Senator Claims Iran was “Stacking” Missiles and Drones to Bomb Europe
John Kennedy forgets to mention Iran’s ballistic missiles can’t reach London or Paris
By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | July 2, 2026
Senator John Kennedy, the Democrat turned Republican from Louisiana, came up with a whopper during an interview with a comedian slash podcaster. It is a take on Netanyahu’s perennial claim Iran is five minutes away from having nuclear weapons that maniacal mullahs will use to bomb New York, London, Berlin, Brussels, in addition to all Arabs and Muslims in West Asia.
Kennedy told Theodor Capitani von Kurnatowski III, aka Theo Von, US intelligence informed him Iran is “stacking ballistic missiles and killer drones like never before” and will rain them down on London, Paris, and Germany. The culprit here is Iran’s Khorramshahr medium-range ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers, said to be derived from the North Korean Musudan (BM-25) missile. London is over 5,000 kilometers from Iran, while Paris is over 4,000 kilometers, and Berlin 3,000 kilometers.
Trump to the rescue, according to Kennedy. The president faced a “nightmare decision: Let them arm up until they could rain fire on our allies and threaten the homeland… or strike first and save the world? He chose to bomb their nuclear sites and stop the madness.”
I thought the illegal sneak attack on Iran, including the assassination the Supreme Leader of Iran, the 86-year old Ali Khamenei, eliminated Iran’s supposed nuclear threat, or that’s what Trump told us, ad nauseam. Iran has never possessed nuclear weapons and remains a non-nuclear-weapon state under international treaties, specifically the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). US intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran is not currently building a nuclear weapon.
Trump’s former (now persona non grata) Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, told a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in March Operation Midnight Hammer had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment capability. No mention on the obliteration of the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, Iran, murdering 156 civilians, 120 of them school girls. That collateral damage is 1,200 kilometers from the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant.
Anyway, anything Mr. Kennedy says should be taken with a boulder of salt and a fistful of antacid. He has benefited from $113,680 donated by the Israel lobby. He co-sponsored the Taylor Force Act (legislation prohibits American funds from being given to Palestinian entities), the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (making “economic speech” illegal), the Combating BDS Act of 2017 (making Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions illegal), and the United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act (providing and additional $3.3 billion to Israel for “self-defense,” that is to say abducting, torturing, raping, and murdering thousands of Palestinians).
Does the Pentagon even know who its boat strikes are killing?
By Adam Isacson | Responsible Statecraft | July 1, 2026
The numbers are stomach-turning. In less than 10 months, U.S. forces acting on orders from the Trump administration have killed 215 people in 63 aerial attacks on small boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific.
Since the first attack on September 2, the Trump administration has told us that they are killing drug traffickers. But drug trafficking, especially being a low-level courier, is not a crime punishable by the death penalty, and, even if it were, the U.S. legal system assumes innocence and guarantees a day in court. Skipping that step makes this murder under U.S. law: the equivalent of a cop shooting a fleeing suspect in the back.
The administration is attempting to get around this by claiming that every one of the dead is a “narco-terrorist,” a member or “affiliate” of a profit-seeking criminal group recently added, with no outside review, to a secret Defense Department list of “Designated Terror Organizations,” or DTOs. Because the United States is in a “non-international armed conflict” with the DTOs, a secret Justice Department memo argues, our military is permitted to kill them on sight, even with no self-defense justification.
Yet the administration has still not presented any evidence that a bombed vessel was even carrying drugs, much less that its deceased crew was affiliated with a criminal or “designated terrorist” organization.
What we know so far indicates that the U.S. military is being used to assassinate unknown individuals based on alarmingly flimsy evidence. And the targeting criteria are quite loose.
On the rare occasions when crew members have been recovered, “Military briefers have admitted to members of Congress that they cannot satisfy the evidentiary burden necessary to hold or prosecute survivors of the boat strikes,” reported the Intercept’s Nick Turse, who has covered the boat strikes extensively. Three survivors have been recovered alive; all have been let go without charges.
Questioning Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a hearing earlier this month, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) revealed that those carrying out boat-strike targeting are using three criteria that Kaine was not authorized to disclose publicly. He could disclose, however, that “evidence of narcotics on the boat” was remarkably not one of the three criteria.
