The future of the Iran War remained uncertain on Friday, the war’s 133rd day, near the end of a week in which the U.S. and Iran exchanged strikes, the U.S. seemingly withdrew from the memorandum of understanding to end the conflict, a series of unclaimed strikes hit Iran, and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz fell significantly.
The series of unclaimed airstrikes hit Iran Thursday as Tehran prepared to bury its assassinated, former supreme leader and after the U.S. said it had finished its own attacks. The strikes have given rise to speculation about which country is responsible.
The secretary for Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, said on Friday that “any attack on infrastructure will be retaliated against,” naming Israel as bearing some responsibility for reported American attacks on bridges and energy infrastructure.
The UK Maritime Organization announced on Friday that the security threat in the Strait of Hormuz remains at its highest level. Traffic through the waterway was reported to have plunged significantly since the U.S. launched strikes on Iran this Tuesday. That was especially true in the case of the U.S.-coordinated waterway near the Omani coastline. Ship tracker Lloyd’s List reported that their data shows that “no vessels above 10,000 dwt have transited the so-called Southern Highway with their AIS switched on since July 7, although at least two ships are believed to have crossed dark.”
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Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baquaei accused NATO of backing the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, writing on X that NATO Secretary General “Mark Rutte’s repeated admissions of Europe’s willful complicity in the US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran only confirms, once again, that they were not impartial in this brutal unlawful aggression,” adding that “it exposes the servile mindset of a fawning courtier.” The statement came after Rutte said Wednesday that Trump’s most recent strikes on Iran were “absolutely necessary.”
The Jerusalem Post reported Friday on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “public campaign in the U.S. this week against President Donald Trump’s apparent willingness to sell the state-of-the-art F-35 fighter to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey.” The Jerusalem Post labeled Turkey as the country “now furiously jockeying to replace Iran as the region’s dominant power.”
Israel meanwhile continued its occupation and bombing of southern Lebanon, with 4,321 people reported killed by Israeli strikes since March 2. Iran has tied a ceasefire in Lebanon and end to Israel’s occupation to any broader deal to end the Iran War.
