Uncategorized
At the Venice Biennale, protests, self-mutilation and rage against Israel and Russia. Is anyone left to talk about the art?
Belu-Simion Fainaru wanted very badly to talk about the water.
The Romanian-born Israeli artist had come to Venice with “Rose of Nothingness,” a quiet, ritualistic installation in Israel’s temporary pavilion at the Arsenale: water dripping into a rectangular black pool in a silent corner of the city’s former armory and shipyard, disturbing the stillness of the reflective surface, inviting visitors to focus on the movement from absence to presence — and back again to nothing.
There’s an explicit link to Paul Celan, above all to “black milk,” the central image of the German-speaking Romanian-Jewish poet’s “Todesfuge” (“Death Fugue”), one of his best-known works. The pool, with its dozens of circular ripples, evokes collective memory, ink and writing in the city where the Talmud was first printed.
Yet by the time I reached Fainaru during the professional preview of the 61st Venice Biennale, he had been forced to defend his art’s right to exist. The Israeli Pavilion had become one of the pressure points of an exhibition that seemed to be losing faith in the structure that had sustained it for more than a century: the national pavilion, that quaintly anachronistic yet oddly durable relic of late 19th century world’s-fair patriotism. Fainaru had been asked, he told me, about Benjamin Netanyahu, The Hague, Vladimir Putin and Gaza, but rarely about the work he had come to Venice to present.
“You are a cultural reporter; I am an artist,” he said. He had not come here as a politician, but this year’s Biennale had treated him as one.
“What I see now,” the 66-year-old artist said, “is total politicization of art.” If this continued, he warned, art would become “very limited, very narrow,” and eventually “a very violent arena.”
The phrase stayed with me throughout the preview. This year, the Biennale has indeed become a violent, chaotic and scandal-ridden arena. There were barricades, strikes, legal warnings, shuttered pavilions, the resignation of the Golden Lion jury, and art performances and actions meant to disquiet and to shock.
L’Esposizione internazionale d’arte di Venezia was founded in 1895. It is now the most prestigious international contemporary art exhibition in the world, although it still bears traces from the era in which it was born, an age of imperial prestige and competitive cultural display. The Giardini, with its permanent national houses (owned by the countries they represent), is not merely a garden. It is a geopolitical map of cultural power and prestige.
This year, it often looked like that map was being torn up before the spectators’ eyes.
The Biennale’s 2026 exhibition, “In Minor Keys,” opened to the public on May 9 and runs through Nov. 22. It was conceived by the late Cameroonian curator Koyo Kouoh and completed after her death, with 110 invited participants in the central exhibition representing 100 countries. But when I attended, the curatorial project masterminded by Kouoh and implemented by her assistants was eclipsed by a series of interlocking controversies: the participation of Israel and Russia; a €50 million gift to secure Qatar’s arrival in the Giardini with a temporary structure built on the site of a future permanent pavilion; Iran’s last-minute withdrawal; and the anger and bewilderment directed at the American pavilion due to the global havoc the Trump administration is only too happy to unleash.
The Israeli Pavilion was not in its permanent building in the Giardini this year. That structure, built in 1952 by Zeev Rechter, remained closed, officially for renovation. (The pavilion also remained shut during the previous Biennale, in 2024; Ruth Patir, the artist representing Israel that year, installed her work but refused to open the pavilion until a ceasefire and hostage-release agreement was reached).
I had been told about sizable protests outside the temporary Israeli pavilion at the Arsenale, but by the time I arrived, all was calm. Two young carabinieri stood outside looking bored. Inside, I thought I spotted a plainclothes Israeli security guard, though the curators later denied that any such person was present. During my interview with Fainaru and his curators, Rabbi Ramy Banin of Chabad of Venice stopped by; he had supplied the klafim, the handwritten parchment scrolls, for the oversized black mezuzot, engraved with a stylized שַׁדַּי, that Fainaru had designed for the installation.
Fainaru was plainly relieved to be asked about the work. His installation is built around an Israeli irrigation system — technology devised to deliver water in places where it is scarce. In agriculture, he told me, such systems are used “to bring life in places that are not life.” In Venice, he had transformed that apparatus into “food for a spiritual dimension.”
The title, “Rose of Nothingness,” points to Celan’s evocative neologism Die Niemandsrose (“The No-One’s Rose”), the title of a 1963 volume that he dedicated to Osip Mandelstam as well as to the Kabbalistic understanding of nothingness not as nihilism but as a generative source.
