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Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei says the US blockade of Iran’s ports and coastline is an act of aggression that violates the shaky ceasefire.

By “deliberately inflicting collective punishment on the Iranian population, it amounts to war crime and crimes against humanity,” Baghaei posted on social media.

Baghaei’s comments on Sunday came after Iran’s renewed threats on shipping, in response to the US blockade, fully reclosed the strategic strait of Hormuz.

JD Vance has responded to Pope Leo’s earlier comments where he said it was “not in my interest at all” to debate Donald Trump about the Iran war, and that he would continue preaching the Gospel message of peace.

Writing on X, Vance said:

“I am grateful to Pope Leo for saying this. While the media narrative constantly gins up conflict–and yes, real disagreements have happened and will happen–the reality is often much more complicated.”

Vance is a very recent adult convert to Catholicism.

“Pope Leo preaches the gospel, as he should, and that will inevitably mean he offers his opinions on the moral issues of the day,” he added. “The President–and the entire administration–work to apply those moral principles in a messy world.”

Vance’s comments in support of the pope preaching the Gospel seem to contradict his earlier remarks at an event for the conservative group Turning Point USA on 14 April.

“When the pope says that God is never on the side of people who wield the sword, there is more than a 1,000-year tradition of just-war theory,” Vance said at the time. “I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology. If you’re going to opine on matters of theology, you’ve got to be careful.”

The US nearly turned into a net crude exporter last week for the first time since the second world war as shipments surged close to a record high to meet demand from Asian and European buyers scrambling to replace Middle East supplies cut by the Iran war.

The US and Israel’s war with Iran has triggered the largest ever disruption to the global energy market.

Thousands of Lebanese have rushed back to their villages in south Lebanon after the shaky 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon took effect.

They returned despite the rubble-strewn roads and collapsed bridges, crossing dirt roads and even driving through the Litani River. Abbas Abdelkarim and William Christou have documented what those returnees found.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has confirmed the authenticity of a photo circulated on Sunday showing a soldier in southern Lebanon smashing a statue of Jesus with a sledgehammer. The IDF said it will take action against those involved.

Following an initial review of the photo, the military says that “it was determined that the photograph depicts an IDF soldier operating in southern Lebanon”.

“The IDF views the incident with great severity and emphasizes that the soldier’s conduct is wholly inconsistent with the values expected of its troops,” the military said. “Appropriate measures will be taken against those involved in accordance with the findings.”

The statement also added that the IDF is working to assist the community in restoring the statue.

More than 20 vessels passed the strait of Hormuz on Saturday, data from shipping analytics firm Kpler showed, the highest number of ships crossing the waterway since 1 March.

Among the vessels that made it through on Saturday, five of them last loaded cargoes from Iran ranging from oil products to metals. Three of them are liquefied petroleum gas carriers with one each heading to China and India.

With the US-Iran standoff over the strait sharpening, it is not clear where President Donald Trump’s earlier announcement on new talks with Iran now stands.

Trump has said US negotiators would head to Pakistan on Monday. The ceasefire is scheduled to expire by Wednesday.

There was no comment from Iranian officials directly addressing Trump’s announcement of talks. However, Iranian state media, without citing anyone beyond unnamed sources, issued brief reports suggesting that the talks would not happen.

Minutes after the ship seizure was announced, Iranian state media reported on President Masoud Pezeshkian’s phone conversation with the Pakistani prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, earlier Sunday. US actions including bullying and unreasonable behaviour have led to increased suspicion that the US will repeat previous patterns and “betray diplomacy”, the reports cited Pezeshkian as saying.

Iran’s state broadcaster said the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told his Pakistani counterpart on another call that recent US actions, rhetoric and contradictions were signs of “bad intentions and lack of seriousness in diplomacy”.

Pakistan did not confirm a second round of talks, but authorities had begun tightening security in Islamabad.

We’re starting to get some pictures of the incident involving the destroyer USS Spruance and the Iranian-flagged cargo vessel.

Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a prominent Emirati commentator, said in a statement it’s time for the UAE to consider closing US bases, referring to them as a “burden.”

“The UAE no longer needs America to defend it, as it has proven during the Iranian aggression that it is capable of defending itself with distinction,” he wrote. “What the UAE needs is to acquire only the best and latest weapons that America has. Therefore, it is time to think about closing the American bases, as they are a burden and not a strategic asset.”

The US military has confirmed a US destroyer fired “several rounds” towards an Iranian-flagged ship that was attempting to pass through its naval blockade.

In a statement released on Sunday, US Central Command (Centcom) said the USS Spruance intercepted the Iranian-flagged Touska ship as it traveled towards an Iranian port “in violation of the US blockade.”

