Editor’s note:

Subscribe to our weekly news roundups to get them straight into your mailbox!

Subscribe now

Share with friends who might be interested as well.

Share

The latest news at this hour:

U.S. AND IRAN CONTINUE STRIKES: On July 12 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, CENTCOM launched another round of strikes against Iran, the fourth in a week, citing Iran’s attacks on civilian and commercial vessels as the reason for the attack. For the first time in the conflict, the U.S. deployed naval kamikaze drones. The strikes targeted Iran’s air defense systems, coastal radar stations, and missile and drone positions, as well as IRGC speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz. Explosions were heard in Bandar Abbas, Sirik, and on Qeshm island.

In response, Iran launched another large-scale attack on U.S. targets in five Gulf region countries and Jordan. In Kuwait, the IRGC targeted U.S. HIMARS launchers, which are highly mobile missile systems that are difficult to detect due to their ability to quickly change position.

The IRGC also claimed responsibility for striking the Ali al-Salem and Ahmed al-Jaber air bases in Kuwait. They asserted that they had destroyed fuel depots, a Patriot system, and FPS radars. Additionally, Iranian strikes were reported in Jordan, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the UAE.

The Kuwaiti Armed Forces reported strikes on Kuwaiti border posts and on an offshore oil platform, where one worker was injured.

IRAN: U.S. PRESSURE ON OMAN IS PREVENTING IRAN-OMAN HORMUZ DEAL: On July 13, Iran’s foreign ministry announced that talks held Saturday between Foreign Minister Araghchi and his Omani counterpart in Muscat which focused on managing traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, failed to produce results due to pressure from the U.S. on Oman.

During the meeting, Oman proposed dividing the strait into two routes with separate control: a southern corridor through Omani waters with free passage and no fees, and a northern corridor through Iranian territorial waters that would require coordination with Tehran and also have no fees.

Shortly after these failed talks, Iran was launching drone attacks on Oman in what regional observers described as an attempt to pressure Muscat into accepting Iran’s terms for managing the strait.

On July 12, Iran declared the imminent closure of the strait “until further notice” and cautioned that vessels traversing “unauthorized” routes would lack “safety guarantees.” However, CENTCOM stated: “The Strait of Hormuz is open to all vessels seeking to lawfully transit the international waterway.”

Between Thursday and Friday evening, the Windward maritime tracking platform recorded only six vessels transiting the strait compared to 15-21 on July 5-7 and 130 before the war began.

POWER OUTAGES SPREAD ACROSS IRAN: Amid the summer heat, widespread power outages and voltage fluctuations have swept across Iran, despite assurances from Iranian authorities that the power grid is stable.

This summer, Iran is projected to face a power shortage of 13,640 MW, according to the Parliamentary Research Center. This is about 17% of the projected demand and roughly one-third of the average load in 2024.

The acting chairman of Tavanir, Iran’s state-owned power company, stated that approximately 2,000 grid zones were hit by direct or indirect strikes over the 40 days of the war. The damage from the destruction of solar equipment storage facilities alone is estimated at $1.5 billion, while the total estimated direct damage to the grid is $325 million.

The authorities are proposing consumption management — essentially, rationing — as the only solution.

IRAQI PM HEADS TO WASHINGTON: On July 13, the leader of Iraq, Ali al-Zaidi, went to Washington to sign oil and gas deals which will initiate more economic collaboration between the U.S. and Iraq.

The Iraqi PM wrote that he is looking to develop the U.S.-Iraq relationship beyond “crisis management” and into a place of “opportunity creation — particularly opportunities that have a measurable economic impact”. He expects American companies to help boost oil production in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has resumed physical cash shipments of Iraqi oil income to Iraq after freezing them in April due to attacks on American facilities by pro-Iranian groups.

ISRAEL TO HOLD FIRST ELECTIONS SINCE 2023: On July 12, the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, announced that Israeli parliamentary elections will be held on October 27, 2026 — the latest date permitted by law.

This marks the first time in the last 50 years that an Israeli government will serve a full four-year term without dissolving parliament early. Netanyahu, the current prime minister, has confirmed that he will run for re-election.

Netanyahu’s main rival is Eisenkot, the former chief of staff, who now leads the new centrist party Yashar. Eisenkot has been one of Netanyahu’s sharpest critics over his handling of the Iran war, arguing that Israel was sidelined from the U.S.-Iran negotiations and that Netanyahu’s government failed to secure key Israeli demands

Stay safe out there.

