Trump says he views Strait of Hormuz as ‘American territory’

 

Iran war live: Trump says he views Strait of Hormuz as ‘American territory’

By Zaid Sabah and Zsombor Peter

Published On 22 Aug 202622 Aug 2026

Save

Share

• US President Donald Trump says he “views the Strait of Hormuz as an American territory right now” and that Iran “would love to make a deal, but they’re not ready to make the right deal in my opinion”.
• Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei says the latest US economic sanctions against Tehran are a “declaration of war” on all nations.
• The foreign ministers of Oman and Iran held a call to discuss returning to negotiations over a bilateral deal that would govern passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
• Several areas in southern Lebanon, including the Bint Jbeil district in Nabatieh province, near the town of Deir Siryan, and al-Mansouri town in Tyre, have been hit by Israeli strikes despite a ceasefire.

• 18m ago

  (02:40 GMT)

  WATCH: ‘We’re seeing what happens’ on sanctions for Iran, says Trump

  US President Donald Trump has repeated claims that Iran is weakened economically and militarily, asserting the country “would love” to make a deal with Washington.

  However, Iran’s foreign minister responded on social media, writing that Trump’s plans for economic warfare are “bound to fail”.

  

  0:50

  Trump: ‘We’re seeing what happens’ on sanctions for Iran
• 38m ago

  (02:20 GMT)

  UN rights office for Palestine calls out Israeli army over attacks on Gaza police

  The UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territory says the latest killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces in Gaza may be war crimes, highlighting the ongoing attacks on the enclave’s police.

  “These incidents are a stark reminder that, despite occasional drops in the number of reported attacks, civilians throughout Gaza remain exposed to persistent, unpredictable, lethal harm,” it said in a statement on Friday.

  It said the reported killings of at least 22 Palestinians in Gaza between August 13 and 19 alone, including women and children, “may amount to war crimes and other atrocity crimes”.

  The UN office also called the “pattern” of attacks on police personnel and facilities in Gaza “alarming”, including an attack on Gaza City’s municipal police headquarters on Wednesday that killed eight officers and a 13-year-old girl.

  It says it recorded 18 Israeli attacks on police personnel across Gaza since January, with 77 Palestinians killed, including six children and four women.

  Under international humanitarian law, it says, police are protected civilians, unless they are actively and directly participating in hostilities.

  “It is hard to see any ‘military necessity’ of Israel’s ongoing attacks across a decimated landscape, which continue to kill and maim civilians, including children and police personnel,” the statement quotes Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in Palestine, as saying.

  “The right to life is the foundational right for all. But it seems in Gaza, there is no respect left for human rights as death, injury and destruction continue day after day,” he added.
• 58m ago

  (02:00 GMT)

  UN rapporteur brands Israeli army as ‘the most immoral’ amid latest killings in occupied West Bank

  Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory, has condemned the latest killings of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

  “The MOST IMMORAL ARMY is waging genocide while those in power, as so often in history, refuse to see the victims or recognize their rights to life and self-determination,” she wrote on X, referring to Israel’s army.

  “Eighty years after WWII, in the age of human rights built after that war, this is all the more abhorrent,” she added.

  Her post included an image of another post commenting on the death of Fathi Khazem, a Palestinian man reportedly shot and killed by Israeli forces in his home in Jenin on Friday after resisting an arrest attempt.

  The Israeli soldiers prevented an ambulance from reaching him and left him to bleed to death before taking his body, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.

• • 1h ago

    (01:40 GMT)

    

    Trump’s economic ‘D-Day’ on Iran unlikely to yield intended outcome

    Ross Harrison, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, says Trump’s use of military terminology like “D-Day” to describe economic pressure on Iran is unlikely to force Tehran to capitulate.

    Harrison told Al Jazeera that Iranians have already been living in an economic “D-Day” since maximum pressure sanctions were reimposed after the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal.

    “I think the D-Day is language Trump is using because the military campaign failed to create the kind of conditions on the ground that would get the Iranians to capitulate,” Harrison said.

    “I think he’s using that language in order to transfer military language to economic language, but in terms of actually creating the kind of outcome that he plans or hopes for, I’m quite sceptical,” he argued.