“The origin comes from nothingness,” Fainaru told me. Presence emerges from absence; the visible world returns to abstraction.
This isn’t Fainaru’s first Biennale. In 2019, he represented Romania, a country he left in 1973. He won the Israel Prize in 2025 and is a professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Haifa. He is a founder of the Mediterranean Biennale, which showcases works by artists from Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa; its most recent edition was held in Sakhnin, an Arab city in Israel, where he also helped create the Arab Museum of Contemporary Art. It’s impossible to read Fainaru’s résumé and conclude that he’s a lackey of the Netanyahu government.
Avital Bar-Shay, one of the two curators of the Israeli Pavilion, took me aside and told me many Jewish visitors had come inside and said “Kol hakavod,” telling the team they were proud that Israel was exhibiting. Some spoke of antisemitism in London and other cities that have seen an uptick in violence against Jews since the start of the Israel-Gaza war. “They said, ‘You are giving us courage,’” she recalled. For those visitors, the pavilion was not an assertion of Israeli power, hard or soft. Rather, it was a modest sign that Israeli and Jewish cultural presence had not been expelled from the international stage.
The evening I arrived in Venice, I met a Turkish curator who told me he had spearheaded a “massive demonstration” in front of the Israeli Pavilion earlier that day. Fainaru disputed the scale of the protest. “There were perhaps 30 or 40 people shouting loudly” and shaming those who entered the pavilion. “The majority wants to see art,” he asserted, adding that he found attempts to cancel progressive Israeli artists, like the filmmaker Amos Gitai (whom he called a friend) and him not only wrong but counterproductive.
“We totally are against boycotts, not just against Israel, but against any other countries,” he said. “Artist or scientist or academics. And I think we should strive to live in a better world, not a world of dispersion, of hate and exclusion. I mean, there’s enough violence in our world. We have to keep art as an open space for dialogue.”
Though I didn’t doubt Fainaru’s sincerity, I wondered what led him to accept the unenviable job of being Israel’s art ambassador at this point in time. Was it naiveté? Defiance? Although I am staunchly opposed to banning, cancelling and boycotting artists on the basis of nationality, it also strikes me as disingenuous to claim that the Israeli Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale is just another gallery space.
Fainaru’s display is the official Israeli representation during a war whose devastation in Gaza has become, for many in the world — and especially in the art world — the defining moral scandal of our time. Whether one calls Israel’s conduct genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes or massacre, no honest account can defend the scale of destruction.
When I asked Fainaru whether he would also defend the participation of artists from Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia or Qatar, he said yes. Artists from authoritarian or repressive countries, he argued, belong here. “The artists have the right to expose and to try to keep a dialogue with other cultures,” he said. “That’s the meaning of Venice Biennale.”
Clearly, many saw the situation differently.
On Friday, May 8, the final day of the professional preview, a strike for Palestine and workers’ rights brought much of the Biennale to a grinding halt. Roughly a third of the national pavilions were partially or fully shut and some works in the central exhibition were removed from display or covered. Beginning at 4:30 p.m., hundreds — possibly thousands — marched along Via Garibaldi toward the Arsenale with Palestinian flags and banners that read “No artwashing. No genocide pavilion.”
Watching the parade wind its way down the Fondamenta Arsenale, hearing their slogans and reading their signs hammered home the extent to which Gaza has become a devastating emblem of the failure of the liberal postwar order, where international law is invoked yet ignored and American power underwrites destruction, while other nations, especially in Europe, oscillate between guilt and paralysis.
Even before it opened, this year’s Biennale was overshadowed by politics. On April 23, the five-member Golden Lion jury announced that it would not consider pavilions and artists representing countries whose leaders were charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, a position that effectively rendered Russia and Israel ineligible. In response, Fainaru issued legal warnings to the Biennale, the Italian Ministry of Culture and the Italian prime minister’s office alleging antisemitism and nationality-based discrimination after the jury’s initial decision. According to the online art magazine Hyperallergic, the Biennale’s legal department warned jurors they could be personally liable for damages to Fainaru in the event of a dispute.
On April 30, nine days before the opening of the Biennale, all five members of the jury resigned. The Biennale then replaced its traditional Golden Lion with a “Visitor Lion,” to be voted on by ticket holders and awarded in November, at the end of the event, leaving many to wonder “What Did the Golden Lion Die Of?” to quote the title of a widely-circulated essay. Now perhaps more than ever before in the Biennale’s history, people are reassessing how much freedom art can ever claim when it arrives draped in a national flag.
