Iran could enrich uranium to weapons grade if attacked, senior lawmaker warns
Donald Trump said one of his central objectives in launching a war against Iran was to ensure Tehran does not develop a nuclear weapon.
Iran – which insists its nuclear programme is peaceful – is reportedly yet to hand over more than 400 kg of uranium enriched up to 60%, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Now it looks as if the US could restart its war, Iran’s parliamentary national security and foreign policy commission spokesperson Ebrahim Rezaei warned that Iran could enrich uranium up to 90% purity if attacked again.
“One of Iran’s options in the event of another attack could be 90 percent enrichment. We will review it in the parliament,” Rezaei posted on X.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the war with Iran will continue as long as the country has a stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
“It’s not over, because there’s still nuclear material – enriched uranium – that has to be taken out of Iran. There are still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled,” he told the CBS programme 60 Minutes. Asked how it should be removed, Netanyahu said: “You go in and you take it out.”
Key events
Iran now defines strait of Hormuz as far larger zone than it did before the war, IRGC officer says
Iran has expanded its definition of the strait of Hormuz into a “vast operational area” far wider than before the war, according to a senior officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy in comments likely to anger the US.
The strait is no longer viewed as a narrow stretch around a handful of islands but instead has been greatly enlarged in scope and military significance, according to Mohammad Akbarzadeh, deputy political director of the IRGC Navy, the state-affiliated Fars news agency reported this morning.
“In the past, the strait of Hormuz was defined as a limited area around islands such as Hormuz and Hengam, but today this view has changed,” Akbarzadeh said.
Iran effectively seized control of the critical waterway after the US and Israel attacked it on 28 February. Weeks of heavy bombing and a US naval blockade imposed last month have yet to loosen its grip. It is untrue to say the strait has been closed because Iran has allowed some vessels from friendly countries – such as China, India and Pakistan – to transit the waterway throughout the war.
Iran says it will only reopen the strait under certain conditions including an end to the US-Israel war against it and the lifting of the US naval blockade of Iranian ports. Tehran says it has collected tolls from commercial vessels in order to navigate freely through the strait, something the US vehemently rejects.
The Iranian government has said that internet access will return to normal in Tehran after the war concludes. Fatemeh Mohajerani, the government spokesperson, was quoted by Al Jazeera as having said:
The government’s approach is equitable access to all infrastructure, including the internet. We recognise internet access as a civil right, and this is exactly the president’s view as well. We do not recognise discrimination and injustice, and we oppose them.
Pro internet policy aims to provide businesses with access to high-quality internet, and after a return to normal conditions, God willing, this situation too will return to normal.
Estimates show the direct daily cost from Iran’s internet shutdowns is about $30m to $40m in lost sales, with the indirect damage about double that. Internet monitoring group NetBlocks said today marks the 74th day of Iran’s internet blackout, ranking among the longest-running national internet shutdowns ever recorded.
Senior government officials are awarded “white” SIM cards granting them access to the global internet while the vast majority of the population remains completely cut off.
Under pressure to alleviate the economic harm the shutdown is causing, the government has been allowing less-restricted internet access to a small number of professions, businesses and regime-friendly journalists.
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said his militant group’s weapons were not part of upcoming negotiations between Lebanon and Israel.
“Nobody outside Lebanon has anything to do with the weapons, the resistance… this is an internal Lebanese matter and not part of negotiations with the enemy,” Qassem said in a written statement ahead of a third round of talks in Washington between Lebanese and Israeli representatives this Thursday and Friday. Hezbollah will not be involved in the talks and see direct negotiations as a form of humiliation.
“We will not surrender and we will continue to defend Lebanon and its people, however long it takes and however great the sacrifices… we will not abandon the battlefield and we will turn it into hell for Israel,” Qassem added.
Despite a US brokered ceasefire agreement, Israel and Hezbollah have continued with their attacks, accusing each other of violations. Israel’s stated goal has been to disarm Hezbollah, but analysts say this is extremely unlikely to happen through airstrikes alone.
Israel has been accused of violating the ceasefire agreement many times, with strikes killing civilians and homes continuing to be demolished despite the military claiming it is only targeting Hezbollah sites.
UAE has been secretly carrying out attacks on Iran – report
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the UAE carried out military strikes on Iran without publicly acknowledging the attacks.
The strikes included an attack on a refinery on Iran’s Lavan island in early April, around the time the US announced a ceasefire, according to the WSJ. The US was not angered by the attack, however, as it welcomes the involvement of Gulf states wanting to join American military action against Iran, a source told the newspaper.
Iran described the incident as an “enemy attack” and responded with missile and drone strikes against the UAE and Kuwait.
Although it has strong cultural and economic links to Iran, the UAE, which hosts a major American air base, has borne the brunt of Iranian attacks throughout the war, shaking the country’s economy, disrupting air traffic and hurting all important tourism streams.