“After Touska’s crew failed to comply with repeated warnings over a six-hour period, Spruance directed the vessel to evacuate its engine room,” the statement said. “Spruance disabled Touska’s propulsion by firing several rounds from the destroyer’s 5-inch MK 45 Gun into Touska’s engine room. US Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit later boarded the non-compliant vessel, which remains in US custody”.

Touska, the Iranian-flagged vessel that Trump said US marines have taken custody of, is currently listed on the US Treasury Department’s sanctions list.

According to the website TankerTrackers, “Iran-linked tankers that haven’t yet been placed under US sanctions continue to move freely in and out of the region. US Treasury’s OFAC has slapped sanctions on 397 Iran-linked tankers but there are another 236 we know about which OFAC haven’t yet addressed.”

The United Arab Emirates has begun discussions with the US about securing a financial backstop in case the US-Israeli war with Iran sends the Gulf nation into a deeper crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

Khaled Mohamed Balama, the UAE Central Bank Governor, reportedly discussed the possibility of a currency-swap line with treasury secretary Scott Bessent and other Federal Reserve officials in meetings in Washington last week. UAE emphasized that they had so far avoided the worst economic effects of the conflict but might still need a financial lifeline, officials told the Journal.

The talks appear to underscore the UAE’s anxieties regarding the conflict’s potential to derail its economic momentum and erode its status as a major global financial hub.

The French shipping company CMA-CGM said Sunday that one of its ships had been targeted by fire in the strait of Hormuz on Saturday. According to reports, it was damaged, but the crew is safe.

A CMA-CGM ship “was the subject of warning shots yesterday” in the strait of Hormuz and its “crew is safe and sound”, the French maritime transport group told AFP on Sunday in a statement.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) confirmed to the Associated Press that a French-flagged vessel was involved.

Trump said Sunday on Truth Social that Iran had “fired bullets” in the strait of Hormuz, adding that “many of them were aimed at a French ship and a freighter from the United Kingdom.”

The British military has escalated its threat assessment for the strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf to “Critical,” the highest possible risk level.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) issued the warning on Sunday, citing a “high level of activity by naval forces in the region.” The agency cautioned that the current environment creates a severe “risk of attack or miscalculation” for all commercial shipping.

The Iranian navy reimposed its restrictions on transit through the strait as the US military implemented a blockade on Iranian ports. The UKMTO also cited multiple attacks on Saturday by Iranian forces on vessels passing through the strait.

A Woodland Hills woman has been arrested for allegedly trafficking arms on behalf of the Iranian government, federal prosecutors said Sunday.

Shamim Mafi, 44, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday night, according to first assistant US attorney Bill Essayli. She has been charged with brokering the sale of drones, bombs, bomb fuses and millions of rounds of ammunition manufactured by Iran and sold to Sudan, he said.

“Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2016,” Essayli wrote. “She is expected to make her initial appearance on Monday afternoon in US District Court in downtown LA.”

Donald Trump’s decision to send US officials to Islamabad for further talks on Monday with Iran just 24 hours after Iran once again closed the strait of Hormuz will signal to Tehran that the strategic waterway remains a bargaining asset beyond parallel.

It will also confirm in Iran’s eyes that the US president’s chaotic approach to diplomacy doubles the need for Tehran to act calmly and strategically – two competencies it believes he totally lacks.

Such is the distrust and fog surrounding relations between Iran and the US that no one can know whether Trump – after meetings in the Situation Room on Saturday – has once again decided to use diplomacy as a giant smokescreen prior to a further military attack on Iran once the ceasefire expires on Wednesday.

At a minimum it is undeniable that the run-up to a proposed second round of talks in Islamabad has been far from propitious, partly because an impatient Trump repeatedly misunderstands the need to proceed sequentially or take account of the sensitivities on the Iranian side. Iranian state media reported on Sunday evening that Tehran had not yet decided whether to join.

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Pakistan prime minister Shehbaz Sharif spoke with Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday, according to a statement from Sharif’s office.

It says that during the 45-minute phone call, the two leaders “engaged in detailed exchanges on the current regional situation”. Sharif thanked Pezeshkian for sending a delegation to talks in Islamabad earlier this month. The statement did not mention future peace talks with the US.

“The Prime Minister reaffirmed that, with the support of friends and partners, Pakistan would remain fully committed to its honest and sincere efforts to advance regional peace and security,” the statement said.

Mahmoud Nabavian, an Iranian member of the Parliament who was part of the delegation for recent talks between Washington and Tehran in Islamabad, has warned of a “renewed military operation” against Iran.

“The entry of enemy equipment into the region under the pretext of Iran’s maritime blockade, like the negotiation process and the claim of the war’s end, is nothing more than a deception, and it appears the enemy is seeking renewed military operations,” he wrote on social media.

In another post, he shared a screenshot of Trump’s post on Truth Social where the US president threatened to “knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran”.

Nabavian responded that Trump “has once again spouted nonsense and threatened the dear people of Iran”.