Best,
Oleksandra

U.S. and Iran launch more strikes… Senator Lindsey Graham has died… Mojtaba Khamenei calls for revenge at father’s funeral… Iran has closed the Hormuz Strait, again.

Editor’s note:

Here at IWD, we believe the people living through war deserve as much attention as the wars themselves. Thank you for supporting journalism that keeps those stories at the center.

Will you subscribe (for free) today so we can keep up this work?

Subscribe now

OUR LEAD STORY:

YEREVAN, Armenia — Niloofar* emptied her emergency backpack onto the floor: a passport, prescribed medications, a toothbrush, a change of clothes, and documents proving ownership of her home.

The well-known Iranian children’s writer chuckled sarcastically, looking at the remnants of her previous life.

‘Will there even be a home left to return to?’ she thought.

For decades, Niloofar created fairy worlds full of kindness, beauty, and tomorrow. One of Iran’s most respected children’s authors spent her life writing stories about hope. And now, after years of protests, repression and two wars in less than a year, she said she no longer knows how to write about the future.

Now, it has been almost five months since the U.S. and Israel launched their first strikes on Iran, sparking a regional war and a peace deal process that repeatedly promised a ceasefire, only to collapse under renewed violence. Most recently, after Iran allegedly attacked commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. launched fresh strikes on Iran, followed by additional attacks later that week, effectively ending the 60-day ceasefire outline in the June memorandum of understanding. Some Iranians, including Niloofar, are no longer waiting for a better future — they have lost any faith that the situation will ever improve. A new wave of emigration is emerging among people who once believed leaving their homeland was unimaginable.

Iranian migration patterns reflect this uncertainty, shifting from young professionals seeking better opportunities abroad or an activist escaping political persecution to people like Niloofar who once couldn’t imagine spending their lives out of their motherland. According to the Baker Institute for Public Policy, more than 3 million people are internally displaced, primarily fleeing from the capital city of Tehran into the northern, mostly rural areas. Those who cross international borders are heading first to neighboring countries including Armenia, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iraqi Kurdistan. What begins as thousands of individual decisions to leave may soon become one of the defining migration shifts of this conflict.

Niloofar began writing as a child. She always looked at the world differently, she said, questioning the things around her and searching for deeper meaning.

Her career was strongly inspired by folklore, a lifelong passion that has also influenced her interest in translating literature from English, Russian and German into Persian and folk tales from neighboring countries.

But much of her career was devoted to writing for children because she believed they are “the core of the world” and will shape the future of humanity. Children’s literature, according to her, is a space of a unique sense of freedom and creativity, where a writer can imagine new worlds while helping young readers navigate future adulthood.

Over the years, she became one of Iran’s best-known voices in children’s literature and Persian language education. Niloofar wrote dozens of books for children, parents and teachers, researched Iranian folklore and storytelling traditions, and organized creative writing workshops for young people across the country. Many generations of young readers were inspired by her work.

All her life, she believed that more than anywhere in the world, writers are needed in their own country. Leaving her home in Alborz, a province in northern Iran, had never been part of the plan.

“For years, I believed I had chosen to stay,” she says. “Then I started asking myself whether it had ever really been my choice. People in the Middle East don’t know what choosing means. We are taught that we choose, but most of the time our choices are made for us.”

The latest Iran-Israel-U.S. war forced her to think differently.

“War fills your body with stress,” she said. “All you want is to lift your house onto your shoulders and carry it somewhere safe.”

She began to see her apartment as no longer a home, but more as a place to survive. A shelter. The bathroom seemed safest until she realized it had no window, which for her, meant no way out.

“It would become my death trap,” she said.

The kitchen windows could shatter into blades, so she covered them with tape.

Eventually she had to admit, “the only real safety is having a way to escape,” she said. “And legs that can still run.”

Thus, she started preparing her emergency backpack, turning this into an act of salvation not just a practical exercise. It became an inventory of her life.

One by one, she began removing everything that would slow her down.

“I got rid of the bricks and columns of my home, – everything around us becomes an obstacle to survival. Even love. I only took the documents to my property so that, when I came back, I could prove it was mine,” she says.

“Then I looked at them and laughed.” The questions running through her mind: Will I even be allowed to come back? Will there still be a home?

Her son, who now lives in Oman, has been urging her to leave for years. During the latest escalation, he stopped asking whether she was safe. Instead, he asked how he could transfer money to Armenia if she managed to cross Iran’s northern border.