    Harrison added that China remains the most significant source of support for Tehran, but targeting that connection carries major risks for Washington.

    “I think the biggest lifeline that could be given to Iran would come from China,” he said. “And the question is not really the policing; the question is whether the United States is willing to pay the price of derailing US-Sino relations now, when China also has levers of power that they could inflict upon the United States and because there’s a looming summit between President Xi and Donald Trump in Washington next month.”

    “So, it’s not a matter of policing; I think it’s a matter of whether the US is willing to go to the mat and pay the price of disrupting a relationship that Donald Trump seems to be leaning on right now,” he said.

    

    5:54

    Analyst Ross Harrison on Trump's economic pressure campaign against Iran
  • 1h ago

    (01:20 GMT)

    

    Iran says US economic sanctions are a ‘declaration of war’ on all nations

    Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei says new US sanctions against Iran go far beyond an illegal economic war on a single nation, characterising them as a “declaration of war” against all governments, according to remarks carried by Iran’s Fars news agency.

    The announcement of new sanctions represents “an attempt by the United States to exert extraterritorial sovereignty over all independent UN member states”, Baghaei said.

    “No government has the right to force foreign banks, enterprises, or airports, each operating under the exclusive jurisdiction of their own sovereignty, to refrain from engaging in legitimate trade with a third country.”

    He argued that “such secondary sanctions have no basis in international law”, adding that they “violate the fundamental principle of sovereign equality enshrined in Article 2, Paragraph 1 of the UN Charter”.

    Baghaei characterised economic coercion as an “international offence and a wrongful act”, warning that combining sanctions with a naval blockade “reduces the sovereignty of other states to something temporary and conditional upon the whims and caprices of another power”.

    Yielding to such intimidation, Baghaei added, would lead to “the total erosion of national sovereignty” and serve as “a catastrophic return to blatant, full-scale colonialism”.
  • 1h ago

    (01:00 GMT)

    Doctors Without Borders condemns latest arrest of Palestinian doctor

    Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has condemned last week’s arrest of Dr Dima Mohammed Amin in the occupied West Bank and demanded her release.

    Amin, a specialist in obstetrics and gynaecology, was reportedly arrested on Tuesday at her home in Ramallah.

    “Dr Dima is the latest victim in Israel’s systematic campaign of hunting down and detaining Palestinian medics,” MSF said.

    “They have not been charged with any offense; they were simply treating patients. That is not a crime.”

    According to Medical Aid for Palestinians, a UK-based aid group, Amin had recently spoken publicly against the arrest of another Palestinian doctor, “raising concerns about the risks faced by Palestinian healthcare workers who speak out in support of their colleagues”.
  • 2h ago

    (00:40 GMT)

    UN maritime body counts 19 seafarer deaths since start of Iran’s Strait of Hormuz blockade

    The UN’s International Maritime Organization says it has counted 68 incidents and 19 seafarer deaths in the Strait of Hormuz as of Friday, since Iran’s blockade of the waterway in late February.

    The latest incident on the list was on August 17, when a projectile struck the engine room of the Liberian-flagged Minoan Dignity, killing one crewmember.

    According to Windward, a maritime traffic tracking firm, the crewmember was the ship’s chief engineer.
  • 2h ago

    (00:20 GMT)

    

    How many people has Israel killed and injured in Gaza?

    

    (Al Jazeera)
  • 2h ago

    (00:01 GMT)

    Houthi blockade of Bab al-Mandeb slashes traffic at Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu port

    Tanker traffic at Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu port on the Red Sea has fallen by more than a third since the Houthi armed group in Yemen announced a blockade of Saudi ships throughout the Bab al-Mandeb Strait last month.

    Lloyd’s List, a UK-based shipping intelligence firm, says Saudi Arabia is coping with the blockade by rerouting crude exports by using shuttle tankers, Egypt’s SUMED pipeline and the Sidi Kerir port on Egypt’s Mediterranean Sea coast.

    But the “patchwork system” ties up more vessels and adds weeks to travel times for cargo destined for Asia, it adds.