In fact, the U.S. military usually doesn’t even know the identities of the people on the boats. The Washington Post reported that the targeting instructions in the boat-strike campaign’s August 5 Defense Department Execute Order (EXORD) “do not require positive identification of any individual but rather ‘reasonable certainty’ that adult males are members of, or affiliated with,” a DTO.
A former U.S. official who had read the EXORD told the Post, “The campaign may be killing individuals who in some cases have a tenuous link to any organized drug-running operation.” That official added, “When you define ‘DTO’ and ‘affiliate’ so loosely and you’re attacking boats, (the guidelines are) basically meaningless.”
The term “affiliate,” which the Trump administration is using to end lives on the open ocean, is especially squishy. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told the New Republic’s Greg Sargent that, in a briefing with Pentagon officials, “They did not in any way, shape, manner, or form explain what the ceiling and floor are for ‘affiliated.’” People who received a classified briefing interviewed by the Intercept “said that they were under the impression that little more than a conversation with a DTO member might confer ‘affiliate’ status.”
Vague claims of “affiliation” or behavioral patterns introduce confirmation bias and guesswork into a lethal process. This vastly increases the probability that the boat strikes are killing people who have committed no crime at all.
“Some people who are familiar with boat movements” along the Caribbean coast of Colombia and Venezuela told the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism that “it is common for the same boats that carry drugs on the outward journey to bring passengers back. The capitanes, as the boat operators are known, take whatever work they can get.”
The Intercept raised the possibility, acknowledged by a senior military officer, that some of those killed in the first strike on September 2 may have been migrants or human trafficking victims. That boat had 11 people aboard, a strangely large number for a short-hop drug delivery of less than 100 miles between Venezuela and Trinidad.
Evidence points to some of those killed in boat strikes being fishermen plying their trade. While residents of poor coastal fishing communities may “take occasional trafficking jobs to get by,” which blurs their identities, the likelihood of dying in a strike is scaring people away from getting in boats simply to fish, the New York Times reported from coastal Colombia and Ecuador. “Residents described entire communities abandoning fishing because the small ‘lanchas,’ or speedboats, used by traffickers and fishers are often indistinguishable.”
In Santa Marta, Colombia, the family of fisherman Alejandro Carranza, killed in a September 15 strike, insists that he was not involved in the drug trade. “If he was some kind of narcoterrorist,” the mother of three of Mr. Carranza’s children asked New York Times reporters, “then why are we living in misery instead of a mansion?”
Two of those killed in an October 14, 2025 strike were Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, both from the village of Las Cuevas, Trinidad. Their families are suing the United States for damages under the Death on the High Seas Act and the Alien Tort Statute. The complaint in Burnley v. United States argues that both men had been in Venezuela for months working on farms and, in their final communications, told their families that they had obtained passage by boat home to Trinidad.
In Sucre, Venezuela, where 90% of the population lacks basic food security, some of the dead were fishermen or taxi drivers who agreed to crew a boat that shipped drugs to Trinidad in exchange for a few hundred dollars. Some, like a “beloved” indoor soccer player, may simply have been aboard for the ride.
To all the concerns about the quality and reliability of intelligence used to target people for lethal boat strikes, we must add recent cases elsewhere pointing to U.S. reliance on faulty intelligence, or even just hunches. In March 2025, the Department of Homeland Security rendered 252 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s feared Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison, alleging that they were all “terrorist” group members, an assertion that proved shockingly wrong, according to subsequent investigations. The New York Times revealed that an early March raid on an alleged DTO encampment in northern Ecuador, planned jointly by U.S. and Ecuadorian forces, in fact targeted a dairy farm. A March bombing in Iran that killed students at a school for girls is a well-known recent example elsewhere.
If even a few of the boat-strike victims are just fishermen, passengers, or low-level couriers with no relationship to big criminal syndicates, the Trump administration’s justification for the strikes simply cannot be sustained. It would confirm that this justification rests on a very rickety foundation of questionable intelligence, which should expose many in the chain of command to national and international criminal or civil liability.
The boat strikes need to stop immediately, and its architects and willing implementers must be investigated and held accountable at the earliest opportunity.