Armenia had long occupied a special place in Niloofar’s imagination, but she never had thought of it as a place of refuge. She grew up with the Armenian neighbors, studied Armenian and Russian literature, and even collaborated with artists and translators across the region. When one of her former students moved to Yerevan and struggled to find work, Niloofar persuaded her to visit libraries, photograph books, and translate them together into podcasts.

“You live in one of the world’s greatest reading cities,” she told her student. “I grew up surrounded by Armenian culture.”

But as the bombs started hitting the soil of her homeland, Iran, Armenia was no longer a place of literature and friendship. It became an evacuation route.

And this route is now well-known among many Iranians, as many are arriving with similarly unfinished lives.

Among them is a retired schoolteacher who never imagined she would spend her old age anywhere but Iran. She left behind her house, her neighbors and the country she calls beautiful: “We have such a rich and wonderful country,” she said. “I never thought I would leave it.

Her son and daughter remain in Iran. She urges them to join her, but for now work and university keep them there.

“My daughter is an artist and photographer,” she said. “She believes she can become a better artist in her own country and in her own language. But everything is getting worse. At any moment, they may have to leave everything behind.”

But for many, crossing the border is not the end of displacement but the beginning of uncertainty. Some immigration research describes the current movement as fluid rather than permanent: many families leave without knowing whether they will stay abroad, move on, or return home if the fighting stops.

Aid organizations warn that the conflict is placing additional strain on a region already hosting millions of refugees and displaced people after the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine. A new wave of displacement from Iran risks stretching humanitarian resources across the South Caucasus and the wider Middle East, where many neighboring countries are already coping with earlier refugee crises.

As for Niloofar, for many years she believed that pain was a part of her profession.

“I always thought the Middle East was the center of literature, and that a writer is supposed to live through pain to be able to write.”

But the latest war has forced her to reconsider that belief, as there comes a moment when staying is no longer a question of loyalty or belonging, but becomes a question of survival, she confesses.

“In the Middle East we don’t have time to write anymore.”

During the days of bombardment in early March, she realized that she was writing less and listening more to her own thoughts: “My little sparrow heart has become too talkative. It keeps beating against the walls of my chest. My mind is calm, but my little sparrow heart keeps saying: this cage is not where I belong. I am a bird from another garden.”

Not long before the latest escalation, she had bought equipment for a small home recording studio for the podcasts. She called it 3000.

“I wanted to think beyond wars, beyond politics, imagining the year 3000, when I would no longer be here, and children would record bedtime stories for their parents.”

The project embodied everything she had spent decades believing in: that stories could outlive fear, that imagination could survive violence, and that every generation deserved to inherit something gentler than the one before it.

Today the room that was meant to become a podcasting studio has become another space where she stacks her emergency bags.

This story is not entirely unique — for an Iranian Armenian art student living in Yerevan, the war pushed her family to make up their minds and leave Iran.

“Finally my mother managed to move to me, and we are building a new life,” she says. “Since the war happened, I was so worried for her. Now I can finally breathe.”

The move was extremely difficult because although her family is ethnically Armenian, Iran had long become home. “There is no time to think about the meaning of home anymore,” Elen says.

The concept of waiting for all the Iranians interviewed for this story is a pivotal everyday feeling, be that waiting for the next ceasefire, a phone call from relatives still in Iran, or news about their apartment to know if it is still standing.

Back in Alborz, Niloofar walks into a storage room lined with decades of magazines she edited over the whole of her career. Nearby sits the equipment for her unfinished project, the home studio she named 3000, after a future she hoped children would inherit. She looks around the room, filled with stories written in more hopeful years, and waits. So does her packed emergency backpack by the door.

*Niloofar’s name has been changed for security reasons.

THE LATEST NEWS AT THIS HOUR:

By: Oleksandra Poda

U.S. AND IRAN LAUNCH MORE STRIKES: In the early hours of July 12, the IRGC attacked a Cyprus-flagged container ship in the Strait of Hormuz, causing it to stop due to an onboard fire. In response, the U.S. launched its third round of strikes this week, hitting 140 Iranian targets.

Iran retaliated by launching attacks on the Gulf states, including Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Jordan and the UAE. This is Iran’s most intense barrage of strikes since the signing of the U.S.-Iran MoU.

