Second Turkish-owned ship passes through strait of Hormuz, official says
A second Turkish-owned ship has passed through the strait of Hormuz, Turkey’s transport minister, Abdulkadir Uraloglu, said, as more vessels trickle through the narrow waterway.
According to Uraloglu, there were 15 ships Turkish-owned ships in the strait when war broke out, and two of them have left. Speaking to CNN Turk, he said four ships have not requested to leave, two are energy carriers and two are engaged in regional trade.
“We are working in coordination with the ministry of foreign affairs to remove the remaining nine ships,” he said.
It was not clear when the second ship passed through the strait. Uraloglu announced safe passage of the first ship on 13 March after authorities received permission from Iran.
The strait of Hormuz, which carries a fifth of the world’s oil, has become a key point of contention in bringing the conflict to an end, with Iranian threats to shipping rendering the waterway effectively shut.
Several vessels, however, have been allowed safe passage through the strait, according to reports, including a container ship owned by the French shipping company CMA CGM, which sailed out of the Gulf yesterday. It is believed to be the first ship owned by a western shipping line to have made safe passage since war began on 28 Feburary.
The Guardian’s business reporter, Lauren Almeida, has looked at the number of vessels that have transited the strait so far, and the diplomatic efforts to get the key shipping route reopened. You can read her report here:
Key events
Analysis: Trump is using unabashed viciousness in his language against Iran
Steven Poole
On 23 March, Donald Trump said that if things didn’t go to his liking in Iran, “we just keep bombing our little hearts out”. A week later the US president told journalists on Air Force One: “You never know with Iran because we negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up.”
On 4 March, Pete Hegseth squirmed in pleasure as he described “death and destruction from the sky all day long”. Whatever happened to the subtle art of political euphemism?
The opposite of a euphemism is a dysphemism: a name for something that makes it sound maximally horrible. Politicians normally use dysphemisms for their opponents: people might be labelled “terrorists” or “fascists”, already engaged in “genocide” or threatening to nuke London within 15 minutes.
The Trump administration, however, revels in the use of dysphemism for its own actions. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight,” Hegseth said on 4 March. “We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”
Read the full piece here:
Indonesia has now received the bodies of three peacekeepers that were killed on deployment in Lebanon as it branded an explosion that injured three other of its blue helmets as “unacceptable”.
AFP reported that the soldiers’ coffins, draped in the Indonesian flag, were carried into a hall at the international airport on the shoulders of uniformed comrades for a ceremony attended by president Prabowo Subianto.
Family members of the men wept over the coffins, each fronted by a photograph of the dead soldier in a gold frame.
Prabowo saluted each portrait and held the hands of grieving loved ones, some weeping unconsolably.
The father of one of the two fallen soldiers, 33-year-old Zulmi Aditya Iskandar, said this week he was shocked that peacekeepers were losing their lives in the conflict.
“We were really sad and regretful, because this is a UN troop, a peacekeeping troop, not deployed for war,” 60-year-old Iskandarudin told reporters at his house in West Java province.
William Christou
In Lebanon, the dead are usually given one last glimpse of their home town before they are laid to rest. Hoisted high above the heads of the living, their casket is slowly marched through the streets where they grew up.
It is the hands of their loved ones that guide them into their final resting place, already dug, and gently sprinkle dirt on their body.
In south Lebanon, war has robbed the dead of their final goodbye. As Israel expands its ground invasion, families have been forced to abandon traditional funeral rites and bury their loved ones in temporary graveyards farther north.
In Tyre, 2-metre-wide ditches have been dug to house the dead. The epitaphs are brief: a number spray-painted in bright red on a thin wooden board to count the deceased.
You can read the full report here:
Meanwhile in Senegal, the government has banned all but essential foreign trips for ministers as part of cost-saving measures triggered by the energy crisis linked to the Iran war.
Senegal, like many African countries , imports most of the petroleum products it consumes, leaving its economy vulnerable to supply disruptions such as the closure of the strait of Hormuz, which has sent the price of crude soaring.
PM Ousmane Sonko said that his office was taking steps to limit public expenditure, pointing out that the country’s initial budget forecasts were based on an oil price of $62 per barrel, which is now almost double as a result of the Iran war.
