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Iran Vows to Keep Strait of Hormuz Closed in New Leader’s First Statement
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of late Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, attends a meeting in Tehran, Iran, July 18, 2016. Photo: Amir Kholousi/ISNA/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran will fight on and keep the Strait of Hormuz shut as leverage against the United States and Israel, new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said on Thursday in the first comments attributed to him since he succeeded his slain father.
Khamenei did not appear in person, and the remarks were read out by a state television presenter. No images have been released of him since an Israeli strike at the start of the war that killed much of his family, including his father and wife.
Thursday’s statement struck a defiant tone, with Khamenei calling on Iran‘s neighbors to shut US bases on their territory and warning that Iran would continue to target them.
“I assure everyone that we will not neglect avenging the blood of your martyrs,” said the hardline cleric who is close to Iran‘s top military force.
“The popular demand is to continue our effective defense and make the enemy regret it. The lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must continue to be used,” he added, referring to the shipping route through which a fifth of global oil normally passes along Iran‘s coast.
State television offered no explanation for why the message was read out rather than delivered in person. Iranian officials have said Khamenei was lightly wounded in the initial Feb. 28 airstrikes, but the extent of his injuries is unclear.
The prospect that one of the most severe disruptions ever to hit global energy supplies could drag on sent oil prices surging back above $100 a barrel, after falling back earlier in the week on hopes of a swift end to the conflict.
TANKERS ABLAZE IN IRAQI PORT
Shortly after the address was read out, the Revolutionary Guards announced they would keep the strait shut in line with his orders.
Two tankers were ablaze in an Iraqi port on Thursday after a hit by suspected Iranian explosive-laden boats, a clear sign of defiance toward US President Donald Trump, who said on Wednesday the United States had already won the war.
Images verified by Reuters as filmed from the Iraqi port of Basra showed ships engulfed in massive orange fireballs that lit up the night sky. At least one crew member was killed.
Hours earlier, three other ships were struck in the Gulf. Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards claimed responsibility for at least one attack – on a Thai bulk carrier that was set ablaze – saying it had disobeyed their orders. Another container vessel reported being struck by an unknown projectile near the United Arab Emirates.
In another front of the unpredictable war, Israeli airstrikes hit a building in central Beirut on Thursday, sending thick smoke above the Lebanese capital.
Israel also ordered residents out of another swathe of southern Lebanon, intensifying its offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group after it fired its biggest volley of rockets into Israel since the start of the war.
So far the war has killed more than 2,000 people, including almost 700 in Lebanon.
AS DRONES FLY, TRUMP SAYS US WILL BENEFIT
Undermining US and Israeli claims to have knocked out much of Iran‘s stock of long-range weapons, more drones were reported on Thursday flying into Kuwait, Iraq, the UAE, Bahrain, and Oman.
Iran has said it will not let oil back through Hormuz until US and Israeli attacks cease, but Trump played down the surge in energy prices, saying Washington would ultimately benefit.
“The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” he wrote on social media, adding that “of far greater interest and importance to me, as President, is stopping an evil Empire, Iran, from having Nuclear Weapons.”
The US is a net oil exporter but also the world’s biggest oil consumer, burning roughly twice as much as the European Union. Economists say sustained high prices would drive broad inflation.
In separate comments, Trump said the Iranian men’s national soccer team was welcome to participate in the 2026 World Cup, which the US is co-hosting, but added that it was not appropriate that they be there “for their own life and safety.”
‘SECURITY FORCES ARE EVERYWHERE’
Inside Iran, residents said security forces were increasing their presence on the streets to demonstrate continued control.
“Security forces are everywhere, more than before. People are afraid to come out, but supermarkets are open,” teacher Majan, 35, said by phone from Tehran.
Three sources told Reuters that US intelligence indicated that Iran‘s leadership remained largely intact and not at risk of imminent collapse.
Israel and the United States have called on Iranians to rise up and topple their clerical rulers. Many Iranians want change and some openly celebrated the elder supreme leader’s death on the war’s first day, after his forces had killed thousands of anti‑government protesters in January. But there has been no sign of organized dissent while the country is under attack.
TEHRAN SEEKS PROLONGED ECONOMIC SHOCK
Khamenei’s remarks reinforce Iran‘s message that its strategy now is to impose a prolonged economic shock to force Trump to back off. A spokesperson for Iran‘s military command said on Wednesday that the world should prepare for oil prices of $200 a barrel.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Thursday he did not expect that to happen, but did not totally rule it out. “I would say unlikely, but we are focused on the military operation and solving a problem,” Wright told CNN.
Thursday’s oil price surge came despite the announcement the previous day that developed countries would release 400 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserves, nearly half from the United States.
That is by far the biggest-ever coordinated intervention in oil markets. But releasing the reserves will take months, and account for just three weeks of supply from the blockaded strait.
“The only way to see oil prices trade lower on a sustained basis is by getting oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz,” ING analysts said.
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UCLA student government condemns campus Hillel for hosting former hostage
A campus event featuring freed Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov drew the condemnation of UCLA’s student government on Tuesday. In an open letter, the UCLA Students Associated Council said that bringing Tov to speak to students “served to legitimize and normalize” atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon.
Shem Tov, 23, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in Southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and held hostage in Gaza until his release in a prisoner exchange in February 2025. UCLA hosted him on April 14 for a Yom HaShoah event.
