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Iran and US have been in direct contact in recent days - report

A direct communications channel between US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has been reactivated in recent days, Axios reports, citing a US official and a source with knowledge of the matter.

Per Axios’s report, it isn’t clear how substantive the messages passed between Araghchi and Witkoff were, but it’s the first known direct communication between the parties since the war started more than two weeks ago.

The US official and the source with knowledge told Axios that Araghchi sent text messages to Witkoff that focused on ending the war.

It comes after Drop Site News reported today that Witkoff had sent messages to Araghchi and quoted Iranian officials who claimed the Iranian foreign minister was ignoring his messages.

The US official told Axios it was Araghchi who was attempting to engage, but said the US “is not talking” to Iran. Neither of the sources spoke in detail about how many texts had been exchanged or about their content.

Donald Trump said earlier today that Iran had communicated with the US about reaching a deal.

“They want to make a deal. They are talking to our people ... we have people wanting to negotiate, [but] we have no idea who they are,” the US president told reporters.

Here’s more on the explosion head in Iraq’s capital Baghdad – Agence France-Presse journalists report smoke was seen near the city’s heavily fortified Green Zone.

The zone houses the US embassy and other diplomatic missions, as well as international institutions and government offices. High-ranking officials and politicians also live there.

Explosion heard near US embassy in Baghdad, reports say

An explosion has been heard near the US embassy in Baghdad, Reuters reports.

The agency says a witness reported sirens being sounded in the Iraqi city.

We’ll bring you more details as we get them.

Drone strike causes fire at Abu Dhabi oil field, officials say

Authorities in Abu Dhabi have said they are dealing with a fire at the Shah oil and gas field caused by a drone attack and said that no injuries had been reported so far, per the Abu Dhabi media office.

The Shah field is one of the largest of its kind in the world and is located 230km southwest of the Emirati capital. It is operated by the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). According to ADNOC’s website, the field has a production capacity of around 70,000 barrels of oil per day.

Trump says Israel 'would never' use a nuclear weapon on Iran

At his press conference earlier, Donald Trump quickly shut down a reporter’s question about the possibility of Israel using a nuclear weapon on Iran if the conflict continues to escalate. The US president said:

Israel would never do that. You’ve pounded them to hell and you could just leave now, and it’ll take 10 years for them to build back not nearly what they have right now.

It comes after one of his advisors, David Sacks, suggested the possible outcome in a podcast interview last week where he expressed concern about the conflict escalating. Sacks said:

Israel could get seriously destroyed. And then you have to worry about Israel escalating the war by contemplating using a nuclear weapon, which would truly be catastrophic.

Asked if Sacks had shared that assessment with him, Trump replied: “No, he hasn’t.”

Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in the East Room of the White House. Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/EPA

Missile shrapnel falls in Jerusalem's Old City holy sites

Shrapnel from ballistic missiles fired by Iran and debris from the Israeli interceptors that shot them down fell on Monday around Jerusalem’s walled Old City and some of its most sacred Christian, Muslim and Jewish sites, Israeli police have said.

There were no casualties or major damage reported at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the nearby Al-Aqsa Mosque compound or Temple Mount, a flashpoint site that is holy in both Islam and Judaism.

The BBC reported that large pieces of shrapnel also fell in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, including close to the British consulate, and close to the Knesset. The local municipality said three people were lightly injured.

Photographs distributed by police and seen by Retuers showed three officers carrying what appeared to be a large metal ring-shaped part of a missile off a red-tiled roof adjacent to the Holy Sepulchre. Another image showed a police cordon around a small area in the Al-Aqsa compound plaza which also houses the golden Dome of the Rock, with small fragments strewn on the floor.

“Jerusalem District police, bomb disposal teams, and Border Police units have secured the sites and are currently working to eliminate any remaining risk to the public,” police said in a statement.

Part of a missile on a rooftop near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, after Israel’s police said they located missile fragments in several locations in the Old City following a missile barrage from Iran. Photograph: Israel Police/Reuters

More than 1 million people displaced in Lebanon amid Israeli strikes and invasion

More than one million people in Lebanon have been displaced since war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah two weeks ago, according to the country’s authorities.

This comes after the Israeli army said earlier today it had begun what it described as “limited ground operations” against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Israel said that before the troops entered into the area, there were strikes against “numerous terrorist targets in order to mitigate threats”.

Some 850 people are thought to have been killed in Lebanon, including seven people earlier today in an Israeli airstrike, according to authorities and news reports.

Lebanese authorities said the number of people who had registered as displaced had reached 1,049,328, with 132,742 staying in 600 collective shelters.

