Iran hits more tankers, says US blockade seeks to starve Iranians

Israel’s military and the Shin Bet security agency said they had carried out a strike targeting a senior member of Hamas’ military wing.

The joint statement did not identify the target or specify the location of the strike. It also did not say whether the target had been killed.

Further details would follow, the agencies said.

Canadian lawmaker Ali Ehsassi has pledged to refer findings that Iranian security forces possessed paintball guns from a Canadian-owned brand during the 2022 protest crackdown, which left scores of demonstrators blinded, to federal authorities.

The report identified Tippmann guns, a brand owned by Montreal-based KORE Outdoor, in the possession of Iranian security personnel. Investigators could not establish whether the guns were responsible for any of the blinding injuries.

“We’ll take this report. I was not aware of it, and we’ll send it to the appropriate authorities,” Ehsassi told Iran International’s Eye for Iran.

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Iran's Revolutionary Guards Navy said in a statement Saturday that two oil tankers exploded and caught fire after striking naval mines in the southern part of the Strait of Hormuz while attempting to pass through an unauthorized route.

The IRGC said the vessels had switched off their navigation and automatic identification systems and were attempting to pass through a route it described as unauthorized.

Following the explosions, two other tankers attempting a similar passage complied with warnings from the IRGC Navy's maritime traffic control center and turned back, according to the statement.

The Guards did not identify the vessels or provide details about casualties or damage.

Unexplained sounds were heard in parts of Bandar Kong, a port city in Iran's southern Hormozgan province, state news agency IRNA reported Saturday.

The agency said authorities had yet to determine or announce the cause of the sounds.

Washington is blaming Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution for the current conflict to evade responsibility for launching military attacks and failing to achieve its objectives, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Saturday.

In a post on X, Baghaei rejected what he described as a new American narrative that Iran had started the confrontation through its revolution. "The United States cannot escape responsibility for its decision to launch unlawful war of choice against Iran on 28 February 2026," he wrote.

Baghaei accused Washington of attacking Iran twice in less than nine months while diplomatic negotiations were underway, killing the country's supreme leader and senior officials, causing civilian casualties and destroying vital infrastructure. He said the US administration had reached a military and political dead end and was attempting to portray the conflict as a victory while concealing its failure to achieve its objectives.

Tracing the history of US-Iranian hostility, Baghaei cited the CIA-backed 1953 coup, and said that the United States had initiated both the historical hostility between the countries and the current military confrontation.

Tehran is facing a severe water crisis, with 80 percent of the capacity of the five dams supplying drinking water to Iran's capital still empty despite recent rainfall, provincial authorities warned Saturday.

Tehran Governor Mohammad Sadegh Motamedian said the recent rains had helped improve water supplies, but reservoir levels remained far below what was needed to restore normal conditions.

The warning follows six consecutive years of drought that have depleted Tehran's surface water reserves and increased pressure on underground water sources.

Earlier this month, Tehran's water utility reported that the five dams were operating at less than 20 percent of their combined capacity, warning that continued shortages could threaten water supplies in the coming months.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi dismissed nine security and oil-sector officials Saturday after an investigation confirmed oil smuggling in Jurf al-Sakhar, a stronghold of the Iran-backed Kataeb Hezbollah militia.

His military spokesman, Sabah al-Numan, said the prime minister ordered all suspects involved in the smuggling operations to be referred to the judiciary following an emergency security meeting to review the investigation's findings.

The dismissed officials include Babil province's police chief, several senior intelligence and security officers, the provincial commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces, an Energy Police brigade commander and the head of Iraq's oil pipeline company.

According to the statement, investigators confirmed intelligence reports documenting oil smuggling, the presence of refineries and other irregularities in Jurf al-Sakhar, south of Baghdad.

The dismissals come amid growing tensions between al-Zaidi's government and Kataeb Hezbollah, one of Iraq's most powerful Iran-backed armed groups, which has resisted the prime minister's efforts to bring militia weapons under state control.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards rejected France's conclusion that IRGC cyber units hacked refrigeration systems across the country, calling the findings a "worn-out Zionist plot," spokesman Hossein Mohebbi said Saturday.

"The ridiculous claim of an attack on refrigeration systems is a worn-out Zionist scenario," Mohebbi said in a statement reported by Iranian state media.

France accused the IRGC earlier this week of carrying out cyberattacks against refrigeration systems at more than 700 retail sites in October, causing fires and food losses worth tens of millions of euros. French authorities attributed the operation to the Guards' Shahid Kaveh cyber unit.

Israel has provided US intelligence agencies with information suggesting Iran is planning drone attacks targeting President Donald Trump and senior members of his administration, Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom reported.

The newspaper cited senior Israeli and American officials as saying Mossad had passed specific intelligence about the alleged plot to the CIA after US intelligence agencies sought Israeli assistance in assessing the threat.

According to the Saturday report, the warnings prompted heightened security measures in Washington, with some senior American officials relocated to protected facilities and Trump reportedly reducing his public appearances.

The allegations have not been independently verified, and the CIA, White House and Iranian authorities have not publicly confirmed the reported drone plot.