Photograph provided by the United States Marine Corps, taken on July 16, 2026, by the Public Affairs Service of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), showing Marines from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit conducting an inspection operation aboard the oil tanker M/T Wen Yao in the Gulf of Oman. (Credit: NAVCENT PUBLIC AFFAIRS / US MARINE CORPS / AFP)
The United States bombed Iran for the seventh consecutive night Saturday, and Tehran again retaliated by striking targets in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain while threatening to launch a ‘’total offensive.’’
A month after Iran and the United States signed a memorandum of understanding on June 17 aimed at opening a period of peace talks, the Middle East continues to see daily exchanges of strikes and a series of maritime incidents.
U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, said it struck ‘’surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons depots and naval assets’’ in Iran overnight, without mentioning civilian targets.
Authorities in Iran's southern Hormozgan province said U.S. strikes killed at least three people, wounded eight and hit two bridges and a road tunnel, according to the official IRNA news agency. IRNA also reported U.S. strikes on Ahvaz and Bushehr in the southwest, Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, Lar and Darab in the south, and Yazd in central Iran.
Jordan, Kuwait targeted
In response, Iran's military, quoted by state television, said it struck the Al-Adiri military camp and Ali Al-Salem Air Base in Kuwait, Al-Azraq Air Base in Jordan and Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain, accusing U.S. forces of launching attacks on Iran from those facilities.
’’Our air defenses intercepted and shot down 10 Iranian missiles targeting the territory of the Kingdom,’’ a Jordanian military official said, adding that there were no casualties or damage. Kuwait's military said it was responding to ‘’hostile drone attacks.’’ Airstrike sirens also sounded in Bahrain, the country's Interior Ministry said.
Tehran will enter ‘’a phase of total offensive’’ if U.S. strikes continue for another ‘’two or three days,’’ Mohsen Rezaei, a military adviser to Iran's supreme leader, said Friday, according to state television.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard warned the strikes ‘’will continue until calm returns to the southern coast and the Strait of Hormuz,’’ where maritime traffic has again nearly come to a standstill.
Iran 'stops' four ships
The Strait of Hormuz, through which about one-fifth of global oil trade passed before the conflict, has remained blocked by Iran for more than a week following the resumption of hostilities with the United States. In response, Washington reimposed a blockade on Iranian ports.
The Revolutionary Guard said Saturday it had ‘’stopped’’ four ships attempting to cross the strait without authorization. Tehran also claimed that two oil tankers struck mines there.
’’In the past few hours, four violating ships, supported by the American terrorist army, tried to cross the Strait of Hormuz, and the four ships were stopped on the spot during a combined missile and drone operation,’’ the Guard said, according to state television.
It also said two oil tankers ‘’attempting to cross the minefield south of the Strait of Hormuz, misled by American intelligence services, exploded and caught fire,’’ according to IRNA. The report did not specify the ships' nationalities or whether there were casualties.
CENTCOM denied the claims.
’’Like most claims by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, this is false,’’ it said on X, without elaborating.
The fighting resumed July 7 after Iranian attacks on ships in the Gulf. The ensuing strikes have been unprecedented since the April ceasefire. The conflict, triggered Feb. 28 by Israeli-American strikes on Iran, has left thousands dead, mainly in Iran and Lebanon, and continues to rattle the global economy.
’’The Strait of Hormuz is becoming a trap for both belligerents. The logic of escalation is increasingly eluding them,’’ said David Khalfa, a Middle East specialist at the Jean-Jaures Foundation, warning of the ‘’risk of a broader regional confrontation.’’