A child holds a broom next to displaced people's tents in Beirut. Photograph: Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters

Could Trump blow up Nato over Iran war? - podcast

If you want to listen to the latest developments in the Middle East, today’s edition of The Latest podcast has just been published.

Host Lucy Hough speaks to the our south Asia correspondent, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, about Donald Trump pressuring European allies to protect the strait of Hormuz, warning that Nato faces a “very bad” future if members fail to offer assistance.

Donald Trump has said he doesn’t know if Iran’s new supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei is alive or dead.

“A lot of people are saying that he’s badly disfigured,” he said. “They’re saying that he lost his leg, and he’s been hurt very badly. Other people are saying he’s dead.”

The US president pointed to the fact that the Ayatollah hasn’t appeared in public since becoming Iran’s supreme leader eight days ago. Trump said “he’d spew hate from his chair,” but “this one we haven’t seen at all.”

“We don’t know who their leader is,” Trump told reporters during a White House event. “We have people wanting to negotiate. We have no idea who they are.”

Trump says he is 'not happy' with UK and 'very surprised' by its response to Iran war

Donald Trump has said he was “not happy” with the UK and “very surprised” over its response to the Iran war.

The US president said the UK had turned down a request to send ships over to the Middle East, and suggested that a later offer to send aircraft carriers came too late.

“I think they’ll be involved maybe,” he said. “But they should be involved enthusiastically.”

However, Trump, speaking at a White House event, said he had spoken to French president Emmanuel Macron, who he said was willing to help unblock the strait of Hormuz.

Secretary of state Marco Rubio is expected to announce the names of the countries willing to aid the United States.

At the same press conference, Trump repeated his call to other countries to help reopen shipping traffic in the strait, saying some countries told him they were on the way and others were “not that enthusiastic” about helping.

The US president wants nations to help police the strait after Iran responded to US-Israeli attacks by using drones, missiles and mines to effectively close the channel for tankers that usually transport a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas.

Some are very enthusiastic about it, and some aren’t. Some are countries that we’ve helped for many, many years. We’ve protected them from horrible outside sources, and they weren’t that enthusiastic. And the level of enthusiasm matters to me.

Lucy Campbell

Donald Trump said the US is “hammering” Iran’s capacity to threaten commercial shipping in the strait of Hormuz.

More than 30 mine-laying ships have been destroyed, he claimed, adding that the US is unsure if any mines have been dropped into the strait.

We hit, to the best of our knowledge, all of their mine-laying ships … but we don’t know that any have even been dropped in, we’re not sure that any have been.

We don’t know that they have dropped any in, but we’ve hit all 30 of their ships.

Trump also repeated his call to other countries to help reopen shipping traffic in the strait, saying some countries told him they were on the way and others were not that enthusiastic about helping.

Follow along here:

Trump says US has struck over 7,000 'mostly commercial and military targets' across Iran

Lucy Campbell

Donald Trump said the US military has struck over 7,000 targets across Iran, “mostly commercial and military targets”.

Speaking at a press conference, he claimed the US has “achieved a 90% reduction in their ballistic missile launches and a 95% reduction in drone attacks”.

The missiles are trickling in now because they don’t have too many missiles left.

He said the US has also attacked Iran’s missile and drone manufacturing plants.

More than 100 Iranian naval vessels have been sunk or destroyed in the last week and a half, he added.

Follow along here:

Iran threatens to target US companies in the region

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards threatened on Monday to target US companies across the region, calling on employees to evacuate the sites.

“Employees of American companies... are requested to leave these areas immediately. These areas will soon be targeted by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” said the Guards in on their official Sepah News website.

It was not immediately clear which companies would be targeted but last week, the Tasnim news agency published a list of potential targets on Telegram that included the offices of tech giants such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Nvidia in Gulf countries.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House today, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said allied countries “are benefiting greatly” from the US-Israel war on Iran. She added that the Iranian regime’s ballistic missile capability was a direct and imminent threat to our European allies.

“I think the president is absolutely right to call on these countries to do more to help the United States to reopen the strait of Hormuz,” she said.

The press secretary also said that Trump “wished the UK had stepped up sooner and quicker” to help unblock the crucial waterway, following the president’s demands for allies to send warships to the region.

A reminder that earlier today, prime minister Keir Starmer said the UK “will not be drawn into the wider war” when pressed by reporters about how the country plans to help reopen the strait of Hormuz.

For her part, Leavitt added that Trump “continues to speak with our allies in Europe and is calling on them for support, just as he did when he called on them to step up with respect to their defense spending in Nato. He’s calling them to do more here.”

Trump is due to give a press conference, updating on his war with Iran, shortly. Follow my colleague Shrai Popat on the US politics live blog here for all the news lines that emerge from that: