The United Arab Emirates said its air defences were dealing with missile and drone attacks from Iran on Friday as the US and Iran exchanged fire in the Strait of Hormuz, the most serious test yet of their month-long ceasefire. The flare-up came just a day after Washington said Iranian forces had carried out unprovoked attacks on three US warships transiting the waterway.
Iran accused the US of breaking the truce by targeting two ships in the strait and striking civilian areas, while Washington said it hit Iranian targets in retaliation. Donald Trump said the ceasefire remained intact after the US strikes, calling them a “love tap,” but warned that the US would knock out Iran “a lot harder and a lot more violently” if Tehran did not quickly agree to a peace deal.
Stocks sank and oil prices leapt on Friday as renewed clashes jolted hopes for a deal to end the war and reopen the waterway. The Strait of Hormuz sits at the center of the conflict and is one of the world’s most important routes for global trade and shipping, but the fighting has now pushed that trade deeper into risk.
Iranian state media reported loud noises and what it called defensive fire in western Tehran, and explosions were also heard near Bandar Abbas in southern Iran. About 1,500 ships and their crews were trapped in the Gulf because of the Iranian blockade in the strait, according to the UN’s International Maritime Organisation, underscoring how quickly the dispute has spilled beyond battlefield exchanges.
That danger was evident even as one oil tanker made it through. A Malta-flagged vessel called the Odessa, carrying 1 million barrels of crude oil, arrived in South Korea on Friday after passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the first ship to reach the country by that route since Iran declared the waterway closed. The passage offered a rare sign that traffic has not stopped entirely, even as the broader route remains under strain.
For now, the ceasefire is hanging on by a thread. Trump’s insistence that it remains intact sits uneasily beside the missile fire, drone attacks and naval strikes that have made the gulf the most dangerous flashpoint in the conflict.
