US-Iran war as it happened: Iran closes Strait of Hormuz, vows to fire on ships trying to pass; Trump warns of ‘big wave’ of strikes as Iran death toll passes 550

Thank you for reading coverage of the unfolding conflict in the Middle East. Please continue to follow our coverage here.

Here is a summary of what we covered today:

• The death toll in Iran has reached 787, humanitarian relief group the Red Crescent Society said. Human rights organisation Hengaw yesterday said at least 1500 had been killed, including 200 civilians and 1300 Iranian soldiers.
• Iran’s immense Natanz nuclear enrichment building suffered damage after being targeted in the US and Israeli strikes, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. No radiological consequences are expected and the facility’s enrichment operations – which were heavily damaged by a US attack last year – were not directly impacted.
• An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps senior official said today that the Strait of Hormuz is closed and vowed that Iran would fire on any ship trying to pass, Iranian state media reported. The strait is a choke point for oil, which is trading at its highest price in eight months, with analysts fearing it could skyrocket further.
• The Albanese government is urging motorists not to panic over petrol supplies as long queues form at petrol stations. “There’s no case for panic buying. I urge people only to buy petrol when they need it,” said Energy Minister Chris Bowen.
• Foreign Minister Penny Wong said commercial flights were likely to be more effective than government-facilitated repatriation flights, as 24,000 Australians remain in the United Arab Emirates, many of them stranded travellers.
• US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff has said Iranian negotiators told him in meetings last week that they almost had enough enriched uranium to build 11 nuclear bombs. “They were proud of it,” he said. Iran has claimed it is enriching uranium under a civilian energy program.
• US President Donald Trump said the war could last “far longer” than four or five weeks and warning a “big wave of strikes” was coming. Trump did not rule out the possibility of US “boots on the ground” in Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this would not become “an endless war”.
• Treasurer Jim Chalmers said in question time that funding was being reviewed for a Melbourne organisation mourning Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
• The US Central Command confirmed today that six American military personnel have been killed in action.
• Israel has continued to bombard Lebanon and troops have gathered at several points on the border, in what the IDF said are targeted strikes against Hezbollah. Iran has escalated its strikes on Israel, Lebanon, the UAE, Kuwait and Iraq. More than 70 missile and drone strikes have battered the Iraqi city of Erbil since Saturday, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry said today.

At least 30,000 displaced people have sought protection in shelters in Lebanon since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah began on Monday, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday.

“Conservative estimates suggest that nearly 30,000 people were hosted and registered at collective shelters,” said UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch.

“Many more slept in their cars on the side of roads or were still stuck in traffic jams on the roads,” he added.

Reuters

In a lawless world, it may seem idle to judge the conduct of leaders like Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu by international rules to which they are indifferent. But those who use their power to invade other countries commit what the judgment at Nuremberg described as the supreme war crime — that of aggression — because they bear responsibility for all the death and dismemberment that war inevitably entails, for civilians as well as soldiers.

Leaders are entitled to invade only in self-defence – the excuse proffered by the United States and Israel in Monday’s UN Security Council debate — or with the approval of that council (which it withheld) or else, as in the case of Kosovo, without such approval where the right of humanitarian intervention arises.

Trump is not a humanitarian, and neither aggressor has sought to defend itself on this ground. But might it have been open to some more respectable “coalition of the willing” to do so?

It is necessary first to dispose of the pretence of “pre-emptive self-defence”, that perversion of international law invented by the Bush administration to justify its attack on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003 and used by Vladimir Putin to justify his invasion of Ukraine. It was used by both Israel and the US in defence of their attack on Iran.

But it is not part of international law, whereby, on long-standing authority, self-defence can only be used against a threat that is imminent, or at least reasonably likely. With many of its military leaders and nuclear scientists dead, and its facilities at Fordow bombed, Iran posed no immediate threat to Israel, much less America.

Read the full opinion piece here.

The death toll in Iran has reached 787, humanitarian relief group the Red Crescent Society said.

Human rights organisation Hengaw yesterday said at least 1500 had been killed, including 200 civilians and 1300 Iranian soldiers.

“These figures are being compiled amid severe internet disruptions across Iran, with access to various cities repeatedly cut off for extended hours throughout the day and night,” Hengaw said.

Iran’s immense underground Natanz nuclear enrichment facilities suffered damage after being targeted in the US and Israeli strikes, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

“Based on the latest available satellite imagery, IAEA can now confirm some recent damage to entrance buildings of Iran’s underground Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP),” the agency said on X.

“No radiological consequence expected and no additional impact detected at FEP itself, which was severely damaged in the June conflict.”

The Natanz facility is Iran’s biggest enrichment plant, one where thousands of centrifuges process uranium. It’s nuclear enrichment halls were severely damaged in Israel’s 12-day war on Iran last year.

Israel’s military has launched repeated strikes on Lebanon in response to Hezbollah firing rockets into northern Israel.

The IDF was also carrying out incursions along some parts of the Lebanese border today, a Lebanese official told Reuters. The Lebanese army was evacuating advanced positions along the Israeli border, state media reported.

The clashes are the latest in the simmering war between Israel and Hezbollah, but what is Hezbollah and how powerful is it?

Read our explainer on Hezbollah here.

Israeli troops were carrying out incursions along some parts of the Lebanese border, a Lebanese official told Reuters.

Witnesses said the Lebanese army had pulled out of at least seven forward operating positions along the border.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency says the Lebanese army was evacuating advanced positions along the Israeli border.

Reuters, AP