President Trump says that negotiations with Iran are going well, and that Tehran "out of a sign out of respect" will allow 20 oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz on Monday.
However, he said, in comments made to reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night, "you never know with Iran, we negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up."
Trump also told The Financial Times in an interview Monday that the U.S. could "take the oil in Iran" and that he was considering sending U.S. forces to seize Kharg Island's oil terminal.
"Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don't. We have a lot of options," he told the British newspaper. "It would also mean we had to be there (on Kharg Island) for a while."
Here's more news on day 31 of the Iran war:
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Regime change | Jerusalem Patriarch | Strikes | Oil prices | Infrastructure |
Trump says there's been regime change
In his comments on Air Force One on the way to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, Trump also told reporters he thought to some extent the US-Israeli war in Iran has achieved regime change.
"We've had regime change if you look already because the one regime was decimated, destroyed, they're all dead," he said, referring to top ranking officials killed in the war including the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei.
"The next regime is mostly dead, and the third regime we're dealing with different people than anybody's dealt with before, it's a whole different group of people," Trump said.
Ayatollah Khamenei was replaced earlier this month by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who hasn't been seen in public and may be wounded, and who is widely considered to represent a continuation of Iran's hardline theocracy
"So I think we've had regime change, I mean you can't do much better than that," Trump said.
Outrage over Patriarch
War and religion clashed yesterday as police prevented the Catholic Church's highest official in Jerusalem from entering one of the religion's holiest sites. Citing war restrictions on gatherings in the Old City, the Latin Patriarch was barred from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Israeli police stopped Jerusalem's top Catholic official Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and another leader from holding private Palm Sunday prayers there.
Public gatherings in Israel are limited to 50 people due to the war and dangers from incoming missiles from Iran. But in the Old City's holy sites, restrictions have been tighter.
World leaders and thepope condemned the closure, which also drew a rare rebuke of Israel from U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said the Cardinal would be granted full and immediate access to the church.
Israel strikes Tehran, trades attacks with Hezbollah
Despite Trump's positive assessment of negotiations, fighting continued unabated in the Middle East on Monday morning.
The Israel Defense Forces said it had struck weapons production sites in Tehran overnight including: "a site used for assembling long-range anti-aircraft missiles."
Israel also continued its campaign in Lebanon, bombing Beirut's southern suburbs.
For its part, Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at bases in Northern Israel and Israeli troops in Southern Lebanon.
The IDF said on Sunday "two IDF soldiers were seriously wounded as a result of anti-tank fire directed at IDF forces in southern Lebanon." That came after a Connecticut-born Israeli soldier was killed in a combat operation in southern Lebanon on Saturday.
Oil price rises sharply
Oil hit $116 a barrel Monday, after Trump's comments the U.S. could seize Iran's oil and Kharg Island, sending stock markets in Asia tumbling.
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Brent crude, the international benchmark, has jumped more than 50% since the start of March, surpassing the previous record of 46% during Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is holding talks Monday with energy industry leaders, including those from BP and Shell, while his chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to push clean energy acceleration to guard against global price shocks.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Monday his government was cutting its tax on fuel and diesel for at least four months to help reduce the pressure on Australian consumers.
Attacks on infrastructure
Iran said its electricity grid was stable after attacks caused power cuts in some areas. Iranian state media says shrapnel from weekend strikes damaged power equipment in Tehran and nearby Karaj city, leading to hours-long blackouts in both places.
Israel said over the weekend it hit about 140 targets in Iran. Iran said several of those strikes hit universities, and is now threatening to hit U.S. campuses in the Middle East in retaliation.
Meanwhile, Russia's state nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom, is warning that strikes are deteriorating the condition of Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant. Rosatom helped build the Bushehr plant, which has been hit multiple times during the war.
Separately, the International Agency for Atomic Energy said bombing had rendered an Iranian water plant inoperational.
"Based on independent analysis of satellite imagery and knowledge of the installation, the IAEA has confirmed the heavy water production plant at Khondab, which Iran reported had been attacked on 27 March, has sustained severe damaged and is no longer operational. The installation contains no declared nuclear material," the body said on X.
Iran is hitting back. Over the weekend, Iranian forces struck an industrial zone in southern Israel, starting a fire at a chemical plant and raising fears of a leak. The regime also attacked a power and desalination plant in Kuwait overnight, killing a worker from India, the ministry of water and electricity said in a statement.
Desalination plants are vital for water-scarce Gulf Arab countries, drawing seawater and removing salts and minerals so the water can be used for drinking and basic needs.
And after Israeli attacks caused extensive damage at two of Iran's largest steel plants, Iran attacked aluminum factories over the weekend in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Emirates Global Aluminum says the attack caused significant damage to its main facility in Abu Dhabi.
Carrie Kahn in Jerusalem, Emily Feng in Van, Turkey, Aya Batrawy in Dubai, and Kate Bartlett in Johannesburg contributed to reporting.
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