In 2022, Russia’s curatorial team pulled out of the Biennale following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. After skipping the 2024 event, Russia staged a bizarre and largely symbolic comeback this year with a pavilion that was only open during the professional preview and which has led the European Union to freeze a €2 million grant to the Biennale.
On opening day, the scene in the Giardini outside the Russian Pavilion was far more openly confrontational than anything else I witnessed at this year’s Biennale. There were riot police and carabinieri, demonstrators waving signs and trying to block people from entering the pavilion. Pussy Riot and members of the Ukrainian feminist group Femen protested with colored smoke, pink balaclavas and slogans like “Blood is Russia’s art” and “Disobey.” A Brazilian artist milled out outside with a toilet lid over his head that read “NOW, EVERY SHIT IS ART.”
When I squeezed past the protesters and entered the pavilion, I found very little going on: a few elaborately tangled clusters of flowers (“Why do flowers no longer smell?” the wall text queried forlornly), a man standing like a bodyguard and wearing a bunny mask, a DJ spinning records and a couple half-heartedly dancing.
By far the most shocking act of protest I witnessed was on Friday morning, when Danila Tkachenko, a Russian artist who is a political refugee in Italy, entered the Scuola Piccola delle Zattere and used a scalpel to carve the word ART into his upper abdomen.
The 18th century palazzo houses a cultural institute that is funded by the Russian oligarch Leonid Mikhelson and owned by his daughter Victoria. Tkachenko’s grisly performance was intended to call attention to how, in the words of the journalist and curator Konstantin Akinsha, “money stained with Ukrainian blood feeds contemporary art in Venice.”
While Tkachenko stood next to a mechanical flower sculpture by Rachel Youn, blood trickling down to his belly, flummoxed ushers half-heartedly tried to clear the gallery. From a corner, a poker-faced Victoria Mikhelson looked on. She instructed the museum guards to do nothing. She clearly wasn’t going to give Tkachenko the satisfaction of being arrested.
And then there was the United States. In a year when Israel and Russia were treated as agents and emblems of world disorder, America remained oddly peripheral as a target, despite, well, everything. The U.S. Pavilion did not become a magnet for protest, although some artists and curators told me that they refused to enter on principle. For the most part, however, the art world’s revenge on America’s presence at Venice was limited to ridiculing this year’s Trump-approved artist, the sculptor Alma Allen.
Venice has always asked nations to appear through art. This year, they arrived damaged, accused, defensive, wealthy, frightened and enraged. The Biennale’s traditional structures — its garden of nations, its prizes, its diplomatic courtesies — did not collapse entirely. But they trembled.
And in the Israeli Pavilion, beneath the sound of black water falling into a pool, one could hear the tremor.
The post At the Venice Biennale, protests, self-mutilation and rage against Israel and Russia. Is anyone left to talk about the art? appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
US Sen. Rick Scott Asks Justice Department to Investigate ‘Antisemitic Activity’ in New York City
US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) speaks during a press conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC on March 19, 2026. Photo: Samuel Corum/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) has called on the Department of Justice to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute what he described as a recent surge in “antisemitic activity” in New York City, according to a letter sent to top federal law enforcement officials on Wednesday.
In the letter addressed to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, the Florida Republican thanked the Justice Department for opening investigations into recent incidents targeting Jewish New Yorkers, including unrest reported in Brooklyn earlier this week.
“The American people have watched mobs harass Jewish New Yorkers, intimidate individuals for supporting Israel, obstruct synagogues, express support for terrorist organizations, and spread vile antisemitic rhetoric,” Scott wrote.
On Monday, masses of anti-Zionists descended on the Flatbush section of Brooklyn to march through the streets of the heavily Jewish quarter and walk up to Young Israel of Midwood synagogue to protest its hosting an event promoting the sale of real estate they say is “stolen” for being located in Israel and the West Bank.
“Zionism will fall,” the activists chanted while others wielded signs proclaiming “Abolish Israel” and “no peace on stolen land.” One female activist ambushed a Jewish girl attempting to outpace the protesters to get home. According to reports, at least three demonstrators were arrested after attacking counterprotesters, and some of the anti-Israel activists could be seen holding flags and banners expressing support for Hamas and Hezbollah, both US-designated foreign terrorist organizations.
