By Christine Maguire, Fiona Kelliher and Umut Uras
- Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warns of strikes against US oil and gas companies in the Middle East following a US threat to “destroy” Iranian tankers.
- Iran’s top security official, Mohsen Rezaei, says Tehran will declare a restricted zone near the Strait of Hormuz and announce a new shipping route agreed on with Oman “in the coming days”.
Hamas condemns killing of Palestinian man by Israeli settlers
Mahmoud Mardawi, a Hamas official, says “the continuing murders” by Israeli settlers and troops “are an extension of the genocidal war waged by Netanyahu’s criminal government in the Gaza Strip”.
In a statement on the Telegram channel, Mardawi said the world “has failed to put an end to the occupation’s fascism and brutality”.
Mardawi mourned the killing of Omar Muhammad Tubasi, 20, who was killed by settler gunfire during an attack – under the protection of the Israeli army – in the town of Hajja east of Qalqilya.
The Palestinian Health Ministry announced the death of Tubasi, who was shot in the head during an assault on the town last night, according to Wafa news agency.
UAE building alternative routes for energy exports after war on Iran
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been expanding port capacity along its eastern coast as well as pipelines, railways, and trade routes for alternative corridors for energy exports, an official says.
UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash said while relations with Iran can be restored, rebuilding trust with its neighbours after months of attacks on Gulf states could take decades.
“A functional relationship with Iran can and must be restored, but rebuilding trust is another matter,” Gargash told a forum in Abu Dhabi.
The UAE suspended all economic transactions with the Islamic Republic in August. Gargash also criticised Gulf states for their response to Iranian attacks, saying their collective action fell short.
“For many years we broadly agreed on the nature of the challenge posed by Iran. The problem was, therefore, not a lack of understanding. Where we fell short in confronting this historic challenge was translating this shared understanding into sufficiently united and strategic response.”
Gaza, West Bank escalation makes 2-state solution ‘impossible’
A top official in the US-backed “Board of Peace” says the failure to move forward in war-battered Gaza paired with rising violence in the occupied West Bank are making a two-state solution unviable.
Nickolay Mladenov, tasked by President Trump with implementing an October 2025 ceasefire plan, spoke at the Hili Forum in Abu Dhabi.
“I would say that if Gaza continues the way it is now, or does not move into implementing … the plan that we have … the two-state solution will become practically impossible,” he said.
“Because, with everything that is happening in the West Bank, and with more than 50 percent of Gaza now under the control of the Israeli army and less than 50 percent under the control of Hamas, there is no credible pathway forward to a political resolution of the conflict.”
After years of Israel’s genocidal war on the Strip, “the only way that we can build back” is if “we have transitional governance, if we have decommissioning of weapons, if we have withdrawal in Gaza”, said Mladenov.
