Iran's Revolutionary Guards threatened Saturday to hit U.S. sites in the Middle East if Iranian tankers come under fire, a warning Iranian media said followed U.S. strikes on two Iranian tankers in the Gulf of Oman one day earlier. The threat landed as Qatar's prime minister pressed ahead with back-channel diplomacy in Miami, meeting first with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and later with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
A State Department spokesperson said Rubio and Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani discussed U.S. support for Qatar's defense and the importance of continued close coordination to deter threats and promote stability and security across the Middle East. The Qatari leader also met one-on-one with Vice President JD Vance on Friday with no aides present, and people briefed on that meeting said the sense was that there was positive momentum.
Saudi Arabia is also trying to help arrange for a ceasefire, and its top diplomat spoke by phone with the Qatari prime minister on Saturday. The diplomacy unfolded as President Donald Trump told a French reporter by phone that he expects to hear very soon from the Iranians on the latest U.S. peace plan and said the Iranians still very much want to finish a deal.
On the ground, the violence did not pause. Israel carried out strikes across Lebanon on Saturday that killed at least eight people in the south, according to authorities, in some of the most intense attacks since the start of a three-week-old ceasefire involving Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. Hezbollah said it targeted troops in northern Israel with drones on at least two occasions, and the Israeli military said several explosive drones were launched into Israeli territory, leaving one Israeli army reservist severely wounded and two others moderately injured.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported a series of Israeli strikes across the south, including one on the town of Saksakiyeh. Lebanon's health ministry said that strike produced an initial toll of seven martyrs, including a girl, and 15 wounded, including three children. The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah terrorists operating from within a structure used for military purposes in Saksakiyeh and said reports of harm to uninvolved civilians were under review. The ministry also said another strike on a motorbike in Nabatieh hit a Syrian national and his 12-year-old daughter.
Israel's military called on residents of nine villages to evacuate and said it would act forcefully against Hezbollah. The ceasefire that began three weeks ago has done little to stop daily exchanges of fire, mostly in southern Lebanon, and Saturday's strikes showed how fragile the arrangement remains even as Washington, Doha and Riyadh try to keep broader talks alive.