Adam Isacson has worked on defense, security, and peacebuilding in Latin America since 1994. He now directs WOLA’s Defense Oversight program, which monitors U.S. cooperation with Latin America’s security forces, as well as other security trends.
The Right-Wing Zionist Wave Sweeping Latin America
José Niño Unfiltered | June 30, 2026
Abelardo de la Espriella’s razor-thin victory over leftist Iván Cepeda on June 21, 2026 represented the most recent rightward shift in Latin America’s politics. The defense attorney from Barranquilla captured 49.66 percent of the vote against Cepeda’s 48.7 percent—a margin of roughly 250,000 votes in what Al Jazeera called one of Colombia’s closest elections. Within hours, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar called to congratulate him, and de la Espriella posted his response publicly.
“Colombia will restore and strengthen its relationship with the State of Israel like never before. Israel can count on Colombia as a loyal friend and steadfast ally,” de la Espriella declared. Sa’ar called him “a true friend of the Jewish people and the State of Israel,” adding that he looked forward to “revitalizing relations between Israel and Colombia and taking them to their highest level ever” and that he had already invited the incoming president to visit Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered his own congratulations, saying he looked forward to “working with you to strengthen the bond between Israel and Colombia.” De la Espriella has pledged to reverse Petro’s 2024 decision to cut ties with Israel and has promised to relocate the Colombian embassy to Jerusalem.
No figure looms larger in this transformation of Latin American politics than Argentine President Javier Milei. The libertarian economist who took office in December 2023 has positioned himself as Israel’s most devoted ally anywhere on earth.
“I am sincerely proud to be the most Zionist president in the world,” Milei declared at Yeshiva University in March 2026. At the Western Wall in June 2025, he proclaimed that “My support for Israel comes from the heart, because I believe this is a just cause—the cause of the West. I will always stand by your side.”
Milei personally studies Torah with Rabbi Shimon Axel Wahnish from the Moroccan Jewish community in Argentina and has said he intends to convert to Judaism after leaving office. In June 2025, he became the first non-Jewish head of state to receive Israel’s Genesis Prize, known as the “Jewish Nobel,” awarded for his “unequivocal support” of Israel.
He directed his entire $1 million prize toward creating the American Friends of Isaac Accords, the vehicle through which Argentina and Israel formally signed the Isaac Accords on April 19, 2026 in Jerusalem. The framework explicitly mirrors the Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states, but targets the Western Hemisphere instead.
The goals are clear. Partner countries should move their embassies to Jerusalem, designate Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations, shift anti-Israel voting patterns at the United Nations, and create frameworks for trade in technology, agriculture, water, health, and cybersecurity.
At least one nation had embraced the embassy mandate well ahead of the Accords. Paraguay’s Santiago Peña reopened his country’s embassy in Jerusalem on December 12, 2024, making Paraguay the sixth country in the world—after the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, and Papua New Guinea—and the first since the October 7 attacks to establish diplomatic presence in the contested city.
“Mr. prime minister, on behalf of all the Paraguayan people, we were with you, we are with you, we will stay with the people of Israel forever,” Peña declared at the ceremony with Netanyahu present. He called the move “a tipping point in our own history” and “a moral obligation that the Paraguayan people have asked us to fulfill.”
Paraguay was not alone in courting Tel Aviv. Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, the banana fortune heir who won re-election in 2025, traveled to Jerusalem in May of that year for meetings with Netanyahu, at which Noboa declared that “Israel and Ecuador have the same enemies” and pledged to fight poverty, terrorism, and suffering “until the end.” Israeli diplomatic sources confirmed to Jewish Insider that both Ecuador and Paraguay are expected to formally join the Isaac Accords framework.
Nowhere did the shift register more dramatically than in Chile. José Antonio Kast’s victory in Chile’s December 2025 election delivered perhaps the most symbolically significant prize. Kast overturned four years of Gabriel Boric’s more pro-Palestinian governance. After Iran’s 2024 drone attack on Israel, Kast had warned that “Iran launches a drone and missile attack on Israel. They could be the same drones that it gifted to Bolivia to monitor our borders. Chile has a serious national security problem.”
