Live: US used 'Iranian smuggling tactics' to move oil through Gulf

Israeli air strikes have hit multiple areas in the Nabitieh district of southern Lebanon in spite of mounting pressure from the US on Israel to stop its war on Lebanon as part of their negotiations with Iran.

Israeli artillery also targeted the Ali al-Taher heights in the same area, according to Al Jazeera correspondents on the ground.

The Palestinian Presidency has raised alarm over the seriousness of a move announced by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to cancel the Hebron agreements, which would strip the Palestinian Hebron Municipality of its authority over construction projects in the occupied West Bank city.

“For many years, one of the most absurd clauses of the Oslo Accords remained in place, when authorities related to the Jewish settlement in Hebron were dependent on Hebron's terror municipality,” Smotrich said during an inauguration ceremony for a new illegal settlement in the southern Mount Hebron area.

The Palestinian Presidency warned that this step affects the political and legal status of the city, constituting a violation of its agreements with Israel and a breach of international law.

It called on the international community to intervene immediately and condemn what it described as a highly dangerous decision which would undermine international efforts for achieving security and stability in the region.

Trump said on Tuesday that a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Iran has been “all signed” and the Strait of Hormuz will be “completely open” by Friday.

He added that he will go over the specifics of the MoU with the media in the next couple of days.

When asked whether he would be open to sending the agreement to Congress for review, the US president said that he liked the idea and “wouldn’t mind” doing so.

New data shared exclusively with Middle East Eye has shown evidence of Muslim prisoners being disproportionately targeted by harsh prison regulations in the UK. 

The report by the charity Maslaha revealed that Muslims in prison are more likely to receive severe punishments, and less likely to be considered for jobs and education schemes.

The campaign group suggests the need for an urgent review of the disparities in the punishments and incentive and privilege schemes in prisons in what they have called a “culture of covert discrimination”.

Maslaha, a social justice charity for Muslim communities in the UK, has also raised concerns that policies being brought in under the new Sentencing Act will be applied unevenly in a way that will disadvantage Muslims and other minority ethnic groups.

The Sentencing Act, which was passed in January 2026 but has not yet become law, was introduced to deal with prison overcrowding.

It involves changes to move towards an “earned progression” model that will allow for the earlier release of prisoners serving a fixed sentence, with exceptions if they have been given extra days for breaking prison rules.

However, Maslaha’s research shows that, as it stands, Muslims receive discrimination that limits their ability to benefit from the changes made to the early release scheme. 

Read more: New research shows systematic discrimination against Muslims in UK prisons

Hezbollah told Reuters on Tuesday that it has received assurances from Iran that it will demand that Israel withdraw troops from Lebanon as part of its negotiations with the US.

The Lebanese group claimed that there would be “no nuclear deal between Iran and the United States unless the Israelis withdraw” from Lebanon.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi said that the Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the US includes a provision for dealing with possible ceasefire violations in Lebanon by Israel.

The US accepted this mechanism to ensure an end to regional hostilities, including in Lebanon, the ministry announced in comments carried by Iran’s IRNA news agency.

Iranian media also reported that Lebanon’s parliament speaker Nabih Berri spoke to his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf to discuss the necessity for the international community to compel Israel to end its military campaign in Lebanon and withdraw from its territories. 

This follows Trump’s earlier comments that he had warned Netanyahu to be “more responsible with respect to Lebanon” and said he “didn’t like” how they had acted in the region.

Rights groups and tech activists have warned against the increasing use of AI in the military, specifically citing Israel's genocide in Gaza as a dangerous precedent.

In a joint statement signed by more than a hundred people and organisations including Amnesty International, Access Now and the Stop Killer Robots Campaign, they warned that the expansion of AI in military "kill chains" risked greater civilian bloodshed and a lack of accountability.

They specifically pointed to Israel's genocide in Gaza, where the mass killing of more than 73,000 Palestinians has accompanied the widespread use of AI-based systems by the Israeli army.

Three systems in particular - Lavender, Gospel, and Where’s Daddy - have been used to identify targets for air strikes based on Israeli mass surveillance records of Palestinians in Gaza.

This has been pointed to as one of the reasons for the scale of the death toll in Gaza, with targets chosen by AI software with little or no human oversight.

Read more: Rights groups call for a halt of AI tech use in the military

Donald Trump said on Tuesday during a press conference at the G7 summit in France that Iran “has rational leadership now” after US-Israeli attacks killed multiple Iranian officials. 

The US president added that Iran’s current leadership are “not radicalised” and want to “help their country”, expressing optimism for a “good relationship” between the countries but adding that the leaders will need to “prove themselves first” to assure this. 

Trump also claimed that key in the agreements being negotiated with Iran is the demand that they “can’t have a nuclear weapon” and claimed the deal would offer a “wall” to the possibility of Iran attaining one.

“All hell will rain down” on Iran if they intend to acquire one, Trump added to reporters.

Trump said that without the US “there’d be no Israel” and warned “no other president was willing to do what I did” in comments delivered to reporters in France at the G7 summit.

The US president said that he’s had a “great relationship” with Netanyahu but warned that the Israeli prime minister “has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon” and added that he “didn’t like” Israel’s attack on Beirut "two hours" before the US signed an agreement with Iran.

Trump also claimed that "too many people are being killed in Lebanon", saying: "you don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody because there’s a lot of people in those apartment houses – and they’re not all Hezbollah."

However, he contended that the US-Iran deal can survive even if Israel attacks Lebanon, calling the conflict a “minor war” compared to Iran as “the big one”.