“While we affirm the humanity of all people impacted by violence, we reject the selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence,” the student government letter wrote in the letter, which was addressed to the UCLA administration and UCLA Hillel among others. “Israel is currently continuing to carry out what has been widely identified by human rights advocates as a genocide in Gaza, while also expanding its illegal military campaign into Lebanon.
“In this context, elevating a single narrative, absent of critical political and humanitarian framing, serves to legitimize and normalize these ongoing atrocities.”
Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, UCLA Hillel’s director emeritus, called the statement “completely ridiculous.”
“You can’t present the narrative of your experience without it being called ‘one sided,’” Seidler-Feller said. “There has to be a counter-story to persecution. Is there a counter-story to killing people?”
UCLA Hillel executive director Daniel Gold dismissed the criticism in Tuesday’s letter as antisemitic.
“Hillel at UCLA and Students Supporting Israel UCLA would like to apologize…for absolutely nothing,” he wrote in a statement. “Members of UCLA student government have once again shown they are anti-dialogue, anti-learning, anti-truth, anti-student and antisemitic.”
The USAC did not respond to a request for comment.
As college campuses across the country became a hotspot for pro-Palestinian activism following the Oct. 7 attack, UCLA, with an activist history and a large Jewish population, stood out as a major flashpoint. Its student encampment was the site of a riot in April 2024 and eventually cleared by police in riot gear.
The USAC has sided with pro-Palestinian protesters throughout. In a Feb. 2025 letter titled “We Are All SJP,” the USAC, which is democratically elected by the roughly 30,000-member UCLA student body, condemned Chancellor Julio Frenk’s suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine. The letter referred to Israel only as “the Zionist state” or put the country’s name inside quotation marks.
The University of California has since been sued by the Department of Justice, which said that UCLA created a hostile work environment against Jewish and Israeli faculty in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
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Trump extends ceasefire with Iran, even after Iran balks at new round of negotiations
(JTA) — President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he would unilaterally extend the U.S.-Israeli ceasefire with Iran, even though Iran had not agreed to his conditions or even to return to the negotiating table.
Trump announced the decision on Truth Social just hours before the two-week-old deal was set to expire. Citing Iran’s “fractured” leadership, Trump wrote that he had been asked by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to “hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.”
Vice President JD Vance’s planned trip to Islamabad, where talks were set to take place, was postponed indefinitely after Iran failed to confirm its participation in negotiations.
Trump added that the United States would maintain its naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz, despite Iran’s repeated calls for the restrictions to be lifted.
The announcement marked a sharp departure from the president’s statements earlier in the day, telling CNBC that, if a deal was not made before the deadline, “I expect to be bombing.”
In a statement Tuesday, Sharif thanked Trump for his “gracious acceptance” of Pakistan’s request to extend the ceasefire, adding that the country would “continue its earnest efforts for a negotiated settlement of the conflict.”
The announcement adds to uncertain about the war’s future, including for Israelis who lived through six weeks of Iranian bombing, and renews questions about Trump’s commitment to achieving his war goals, which have varied and included blunting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, achieving regime change, and destroying Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles. He said earlier this week that he was asking Iran to limit its nuclear program for 20 years, five years longer than was required by the deal struck by Barack Obama in 2015. Trump exited that deal in 2018.
Last week, Trump announced a different ceasefire, between Israel and Lebanon, on Truth Social, contradicting Israel’s claim that the Iran ceasefire would not apply to its fighting with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed proxy in Lebanon.
Trump’s announcement of the ceasefire extension came during the night in Israel, after Israelis began their celebration of Independence Day. It drew criticism from one of his staunchest pro-Israel supporters, the Zionist Organization of America, whose national president Morton Klein said in a statement that “interminable delay is the standard Islamic Iranian regime negotiating tactic” and that acceding to it represented a victory for Iran. The statement did not mention Trump.
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Alan Dershowitz quits Democratic Party, calling it ‘most anti-Israel party in U.S. history’
(JTA) — Alan Dershowitz, the prominent pro-Israel attorney whose clients have included Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, announced on Monday that he was leaving the Democratic party and registering as a Republican.
Describing himself as a “lifelong Democrat,” Dershowitz wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he had decided to “bite the bullet and register as a Republican,” citing Democratic support for an arms embargo on Israel last week and the Michigan Senate candidate Abdul el-Sayed’s anti-Israel rhetoric.
“There is no denying that the hard left, anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party has moved from the fringe to the mainstream,” Dershowitz wrote, adding that “Republicans have their own antisemitic fringe, but for now it remains a fringe.”
The announcement formalized a political evolution for Dershowitz, who defended Trump during his first impeachment and has increasingly broken with Democrats over Israel in recent years.
In 2021, Dershowitz nominated Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Avi Berkowitz, Trump’s top Middle Eastern envoy during his first administration, for the Nobel Peace Prize over their hand in shaping the Abraham Accords.
Dershowitz — who has recently faced scrutiny over his ties to Epstein, and previously denied allegations of sexual misconduct made by one of Epstein’s accusers — panned the Democratic Party as the “most anti-Israel party in U.S. history” in the op-ed.
“I believe that the Democratic Party’s hostility to Israel represents a deeper and more dangerous shift away from the center and toward a radical approach that is bad for America and the free world,” Dershowitz wrote, adding that he intended to “work hard to prevent the Democrats from gaining control of the House and Senate.”
Dershowitz’s comments are in line with Trump’s statements about Jews and the Democratic Party. He has repeatedly expressed amazement at how any Jews could vote for the Democrats considering his own record when it comes to Israel.
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