This week the U.S. has struck more than 300 targets in Iran, including missile and drone sites, naval capabilities, ammunition storage facilities, communication networks, and coastal surveillance locations.

This comes after Trump wrote on Truth Social on July 10 that the U.S.-Iran ceasefire is “OVER”.

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM HAS DIED: On July 12, U.S. Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham died at the age of 71 following a sudden illness.

Graham served in Congress for more than 30 years and was known for advocating for isolating Tehran, limiting its missile and nuclear programs and pursuing a hardline stance against Iran. He was also a key supporter of Trump’s war on Iran and was reported to be an important adviser to Trump on foreign affairs.

Iran’s Prince Reza Pahlavi said Graham’s support for the Iranian monarchist opposition movement had earned him the title “Uncle Lindsey”. During Khamenei’s funeral in Tehran last week, posters of Graham appeared alongside other Western officials with red crosshairs over their faces.

MOJTABA KHAMENEI CALLS FOR REVENGE AT FATHER’S FUNERAL: On July 11, during his father’s funeral ceremonies, Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei called for revenge against the U.S. and Israel in a written statement. Iran’s leader said, for the second time since the former Supreme Leader’s death, that his father’s death should be avenged, saying that it was “the demand of the nation, which will certainly be carried out. On July 11, Trump said that 1,000 missiles were ready to “decimate and destroy” Iran, if Iran attempted to assassinate Trump.

Since the funeral of the former Supreme Leader started, Iranian authorities have intensified calls for revenge against the U.S. and Israel. On Saturday the IRGC’s Commander-in-Chief said that revenge against Iran’s aggressors would long be a priority for Iran. Iran authorities also instructed mourners attending Ali Khamenei’s funeral and pro-government demonstrators to continue gathering until Mojtaba Khamenei calls for them to end.

IRAN HAS CLOSED THE HORMUZ STRAIT, AGAIN: On July 11, the IRGC declared the Strait of Hormuz completely and indefinitely closed. Iran said the decision came after vessels had used unauthorized routes, one which had been attacked by Iran.

However, the Joint Maritime Information Center said the southern route was still open and now even allowed two-way traffic. Although the Center said threats for those transiting the strait remain, they also said that there was no authority controlling passage through the strait or demanding fees.

Stay safe out there!

Best,
Alvan and Anya

Editor’s note:
If you've tuned out because you thought this war was over, we get it. But now more than ever, we urge you not to look away.

The best way to stay informed: subscribe today.

Subscribe now

The U.S. military is launching fresh strikes on Iranian targets in response to what CENTCOM says were Iranian attacks on three vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. 

Read more

Editor’s note:

This is our weekly news roundup. Subscribe to keep an eye on the Middle East news!

Subscribe now

Do you know people who might want these, too?

Share

The latest news at this hour:

KHAMENEI’S FUNERAL MOURNERS: “WE DON’T WANT A DEAL, WE WANT TRUMP’S HEAD”: Tehran’s streets flooded with people who gathered to mourn Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the biggest day yet of the week-long funeral procession, July 6.

But the funeral-goers weren’t just mourning — they were calling for vengeance. On the stage where Khamenei’s coffin was displayed, people wrote threatening messages in English that read: “Kill Trump,” while a massive red banner stretched along the length of the crowd, which called for a $100 million bounty on Trump’s head. A hanging effigy of Trump was also paraded through the procession.

IRAN: MOU FORCES U.S. TO RECOGNISE IRAN’S ALLIES: Iran’s Parliamentary speaker, Ghalibaf, called the U.S.-Iran MoU an achievement for Iran, as the U.S. is forced to recognise Iran’s allies, like the Houthis in Yemen. The official also recognised that the agreement’s implementation would be “difficult but possible.”

However, Ghalibaf also claimed that the on-and-off ceasefire has undermined security in the Middle East and proved to the neighboring countries that cooperation with the U.S. or Israel does not guarantee security anymore.

U.S. SUSPENDS SEARCH FOR MISSING SAILOR: The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet reported that the search has stopped for a U.S. sailor who went missing on July 1. The sailor, whose name will not be disclosed for the next 24 hours, went missing after an MH-60S helicopter crashed over the Arabian Gulf. Three more soldiers were injured in the helicopter’s emergency landing.

The search operation lasted over 102 hours, covered 14,000 square miles and included a wide variety of U.S. military vessels and aircraft. Before this incident, 13 U.S. citizens had been killed in the war in Iran so far.

