Live: US envoy Kushner meets Hamas leaders in Egypt
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US President Donald Trump told Fox News on Friday that the United States will hit Iran hard economically, as Washington and Tehran struggle to reach a deal to end a nearly six-month war.
His comments came a day after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US would impose measures on Tehran that have "never been seen" as soon as next week.
Yemen's Houthi rebels said on Friday that they had targeted an oil facility belonging to Saudi Arabia's state petroleum company Aramco with a drone, the group's Saba press agency reported.
A military source quoted by the agency said the group had attacked a site in Najran, in southwest Saudi Arabia, "by means of a drone, and the operation achieved its objective".
Why are Emirati influencers warning of an Islamic plot to take over Britain and the west?
It is one of the most curious developments of recent times: the rise of young men and women from the United Arab Emirates talking to British journalists and think tanks about the purported threat of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Now, however, these influencers are being strongly criticised - and even mocked and taunted - over a series of videos.
It started this week with a viral clip posted by Rauda Altenaiji, a young Emirati woman who describes herself on her X profile as a "thinker of deep truths".
The video was an edit of herself and a young Emirati man, Ahmed Sharif Al Ameri, speaking in an interview in Britain with Jonathan Sacerdoti, who recently argued that "the West should be suspicious of Islam" in an Oxford Union debate alongside far-right activist Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.
Read more: Pro-Israel Emirati influencers mocked for claims of Islamic plot to take over West
President Donald Trump dismissed concerns Friday over living conditions and the mental health of service members on a US aircraft carrier deployed against Iran and said the ship would soon rotate out.
Asked by reporters whether family members were worried about the situation on the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, Trump said: "No, they're not."
Trump also rejected that the ship - now in its ninth month at sea - had been deployed for too long. "No, no, no, not nearly enough," he said.
Trump confirmed reports that the Abraham Lincoln was due to be rotated with a replacement aircraft carrier as the United States remains locked in a stalemate with Iran over control of the Strait of Hormuz and the country's nuclear programme.
"That ship is moving right now or very shortly, and it's being replaced with another very similar ship," Trump said.
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem accused the Lebanese authorities of "targeting the resistance instead of targeting the enemy" and failing to "abide by agreements", Al Jazeera reported.
“The southern town of Mansouri is supposed to be liberated … not occupied … yet residents can’t return … what have the Lebanese authorities done?” Qassem told the network.
He also accused the Lebanese government of “surrender", saying that Hezbollah won’t accept the "violation" of the country's sovereignty.
Mansouri came under Israeli forced displacement orders and attacks last week on 5 August despite a ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel in April.
The US is set to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier with the USS George Washington in the Middle East after reports of deteriorating conditions on the aircraft carrier enforcing a blockade of Iran.
The Lincoln has been deployed in the Middle East for more than 250 days without a port call. At least one sailor jumped overboard the vessel, and another had to be restrained from doing so, according to media reports.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the Lincoln will be rotated out of the theatre of operations and replaced with the USS George Washington. US lawmakers have raised concerns about the physical and mental health of sailors on board.
The rotation comes after US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that the blockade of Iran can be conducted “indefinitely”, as fighting continues to rage for control over the Strait of Hormuz with no return to a ceasefire in sight.
Read more: Morale on US aircraft carrier enforcing Iran blockade plummets, as sailor jumps overboard: Report
France on Friday strongly condemned Israeli settlers’ seizure of several Palestinian homes in Qusra, south of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.
In a statement on X, the French foreign ministry also condemned Israeli settler violence against Palestinian civilians "in the strongest possible terms" and called on Israeli authorities to arrest and prosecute those responsible.
"With settler violence on the rise in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, France calls on the Israeli authorities to take all necessary measures to protect the Palestinian civilian population, as they are required to do under international law," the ministry said.
"We reiterate our condemnation of the Israeli settlement policy, which threatens the two-state solution and heightens tensions on the ground."
#Israel/ #Palestine | Situation in the West Bank pic.twitter.com/DVjssdJ4vw
— France Diplomacy 🇫🇷🇪🇺 (@francediplo_EN) August 14, 2026
The World Health Organization said on Friday that more than 10,000 attacks on healthcare had been recorded since 2018, but nobody had ever been brought to justice.
These attacks, reported across 29 countries and territories, have resulted in approximately 5,700 deaths and 8,500 injuries, the WHO said.
Altaf Musani, director of the WHO's humanitarian and disaster management unit, who presented the figures at a media briefing in Geneva, said accountability could take place not just at the national level.
Health facilities and health systems more broadly are protected under international humanitarian and human rights law, including certain Geneva Conventions, he said.
However, "of the more than 10,000 verified incidents that I spoke of, not a single one has entered the accountability system".
