Iran Conflict — 2026-07-24 (PM)
Current status
Trump has told Axios he is considering a ‘massive attack’ on Iran ‘bigger than ever before’. CNBC and Al Jazeera’s live blog report Trump said on Thursday that he is “close to making a decision” and that the US is “all set” for the operation, after Iran struck US allies in the Gulf including a telecommunications tower in Kuwait. Trump also threatened on Truth Social that if Iran attacks ships, the US will use Tehran’s frozen assets to pay for repairs — language Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi labelled “incendiary” and warned sets a confiscation precedent that puts everyone’s assets at risk.
Strait of Hormuz tanker crossings dropped to a single vessel on Thursday, the lowest level since May 7. Al Jazeera reports ship-tracking data from LSEG shows just one tanker successfully crossed the strait on Thursday as CENTCOM concluded its 13th consecutive night of strikes against Iran. The volume collapse sits alongside Iran’s formal Gulf-escalation warning from earlier in the day and the Houthi naval blockade against Saudi Arabia, compounding the dual-chokepoint pressure on global energy flows.
Iraq has publicly denied it mediated a US-Iran ceasefire, calling the NYT report ‘completely baseless’. Al Jazeera’s live blog reports the Iraqi prime minister’s media office rejected the New York Times story published Thursday that said PM Ali al-Zaidi had conveyed a US ceasefire proposal to Tehran during a recent visit, and that Iran had rejected it because it did not address who controls the Strait of Hormuz. The Iraqi denial removes the most plausible diplomatic off-ramp from the public record and leaves the war-cost trajectory pointed upward.
Iran launched simultaneous drone and missile strikes on US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan overnight; Jordan downed seven missiles and six drones. Al Jazeera reports Iran’s army said it hit Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain — including fuel storage tanks — the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait (used by US forces), and the Muwaffaq Salti/Al-Azraq base in Jordan, plus Camp Udairi, Camp Doha and Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. Bahrain and Kuwait say their air defences intercepted multiple Iranian missiles and drones; a drone crash near Erbil International Airport forced a temporary flight suspension that has since resumed.
Qatar has publicly urged both Washington and Tehran to implement the MoU including Hormuz freedom of navigation. Al Jazeera reports Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani told Britain’s new Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband in Doha that all parties must commit to dialogue and to the MoU’s terms including “ensuring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, to preserve regional security, safeguard the gains achieved and enhance regional stability.” The statement lands as the first explicit Gulf-state push to anchor the wartime Hormuz status in the MoU framework rather than letting it drift with the strike cadence.
Houthi spokesperson has denied the Bab al-Mandab strait is closed, saying the naval blockade targets Saudi Arabia only. Al Jazeera reports Mohammed Abdul Salam said “there is no closure of the Bab al-Mandab Strait” and that Houthi operations are limited to a maritime blockade affecting only Saudi vessels, in response to “its siege of Yemen and its refusal to accept any fair approach to a solution.” Two Chinese supertankers carrying Saudi crude have already exited the strait on Friday despite the announcement, and Danish-flagged oil-products tanker Torm Innovation has re-routed via the Suez to Asia citing crew-safety concerns.
CENTCOM’s 13th-night strike set killed four and wounded five near Ahvaz plus two each at Khorramabad and Bandar Abbas. Al Jazeera reports Iranian media cited Tasnim and Fars saying a US missile strike near Ahvaz killed four and injured five, that explosions were heard on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, and that strikes hit Andimeshk and Omidiyeh in Khuzestan with no reported casualties. The pattern — Iranian port-city strikes on the Hormuz coastline paired with sustained Gulf-base strikes — formalises the bidirectional tempo that now defines the campaign.
Netanyahu and Katz have ordered intensified military operations in West Bank ’terror hubs’. Al Jazeera’s live blog reports the Israeli prime minister and defence minister issued a joint statement ordering home demolitions, weapons seizures, revocation of work permits, additional checkpoints and the acceleration of agricultural-outpost legalisation, in response to the Tal village shooting that killed four Palestinians and one Israeli. At least 15 Israeli military vehicles have stormed Nablus and raided Nablus Specialised Hospital following the incident.
UAE / Gulf angle
The Hormuz tanker-crossings collapse — one vessel on Thursday, the lowest in two months — keeps the Habshan–Fujairah bypass pipeline at the centre of UAE crude-export optionality. With Iran striking port infrastructure along its Hormuz coastline (Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island), the bypass route’s strategic premium rises further, and the Fujairah terminal becomes the structural outlet for non-strait Gulf crude even as insurance premiums stay four times the five-year average.
Qatar’s explicit Hormuz-MoU push, paired with the Iraqi denial of ceasefire mediation, re-anchors the UAE’s diplomatic-risk reading on the MoU framework. The MoU’s Hormuz-navigation language is now the only publicly visible Gulf-coordinated diplomatic baseline on the strait, and any UAE position on the strait that runs ahead of the MoU risks isolating Doha’s track; any position behind it risks conceding Hormuz governance to the MoU’s wider signatories.
Trump’s “massive attack” framing and the Iranian retaliation across Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan moves every US-basing Gulf state deeper inside the same strike-set category. The UAE’s defensive-priority stack — DXB, AUH, Jebel Ali, Ruwais, civilian grid, desalination — stays at the top of the planning tree with Kuwait’s electricity rationing and Bahrain’s data-centre strike report now established as baseline scenario inputs rather than edge cases.
