Cairo, Aug 1: The White House signalled that President Donald Trump is weighing carrying out new strikes on Iran as the US presses for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and abide by terms set out in a truce agreement the two sides forged last month, only to quickly collapse.
There were no US strikes on Iran overnight, but Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said Friday it had struck another two tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, and Kuwait said it intercepted drones.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt expressed the US administration’s frustration anew, charging that Tehran last month signed a memorandum of understanding with the US on a truce but then quickly “broke it, shot at commercial ships, and killed American soldiers”.
“President Trump is not going to stand by and allow this terrorist behaviour to occur,” Leavitt said in a statement on Friday evening. “Iran will continue to pay until they come to the table in, what President Trump deems, a meaningful way.”
Leavitt issued the fresh warning after Trump earlier on Friday told reporters that “we just want to win” in Iran and signalled that he expected US military action to continue for some time.
“We’ll be hitting them very hard,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters during a meeting with members of his Cabinet at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. “You know, at some point they’re going to say, ‘We just can’t take it anymore.’”
Meanwhile, Hamas confirmed Friday that it will disarm in a potential breakthrough for ending the war in Gaza, but major obstacles remain.(AP)