In May 2026, Kast met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and pledged to return Chile’s ambassador to Israel, ending a lengthy vacancy by naming Gabriel Zaliasnik as ambassador. He promised expanded cooperation in agriculture, health, artificial intelligence, technology, and security. Notably, Kast achieved this while governing a country home to the largest Palestinian diaspora outside the Arab world, estimated at 500,000 people.
The same paradox surfaced again, more sharply still, in Central America. Nasry “Tito” Asfura won Honduras’s late 2025 election with Trump’s endorsement, becoming president on January 27, 2026. Despite his Palestinian Christian ancestry, the conservative former mayor of Tegucigalpa made Israel one of his first international destinations after being elected, traveling there alongside the United States.
“It is a great honor for me to be in Israel again and to strengthen the ties which have been in existence over the last 77 years,” Asfura stated in Jerusalem. “I hope we are entering a new era where we can improve our relations, relations of brotherhood, and prosperity, of investment.” Israeli Foreign Minister Sa’ar told the Jerusalem Post Magazine that Asfura “has a clear worldview that is pro-Western, pro-American, and pro-Israeli,” and characterized the broader regional shift as a “Blue Wave” of right-wing governments aligning with the United States and Israel.
Bolivia’s Rodrigo Paz ended nearly 20 years of socialist MAS party rule by winning the October 2025 election. Within weeks, he restored diplomatic relations with Israel—ties the prior government had severed in 2023. Netanyahu congratulated Paz personally, and the two agreed to “promote cooperation in various fields, with an emphasis on security, and to restore the vibrant tourism of many Israeli travelers to Bolivia’s natural landscapes and rich cultures.”
Not every convert to the cause fits the expected profile. Nayib Bukele represents the most curious figure in this constellation. The Salvadoran president, who has Palestinian ancestry on his father’s side, has become an ardent Israel supporter despite his Palestinian Christian heritage. After October 7, 2023, Bukele posted that “As a Salvadoran with Palestinian ancestry, I’m sure the best thing that could happen to the Palestinian people is for Hamas to completely disappear. Those savage beasts do not represent the Palestinians.” El Salvador voted against the UN General Assembly resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza in December 2023.
To the south, another government moved along the same axis. José Raúl Mulino, Panama’s security-focused former defense minister, won the 2024 elections and tilted the country firmly toward Washington and Jerusalem. In May 2026, Israeli President Herzog made the first official visit by an Israeli head of state to Panama. Mulino issued a joint declaration pledging expanded cooperation in security, commerce, technology, agriculture, and water management. Panama remains the only Latin American country that has never recognized a Palestinian state.
The October 2026 Brazilian presidential election represents the next battleground. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who compared Israel’s actions to the Holocaust and withdrew Brazil’s ambassador in 2024, faces Senator Flávio Bolsonaro in what polls show as a statistical tie—the BTG/Nexus survey of late March 2026 showed them tied at 46 percent each in a simulated runoff, with the race narrowing from a 12-point Lula lead in December 2025. The first round is scheduled for October 4, 2026, with a runoff on October 25 if no candidate clears 50 percent.
Flávio Bolsonaro, whose father Jair Bolsonaro was imprisoned for the January 8, 2023 coup attempt and barred from office, has positioned himself as the conservative consolidation candidate. A Bolsonaro victory would add the hemisphere’s largest country to the pro-Israel bloc. The Brazil-Israel Parliamentary Caucus signed the Isaac Accords “Declaration of Shared Principles” in April 2026, demonstrating legislative support even while Lula governs.
Behind each of these realignments lay forces larger than any single election. Trump’s return to the presidency in 2025 directly tied American financial and political backing to right-wing candidates. The region’s growing evangelical Christian population, with its theologically driven support for Israel, has provided an important voting base. As the Jerusalem Post observed, Israeli officials have declared 2026 “the year of Latin America.” With more than a dozen countries having restored or strengthened ties with Israel, the Isaac Accords and the broader rightward shift have fundamentally redrawn the hemisphere’s diplomatic map with direct implications for Israel’s global standing, American regional strategy, and the future of Palestinian diplomacy in the Western Hemisphere.
