Lebanese President Joseph Aoun met with President Donald Trump at the White House. This is the first visit by a Lebanese president to the White House since 2009. Aoun called for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from areas of southern Lebanon still under occupation and for increased support for the Lebanese army, which is working to regain full control of areas long held by Hezbollah.
Before his visit to the White House, Aoun met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday. Rubio reiterated the United States’ support for the implementation of the agreement, calling it “the beginning of the beginning.” “As I’ve said to all parties here today, it’s the beginning of the beginning,” Rubio told reporters. “There is much work to be done. We in no way underestimate the difficulty of the task ahead, but we understand its importance. How vital it is, and we are honored to have helped make it happen.”
The State Department later said that Rubio reiterated the United States’ commitment to supporting the implementation of the agreement and Lebanon’s efforts to restore peace, economic recovery, and long-term stability.
Previously, US President Donald Trump said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not be arrested during his visit to the United States, after New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he was still considering the possibility of an arrest. “Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while he is in the United States of America,” Trump wrote in a social media post, without referencing the mayor’s statements. Trump did not mention Mamdani in his post on Truth Social, but he credited Israel for contributing to the war with Iran. The mayor of New York City said in an interview aired Saturday that the city’s legal department is actively evaluating what the law might allow.
“I believe Prime Minister Netanyahu should be tried in The Hague. He is a war criminal indicted by the International Criminal Court,” Mamdani said in a New York Times video podcast titled “The Interview.”
Israel responded to Mamdani’s remarks on Sunday with a post on X calling the International Criminal Court a sham court and the arrest warrant against Netanyahu a fake: “Mamdani seems interested in diverting public attention from his follies and attacking the leader of the Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East,” the post read.
A senior Iranian official said Tehran has received a proposal from mediators for a 10-day ceasefire in an attempt to salvage the interim agreement, intended to pave the way for a lasting settlement to end the war that began on February 2 with the US-Israeli attacks on Iran.
Pakistan reaffirmed its commitment to regional peace, saying Islamabad is ready to help bridge differences and continue to play the role of an impartial mediator, as tensions in the Gulf fuel fears of broader instability. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met with Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni and reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to regional peace, declaring that Islamabad will continue to play the role of an “honest and sincere mediator” during the meeting with Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni.
Momeni had asked Pakistan to resume its mediation role in the conflict and later arrived in Islamabad for further talks.
ASEAN foreign ministers are “deeply concerned” about the impact of blockades of key maritime trade routes in the Middle East. The ministers, meeting Tuesday in the Philippines, expressed concern about the current climate of global instability on trade and energy supplies caused by the US-Israeli war against Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
In a video released Tuesday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said the level of “interaction” with the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic is increasing daily. Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen in public since the airstrike that killed his father, Ali Khamenei, at the start of the war.
On July 21, two oil tankers carrying Saudi crude to Asia turned back in the Red Sea following threats from the Houthis. The course deviations occurred as US forces bombed targets in southern and western Iran overnight, Tehran striking US sites in Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait, and Jordan, and at least one oil tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz.
According to LSEG shipping data, the two tankers, which had loaded Saudi crude destined for China and India this week, reversed course and were heading toward the Suez Canal. However, internal sources said the Saudi port of Yanbu on the Red Sea was operating normally.
Saudi Arabia condemned the Houthis’ accusations that they declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, opening a potential new front. In their statement, the Houthi military said they were declaring “a maritime embargo against the criminal enemy Saudi Arabia, based on the principle of ‘an eye for an eye,’ with immediate effect,” in response to what they called “an unjust and oppressive siege” imposed on Yemen by the Saudis.
Riyadh responded that it will take “all necessary measures” to protect its ships, the ministry said in a statement.
Oil prices rose by about 2% following the latest attacks, but signs of a resumption of diplomatic negotiations between Tehran and Washington helped limit the increases.
Let’s take a look at the developments on the Middle Eastern fronts.
The US Central Command, CENTCOM, said it had hit Iranian military command centers, maritime infrastructure, missile and drone launch sites, and air defense systems in the latest wave of attacks.
According to state media, explosions were heard near the city of Shiraz in southern Iran. Konarak and Chabahar on the southern coast, the city of Khorramabad, and a civilian site on the outskirts of Abdanan, both in the western part of the country, were all targeted, according to media reports. The IRNA news agency later quoted a Khorramabad official as saying there had been no enemy attack in the city.
Fifty civilians were killed and 500 injured in recent US strikes against Iran, the Iranian Ministry of Health said.
Iran launched new attacks across the Gulf, where recent attacks on desalination plants have raised concerns about water shortages.
Kuwait said it responded to a drone and missile attack on Tuesday afternoon, and sirens sounded in Bahrain.
Attacks on Kuwait’s power plants and water desalination plants on Monday forced several generating units to be taken offline as a precaution, and repairs are underway, authorities said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they targeted infrastructure in Bahrain belonging to the US technology company Amazon in response to what they described as a US attack on the construction site of Iran’s planned Darkhovin nuclear power plant.
Iranian state media reported that Iranian forces also targeted US military personnel housing facilities at the Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain. There was no immediate comment from the US military, Bahrain, or Amazon on the reported incidents.
The Iranian military said it launched drone strikes against three US military bases in Kuwait on Tuesday. The Revolutionary Guards said they attacked a US military site in Jordan, while Jordan said its forces intercepted and destroyed five Iranian drones.
The UKMTO maritime security agency said Tuesday that an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz reported being hit by a shell, forcing its crew to abandon ship and board a lifeboat.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also said that two oil tankers caught fire after explosions while attempting to cross the Strait’s southern shipping lane.
On Monday, only four merchant ships passed through the Strait, primarily using the northern shipping lane near the Iranian coast, down from seven the previous day, according to Kpler data.
Israel did not participate in the latest wave of attacks against Iran. “We have no desire to intervene, but we are prepared for any scenario,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Tuesday.
On Tuesday, Lebanese Army troops began deploying to the town of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, in southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh region, following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area. Late in the afternoon, the Lebanese Army reportedly continued operations in Zawtar El Gharbiyeh, despite being targeted by gunfire during the operation. The Israeli army reportedly fired shots from the direction of Zawtar El Charqiyeh as Lebanese troops were deploying in the town. Despite the incident, the Lebanese army continued its planned search and deployment operations in the area.
The plan calls for Lebanese army troops to confiscate weapons from the pro-Iranian Hezbollah group in parts of southern Lebanon and for Israeli troops to gradually withdraw. On Monday, the Israeli army announced that the plan, dubbed the “Pilot Zone Program,” has begun.
“The pilot program serves to test the sovereignty of the Lebanese Armed Forces in the three pilot villages, as the only official authority authorized to carry weapons in the area,” the IDF stated.
Tuesday’s handover of the territory represents the first test of the plan, which Lebanon hopes will allow it to regain control of a roughly 10-kilometer strip of land inside the country still occupied by Israeli troops.
Dozens of villages in that area have been razed, and public infrastructure has been destroyed, including hospitals, power plants, and water pumps. Tens of thousands of Lebanese living there have been unable to return.
Israeli officials have expressed skepticism about Lebanon’s ability to disarm Hezbollah, but Israel considers the agreement reached last month a crucial step toward building a lasting peace with Lebanon.
Antonio Albanese e Graziella Giangiulio
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