The government-owned Le Soleil newspaper quoted Sonko as saying:
I have taken a number of drastic measures to restrict everything related to government spending, including the cancellation of all non-essential missions abroad.
Death, displacement and military duties: children plunged into crisis by the war
Millions of children have been plunged into crisis by the war in the Middle East, with reports of child soldiers in Iran, mass forced displacements in Lebanon and the killing of hundreds of minors.
According to the UN agency for children, Unicef, more than 340 children have been killed and thousands injured since the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran, which has retaliated with bombings across the region.
The highest reported child casualty event occurred on the first day of the war when a US missile strike on a school in Iran killed at least 160 children and teachers.
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon – and its continued attacks in the occupied West Bank and Gaza – have compounded the bloodshed. Across the region, more than 1.2 million children have been displaced.
“Children in the region are being exposed to horrific violence, while the very systems and services meant to keep them safe are coming under attack,” said Unicef’s executive director, Catherine Russell.
My colleagues William Christou, Lorenzo Tondo and Oliver Holmes have this report on some of the ways the war has affected children:
In Iran, the country’s science minister has said US-Israeli strikes have hit more than 30 universities since the war broke out in late February.
“To date, more than 30 universities have been directly targeted,” Hossein Simai Sarraf told reporters during a visit to the Shahid Beheshti University in northern Tehran, which was struck on Friday.
…and speaking of Tyre, here are some of the latest images coming out of the city.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued another evacuation order for the southern Lebanese city of Tyre and surrounding areas, ahead of imminent attacks against what it described as Hezbollah targets.
“Urgent warning to the residents of the city of Tyre … Hezbollah’s terrorist activities are forcing the IDF to act against it forcefully. The IDF does not intend to harm you,” the IDF’s Arabic spokesperson, Col Avichay Adraee, wrote on X.
“For your own safety, we urge you to evacuate your homes immediately in accordance with the area shown on the map and move north of the Zahrani River,” he added, posting a map of the affected area that extends to Burj el-Shamali camp, the second-largest of the twelve Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
‘We never refused to go to Islamabad’ for talks, says Iran foreign minister
The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said his country “never refused” to attend talks in Pakistan aimed at ending the war.
He added that Iran wanted “conclusive and lasting” terms to end the conflict.
In recent weeks, Pakistan had put itself at the centre of efforts to bring about a ceasefire to end the war, with officials pushing for talks in the capital city of Islamabad.
In a post on X, Araghchi said:
Iran’s position is being misrepresented by US media.
We are deeply grateful to Pakistan for its efforts and have never refused to go to Islamabad. What we care about are the terms of a conclusive and lasting END to the illegal war that is imposed on us.
While Araghchi blames the US media for apparently misreporting Iran’s willingness to engage in negotiations, Iranian news agencies had reported that Tehran refused talks with Washington (as we reported here). Iranian officials previously accused the US of using talks as a ruse to launch more attacks.
The search continues for a missing US pilot in Iran after two US warplanes went down in separate incidents.
Iran said it had shot down an F-15 fighter jet over the southwestern part of the country on Friday. It marks the first time a US fighter jet has been shot down in Iran since the war began. US media reported American special forces had rescued one of its two crew members and the other was still missing, with a search operation under way. Iranian state media has urged people in the mountainous provinces of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad and Khuzestan to search for the jet’s crew.
Separately, Iranian state media said a US A-10 ground attack aircraft crashed in the Persian Gulf after being struck by Iranian defence forces. A US official told Reuters news agency that it was not clear if the aircraft crashed or was shot down. US media reported that the pilot was rescued.
AFP news agency reported a hospital in the southern Lebanese town of Tyre was damaged after an Israeli strike hit nearby buildings.
The Lebanese health ministry said 11 people were wounded in the attack. The director of the Lebanese Italian Hospital told the state-run National News Agency (NNA) that the hospital would “remain open to provide the necessary medical care” despite the damage.
An AFP correspondent on the ground reported seeing strikes destroying two buildings near the hospital. The news agency reported other attacks in the Tyre region today, including one at a port that struck a small boat and damaged others moored nearby.
War returned to Lebanon on 2 March as Israel intensifies its attacks against Hezbollah militants across the southern Lebanese border. The Israel military has advanced through southern Lebanon in recent days, bombing bridges around Tyre, which lies 12 miles north of the Israeli border, and cutting it off from the rest of the country.