MACRON SET TO BE FIRST EU LEADER TO VISIT SYRIA: France 24 reported that Emmanuel Macron is planning a visit to Syria. This will make him the first head of a Western European state to visit the country since its new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, came to power in 2024 after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. He will be accompanied by investors and representatives of French companies.

Despite Syria’s hostility towards Hezbollah, which supported the Assad regime, and Donald Trump’s pressure on Syria to take action against the group — Syria has refused to intervene in Lebanon. On July 2, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani visited Beirut and told President Aoun that Damascus would continue its diplomatic efforts instead. Syria has also offered to act as a channel between Hezbollah and other Lebanese political parties.

QATAR RESTARTS MARITIME ACTIVITY AND TRADE WITH IRAN: Reuters cited Abbas Abdolkhani, an Iranian official in Doha, saying that his country plans to restart maritime trade with Qatar after an almost five-month pause.

The official said that the goods are already being shipped between Iran’s Dayyer port and Qatar’s Al Ruwais ​port. Both ports are mainly centered on regional trade.

On Sunday, the Transport Ministry of Qatar stated that maritime activity will resume immediately and lifted the suspension on sailing and fishing ​in the Gulf. There was no reason given for the temporary suspension which was issued on June 29, but it came after a Qatari ​citizen ⁠lost his vessel, sustained injuries which were ultimately fatal.

This comes despite extreme uncertainty in the critical waterway — just a week earlier the U.S. and Iran continued to launch strikes in the strait. This reflects the immense strain the closure of the waterway is having on regional countries.

IRAN WAR TAKES A TOLL ON TRUMP’S RATINGS: The recent Financial Times poll showed that 58 percent of U.S. voters say that Trump’s war on Iran has been too costly.

This poll also found that 44 percent believe that the war made the U.S. weaker and only 31 percent of Americans believe that the war has strengthened the country. Only a fifth of U.S. voters believe that the deal could bring about peace.

Trump’s war on Iran has sparked criticism from all sides of the political spectrum, including fellow Republicans. A declining approval rating for Trump threatens to put Republicans in a vulnerable position ahead of the midterm elections in November.

Stay safe out there.

Best,
Oleksandra.

Editor’s note:

Today’s story comes from a reporter who is remaining anonymous for security reasons. This kind of reporting requires trust, access, and real personal risk. But we believe these stories need to be told.

If you want more deeply reported human-interest stories like this in your inbox, subscribe for free today!

Subscribe now

And if you want to help keep our journalism alive, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription.

Upgrade now!

OUR LEAD STORY:

“They’re bombing Tehran. My mother is alone. I have to leave Hormuz,” Nader’s friend said to him on the phone, his voice laced with an unmistakable panic.

The phone call came out of nowhere. Nader’s fingers were frozen on his hang drum. The flames of the bonfire he was sitting by licked his body, yet the call had left him cold. He hadn’t even processed the news before he heard himself respond: “Wait, we’re coming with you.” He picked up his instruments, and started packing.

That was February 28th — the first day U.S. and Israeli forces bombed Iran. But now, four months later, the world is watching the Strait of Hormuz again become the indicator of rising tensions. Washington and Tehran signed a memorandum of understanding that called for a ceasefire on all fronts — including in Lebanon. Citing a breach of that agreement and continued Israeli attacks on Lebanon, Iran said it closed the Strait of Hormuz on June 20, warning that vessels using unauthorized routes faced security risks. Just over a week after the MoU was signed, an Iranian drone struck a Panama-flagged vessel in the strait. The next day, the U.S. struck targets in Iran. All eyes are on the Strait of Hormuz, which is responsible for about one fifth of the world’s oil and gas transports.

But for Nader and a small group of his fellow campers on Hormuz Island, this is nothing new. Months ago, when airstrikes first arrived in February, they were forced to pack up and leave as locals tried to get rid of potential spies. But instead of breaking, they hid in houses and turned their shared meals, music, and art into acts of defiance against the fear of war as explosions echoed — insisting that their community would not be demolished as easily as their campsites. For anyone who has ever faced fear, displacement, or crisis, this story is not just about surviving war in Iran — it’s about how everyday life can become resistance when the world feels like it’s ending.

For years, the smear of red and purple earth in the Strait of Hormuz had been a refuge for backpackers, artists and vagabonds — one of the few places in Iran where you could camp on the beach, dance under the stars and almost feel free. Its psychedelic landscape of rainbow hills and caves against turquoise water, open sky, and fresh air have made it a place that keeps drawing artists and hipsters who come to breathe, paint, and escape the noise of the world. Tourism had also built a quiet economy: ferries, guesthouses, food stalls, and small shops lined along the harbor.

