Trump threatens to bomb Oman if it gets in way of Iran deal
US President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to bomb Oman if it “gets in the way” of a deal with Iran on the strait of Hormuz and called for Iran to surrender.
Referring to ongoing talks between Oman and Iran on control of the strait, while Washington is also pursuing its own talks, Trump told Fox News journalist Trey Yingst:
If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.
He added that Iran should “put up the white flag of surrender,” according to Yingst’s post on X on his interview with the president.
Key events
Yemen’s Houthi rebels said on Monday they had targeted a Saudi military vessel and four accompanying boats in the Red Sea as part of their maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia.
Yahya Saree, military spokesperson for the Iran-backed group, said it had “succeeded in targeting a military landing ship belonging to the Saudi enemy, accompanied by four military patrol boats, in the Red Sea off the coast of Mokha, using several ballistic missiles”.
He went on to claim that the ship and number of other boats were sunk or burned, though the claim could not be independently verified.
Riyadh did not immediately respond to the announcement.
US forces currently stationed in the Kurdish region of Iraq have begun withdrawing ahead of a 30 September deadline agreed upon between Washington and Baghdad to end the US military presence in Iraq.
Trump’s threat to bomb Oman is not the first. In May, he told reporters during a Cabinet meeting that “Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we will have to blow them up.”
Iran said it has reached an agreement with Oman over a plan for ships to transit the Strait of Hormuz, which runs between the countries, and the sides are now working to finalise details for a joint statement.
Iranian Foreign Affairs spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters in Tehran that “an understanding has been reached regarding the map of the transit route.”
He did not elaborate, but details that have previously emerged suggest the deal would reopen the strait with ships entering through a route close to Iran and exiting through a route close to Oman. Ships would transit without paying fees or tolls during an interim period.
The US has sought an acceptable deal on opening the strait before ending its blockade of Iranian ports.
Iran effectively closed the strait – through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s traded oil supplies passed before the war – after Israel and the U.S. attacked the country on 28 February.
Baghaei conceded the talks with Oman have gone slowly, “but we had planned, and still plan, to finalise the understanding in the form of a package: the map plus a joint statement.
Iran says it is working to finalise a joint statement with Oman on a plan to manage shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Fully reopening the waterway has been a key US demand, and President Donald Trump has again threatened Oman.
The 60-day negotiating period to find a peace deal between the US and Iran is soon expiring , with no word of an extension and both sides seemingly as far apart as they were at the start, AP report.
Meanwhile, Trump said the 60-day deadline on talks to end the war was irrelevant and said there was no timeline, Fox News reporter Trey Yingst said. Trump said the US has a back channel for talks with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Yingst added.
Iran will escalate tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and wider region if diplomacy with the US fails, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday, pointing to an Iranian policy shift relying on offence rather than defence.
Trump threatens to bomb Oman if it gets in way of Iran deal
US President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to bomb Oman if it “gets in the way” of a deal with Iran on the strait of Hormuz and called for Iran to surrender.
Referring to ongoing talks between Oman and Iran on control of the strait, while Washington is also pursuing its own talks, Trump told Fox News journalist Trey Yingst:
If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.
He added that Iran should “put up the white flag of surrender,” according to Yingst’s post on X on his interview with the president.
Israeli soldiers have stood guard as bulldozers demolished a Palestinian building in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Authorities cited the apparent lack of a building permit to justify the destruction in Qalandia, south of Ramallah.
Yemen risks return to ‘full-scale conflict’, warns UN rights chief
The UN rights chief voiced alarm Monday at the rising civilian toll of escalating hostilities in Yemen, urging restraint and an immediate de-escalation to avoid plunging the country back into a full-scale war.
“I urge all parties to halt immediately any actions that risk returning Yemen to full-scale conflict,” Volker Türk said in a statement, as renewed fighting between the Houthi rebels and the government undermined a 2022 truce.
Reuters has a quick snap that Saudi Aramco is offering crude oil outside of the strait of Hormuz to some Asian refiners.
US President Donald Trump reiterated on Monday that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon amid a lack of progress in diplomatic efforts to resolve the Middle East conflict.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said:
The number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon.
Kushner meeting with Netanyahu underway in Jerusalem, say Israeli media
US President Donald Trump’s envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner has begun his planned meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem today, Israeli media report.
Updates to follow.
Jared Kushner reportedly spent over two hours on Sunday at the meeting with Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya in Egypt, where they discussed disarmament, according to a regional official and a Hamas official.