Israel sent Iron Dome anti-missile batteries and personnel to operate them to the UAE to defend the country during the war with Iran, the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said at an event in Tel Aviv, Israel.
“I’d like to say a word of appreciation for United Arab Emirates, the first Abraham accord member,” Huckabee said at the Tel Aviv conference. “Just look at the benefits. Israel just sent them Iron Dome batteries and personnel to help operate them.”
The UAE, which formally established ties with Israel in 2020 under the Abraham Accords and hosts critical US military assets, was among the Gulf countries targeted by Iran in its counter strikes after Tehran was attacked by the US and Israel in late February.
Iran could enrich uranium to weapons grade if attacked, senior lawmaker warns
Donald Trump said one of his central objectives in launching a war against Iran was to ensure Tehran does not develop a nuclear weapon.
Iran – which insists its nuclear programme is peaceful – is reportedly yet to hand over more than 400 kg of uranium enriched up to 60%, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Now it looks as if the US could restart its war, Iran’s parliamentary national security and foreign policy commission spokesperson Ebrahim Rezaei warned that Iran could enrich uranium up to 90% purity if attacked again.
“One of Iran’s options in the event of another attack could be 90 percent enrichment. We will review it in the parliament,” Rezaei posted on X.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the war with Iran will continue as long as the country has a stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
“It’s not over, because there’s still nuclear material – enriched uranium – that has to be taken out of Iran. There are still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled,” he told the CBS programme 60 Minutes. Asked how it should be removed, Netanyahu said: “You go in and you take it out.”
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported this morning that six people were killed and seven others injured after an Israeli attack on a house in Kfar Dounine last night. Since this report, the NNA said Israeli forces detonated a number of houses in a neighbourhood of the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil.
Israel issues more forced evacuation orders for towns and villages in southern Lebanon
The Israeli military has ordered residents of towns and villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate immediately “by a distance of at least 1000 meters to open areas” in advance of attacks against the locations.
The affected towns and villages are: Arzun, Tayr Debba, al-Bazouriyeh and al-Hawsh, according to a social media post by the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, who claimed the attacks are being launched due to Hezbollah, the Iranian backed Lebanese militant group, violating the US-mediated ceasefire agreement Israel signed with the Lebanese state in mid April.
International law experts say Israel’s warnings are inconsistent and often overly broad and open-ended. Sometimes there is no warning at all before the airstrikes. More than one million people have already been displaced by the renewed Israeli war on Lebanon which started when Hezbollah launched missiles at Israel on 2 March after the US-Israeli bombing of Iran in late February.
In its latest update, the Lebanese health ministry said since 2 March Israeli attacks have killed at least 2,869 people, including many women and children.
A ceasefire meant to facilitate peace talks between Washington and Tehran came into effect in April. It has been largely observed, despite exchanges of fire and reports of strikes in the strategic strait of Hormuz, now under a double blockade by the US and Iran. It means only a minuscule number of vessels are passing through the waterway.
The US had presented a peace proposal a week ago, which, as my colleague Julian Borger notes here, was reported to consist of a one-page, 14-point memorandum of understanding that would reopen the strait while setting a framework for further talks on Iran’s much contested nuclear programme.
Iran presented a counter-offer sent to the US on Sunday which Donald Trump emphatically rejected, describing it as “totally unacceptable”. Tehran’s proposal reportedly included demands that the US lift its sanctions, end its naval blockade and called for an immediate end to the war with guarantees against any renewed attack on the country. It also called on Israel to end its war on Lebanon.
Trump says Iran ceasefire is on ‘massive life support’
We are restarting our live coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran after Donald Trump said the ceasefire was “on life support” after rejecting Tehran’s peace proposal, calling it “totally unacceptable”.
Referring to the ceasefire in force since 7 April, Trump said: “I would call it the weakest, right now, after reading that piece of garbage they sent us – I didn’t even finish reading it.
“I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support, where the doctor walks in and says: ‘Sir, your loved one has approximately a 1% chance of living.’”
Shortly after Trump’s comments, Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf, who has been chief negotiator in talks, wrote on X that his country’s armed forces were “ready to deliver a well-deserved response to any aggression”.
Trump is reportedly considering a resumption in major military attacks as he is frustrated with the stalled negotiations and the continued closure of the strait of Hormuz (to countries “hostile” to Iran), which has caused global energy prices to surge, including in the US where gas and fertiliser costs have soared.
Sources have told CNN that the US president is growing increasingly impatient with the division within the Iranian leadership making it hard for Washington to force Tehran into concessions on nuclear talks. Trump is unlikely to make the decision before he leaves to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping for his diplomatic visit to China later this week, the sources said.
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