Extract from ABC News
Those who had been hoping Donald Trump would his address to the nation to reveal a path out of the Iran war would be disappointed. (Alex Brandon/Pool via Reuters)
Hello. Matthew Doran here in Jerusalem. It's coming up to the end of the fifth week of the war that has shaken this region and the world.
Here's what you need to know today:
- Iran has promised "more crushing, broader and more destructive" attacks against the United States and Israel in the wake of Donald Trump's speech about the future of the war. The US president said his military would bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages, where they belong" in the coming weeks — rhetoric rejected as "nonsense" by a spokesman for the Iranian president.
- The speaker of the Iranian parliament said in a post on social media that 7 million Iranians had come forward to take up arms and defend the country — an assertion to be met with some caution, given some anti-regime Iranians have told the ABC that children and the elderly are being given weapons because no-one else is available.
- US and Israeli strikes against Iran have continued, with Iranian authorities saying steel manufacturing facilities have been hit. Iranian retaliatory strikes have continued as well. A missile barrage was fired towards Israel on Thursday afternoon, local time, while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had started attacking an Amazon cloud facility in Bahrain.
- In Lebanon, the intensity of Israeli strikes against claimed Hezbollah targets, and the number of rockets and drones fired by the Iranian militant group to the north of Israel, has increased in the past 24 hours. The death toll in the country is now more than 1,300, with Lebanese authorities saying many are civilians — including women and children. The UN says 20 per cent of the country's population has been displaced.
- Lebanon's prime minister has issued a stark warning, fearing Israel's current invasion of the south of his country will go far beyond its stated intentions to occupy the entire area from the Israel border to the Litani River, roughly 30 kilometres north. Israel's defence minister said Hezbollah would pay a heavy price for firing on his country during Passover, with communities in the north racing to shelters to seek refuge from rockets and drones.
Here's what all that means
Those who had been hoping the US president's speech about the war with Iran would illuminate some path out of the mess engulfing the Middle East would have been sorely disappointed.
While restating vague comments such as war goals were close being to met, and the end of fighting was a few weeks away, we didn't learn much. And the inflammatory rhetoric the US president is prone to wheeling out is unlikely to have helped his cause.
Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are adherents to the principle of "peace through strength". But while that might work against some adversaries, Iran is not just any foe.
The US president is threatening to bomb Iran "back to the Stone Age, where they belong" in the next few weeks. In the competition to win friends and influence people, and bring the Iranian population along with you, that may not be the smartest language to use.
Of course, as with much the US president says, it's a type of commentary more rooted in style rather than substance.
The Iranian response, while also unsurprising, shows where the challenge remains. And why Gulf states will be disappointed with the remarks.
Iran, quick out of the blocks, continued its attacks across the region and promised even more intense strikes to come. The UAE revealed it had been forced to intercept 19 missiles and 26 drones in the past 24 hours alone.
The UN is already warning Middle Eastern nations may have lost almost $US200 billion ($289 billion) in the first month of the war.
That's where the vague statements about ending the war come into contact with reality for some of the US's closest regional partners. They're absolutely copping it in this war, caught in the middle of much bigger players engaged in a seemingly intractable fight.
And here's the impact on Australia
- It's not just fuel: It's crunch time for crops on many farms around the country. ABC 7.30 has looked at how the Strait of Hormuz stand-off is affecting how much we'll pay for food (▶️ 7m07s).
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