The latest boondoggles in Eurasia—from the Russo-Ukrainian war to the Iran war—have forced the Judeo-American project to seek softer targets. Latin America, with its fractured polities, corrupt elites, and vast resources, is the obvious prize. The so-called right-wing resurgence is not a recovery of national pride but rather a vassalage dressed in conservative robes. Each new president who rushes to Tel Aviv is a tool, not a leader. Pace some naive nationalist minds in the West, Zionism is not nationalist in nature, but rather an expansionist movement with global ambitions. The illusion that it respects sovereignty must be shattered by serious political movements. A coordinated multi-national resistance is the only force that can stop this hemispheric takeover and other Jewish supremacist endeavors from consolidating across the globe.
Why Iran believes Israel will attack again before October
By Trita Parsi | July 1, 2026
Will Israel restart the war with Iran before the October elections? This is the consensus view emerging within Iran’s internal national security debate over the past week.
Several factors are driving Tehran to this conclusion. Beyond its deep—and not entirely unwarranted—suspicion of President Donald Trump’s intentions, heightened by Vice President JD Vance’s recent remark that Trump wants to use the MOU to replenish global oil reserves and then “see where the hand is,” two developments stand out: the recent Israeli-Lebanese agreement and its impact on Hezbollah’s military posture over the coming months.
From Tehran’s perspective, the agreement hands Israel a significant advantage in any renewed war with Iran—one it lacked in February. By allowing Israeli forces to remain in parts of southern Lebanon, the deal appears to contravene the MOU while fundamentally reshaping the military balance. Israel’s continued presence in these strategic positions would make it far more difficult for Hezbollah to mount the kind of offensive operations that proved critical during the previous round of fighting.
That matters because, in February and March, the Iranians say they used only about 40 percent of their offensive capabilities against Israel, because Hezbollah carried much of the remaining burden. At the time, pundits in the West were debating why Tehran hit the UAE harder than it did Israel.
Part of it was because of Israel’s much higher pain tolerance compared to the GCC states. Tehran was aiming to reach the most accessible pain threshold to pressure the US to end the war. But part of it was the critical role Hezbollah played in the war, contrary to much of the press coverage at the time. It played a critical role in stretching Israel’s defenses, complicating its targeting decisions, and forcing it to divide resources across multiple fronts.
That role, however, was poorly understood because Israel imposed near-total military censorship during the war—far stricter than the censorship regime in June 2025—which sharply limited public visibility into Hezbollah’s operations and their impact. As a result, the degree to which Hezbollah shaped the course of the war has been significantly underestimated.
Unlike the MOU, the current Israeli-Lebanese agreement does not require Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory until Hezbollah has been disarmed. Since that outcome is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future, Israel is poised to retain its positions inside Lebanon, enabling it to renew the war with Iran without facing the same pressure from its northern front that constrained it during the previous conflict.
Netanyahu’s motivations are clear. Beyond his long-standing desire to use American force to subjugate Iran to Israeli domination and achieve a regional balance favourable to Israel, he now also has stark political and personal reasons to restart the war.
The MOU has come at a steep political cost for Netanyahu. His prospects for reelection in October are weaker than they have been in months. Once seen as the Israeli leader uniquely capable of delivering President Trump, he now confronts the prospect that both the war and the ensuing diplomacy will leave Israel in a strategically weaker position—undermining the very case he has made for his leadership.
And of course, if he loses the elections, he will likely spend the next few years in jail, as he will lose his immunity as Prime Minister and face trial over corruption charges.
Whether the Trump administration is coordinating with Israel on such a strategy remains unclear to Tehran. But suspicions surrounding Secretary of State Marco Rubio run particularly deep, given his role in brokering the Israeli-Lebanese agreement, his support for the war, and his perceived opposition to the MOU.
From Tehran’s perspective, there are three plausible scenarios. The first is that the White House is aware of Israel’s plans and helped broker the Lebanese agreement in part to facilitate them. The second is that Washington is unaware of Netanyahu’s intentions but would nonetheless come to Israel’s defense—and perhaps even join the offensive—once Netanyahu resumes the war. The third is that the administration is caught by surprise, chooses not to restrain Israel, but also refrains from direct military involvement in the conflict.