Eight Muslim-majority countries have condemned Israel for rejecting Trump’s Gaza roadmap, saying it “fundamentally undermines the collective efforts undertaken to achieve a just and lasting peace.”
The joint statement – signed by Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan – was issued during Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner’s visit to the Middle East.
The meeting marks the second known meeting between Jared Kushner with representatives of Hamas.
Kushner, Trump’s envoy and son-in-law, previously met Hamas officials alongside US envoy Steve Witkoff in October 2025, helping clinch a deal that led to a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of remaining hostages seized by Hamas in the 7 October, 2023 attacks on Israel.
A diplomatic source said Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya was present at some of the meetings that mediators held with Kushner and Trump’s Board of Peace envoy for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, in Cairo on Sunday.
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected US President Donald Trump’s 15-point plan for Gaza, stating that no military pull-out will happen until Hamas is “genuinely” disarmed.
Trump’s Board of Peace in July proposed the 15-point plan, which mandated that Hamas disarm in exchange for providing a full Israeli military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and an eventual transition of power to an independent Palestinian National Committee.
Trump had said that the agreement would be implemented in stages, but Netanyahu said that he wanted a full disarmament first in order to implement the deal
On Gaza, he said:
Israel does not accept the 15-point document. The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed. And when I say the disarming of Hamas, it means heavy weaponry, lighter weaponry, all weaponry. And we are talking about genuine disarmament, not fictitious disarmament. Right now, we are talking with the Americans about this issue.
But Hamas said handing over its heavy weapons was contingent on Israel ending “all forms of aggression” and withdrawing its forces from Gaza.
Israel has continued to carry out strikes on Gaza since agreeing to an initial ceasefire in the territory last October.
You can read more of the background to this here.
Opening summary: Kushner reportedly meets Hamas as it calls for pressure on Israel
Welcome to our live coverage of the latest in the continuing conflicts in the Middle East.
Donald Trump’s envoys met with Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators in Cairo on Sunday, a diplomatic source said, aiming to advance the US president’s Gaza peace plan, even as Israel pressed on with airstrikes in the territory.
Hamas officials were present at some of the meetings that mediators held with Trump’s envoy and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Trump’s Board of Peace envoy for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, Reuters quoted the diplomat as saying.
In a statement later Hamas called on mediators and the US-created board overseeing the ceasefire to “compel” Israel to approve Trump’s latest roadmap for peace.
Kushner, Mladenov and former British prime minister Tony Blair were scheduled to meet on Monday with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Associated Press cited two people as saying. The Israeli prime minister has said Trump’s 15-point Gaza plan is “unacceptable” – a rare public show of defiance against close ally the US.
The Israeli military said on Sunday that its aircraft struck two Islamic Jihad and Hamas militants in Gaza’s Khan Younis and Nuseirat. At least five Palestinians were wounded in the strike that hit a tent encampment, Gaza medics said.
Meanwhile, the 60-day memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran aimed at ending their conflict expires on Monday 17 August, with their talks still stalled.
Shipping through the strait of Hormuz slowed over the weekend, data showed on Monday, after attacks on tankers. Five commodity vessels transited the vital energy route on Saturday, with none registered for Sunday, ship tracking data from Kpler showed, versus 31 in the previous weekend.
In other developments:
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Israel resumed its airstrikes on Gaza in the past few days after scaling back the attacks earlier this month. One of those wounded in the Khan Younis strike died from their wounds, medics at Nasser hospital said later. A separate airstrike, which the Israeli military said targeted another militant, hit an apartment in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, wounding several people, medics said.
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A senior Israeli official said on Sunday that Israel was concerned about Washington’s demand to end targeted assassinations of Hamas militants in Gaza as the group rebuilds its forces, Reuters reported. Trump’s peace plan calls for the immediate cessation of military operations in Gaza and foresees Hamas disarming as Israeli troops withdraw from the territory and Gaza is rebuilt.
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Several regional powers including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Sunday condemned Israel’s rejection of the peace road map, saying the country is obstructing peace efforts.
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The top US military commander in the Middle East visited the USS Lincoln in the Arabian Sea amid reports of mental health and supply issues onboard. Adm Brad Cooper praised the leadership of the long-deployed aircraft carrier.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/aug/17/trump-kushner-netanyahu-hamas-gaza-israel-blair-us-iran-hormuz-oil-latest-news-updates
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