He added: “Know this, if there is any aggression against the Iranian nation, we will destroy all economic interests and infrastructure belonging to America, the regional energy, and the Zionist regime.”

Israeli fire on Sunday has killed one Palestinian and wounded three others in central Gaza, health officials told the Associated Press.

Palestinians in Gaza have reported that Israeli strikes have intensified over the past few days across the enclave. Since a fragile ceasefire deal was reached in October, deadly Israeli strikes have continued to be a constant threat in Gaza. Gaza’s health ministry reports that more than 775 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire began.

The Israeli military published for the first time a map of its new deployment line inside Lebanon on Sunday, bringing dozens of mostly abandoned Lebanese villages under its control, days after a ceasefire with Hezbollah took effect.

Stretching east to west, the deployment line on the map runs 5-10km (about 3-6 miles) deep from the border into Lebanese territory, where Israel has said that it plans to create a so-called buffer zone. Israeli forces have destroyed Lebanese villages in the area, saying their aim is to protect northern Israeli towns from Hezbollah attacks. It has created buffer zones in Syria and in Gaza, where it controls more than half the enclave.

“Five divisions, alongside Israeli Navy forces, are operating simultaneously south of the forward defense line in southern Lebanon in order to dismantle Hezbollah terror infrastructure sites and to prevent direct threats to communities in northern Israel,” the military said in a statement accompanying the map.

Israel and Lebanon agreed on Thursday to the US-backed ceasefire in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. The deal, which followed the first direct talks in decades between Israel and Lebanon on 14 April, is meant to enable broader US-Iran negotiations but with Israeli forces maintaining positions deep inside southern Lebanon.

Iran currently has not made a decision on whether to send a negotiating delegation to Pakistan “as long as there is a naval blockade”, Iran’s semi-official news agency Tasnim reported.

Yesterday, Iranian officials reversed the reopening of the strait of Hormuz and reimposed restrictions on the vital shipping lane after the US said it would not end its blockade of Iranian ports. Iranian officials have maintained that the US blockade of Iran’s ports is a violation of the ceasefire agreement.

The US energy secretary has said that petrol prices are expected to remain high due to the fallout from the war on Iran, CNN reports.

Chris Wright spoke to the network and said he believes that gas prices have “likely peaked” but may not reach below $3 gallon “until next year”.

“Gas below $3 a gallon could happen later this year, that might not happen until next year. But prices have likely peaked, and they’ll start going down,” he said.

The national average currently stands at $4.05 per gallon, which is significantly higher than a year ago.

Mohammad Ishaq Dar, the deputy prime minister of Pakistan, spoke on Sunday with Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister of Iran.

The phone call included discussion on “the need for continued dialogue and engagement as essential to resolving the current issues as soon as possible for promoting the peace and stability in the region and beyond”, according to Pakistan’s ministry of foreign affairs.

Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s president, is slated to have a phone call with Shehbaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister, later today as well.

These phone conversations took place as Donald Trump confirmed that a US delegation would be in Islamabad on Monday for another round of peace talks regarding the conflict in Iran.

Here are some more images coming out of Lebanon today of residents forced to traverse broken bridges and destroyed roads to return home during the temporary ceasefire:

The Israeli military demolished homes in the towns of Bayyada and Naqoura in southern Lebanon on Sunday, according to the state-run National News Agency.

Israeli forces also blocked roaded leading to several towns, the news agency said.

An Israeli soldier was killed in southern Lebanon this week during a temporary ceasefire, said Israeli Defense Forces.

Lidor Porat, a 31-year-old sergeant first class, was killed in an incident in which another soldier was severely injured, four soldiers were moderately injured, and four additional soldiers were lightly injured, the IDF said.

On Saturday, Barak Kalfon, a 48-year-old command sergeant major, died after being previously wounded . Kalfon had been injured during combat in southern Lebanon. Three other soldiers are injured in that same incident.

Here are some images coming out of the Middle East today:

The world has lost more than $50bn worth of crude oil that has not been produced since the Iran war began nearly 50 days ago, according to analysts and Reuters calculations. The aftershock of the crisis is expected to be felt for months and even years to come, they say. Since the crisis began at the end of February, more than 500m barrels of crude oil and condensate have been knocked out of the global market, according to Kpler data – the largest energy supply disruption in modern history.

Those 500m barrels of oil lost to the market are equivalent to curtailing aviation demand globally for 10 weeks; no road travel by any vehicle globally for 11 days; or no oil for the global economy for five days, said Iain Mowat, principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie.

It also nearly equals a month of oil demand in the US, according to Reuters estimates.

Trump has praised Israel, a US ally, in its war on Iran, saying in a social media post on Saturday night: “Whether people like Israel or not, they have proven to be a GREAT Ally of the United States of America.”

He said other allies had “shown their true colors in a moment of conflict and stress”.