Nader, a middle-aged web designer and DJ from northern Iran, had already paid a price for his activism. During the September 2022 protests that erupted after the death of Mahsa Amini — a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died in police custody after being arrested for not following dress code — he was jailed for marching against the government. After his release, he spent three years drifting — mixing tracks, building a music website, and camping across Iran and neighboring countries with artists and fellow wanderers who, like him, had decided the open road was safer than a fixed address.

On December 22, 2025, he pitched his tent on Hormuz Island. It was a pleasant season and the island was full with 700 to 800 travelers (he estimates). After unrest in January, when Iran’s government fatally crushed economic protests across the country, the internet was cut and the mood curdled. Protests flared in nearby towns, but the island stayed quiet, tense, and watchful. Nader rented a house with his girlfriend in the rather urban part of Hormuz on February 16 — 12 days before the war — and went back to the camp after a few days.

Nader didn’t like to check the news because the news is what led him to pay a price for protesting the government years ago. “I was jailed because of checking the news so I’m trying not to be affected by the news anymore,” he said. Nevertheless, on February 28, he saw the war upfront. “We got a call from a friend saying the war had begun and he had to go to his mother in Tehran, so we packed up and went back to the house.” They were shocked and wondering whether they should stay or leave the island.

The mood on Hormuz shifted overnight. Local patriots, feeling deeply loyal to their country, were mourning Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s assassination. On the island, one question hardened into suspicion: “Who are all these outsiders camping on our shores? There are spies among them,” Nader recalls words from the high clergy of Hormuz as he discussed the situation. The police, plainclothes officers and locals began clearing the island of non-natives.

They went from campsite to campsite, door to door, jumping walls, dragging people out, and loading them onto boats, sometimes without their belongings, Nader explained. “’You can coordinate someone to pick them up later,’ that was the response locals gave to travelers who wanted more time to pack up their items,” Nader recalled.

Nader and his friends tried to disappear. Curtains drawn, voices low, skulking through the city’s quiet alleyways in ones and twos. On Chaharshanbeh Suri, the Persian Festival of Fire, which was celebrated on March 17 this year, an old man started asking them questions as they walked out of the house. “’Who are you? Why do you look like this?’ He was suddenly asking questions. Anyone would feel allowed to pick at us,” Nader recalled.

At first, fear was paralyzing: no money, no guarantee against bombs or forced evacuations, no rest from worrying someone would jump over the wall mid jam session. Yet, as the outside became harsher, something inside softened.

“From the very first days, we started to foster a community, getting together, playing music and having fun in the midst of the thudding explosions,” he said. “Someone would play an instrument, another would paint, and another would make handcrafts. Someone would surprise everyone with a pot of homemade food.”

Each night, 15 to 20 people packed into a house, cooking delicious dishes for each other and dancing and playing music. Tourism evaporated overnight, prices climbed, ferries stopped coming and ingredients ran thin. Yet, they stretched everything further and cooked qorme sabzi, qeyme, sabzi polo and several other dishes Iranian and otherwise. In a place where food and hospitality already carry deep cultural weight, these dinners became their resistance: a way of saying that their community would not be demolished as easily as campsites.

One day IRGC officers knocked on the door, checked the foreigners’ visas, and left again, Nader recalled. He said they were more formal and respectful than the local police, there simply to document who remained since no system existed to track people on the island.

As Nader recalls, airstrikes hit nearby mountains. Tens of kilometers away, explosions rattled windows. According to ISNA, a semi-official Iranian news agency, a sea ambulance was struck on approach to Hormuz on March 11.

The pattern of U.S. and Israeli airstrikes, as the travelers saw it, was chilling: these were targets that fuelled the everyday civilians’ lives, not military targets.

On Qeshm Island, Nader recalled bombs ripping through fishing piers where families earned their living. “The same happened on Hengam Island,” he said. Similar accounts of attacks on Qeshm Island were reported by ISNA, a semi-official Iran-affiliated news agency.

According to Nader, a tanker ran aground in mid-March trying to slip through the strait; when the high clergy deemed its cargo spoils of war, locals looted it.