Tehran does not believe Israel’s advantage in Lebanon will prove decisive. Iranian officials remain confident they can impose severe costs on Israel and deny it its broader strategic objectives. But a renewed war could still achieve Netanyahu’s most immediate aim: killing the MOU. Given his mounting political and legal pressures, Netanyahu may be desperate enough to be willing to challenge Trump directly to ensure precisely that outcome.
The question is, once again, not how Trump will react, but if Trump will prevent Netanyahu from deliberately shaping and limiting Trump’s options. This is the test Trump has repeatedly failed.
Vessel runs aground after deviating From Iran-designated Hormuz route
Al Mayadeen | July 1, 2026
A cargo vessel ran aground in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday while traveling a route not approved by Iran’s naval authorities, Iran’s IRIB reports.
The ship was identified as a foreign container ship, but the report didn’t provide any further details on the matter.
IRIB’s report seems to underscore Iran’s geographical control over the strategic waterway, through which a fifth of all oil and gas passes.
According to HormuzTracker, the Strait of Hormuz remains severely disrupted, showing little to no passage through the key waterway.
This confirms a total halt in detected commercial navigation activity, with no crude oil tankers, LNG carriers, bulk carriers, or container ships recorded moving through the Strait.
Transit through the Strait fell sharply following waves of US aggression against Iran and subsequent hostile rhetoric from Washington. Trackers showed that between June 24 and June 28, vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz fell from a high of 74 to 22.
Sanctions Lifted: Iran Selling Oil 20% More Expensive — Ghalibaf
Sputnik – 01.07.2026
Iranian Parliament Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has confirmed that oil exports are flowing again following the lifting of sanctions, with Tehran selling crude at prices 20% higher than before.
“Since the day we lifted the blockade, we have exported more than 40 million barrels of oil,” Ghalibaf said in a television interview, dismissing earlier skepticism about the impact of sanctions relief.
The lifting of sanctions was a key component of the US-Iran memorandum of understanding signed in June, which also included the release of frozen assets and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Ghalibaf also pushed back against claims by US President Donald Trump that the released funds could only be used to purchase American agricultural products.
“The Central Bank can purchase any goods it needs, at any price and in any currency worldwide,” Ghalibaf stated, asserting Iran’s full control over the use of its assets.
The Iranian parliament speaker said Tehran intends to “increase the prosperity of the Strait day by day,” with plans to boost maritime traffic and lower insurance fees for vessels transiting the waterway.
“We must show the world that security here is increasing day by day,” he added, suggesting that the strait’s reopening would be accompanied by a broader effort to restore confidence in the key global shipping route.
Overnight into June 18, Iran and the United States remotely signed a memorandum that provides for an end to the military conflict that began on February 28. The document also sets timelines for the US to lift its naval blockade of Iranian ports and for Iran to restore shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Col Douglas Macgregor: Trump Sabotaging his own Iran Deal
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – June 30, 2026
Board of Peace says first ‘tactical vehicles’ arrive at multinational force base in Gaza

Displaced Palestinian families inside an overcrowded makeshift tent camp alongside Gaza City, Gaza, Palestine on June 22, 2026. [Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | June 30, 2026
The Board of Peace announced on Tuesday the arrival of the first “tactical vehicles” at the base of the International Security Force (ISF) in the Gaza Strip, as logistical preparations continue for the deployment of a multinational force in the enclave, Anadolu reports.
“Tactical vehicles arrive at Logistics Support Area: Endurance,” it said on the US social media company X.
The announcement was accompanied by photographs documenting the arrival of the vehicles.
A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Tuesday for talks with Egyptian officials and mediators on implementing the Gaza ceasefire agreement.
The Board of Peace was established in January on the initiative of US President Donald Trump as part of efforts to reach a peaceful settlement in Gaza.
The first Board of Peace meeting on Gaza was held on Feb. 19 at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington under Trump’s leadership.
The initiative formed part of phase two of Trump’s 20-point plan aimed at ending the war in Gaza, backed by a UN Security Council Resolution from last November.
