Iran fires missiles at Israel and Gulf states as Trump seeks to wind down war

Iran has responded to US president Donald Trump’s address to Americans on the Middle East war with new missile attacks targeting Israel and the Gulf Arab states.

The move underlines Tehran’s insistence that it rejects Washington’s moves toward a ceasefire while maintaining its grip on the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, the UK plans to hold a call with nearly three dozen countries about how to reopen the strait, through which 20% of all oil and natural gas traded passes in peacetime.

The 35 countries, including all G7 industrialised democracies except the US, as well as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, signed a declaration last month demanding Iran stop blocking the strait.

The call will discuss “diplomatic and political measures” that could restore shipping once the fighting is over.

Washington has insisted that Iran should allow ships to freely transit the strait, but Mr Trump this week has said it is not up to the US to force it, and in his address encouraged countries that receive oil through Hormuz to “build some delayed courage” and go “take it”.

In his address, Mr Trump said the US would hit Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks”, while also insisting American “core strategic objectives are nearing completion”.

Just before Mr Trump began his 18-minute address on Wednesday, explosions were heard in Dubai as air defences worked to intercept an Iranian missile barrage.

Less than a half hour after the president had ended his address, Israel said its military was working to intercept incoming missiles.

Sirens sounded in Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, immediately after the speech.

Following a joint statement in March condemning Iranian attacks on unarmed commercial vessels that called upon Iran to “cease immediately its threats, laying of mines, drone and missile attacks and other attempts to block the strait”, the 35 signatories were to hold a virtual meeting on Thursday hosted by UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.

Though the oil and gas that typically transits the Strait of Hormuz is primarily sold to Asian nations, Japan and South Korea were the only two countries from the region joining the call.

The New York-based Soufan Centre think tank wrote after the address: “Trump’s message was that the United States can sustain its own economic and energy ecosystem, while countries dependent on regional exports will either have to buy from the United States or manage the Strait themselves.

“While Trump explicitly thanked US allies in the Persian Gulf for their cooperation and allyship, an expedited US withdrawal without securing the strait will leave many of these countries, whose economies are dependent on energy exports, in the lurch.”

No country appears willing to try and open the strait by force while the war is raging. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the group “will assess all viable diplomatic and political measures we can take to restore freedom of navigation, guarantee the safety of trapped ships and seafarers and to resume the movement of vital commodities”.

Bahrain, which now holds the presidency of the United Nations Security Council, has been working to get the world body to address the crisis as well.

Though Iran has allowed a trickle of ships through the strait, it remains largely closed. Iran has also been repeatedly attacking Gulf Arab energy infrastructure, sending oil prices skyrocketing and giving rise to broader economic problems worldwide.

Rising energy prices and stock market jitters have been putting increasing domestic pressure on Mr Trump, who used his address to offer a defence of the war while also suggesting it was close to winding down.

He acknowledged American service members who had been killed and said: “We are going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast. We’re getting very close.”

The US has presented Iran with a 15-point plan for a ceasefire, but Mr Trump did not say anything about the diplomatic efforts or bring up his April 6 deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face severe retaliation from the US.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran during the war, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel. More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 US service members have been killed.

More than 1,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than one million displaced, according to authorities. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.