Emotions swung violently. At times everyone was laughing, cooking, and feeling ecstatic by the sound of daf, dotar and other Iranian instruments; minutes later, someone dissolved into tears. “The emotions were at extremes — peaks of sorrow and joy, serenity and anxiety,” Nader said. The day Nader learned two friends had been killed in airstrikes on Qeshm, about a week into the war, the cooking stopped for a while. Many began to question what the point of staying was when they couldn’t even go to the beach.

One night, a friend played a melody under a verse from a Rumi poem: “Don’t be disappointed when not called by the Beloved. Being pushed away today doesn’t mean you won’t be called tomorrow.” The line landed differently when no one knew if tomorrow would come.

Travelers left, one by one, kicked out or quietly gone. From an estimated 700 before the January unrest, Nader said it felt as though the number dwindled down to 20 by the Persian New Year. The community shrank, but for those who stayed the bond thickened.

Amid the chaos, small signs anchored them. In the yard stood a sea almond tree; over the course of a week, it suddenly filled out with a thick volume of leaves — a green explosion in the middle of a gray and scarlet war. On an opposing wall, someone had written a sentence: “Neither leave too early, nor cling too much.” The phrase became something like a private mantra for the remaining group.

Nowruz arrived on March 21, 2026, almost like a glitch. The air was unexpectedly pleasant, the island pausing. “We felt some kind of relief,” Nader said. They went to the beach and walked on the streets. It felt like borrowing an afternoon from a different life. With the new year, the bombings grew louder, Nader said, but so did rumors of a ceasefire. The group agreed to leave on Sizdah-bedar — the thirteenth day of the year when Iranians traditionally go outdoors to cast out bad luck. This time, it felt like sending themselves away before fate did it for them.

The day before their departure, as they were packing up, Nader felt hit by the war despite all the efforts. A call came from who he believed was Qeshm’s police department: his car, his only material possession, had been damaged in a bombing. His girlfriend was shattered by the news; Nader tried to reassure her with a kind of stubborn faith that “like everything in life, this too must be good somehow.” Everyone felt empathy for him, but he left the group to be on his own and send gratitude to the universe. “I didn’t even want to see my car,” he said.

The next day, they took a boat to Qeshm Island as a column of smoke climbed hundreds of meters into the air.

As they arrived at Qeshm, what they saw was apocalyptic. Cars and shops were burning, streets were quarantined and military forces were everywhere. The ferryman begged them to hurry. At first, the soldiers’ voices were harsh, but they relented and helped Nader reach his vehicle, which, to his surprise, was damaged but still in one piece. The soldiers warned that another explosion could come at any moment.

The car was still badly damaged — no glass, no windshield, its body twisted and scarred. It wouldn’t start. With his girlfriend weeping and his friends screaming at him to move faster, two soldiers leaned in and helped push the car until the engine finally coughed to life and they rolled away from the danger zone. Later, a repairman brought it back to life.

On Qeshm, Nader and his girlfriend visited a friend. One day, they went to the beach, and a bomb fell close to them, Nader told Iran War Dispatches. They packed up and went back to the house, playing games and pretending once more that there was no war.

On April 6, 2026, Donald Trump announced to the world that “a whole civilization will die tonight.” Nader’s family flooded his phone from another city in Iran, asking if he was insane to stay on Qeshm Island. He and his companions kept playing games and music, trying to ignore the push notifications of history. Then, almost anticlimactically, on April 8, 2026, the news of a ceasefire came through.

A number of people in Nader’s life suffered. One friend’s house was destroyed in a strike, forcing the family into a hotel provided by the government, according to Nader. Many islanders, already living on the edge, were pushed into deeper poverty as the island’s economic conditions worsened. “The day after the ceasefire, we left Qeshm,” Nader said. “We explored Shiraz, Khoozestan, Lorestan, Kordestan and headed back toward Tehran and Guilan,” he added. “It was wonderful. Definitely difficult, but it unfolded like a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat.”

What Nader and his friends did wasn’t just survival — it was defiance. These were people raised on poets like Rumi, hardened by U.S. sanctions, with little left to lose and a deep instinct for beauty.

“Now, I’m back in my hometown, selecting music for my mixes. But I’m flabbergasted by the prices. They’ve skyrocketed. This war made everything worse,” Nader said.

“But I’m always content with my condition, and I try to build my resilience. That’s what makes me have a happy life.”