The first phase of the ceasefire agreement included a truce and prisoner exchange between Israel and Palestinian factions, a permanent ceasefire, as well as a gradual Israeli withdrawal from the enclave. Israel, however, has continued to violate the agreement on a near-daily basis.
Under the second phase, Israel is expected to carry out further withdrawals from the territory, while an international stabilization force would assume security responsibilities, including facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials.
With US support, Israel launched a genocidal war in Gaza in October 2023, killing more than 73,000 Palestinians and injuring over 173,000 others, most of them women and children, according to Palestinian figures.
Iran FM vows legal action against US over torpedo attack on defenseless Dena frigate
Press TV – June 30, 2026
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Tehran will pursue the US torpedo attack on the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena through all legal and political channels.
Speaking after visiting an exhibition of belongings of the martyrs of the Dena, Araghchi condemned the attack as a clear war crime, saying the vessel was hundreds of kilometers away from the war zone, unarmed, and on a routine training and ceremonial mission when it was struck without warning by a US submarine.
“What happened is undoubtedly a war crime that will be recorded in history,” Araghchi said. “This action is not a naval victory, it only shows the enemy’s weakness.”
The foreign minister added that the attack, which killed 104 sailors, was an act of cowardice against a defenseless target far from the battlefield.
Araghchi said the Foreign Ministry’s legal department, in coordination with the Navy, is collecting all documents related to the incident for legal follow-up.
“We will never forget or let go of the pure blood of these martyrs,” he said.
Araghchi said the sacrifice of the Dena’s crew, along with that of other martyrs including the children of Minab, helped Iran achieve victory in the war.
“I never believe that the blood of these dear ones was wasted,” he said. “Rather, it watered the strong tree of the Islamic Republic and led to our final victory against enemies who entered the field with all their might but achieved none of their goals.”
The attack occurred on March 4, as the Dena was returning home after participating in the MILAN 2026 multinational naval exercise hosted by India.
The frigate was approximately 19 nautical miles off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka, when it was struck by a Mark 48 torpedo fired from the US Navy’s Los Angeles-class submarine USS Charlotte.
The vessel was unarmed at the time, with 136 crew members on board, 104 of whom were martyred and 32 injured.
Iran has previously warned that the US would “bitterly regret” the attack.
Tehran has described the sinking as a gross violation of international humanitarian law and the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
Gaza Reconstruction Plan Sent by US to ‘Israel’ Leaves Out Hamas Disarmament: Report
Al-Manar | June 30, 2026
The United States has reportedly delivered a document to ‘Israel’ outlining a framework to move forward with the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip even if Hamas does not surrender its weapons, according to Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation.
The report said Washington is seeking written approval from ‘Israel’ for the proposal, which reportedly reflects US pressure to advance President Donald Trump’s post-war Gaza plan while avoiding a renewed war in the enclave.
Neither the United States nor ‘Israel’ had officially commented on the reported document as of Tuesday.
According to the report, the framework would require ‘Israel’ to allow major infrastructure projects across the Gaza Strip, including work on water, electricity, and other essential services in areas that have yet to be specified.
The proposal also reportedly calls for relocating residents from areas “controlled by Hamas” to zones administered by the Peace Council by the end of 2026.
It further includes establishing the headquarters of a technocratic government, permitting the construction of bases for an international stabilization force, and rebuilding the European Hospital. The plan would also allow the entry of construction materials and medical equipment, along with the creation of an access corridor to the hospital through Hamas-controlled areas.
According to the reported document, ‘Israel’ would transfer Palestinian Authority tax revenues related to Gaza to the Peace Council while gradually recognizing the technocratic government as the governing authority in the territory.
The proposal would also grant the technocratic administration freedom of movement inside and outside the Gaza Strip for official purposes, allow digital payments, expand fuel distribution, and introduce fourth-generation (4G) mobile services, which are currently unavailable in Gaza.
The report said these measures are intended to “reduce Hamas’ ability to collect taxes and administrative fees.”
The framework also includes conditional amnesty for individuals who “surrender their weapons and commit to maintaining peace.”
The reported proposal envisions security being overseen by an international stabilization force supported by an unarmed Palestinian civil guard.
At the same time, it would preserve “Israeli right to take what it considers necessary security measures if Hamas does not comply with calls to disarm.”