This year alone, the UN health agency has recorded 914 attacks, resulting in 911 deaths and 1,486 injuries, Musani said.
Ukraine, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories account for the majority of incidents in 2026.
Israel is preparing to replace the army in the West Bank with civilian police forces, in a move seen as further advancing the annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Friday that he had instructed the military to draft a plan to transfer enforcement powers for civilian matters in the occupied West Bank from the army to the police.
Under the plan, the police would “establish an appropriate force to handle and address civilian matters”, while the military would focus solely on “Palestinian terrorism” and protecting borders and communities, according to Katz’s office.
Katz said it was appropriate for the police to oversee civilian affairs in the West Bank, arguing that the force performs that role “in every other place in the State of Israel”.
The announcement was not coordinated with either the military or the police. However, Israel Hayom reported on Friday that the army welcomed the move and had been pushing for it for weeks.
Read more: Israel to shift civilian enforcement in West Bank from army to police
Donald Trump's envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner will visit Israel next week to discuss the US president's Gaza plan recently rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, officials said on Friday.
Kushner and Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative for Gaza of Trump's so-called Board of Peace implementing the deal, will visit both Israel and key mediator Egypt.
The trip comes after Netanyahu publicly rejected the 15-point plan announced by Mladenov, a Bulgarian diplomat, in which Hamas agreed to hand over its weapons to a new Palestinian governing committee in Gaza.
A Board of Peace official said Kushner and Mladenov hoped for "constructive conversations" on advancing Trump's overall peace plan that began last October with the declaration of a ceasefire. Israel has continued to carry out near daily strikes on Gaza since the ceasefire began.
"The United States and Israel agree on the end state, which is a demilitarised Hamas," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"We will hear the concerns that have been raised and talk about next steps. What is critical is that we both agree on the desired outcome and are finding ways to accelerate progress."
The latest part of the Gaza plan, to which Hamas agreed in late July, would start a phased Israeli withdrawal from much of the Gaza Strip, according to an initial version released by the Board of Peace.
Mladenov later backtracked and said Israel would not need to withdraw troops until a complete Hamas disarmament.
Netanyahu had vowed no pullout and has voiced scepticism that Hamas would disarm, saying it should destroy weapons in a verifiable way.
Reporting by AFP
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz inaugurated an illegal new settlement in Jenin on Thursday, shortly after Israeli soldiers demolished Palestinian shops and properties on the same day pic.twitter.com/lQAqpOpMEb
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) August 14, 2026
Iraq's average daily oil exports since the beginning of August are the highest since the outbreak of the Middle East war between Iran and the United States, which has choked off the Strait of Hormuz, the oil ministry said Friday.
Iraqi Oil Minister Bassem Mohammed Khudair told a press conference that "exports since the beginning of the month have reached a rate of two million barrels" per day, for a total of around 26 million barrels, saying it was the first time that daily rate had been achieved since the crisis began.
Iran has taken another step towards formalising its control of the Strait of Hormuz, as the US threatens unprecedented sanctions while struggling to sustain the war it launched alongside Israel.
An Iranian parliamentary committee has approved the principles of a strategic plan governing security and development in the strait and the Gulf.
Valiullah Bayati, a spokesperson for the parliament’s internal affairs and councils committee, said on Friday that the proposals would now advance for further consideration.
“The strategic action plan to ensure the security and progress of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf was reviewed by the Councils’ Commission and, after hearing the opinions, its general outline was approved,” said Bayati to the Tasnim news agency.
The plan would prevent vessels and equipment belonging to the US, Israel and other countries Iran designates as hostile from passing through the waterway.
Read more: Iran formalises Strait of Hormuz control as US struggles to sustain war it launched with Israel
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations, criticised US President Donald Trump's policy on the Strait of Hormuz in a post on X on Friday.
"The logic of Washington is not understandable. It wants freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, but this freedom was ruined by the US aggression against Iran," he said.
"Now they want to remove the consequences of their strategic mistake through the continuation of war. Something is wrong here."
Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank village of Qusra have remained under siege by Israeli settlers for a sixth day, despite an Israeli army operation that was supposedly launched to remove the settlers.
Israeli activists attempting to deliver food to the families on Friday were stopped by Israeli forces, according to local media reports.
The siege began on Sunday, when a group of settlers surrounded three homes on a hilltop in Qusra, near Nablus. They erected tents at the entrances in what residents said appeared to be an attempt to force the families out and take control of their homes.
Residents said the settlers had cut off water and electricity to some of the properties, leaving families, including children, trapped inside and struggling to obtain food and medicine.
When the families called the Israeli army for help, soldiers arrived but, according to footage online, were seen drinking and praying with the settlers rather than removing them.
Read more: Palestinians in West Bank village remain under Israeli settler siege for sixth day