Scott argued that local public officials have failed to adequately confront antisemitism tied to anti-Israel demonstrations, singling out New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani for criticism. The senator accused Mamdani of minimizing hostility toward Israel and claimed Jewish residents have been left feeling unsafe.
“Every American has a constitutional right to free speech and peaceful protest. But every American also has a right to freedom of religion, and a fundamental right not to be terrorized and attacked by rioters like those on the streets of Brooklyn,” he wrote.
Days before Monday’s demonstration, protesters gathered outside Park East Synagogue in Manhattan during a showcase called “The Great Israeli Real Estate Event 2026,” which included the marketing of properties in Israel proper as well as West Bank settlements. At the demonstration, activists held signs and chanted slogans that went beyond criticism of Israel, seemingly calling for the death and expulsion of Jews and, in some cases, support for US-designated terrorist groups.
“Death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces],” “Rapists,” and “Settlers, settlers go back home, Palestine is ours alone” were among the insults screamed by the protesters, some of whom also waved flags belonging to Hezbollah.
The scene marked a return to the same synagogue that was the site of a contentious protest in November, where demonstrators chanted “We don’t want no Zionists here” and “Resistance, you make us proud, take another settler out,” among others. One speaker claimed, “It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events! We need to make them scared.”
Scott’s letter comes amid heightened national tensions surrounding the Israel-Hamas conflict and a broader rise in reported antisemitic incidents across the United States. Federal and local authorities have increasingly faced pressure from lawmakers and advocacy groups to respond to threats against Jewish communities while balancing constitutional protections for political protest. Since the political rise of Mamdani, who was elected to office last year and inaugurated on Jan. 1, New York City has emerged as a new front in the political battleground between supporters and critics of Israel.
Scott acknowledged that Americans have a right to free speech and peaceful demonstration but argued that violence, intimidation, and vandalism targeting Jewish Americans “can never be tolerated.” He issued criticism of the leadership style of Mamdani, arguing that he has facilitated the rise of antisemitism by “systemically dismantling protections for Jewish New Yorkers via executive order.”
Since entering office, Mamdani has steadily rolled back a number of measures intended to protect Jewish New Yorkers from a surge in antisemitism. Immediately after his inauguration, Mamdani repealed the city’s recognition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. According to the definition, antisemitism “is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
The widely accepted definition, which advocates say is a useful tool for matters such as hate-crime investigations and sentencing, provides specific, contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the examples include denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.
Mamdani’s office has framed the move as an administrative reset rather than a targeted policy shift, saying the new mayor sought to begin his term with a clean slate.
However, Scott warned that action must be taken to counter what he described as New York City’s hostile climate toward its Jewish community.
“Antisemitism is rising nationwide. Federal law enforcement must make clear that this evil will not be tolerated. I urge a thorough investigation and, where warranted, prosecution to the fullest extent of the law,” he wrote.
A little-known politician before his rapid ascent into Gracie Mansion, Mamdani is an outspoken supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. He has also repeatedly refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, falsely suggesting the country does not offer “equal rights” for all its citizens, and promised to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York.
Mamdani especially came under fire last summer when he initially defended the phrase “globalize the intifada” — which references previous periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israels and has been widely interpreted as a call to expand political violence — by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II. However, Mamdani has since backpedaled on his support for the phrase, saying that he would discourage his supporters from using the slogan.
Since Mamdani assumed office, Jews have been targeted in the majority of all hate crimes committed in New York City, continuing a troubling trend of rising antisemitism following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
Over the past couple weeks, there have been multiple incidents of rampant swastika graffiti across the borough of Queens, highlighting the extent of the antisemitism crisis in the city home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel.
Uncategorized
Hezbollah Belligerence Prompts Fears of Assassination Campaign in Lebanon
Lebanese Hezbollah fighters take part in cross-border raids, part of a large-scale military exercise, in Aaramta bordering Israel on May 21, 2023, ahead of the anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. Photo: Fadel Itani/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
As direct negotiations between Lebanese and Israeli officials resumed in Washington, DC on Thursday, fears continued mounting inside Lebanon that Hezbollah could unleash a new wave of political violence and destabilization efforts amid growing pressure to dismantle the Iran-backed terrorist group’s military grip.
