MIDDLE EAST CRISIS LIVE: IRAN WARNS IT WILL ‘OPEN NEW FRONTS’ AGAINST US IF ATTACKS RESUME AFTER TRUMP SUSPENDS STRIKES
By Guardian - Yohannes Lowe/Tom Ambrose - Tue 19 May 2026 13.52 BST
The US president said he called off a planned attack on Iran on Tuesday so that peace talks could continue.
Iran army warns it will 'open new fronts' against US if attacks resume
Iran’s army has warned it would “open new fronts” against the US if it resumes attacks on the country amid reports that Donald Trump is weighing up restarting military operations in Iran amid an impasse in negotiations.
“If the enemy is foolish enough to fall into the Zionist trap again and launches new aggression against our beloved Iran, we will open new fronts against it, with new equipment and new methods,” army spokesperson Mohammad Akraminia said, according to Iran’s ISNA news agency.
As we mentioned in the opening post, Trump is expected to meet national security advisers later today to discuss options for resuming military action.
A mysterious attack on an Iranian oil refinery during the Iran war caused an oil spill that affected a nearby Persian Gulf island that’s a protected breeding ground for wildlife, videos and satellite photos show, AP reported.
The oil-soaked waves lapping onto Shidvar Island, an uninhabited island, represent yet another sign of the ecological damage wrought by the war. Oily rain has also fallen on the Iranian capital, Tehran, after airstrikes targeted oil facilities there . Iranian attacks on ships passing through the Persian Gulf, the strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman also caused environmental damage.
Mobile phone footage shot 9 April by an Iranian named Ehsan Jalali shows thick black smoke rising after the strike on an oil refinery on Lavan, an island just off mainland Iran near Shidvar.
The footage corresponds with known features of both islands and only was posted by Jalali to Instagram in the last few days as Iran’s theocratic government has shut off access to the wider internet for weeks.
Iranian authorities held mass public weddings in Tehran for couples who signed up to a state-sponsored scheme declaring their readiness to sacrifice their lives in the war against the US and Israel.
The ceremonies conducted late on Monday involved hundreds of couples in several major squares in the capital, including more than 100 in the vast Imam Hossein square in central Tehran, according to reports in Iranian media.
They were broadcast on state TV in a bid to boost wartime morale, with US president Donald Trump repeatedly threatening new military action against Iran amid a shaky ceasefire which halted the fighting that began on 28 February.
World is 'sleepwalking into global food crisis' because of closure of strait of Hormuz, UK foreign secretary warns
Andrew Sparrow
Over in the UK, Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, has said that the world is “sleepwalking into a global food crisis” because of the ongoing disruption to shipping going through the strait of Hormuz. Gulf states are major global providers of fertilisers and, in a speech to the Global Partnerships conference, Cooper highlighted World Food Programme figures saying that “almost 45 million more people could fall into acute food insecurity if the [Iran] conflict does not end by the middle of this year”.
She said:
The world is sleepwalking into a global food crisis. We cannot risk tens of millions of people going hungry because one country has hijacked an international shipping lane. Iran’s continued closure of the strait of Hormuz while the agriculture clock is ticking shows why we need urgent global pressure to get the Strait reopened, fertiliser and fuel moving and ease the costs of living pressures. That is why we will continue to lead calls for the immediate and unrestricted opening of the Strait and advance plans for the strait of Hormuz Multinational Mission to support any agreement.
This crisis is affecting developed and developing countries, the private and public sectors alike. It shows why we need a new approach to global partnerships, to drive international development to prevent crises in the first place.
Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari has been speaking at a press conference. Here are some of the main takeaways from what he said:
- US-Iran negotiations, mediated by Pakistan, require more time to reach a deal.
- No country has the right to “hinder” access to the strait of Hormuz.
- Doha is in (regular) contact with Washington and Tehran.
- “Iran has chosen to attack Qatar, and this is a threat to the relations between both countries,” Al Jazeera quoted the spokesperson as having said.
- “We want to protect the people of the region from being basically the main losers of any escalation in the region,” al-Ansari added.
Iran army warns it will 'open new fronts' against US if attacks resume
Iran’s army has warned it would “open new fronts” against the US if it resumes attacks on the country amid reports that Donald Trump is weighing up restarting military operations in Iran amid an impasse in negotiations.
“If the enemy is foolish enough to fall into the Zionist trap again and launches new aggression against our beloved Iran, we will open new fronts against it, with new equipment and new methods,” army spokesperson Mohammad Akraminia said, according to Iran’s ISNA news agency.
As we mentioned in the opening post, Trump is expected to meet national security advisers later today to discuss options for resuming military action.
Israeli far-right minister Smotrich says ICC requested warrant for his arrest
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, has revealed he was informed that the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague requested an arrest warrant against him.
“Issuing arrest warrants against the prime minister, the defense minister and the finance minister is a declaration of war – and in the face of a declaration of war, we will respond in kind,” Smotrich said, according to comments carried in Israeli newspaper Hareetz.
He threatened to harm the Palestinian Authority, which exercises partial authority over parts of the West Bank, reportedly accusing it of standing behind the international legal move.
Hareetz quoted Smotrich as having said: “The hands are the hands of The Hague, but the voice is the voice of the Palestinian Authority. This organization launched a war and it will get a war. I am not a submissive Jew.”
Smotrich, speaking at a press conference, did not specify who had informed him of the warrant on Monday evening, and the process of seeking warrants is confidential. He also did not reveal the ICC’s reasons.
In 2024 the ICC issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant and the (now deceased) Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif for alleged war crimes relating to the war on Gaza. The international court of justice is assessing allegations of genocide against Israel for its military assault on Gaza. Israel denies the charge of genoocide.
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