. Two crew members have also developed breathing issues and are due to be evacuated by helicopter or boat. The passengers, and 61 crew, have been stuck off Cape Verde – an island nation off the coast of West Africa – which has asked the ship to stay at sea as a precaution. The vessel hopes to head for the Canary islands, where Spanish authorities could conduct an epidemiological investigation and fully disinfect the ship. Life for those onboard will be different depending on their cabin class, or whether they are crew. The largest nationality is 38 people from the Philippines, who are all crew. The rest are a mixture of several nationalities including 23 people from Britain, 17 from the US and 14 from Spain. The largest guest room, a 26-sq-metre “grand suite”, has a private balcony; the smallest is 12 sq metres. All have private bathrooms and windows. Footage since the suspected outbreak has shown the decks deserted, and people wearing masks. People with full protective gear have been seen in a small vessel alongside the ship. Few accounts from inside the ship have been shared, but on Monday, a US travel blogger released a video. “We’re not just headlines: we are people,” Jake Rosmarin said in a teary video posted to social media. “People with families, with lives, with people waiting for us at home. There’s a lot of uncertainty, and that’s the hardest part.” On Tuesday, Rosmarin posted an update with a photo of him smiling – possibly to allay fears for those inside the ship. He wrote in a caption that the company and crew were “doing everything they can to keep us safe and informed”. Oceanwide Expeditions, which is based in the Netherlands, said it had launched a response plan. “This is currently at level 3, the highest response level,” it said, adding that the plan included isolation measures, hygiene protocols and medical monitoring. The company and its crew will have prepared for an event like this. The coronavirus pandemic led cruise companies to improve their infectious diseases outbreak plans. Their protocols include upgraded ventilation and even thermal cameras for “continuous automated temperature screening”. The problems arose during a Atlantic Odyssey trip, with Cape Verde being the originally intended final destination after a 42-night voyage including whale watching in Antarctic waters and views of migratory birds, including Arctic terns. A 70-year-old Dutch man died while the ship was in the Atlantic, and his body remained onboard for nearly two weeks until it reached the isolated British outpost of Saint Helena. The man’s wife, 69, disembarked with his body, but later collapsed and died in South Africa. Two crew members, one British and one Dutch, have been suffering from acute respiratory distress. The body of a third deceased passenger – the German national – remains on the vessel.