Iran fired on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, damaging the vessel and complicating diplomatic efforts to bring the U.S. and Iran to Pakistan for talks. The AP’s Jon Gambrell explains.
Major developments we’re following:
Talking about the repercussions of the Iran war, the head of the International Energy Agency said Wednesday that “we are facing the biggest energy crisis in the history.”
IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin that what ”we lost in the this war is much bigger than all the crises put together in terms of oil and gas. Plus, plus, there are vital commodities that we are losing — petrochemicals, fertilizers, helium, sulfur.”
However, Birol also pointed out that “there will be a major response to this crisis as well” and that “it is now the job of the governments to design their energy policies in terms of industrial sector, while keeping the competitiveness of the existing industries, preparing the next steps for the tomorrow’s industries.”
He said he also expects that “there will be a similar response in all parts of the economy, car manufacturing industry, electric industry and in the industry sector.”
“And this is a wonderful opportunity,” he added.
The Israeli military said it intercepted around 40 Israeli civilians that attempted to enter Syria on Wednesday afternoon. The military said the civilians gathered at the border and then were able to infiltrate several hundred meters into the Israeli-military controlled buffer zone in Syria before being returned to Israel and taken into police custody.
The Israeli media identified the infiltrators as part of the right-wing group “Pioneers of Bashan,” which calls for establishing Jewish settlements in Lebanon and Syria.
The group added in a statement that its attack on the post in the southern village of Bayada on Wednesday came in retaliation for Israeli violations of the 10-day ceasefire that went into effect Friday.
The Israeli military said Hezbollah is violating the ceasefire adding that the Iran-backed group launched “a hostile aircraft” toward Israeli soldiers operating in the area of southern Lebanon.
The military said the aircraft was intercepted by Israel’s air force and did not cross into Israel.
It might be hard to imagine the Iran war weighing on stuffed toys with names like Snuggle Glove, Bizzikins and Wobblies, but even plush playthings aren’t immune when oil shipments from the Middle East are constrained.
Like many soft toys, the creatures developed by a manufacturer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, are made with polyester and acrylic, synthetic fibers derived from petroleum. Three weeks after the war started, suppliers in China notified Aleni Brands that getting the materials already was costing them 10% to 15% more, CEO Ricardo Venegas said.
“I think this situation demonstrates how much oil permeates throughout our system, and we can’t get away from it,” said Venegas, who founded Aleni Brands last year and is in the process of adding product lines. “Who would have thought that the price of a toy would have a direct relationship with oil?”
It’s not just toys. Petrochemicals derived from oil and natural gas go into making more than 6,000 consumer products, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
President Joseph Aoun’s comments on Wednesday came a day before a second meeting is scheduled to take place in Washington between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors.
Aoun said in comments released by his office that preparations are ongoing for negotiations between Lebanon and Israel.
He said the aim of the future talks is to “fully” stop Israeli attacks, withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, release of Lebanese prisoners in Israel, deployment of Lebanese troops along the border and beginning the reconstruction process.
Aoun said the support to Lebanon that was promised by U.S. President Donald Trump and other countries “provided us with an opportunity that we must not miss, as it may not come again.”
The latest Israel-Hezbollah war was halted by a 10-day ceasefire that went into effect Friday.
A semiofficial news agency close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard again raised the idea Wednesday that Gulf Arab states remained vulnerable to having their undersea data cables being cut in the Strait of Hormuz.
The report by the Tasnim news agency suggested that “simultaneous damage to several major cables — whether through accidents or deliberate action — could trigger severe outages across the Persian Gulf.”
Multiple cables run through the strait. Already, the region has faced outages after undersea cables were cut multiple times in the Red Sea. Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels had threatened cables in the past.
With uncertainty over whether the ceasefire lasts, residents of Tehran say they are anxious about what comes next.
“Last night my family all stayed awake, waiting for the clock to show 3:30 a.m. and see who really has the upper hand,” said Reza Tehrani, a 34-year-old resident of Tehran.
Tehrani said Trump is making a series of false claims, including that Iran will give up its enriched uranium. “It’s obvious that he will eventually take his warships back and nothing will happen. We will win, rest assured,” he said.
One resident voiced frustration with the uncertainty.
“We should know where we stand. Is it going to be a ceasefire, peace or the war is going to continue?” said Tehran resident Mashallah Mohammad Sadegh, 59. “The way things currently are, one doesn’t know what to do.”
The European Union’s top energy official is warning that the massive energy crisis sparked by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is set to hit prices for months, even years, to come.
EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen said Wednesday that “this is not a short-term, small increase in prices. This is a crisis that is probably as serious as the 1973 and the 2022 crises combined.”
Jørgensen says the war is costing Europe around 500 million euros ($600 million) each day and that “we are looking into some very difficult months, or maybe even years” ahead. “Even in a best-case scenario, it’s still bad,” he told reporters.