According to the broadcaster, the overall message of the document suggests Washington no longer sees resuming the war in Gaza as a preferred option and instead wants to accelerate efforts to establish an alternative governing authority, even if Hamas refuses to relinquish its weapons.
US base in Jordan served as outpost for attacks on Iran
Al Mayadeen | June 30, 2026
A United States military base in Jordan served as a regional outpost for US attacks on Iran during the final stages of the recent US-Israeli war on Iran, a source told RIA Novosti on Monday.
According to the source, the Muwaffaq Salti Airbase in Jordan played a central role during the closing phase of the war on Iran.
“During the final stages of the so-called 60-day war, it was Muwaffaq Salti [base] that served as a kind of regional outpost for American operations against Iran,” the source said.
The source added that the United States relied on the Jordanian facility because it had limited regional alternatives for conducting its operations.
“After all, the US’s closest allies in the Persian Gulf – Saudi Arabia and the UAE – did not allow the Americans to use their airspace,” the source claimed.
Iran says use of Jordanian bases clear and undeniable
Amidst the war in March, Iran’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, has flatly rejected the “baseless and misleading accusations” in a letter submitted by Jordan’s UN mission, which denied that Amman had placed its territory at the disposal of the United States to launch attacks against the Islamic Republic.
In a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the President of the Security Council, Iravani affirmed that attacks on Iran had been carried out repeatedly from Jordanian territory and airspace, stating that this was “clear and undeniable” and that it entails direct international responsibility for Amman.
Iravani detailed that fighter jets stationed at Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, including F-15, F-16, and F-35 aircraft, launched strikes on Iran’s southern provinces after being refuelled mid-air over Jordanian airspace, he said.
More so, US aerial refuelling aircraft, including KC-46 and KC-135 tankers, conducted those operations while transiting through Jordanian airspace.
Iran further warned that the use of regional countries’ territory and airspace to target the Islamic Republic exposes US military bases in those countries to Iranian operations.
The Muwaffaq Salti base
The scale of the US military presence at Muwaffaq Salti left little ambiguity about the base’s intended function. Satellite imagery and flight-tracking data published by The New York Times and analyzed by Airbus in mid-February 2026, weeks before the war began, showed a threefold increase in the number of US warplanes at the base.
Between 60 and 70 fighter aircraft were ultimately deployed, including F-35A Lightning IIs, F-15E Strike Eagles, and electronic warfare aircraft. More than 68 military cargo flights delivered munitions and support equipment in a matter of days.
Iran targeted the base repeatedly. A US THAAD radar system at Muwaffaq Salti, valued at approximately $300 million, was destroyed in early March, with satellite imagery confirming the strike.
Only Iran can demine Hormuz Strait under MoU with US: Deputy FM
Press TV – June 29, 2026
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi has rejected France’s bid to demine the Strait of Hormuz in collaboration with its allies, saying the operation will exclusively be carried out by the Islamic Republic.
Gharibabadi made the remarks on Monday after French President Emmanuel Macron said that his country and Oman had decided to work jointly, in coordination with partners, on demining the Strait of Hormuz to secure maritime routes and ensure free and unconditional passage through the strategic waterway.
“Under the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) demining [the strait] will be carried out solely by Iran and not by any other country,” he said.
The deputy foreign minister also noted that Iran will not allow any foreign meddling in the removal of mines from the Strait of Hormuz given the current “sensitive and complex” situation in the critical energy chokepoint.
“We strongly advise France not to make the situation more complicated with its provocations,” he added.
Iran restricted transit through the Strait of Hormuz, responsible for a fifth of global oil demand, in response to the illegal US-Israeli aggression on the country that began on February 28 and came to a halt under a ceasefire on April 8.
On July 17, Iran and the US signed the Pakistan-brokered MoU, which calls for a permanent end to hostilities across all fronts and includes a commitment from both sides to hold further talks on a final agreement in the next 60 days.
Under the 14-point deal, Iran is required to ensure toll-free passage for commercial vessels for at least 60 days, with full restoration of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days.
Iran has stressed that the strait will not return to pre-war conditions, emphasizing its legitimate right to sovereignty over the waterway.
