Full story
Blockade and strikes
The United States restarted a blockade on Iranian ports Tuesday afternoon and launched dozens of additional strikes on Iran, marking the fourth consecutive night of attacks, as President Trump said it will get "really bad" next week if Iran does not cut a deal.
CBS News reported that Trump said he "decided to replace" a planned 20% fee on cargo through the Strait of Hormuz with trade and investment deals from Gulf states, after at the fee.
In a statement, U.S. Central Command said it struck dozens of Iranian targets over the course of seven hours Tuesday evening, including missile and drone sites and "coastal defense systems."
The Iranian army said seven Iranian military personnel were killed in a missile attack on a barracks close to the city of Iranshahr, in the far southeast of Iran, and Iranian health ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour said the latest round of overnight U.S. airstrikes injured more than 260 people.
Jordan's army said it shot down three ballistic missiles from Iran at dawn on Wednesday after they entered Jordanian airspace from Iranian territory, adding that there were no casualties or material damage.
Toll proposal backpedal
The Washington Post said President Donald Trump pivoted away from an earlier threat of a “reimbursement fee” for ships going through the Strait of Hormuz, with Trump declaring on Truth Social that the strait “is open to ALL Ship traffic except for Iran.”
The Washington Post reported that the U.S. would proceed with a blockade on Iran that would affect only “ships coming to and from Iranian ports, or carrying anything have to do with Iranian cargo.”
Legal experts cited by عاجل said Trump’s proposal to impose a 20% tariff on goods transiting the Strait of Hormuz violates international law, and the report quoted Tulane University law professor Günther Handel saying implementing the proposal would represent a radical shift away from American policy and international practice.
The same عاجل report said the proposal conflicts with the rules of freedom of navigation in international waterways and would not be compatible with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or customary international law.
The Guardian described the episode as a phase of “Chaos and confusion” in which Trump proposed then abandoned a suggestion that the US could charge tolls for clearing the strait, leaving it unclear if Washington had any vision for the future of the waterway.
Who controls Hormuz
Euronews framed the dispute as a legal and military confrontation over who controls the Strait of Hormuz, saying Iran argued that a temporary ceasefire granted it the right to set the terms for ships passing through the strait.
Euronews reported that on Sunday the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said: “We will not allow a rogue, child-killing army from the other side of the world to continue its illegal interference in it.”
Euronews also said Trump posted on Truth Social that the United States will be known, from this moment on, as the "Guardian of the Strait of Hormuz," while it quoted Mark Wheeler of Cambridge University saying: “That doesn’t matter, because it has become part of customary international law, and therefore all states can rely on it in all circumstances.”
The Guardian added that the IMO council passed a motion reaffirming “that passage through the strait should remain free of any tolls and charges,” and it quoted the U.S. ambassador to the UK, Warren A Stephens, vowing: “The US will continue to champion freedom of navigation and the rule of law.”
Euronews reported that the maritime data agency Kpler said the number of crossings fell by about 52% between Friday and Monday compared with the same period a week earlier, with around 14 ships passing through the strait on Sunday, whereas before the war roughly 130 ships passed through daily.
