TEHRAN, (AFP) — Iran launched fresh attacks across the Middle East on Monday and threatened “devastating” retaliation, after United States President Donald Trump’s expletive-laced warning that Tehran must reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The attacks came as Tehran’s central military command warned of “much more devastating” retaliation if its adversaries hit civilian targets.
Iran has effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy chokepoint, provoking Trump to demand Sunday: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.”
In a terse follow-up post, the president apparently set a new deadline for Iran to comply: “Tuesday, 8 p.m.”
“The American president, as the highest official of his country, has publicly threatened to commit war crimes,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Monday in a post on X, citing provisions of international law that could be breached.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRG) said they are completing preparations to enforce new operating conditions in the strait, which has been all but shut since the war with the US and Israel began on 28 February.
They warned conditions in the strait “will never return to its former status, especially for the US and Israel.”
Iran has allowed only limited traffic through the waterway, disrupting the flow of roughly 20 percent of global oil and gas.
Oman’s state news agency said on Sunday that Iran and Oman had held talks on easing passage through the strait.
Meanwhile, an Iranian attack on a residential area in northern Kuwait injured six people on Monday, the Gulf country’s health ministry said.
It followed a post on X by Kuwait’s army earlier in the day saying the nation’s air defenses were working to intercept incoming missiles and drones.
Falling debris from an intercepted attack injured one person in an industrial area of Abu Dhabi, authorities in the United Arab Emirates said Monday.
“Abu Dhabi authorities have responded to an incident of falling debris on the Raneen Systems company in ICAD (Industrial City of Abu Dhabi) in the Musaffah area, following a successful interception by air defense systems,” the Abu Dhabi government’s media office posted on X.
“The incident resulted in moderate injuries to a Ghanaian national.”
In the northeastern emirate of Fujairah, authorities also reported that a telecommunications building was targeted by an Iranian drone, but there were no injuries.
The Israeli military and medics said a missile fired from Iran hit a residential building in the northern city of Haifa, wounding four people.
Israeli firefighters were searching for two missing people in the rubble and two others were killed, authorities said Monday.
The direct hit on a seven-storey building tore through sections of the structure which has partially collapsed, the military and rescue services said.
Agence France-Presse footage showed rescuers using flashlights to search through rubble and scattered concrete blocks.
Elad Edri, chief of staff of Israel’s Home Front Command, said that four people were missing.
A strike hit Beirut’s southern suburbs on Monday, AFPTV footage showed, after Israel’s army issued an evacuation warning for the area, the latest raid since war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah last month.