The Houthi clarification that the Bab al-Mandab blockade targets only Saudi vessels reduces the UAE’s Red Sea exposure for its own crude flows, but does not change the routing-disruption calculus: insurance and re-routing costs still flow through global freight indices that affect UAE refined-product imports. Two Chinese supertankers exiting with Saudi crude despite the blockade shows the blockade is enforceable in name rather than volume, which is a positive read for non-Saudi Gulf crude transit.
The Iraqi denial of ceasefire mediation closes the diplomatic off-ramp that yesterday’s PM run still had on the table as plausible. For the UAE that means the wartime basing, overflight, and logistics footprint supporting US Central Command activity stays in place for the foreseeable future, and any reconstruction-track diplomacy now has to be sequenced around a sustained air campaign rather than around a near-term settlement.
Trump’s Truth Social threat to use frozen Iranian assets to pay for shipping damage lands as a Treasury-pressure signal layered on top of the “incendiary” Tehran response from earlier today. For the UAE, where sovereign-wealth funds and central-bank reserves are the structural defence against escalation shocks, an explicit confiscation rhetoric from Washington tightens the dollar-system risk premium and raises the political cost of holding US-exposed reserves during a wider wartime settlement.
What changed since the previous update (Day 147 NOON)
Trump escalated from “considering options” to publicly weighing a “massive attack” on Iran via Axios. NEW for Day 147 PM: CNBC 198768 + AJ liveblog Trump-considering-massive-attack-bigger-than-ever-before. Day 147 NOON 13th-night-of-strikes + Iran-formal-Gulf-escalation-warning (AJ 198739) → Day 147 PM operational-decision-rhetoric-now-on-the-record.
Strait of Hormuz tanker crossings collapsed to a single vessel on Thursday, the lowest in two months. NEW for Day 147 PM: Al Jazeera 198766 Hormuz-tanker-crossings-lowest-since-May-7. Day 147 NOON routing-disruption-confirmed-on-the-record (AJ 198747) → Day 147 PM physical-flow-data-shows-one-tanker-crossing.
Iraq publicly denied mediating a US-Iran ceasefire after the NYT report from earlier today. NEW for Day 147 PM: AJ liveblog Iraq-denies-ceasefire-mediation-NYT-report-completely-baseless. Day 147 NOON Iran-rejected-Iraqi-mediated-ceasefire-proposal (NYT 198716) → Day 147 PM Iraq-formally-disavows-the-mediation-channel.
Iran launched simultaneous strikes on US bases in Kuwait (Ali Al Salem, Camp Udairi, Camp Doha, Camp Arifjan), Bahrain (Sheikh Isa) and Jordan (Al-Azraq); Jordan downed 7 missiles and 6 drones. NEW for Day 147 PM: AJ liveblog Iran-strikes-Kuwait-Bahrain-Jordan-bases + Jordan-intercepts-13-munitions. Day 147 NOON Iran-formal-Gulf-escalation-warning (AJ 198739) → Day 147 PM warning-now-actualised-against-three-Gulf-states.
Qatar publicly urged Washington and Tehran to implement the MoU including Hormuz freedom of navigation. NEW for Day 147 PM: AJ liveblog Qatar-urges-US-Iran-implement-MoU-including-Hormuz-navigation. Day 147 NOON no-Gulf-state-MoU-language-on-the-record → Day 147 PM first-explicit-Gulf-state-MoU-Hormuz-push-on-the-record.
Houthi spokesperson clarified the Bab al-Mandab blockade targets only Saudi vessels, not the strait itself. NEW for Day 147 PM: AJ liveblog Houthi-spokesperson-denies-Bab-al-Mandab-closure-blockade-Saudi-only. Day 147 NOON Houthi-attacks-shape-who-moves-Saudi-crude-not-whether (AJ 198747) → Day 147 PM Houthi-formalises-the-narrow-targeting-on-X.
Two Chinese supertankers carrying Saudi crude exited Bab al-Mandab on Friday despite the blockade; Danish-flagged Torm Innovation re-routed via Suez to Asia. NEW for Day 147 PM: AJ liveblog Chinese-supertankers-exit-Bab-al-Mandab-despite-blockade + Torm-Innovation-re-routes-via-Suez. Day 147 NOON routing-disruption-confirmed-on-the-record (AJ 198747) → Day 147 PM blockade-is-symbolic-not-volumetric-on-the-record.
CENTCOM’s 13th-night strikes killed four near Ahvaz and wounded two each at Khorramabad and Bandar Abbas; explosions hit Qeshm Island on the Hormuz coastline. NEW for Day 147 PM: AJ liveblog 4-dead-Ahvaz + 2-each-Khorramabad-Bandar-Abbas + Qeshm-Island-strikes. Day 147 NOON 13th-night-cadence-confirmed (AJ 198739) → Day 147 PM Hormuz-coastline-port-strikes-now-part-of-the-pattern.
Netanyahu and Katz ordered intensified West Bank military operations in response to the Tal village shooting; 15 Israeli military vehicles stormed Nablus. NEW for Day 147 PM: AJ liveblog Netanyahu-Katz-intensify-West-Bank-operations + Nablus-storming. Day 147 NOON no-West-Bank-intensification-on-the-record → Day 147 PM Tal-incident-triggers-israeli-operational-escalation.
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