The president has again vowed to bomb Iran’s power plants and oil facilities unless a deal is reached
Welcome to RT’s live coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran and the wider turmoil across the Middle East, which continues to be affected by missile and drone strikes from both sides.
US President Donald Trump has once again threatened strikes on Iran’s power plants and oil infrastructure unless his demands are met. In his first address to the nation since the US and Israel began their war on Iran, delivered on Wednesday, Trump said the US was “very close” to achieving its military goals. “We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” he added.
As the war entered its 33rd day, new missile strikes were reported in Iran, Israel, and the Gulf states, including Kuwait, where a US naval base was reportedly targeted.
Meanwhile, Trump has claimed that Iran’s president wanted a ceasefire, which Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has refuted. “No ceasefire proposal has been made by Iran. The five-point plan allegedly proposed by Iran is media speculation,” Araghchi said, as cited by IRIB. The war will continue until the aggressor is punished and full compensation is paid to Iran, he added.
Recent polling shows Trump’s approval rating slipping below 40%, with disapproval climbing above the mid-50s as voters sour on both the war and its economic fallout.
Support for the Iran campaign itself is deeply underwater, with the majority opposing the offensive and independents turning sharply against it.
Here are the latest developments:
• Trump urged countries that rely on oil from the Middle East to buy it from the US instead or to unblock the Strait of Hormuz by force.
• Trump claimed that regime change was never a war goal, but argued that it had effectively occurred after the US killed several top Iranian officials, including longtime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and security chief Ali Larijani.
• In an open letter to the American people, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian described the strikes on US bases in the region as “a measured response grounded in legitimate self-defense,” and argued that the US had entered the war as “a proxy for Israel.”
• At least 1,318 people have been killed and 3,935 injured in the Israeli invasion and attacks on Lebanon since March 2, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Follow our live coverage below for continuous updates. You can also read our previous updates here.
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