According to a new report from the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), an Israel-based research institute, concerns have intensified over Hezbollah’s escalating rhetoric and the prospect of internal unrest as the Lebanese government pushes to establish a state monopoly over weapons and curb the Islamist group’s influence across the country.
The Iranian proxy has accused Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam of betraying the “resistance” and collaborating with Israel amid ongoing direct bilateral negotiations, branding them “traitors” aligned with foreign interests.
At the same time, Lebanese officials have increasingly lashed out at Hezbollah, accusing the terrorist group, which Iran established inside Lebanon in the early 1980s, of dragging the country toward another devastating war and undermining Lebanon’s sovereignty and stability.
Against the backdrop of an increasingly hostile political climate, ITIC’s new report warns that Hezbollah could once again resort to political assassinations in an effort to block moves perceived as existential threats to the organization and restore its power.
According to Israeli intelligence assessments, the renewed direct negotiations with Israel could even place Aoun’s life at risk.
Experts point to Hezbollah’s Unit 121, a covert entity subordinate to the group’s leadership, which has been linked to a series of assassinations of Hezbollah opponents in Lebanon’s political and security arenas over the past two decades.
Given Hezbollah’s limited ability to exert broader influence within the Lebanese government — with its ministers accounting for less than a third of the cabinet — ITIC warns the group may increasingly rely on Unit 121’s operational capabilities and years of accumulated experience to drive internal destabilization and intimidate political rivals.
The terrorist group has repeatedly defied international calls to disarm, even threatening protests and civil unrest if the government tries to enforce control over its weapons.
According to a new report by the Israeli news outlet Walla, Hezbollah is now putting in place a plan of action to assert control over Beirut, the Lebanese capital, and push out more pragmatic political elements.
The group is also reportedly redistributing its forces across southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley, as its leadership believes Israel is preparing moves designed to divide the country, forcing a broader dispersal of its fighters accordingly.
With direct talks between Israeli and Lebanese officials resuming this week, Hezbollah has also called for a national referendum, arguing that the country’s leadership is ignoring a substantial segment of the population opposed to any future peace agreement with Israel.
“Joseph Aoun is one of the worst presidents to ever lead Lebanon because he is not a unifying figure. He ignores the concerns of a large segment of Lebanese society that rejects any peace with Israel,” senior Hezbollah official Nawaf al-Musawi told Qatari news channel Al-Arabi.
“It is a disgrace that such a handshake would be extended to someone whose hands are stained with the blood of our people while their homes are being destroyed,” he continued, referring to the possibility of a meeting between Aon and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The negotiations they are now offering are an illusion. Our roadmap is resistance on the ground that will force the enemy to retreat,” al-Musawi further said. “We are staying here, defending Lebanon, and we will not commit political suicide through direct and humiliating negotiations.”
With the third round of negotiations taking place on Thursday in Washington, Beirut is reportedly insisting that a ceasefire must precede any future talks and is even considering delaying the process unless full de-escalation is secured in advance.
Lebanese officials have also reiterated that the decision to establish a state monopoly over weapons is final, though its implementation remains contingent on securing a broader security arrangement with Israel under US guarantees.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem reiterated on Tuesday the group’s demand for an immediate end to direct negotiations between Israel and Lebanon.
“No external party has the right to interfere in the issue of weapons or the resistance. This is an internal Lebanese matter and has nothing to do with negotiations with the enemy,” the terrorist leader said.
“We will not surrender, and we will continue defending Lebanon and its people regardless of the sacrifices required. We will not abandon the battlefield, and we will turn it into hell for Israel,” he continued.
Israel has continued its military campaign in neighboring southern Lebanon to root out Hezbollah, with strikes reaching areas roughly 20 kilometers from Beirut over the weekend in one of the deepest escalations in months.
Over the past month, more than 45 Hezbollah infrastructure sites — including weapons depots, military facilities, and rocket launchers — have been struck, with the military also reporting that around 350 operatives have been killed and approximately 1,100 affiliated targets hit.
Israeli officials are now reportedly preparing for the possibility of a major expansion of ground operations in southern Lebanon after Israeli forces crossed the Litani River last weekend and began conducting covert operations deeper inside Lebanese territory.
Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2, when the terrorist group opened fire in support of Iran two days after the start of the joint US-Israeli military campaign against the Iranian regime.
Since then, Israeli forces have established a “buffer zone” initially extending 5 to 10 km (3 to 6 miles) into Lebanese territory, which officials say is meant to shield northern residents from Hezbollah attacks amid thousands of rockets and drones fired throughout the war.
