The latest developments in the Middle East war:
French energy giant TotalEnergies said it had shut down a major refinery on the eastern Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia after it was damaged during the war.
The Saudi energy ministry had announced Thursday “multiple attacks” recently on its oil and gas sites, including the SATORP refinery, a joint venture owned by TotalEnergies and the Saudi state-owned Aramco group.
No details on production impacts, nor the type of attack, were disclosed.
Air raid alerts sounded across Israel, including in the commercial hub of Tel Aviv and the southern coastal city of Ashdod, after rocket fire from Lebanon.
There were no immediate reports of casualties, but Israeli media reported that air-defence systems had intercepted at least one incoming rocket.
Earlier Friday, Hezbollah said it had launched three waves of rocket and drone strikes against Israeli soldiers on both sides of the border as well as a town in northern Israel.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said in his latest written message that the Islamic republic did not want war with the United States and Israel but would protect its rights as a nation, state television reported.
“We will not renounce our legitimate rights under any circumstances, and in this respect, we consider the entire resistance front as a whole,” he added, in an apparent reference to Lebanon, where Israel is fighting with Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
Khamenei has still not been seen in public since being appointed to succeed his father, late supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the initial wave of US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.
US President Donald Trump accused Iran of doing a “very poor job” of allowing oil through the Strait of Hormuz, and of breaching the terms of their fragile two-week ceasefire agreement.
“Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “That is not the agreement we have!”
Trump also warned Iran against imposing a toll for ships passing through the key strait.
“There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait -- They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!” he said on Truth Social.
In a second message, Trump added: “Very quickly, you’ll see Oil start flowing, with or without the help of Iran.”
Israel’s military warned residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs, long a Hezbollah stronghold, of imminent strikes and called for them to evacuate.
The World Health Organization urged Israel to cancel the evacuation order, saying the district it intends to target is home to two hospitals.
The announcement came a day after Israel carried out its largest wave of strikes since the start of its war with Hezbollah on March 2, killing more than 300 people and wounding over 1,000, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Trump called “for a practical plan” to get shipping moving again through the Strait of Hormuz following the US-Iranian ceasefire, the UK leader’s office said.
The two leaders “agreed that now there is a ceasefire in place and agreement to open the Strait, we are at the next stage of finding a resolution”, according to Downing Street.
“The leaders discussed the need for a practical plan to get shipping moving again as quickly as possible,” and agreed to speak again.
Israel and Lebanon will hold negotiations next week in Washington after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered direct talks, a US official said Thursday.
The negotiations will come soon after the United States and Iran are due to open talks in Pakistan.
Israel has said the Lebanon invasion, in which it is targeting Hezbollah, is not affected by the ceasefire between the United States and Iran.
But a Hezbollah lawmaker reiterated his group’s rejection of any direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel.
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