At least two Palestinians were killed on Tuesday in an Israeli air attack north of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to medical sources cited by Wafa news agency.

Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari delivered comments to a press conference on Tuesday in which he expressed hope in the success of the Iran-US deal, but also warned of challenges ahead. 

“We are on the right track towards regional security. Obviously, there are a lot of challenges coming ahead, but let’s take this as a moment to enjoy some optimism,” al-Ansari told reporters in Doha. 

Such issues include disagreements over Iran’s nuclear programme, which he said “will not be resolved in mere days”.

However, the minister also expressed hope that “the MoU will open navigation in Hormuz so that Qatar can continue supplying LNG” and that it will be the beginning of fruitful negotiations.

He added that Qatar is “supporting the Pakistani-led mediation” and affirmed that “in Qatar we don’t take lightly our responsibility towards regional security” to prevent the return of an escalation of hostilities.

The US military has secretly coordinated the transfer of an estimated 90 million barrels of Gulf oil since May, adopting Iran’s own sanctions-evasion tactics to covertly move the oil, a recent Reuters investigation revealed.

Two specific locations where the oil transfers take place were identified by 11 people familiar with the operation, in which at least 92 ships have been involved, according to shipping data and satellite imagery.

The ship-to-ship transfer operations, a shuttling technique long used by Iran to skirt sanctions, are fully controlled by the US military, said eight of the sources, including someone involved in the transfers.

Tankers must sail to a meeting point before they reach the strait, then stagger their departures so they are around 3,000 to 4,000 metres apart. Their transponders are off, and their lights are dimmed, sources say.

When they pass through the strait, just beyond a zone that Iran has delineated as under its control, the tankers pull alongside the recipient ships, which are Very Large Crude Carriers, or VLCCs, to begin the oil transfers. These take between 24 and 40 hours to complete. The empty tankers then shuttle back through the strait, and the newly loaded VLCCs sail onward.

What makes this ship-to-ship operation possible is that there are a few shippers willing to sail their vessels through the strait to deliver the oil to the waiting tankers, despite the Iranian blockade.

This technique has been used by Iran for years to bypass sanctions, because it masks the source of the oil. The Iranians usually operate one pair of ships at a time, both to avoid detection and because their prewar exports were relatively small.

The US-led operation, which involves mass transfers, gives Gulf producers better protection from Iranian retaliatory attacks so they can move crude, condensate and petroleum products to international buyers.

Based on the imagery, Reuters calculated that at least 90 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products may have moved through the offshore network since early May.

Palestinian doctor Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, will remain in prison without any criminal charges, as the Israeli Supreme Court rejected an appeal on Tuesday.

Abu Safiya, who has been held in Israeli prisons since December 2024, is being kept in solitary confinement at Nafha Prison in harsh conditions and without adequate medical care despite suffering from various chronic illnesses, according to his lawyer Nasser Odeh.

During his last visit to Abu Safiya in May, Odeh reported that the doctor experienced medical neglect, regular beatings, deprivation of food and water, and had his limbs shackled during detention.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) said Abu Safiya was moved to solitary confinement shortly after filing his petition, without explanation or disclosure of reasons for isolation.

According to testimonies, his detention has been repeatedly extended without evidence being presented in court, and no indictment has been filed against him or other Gaza detainees held under the same legal framework, including 13 doctors.

Despite being a civilian doctor, Abu Safiya has been categorised as an "unlawful combatant" under Israeli law, which means there is no formal indictment against him.

He is among scores of Gaza doctors, healthcare workers and emergency responders who have been targeted and arbitrarily detained by Israel, many of whom were seized while carrying out their duties in hospitals.

Iranian national football team's return to their Tijuana training camp after their World Cup opening match was delayed as captain Mehdi Taremi and assistant coach Saeed Alhoei were held up by airport authorities in Los Angeles.

Their departure delays were similar to their initial entry into the US, forcing the rest of the team to board without them, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported on Tuesday.

 Taremi said the restrictions were preventing them from playing their best at the tournament.

"It's not good for us. I think it's not good for football," he said. "I think Fifa have to help us more than this."

Iranian coach Amir Ghalenoei said on Monday his team were being “oppressed” due to last-minute travel changes, adding the disruption had affected their performance after a 2‑2 draw with New Zealand.

The Iranian football federation had negotiated a late move of the team’s base camp from Arizona to Mexico amid uncertainty over US visas and a growing sense that the squad’s presence in the United States should be kept to a minimum, Iran’s ambassador to Mexico has told Reuters.

Ghalenoei said they had suffered further disruption, with Iran expecting to remain in Los Angeles overnight on Monday but instead being required to return immediately to Mexico.

“We’re supposed to stay here tonight to recover and return at lunchtime tomorrow, but they haven’t permitted us,” Ghalenoei said. "To be honest, I have no idea why. I think perhaps our team is the most oppressed one in the whole World Cup."

Any Israeli attack on Lebanon or continued presence on Lebanese territory from now on constitutes a violation of the interim agreement with the United States, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said.

"In our view, the two parties to this memorandum are the US and Israel on one side, and Iran and Hezbollah on the other," he stated on Tuesday.

Araghchi also added that Iran and the US will start a new round of negotiations on Friday in Switzerland to reach a final agreement after the official start of the interim agreement.

The upcoming US-Iran negotiations will be broken into two stages, according to the Iranian minister.

The first will cover issues such as the status of the Strait of Hormuz, the US’s naval blockade, and reconstruction after the US-Israeli bombardment of Iran’s infrastructure. A later stage of negotiations will cover nuclear issues and sanctions relief to be resolved in a final agreement.