Even though a US-backed ceasefire has sharply reduced violence, negotiations and prospects for lasting peace remain fragile, with Israeli forces still launching strikes while positioned in southern Lebanon to maintain its buffer zone and dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure.
Uncategorized
Xi, Trump Agree Strait of Hormuz Must Be Open, Iran Should Never Have Nuclear Weapons, White House Says
Vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, Musandam, Oman, May 8, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
A ship was reported seized off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and was heading for Iranian waters on Thursday, a British navy agency said, as the US and Chinese leaders met in Beijing to discuss global problems including the Iran war.
After the talks between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, a White House official said the two leaders had agreed that the Strait of Hormuz should be open, and that Iran should never obtain nuclear weapons.
China is close to Iran and the main buyer of its oil. Iran has largely shut the strait to ships apart from its own since the US-Israeli war on Iran began on Feb. 28, causing a major disruption to global energy supplies.
The US paused the bombing last month but added a blockade of Iran‘s ports.
DIPLOMACY ON HOLD
In an interview with CNBC in Beijing, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he believed China would “do what they can” to help open the strait, which he said was “very much in their interest.” Before the war, about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies passed through the strait.
But diplomacy to end the conflict has been on hold since last week when Iran and the US each rejected the other’s most recent proposals.
In the latest incidents on the trade route, an Indian cargo vessel carrying livestock from Africa to the United Arab Emirates was sunk in waters off the coast of Oman.
India condemned the attack and said all 14 crew members had been rescued by the Omani coastguard. Vanguard, a British maritime security advisory firm, said the vessel was believed to have been hit by a missile or drone which caused an explosion.
Separately, British maritime security agency UKMTO reported on Thursday that “unauthorized personnel” had boarded a ship anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah and were steering it toward Iran.
“The company security officer reported that the vessel was taken by Iranian personnel while at anchor,” Vanguard said.
Security in that area is particularly sensitive, as Fujairah is the UAE‘s sole oil port on the far side of the strait, allowing some exports to reach markets without passing through it. Iran included that part of the coast on an expanded map it released last week of waters it claimed were under its control.
Still, Iran appears to be making more deals with countries to allow some ships to pass through the strait – if they accept Tehran’s terms.
A Japanese tanker crossed on Wednesday after Japan’s prime minister announced that she had requested help from the Iranian president. A huge Chinese tanker also crossed on Wednesday, and Iran‘s Fars news agency reported on Thursday that an agreement had been reached to let some Chinese ships pass.
Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards said 30 vessels had crossed the strait since Wednesday evening, still far short of some 140 that typically crossed daily before the war, but a substantial increase if confirmed.
According to shipping analytics firm Kpler, some 10 ships had sailed through the strait in the past 24 hours, only a slight increase from the five to seven ships that have crossed daily in recent weeks.
Iran‘s Judiciary Spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said on Thursday the seizure of “US tankers” violating Iranian regulations was being carried out under domestic and international law.
IRAN‘S THREAT ‘SIGNIFICANTLY DEGRADED’
Thousands of Iranians were killed in the US and Israeli airstrikes in the first weeks of the war, and thousands more have been killed in Lebanon since the war reignited fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.
Lebanese and Israeli envoys were meeting with US officials in Washington on Thursday in efforts to end the hostilities.
There has been little progress in talks on ending the war in Iran since a single round of talks was held in Pakistan last month.
Trump said his aims in starting the war were to destroy Iran‘s nuclear program, end its capability to attack its neighbors and make it easier for Iranians to overthrow their government.
A senior US admiral told a Senate committee on Thursday that Iran‘s ability to threaten its neighbors and US interests in the region had been dramatically reduced.
“Iran has a significantly degraded threat, and they no longer threaten regional partners, or the United States, in ways that they were able to do before, across every domain,” Admiral Brad Cooper said. “They’ve been significantly degraded.”
But Cooper declined to directly address reports by Reuters and other news organizations that Iran, which stockpiled arms in underground facilities, had retained significant missile and drone capabilities.
Iran‘s rulers, who had to use force to put down anti-government protests at the start of the year, have faced no organized opposition since the war began. And their closure of the strait has given them additional leverage in negotiations.
Washington wants Tehran to hand over the uranium and forgo further enrichment. Iran is seeking the lifting of sanctions, reparations for war damage, and acknowledgment of its control over the strait.