THE LATEST NEWS AT THIS HOUR:

By: Oleksandra Poda

DAY 1 OF KHAMENEI’S WEEK-LONG FUNERAL TAKES PLACE: On July 4, Iran began a week-long state funeral for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war, February 28, 2026, during the U.S. and Israel bombardment of Tehran.

Between 15 and 20 million people are expected to pay their respects during the funeral ceremonies, during which the coffins of Khamenei and his family members will be displayed. Delegations from around 100 countries are attending, including senior officials from China and India. Former Russian president Medvedev is also present at the funeral.

Fearing a possible Israeli attack on the procession, Iran will close Tehran’s airspace on July 6, the day of the main funeral ceremonies. The U.S. has agreed to pause negotiations with Iran for one week during the mourning period. The next round of talks is scheduled for July 9.

ISRAEL MAY HAVE PLANNED TO KILL TEHRAN’S KEY NEGOTIATORS: In spring, Washington tried to warn Iran via intermediaries that Israel might assassinate two of Iran’s lead negotiators — Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, NYT reported citing U.S. officials.

In the early days of the war, Israel assassinated dozens of senior Iranian political and religious leaders, including the Supreme Leader and the country’s top nuclear scientist.

The U.S. became increasingly concerned about what the consequences of these potential attacks on Ghalibaf and Araghchi could be when negotiations started in April.

Israel has long been against negotiations, and has advocated for harsher action against Iran.

FRANCE, UK AND OMAN AGREE TO ENSURE SECURITY IN HORMUZ STRAIT: On July 3, French President Macron and UK Prime Minister Starmer issued a joint statement announcing an agreement with Oman, in which the three countries will work together to ensure safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz.

The two European nations also declared their readiness to deploy the Multinational Military Mission. The Multinational Military Mission is a coalition of more than 20 countries led by France and the UK, who have affirmed their “commitment to using collective diplomatic, economic, and military capabilities to support freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.”

The European initiative comes in direct response to a parallel agreement between Iran and Oman, under which the two countries are developing a new system to jointly control the Hormuz Strait. Initially it seemed as though the two countries might charge vessels fees. This was largely seen as controversial since international maritime law prohibits charging for transit in the way.

Oman is now proposing a system based on the model in place in the Strait of Malacca, in which shipping companies will pay to maintain the strait.

OVER 640K LEBANESE RETURN HOME: As of July 3, over 640,000 internally displaced people in Lebanon have returned home after fleeing due to Israeli attacks on Lebanon, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). This follows a U.S.-Iran ceasefire which came into effect on June 21, following the U.S.-Iran memorandum signed on June 17. The agreement was said to stop fighting on all fronts, including Lebanon, however Israeli strikes have continued. Earlier this week, Israel attacked southern Lebanon and carried out home demolitions in the town of Hadatha.

At the same time, around 500,000 people are still unable to return to their homes in Lebanon, due to massive destruction near the country’s southern border.

Stay safe out there!

Best,
Mohammad

Featured subscriber comment:
With so much American media run by billionaires now, I want to support independent media.

By: Amy Garber

Subscribe now

Do your friends also want to support independent media?

Share

The latest news at this hour:

U.S., IRAN AGREE TO HALT STRIKES AND RETURN TO TALKS: The United States and Iran agreed to end the most recent spurt of attacks in the Strait of Hormuz and return to renewed negotiations, which will resume this week in Qatar, according to an unnamed U.S. official. On Monday, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran has called for a meeting and it will be held tomorrow in Doha.

On Sunday, Iran attacked U.S. bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, after the U.S. struck targets across Iran on the previous day. The U.S. stated that none of these attacks hit their targets and that there were no casualties or damage. However, some are more hopeful about the potential outcome of the talks. Despite the strikes, the first Tehran-Dubai flight is set to take place on Monday, according to authorities at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport.

IRAN, OMAN HOLD FIRST JOINT HORMUZ COMMITTEE MEETING: On Monday, an Iranian deputy foreign minister said that Iran and Oman held the first Joint Hormuz Committee meeting in Muscat, Oman to discuss the future management of the Strait of Hormuz.

During the war Iran has been able to monetize its control of the Strait of Hormuz, making vessels pay for transit. Iran has reportedly pushed to maintain this source of income in the new framework it is establishing with Oman for controlling the strait, which Trump has pushed back on – at one point even threatening to attack Oman if it did not “behave”.

However, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea states that coastal states do not have the right to charge fees for the transit of merchant ships through international straits.

HOW THE HORMUZ CRISIS BOLSTERED CHINA: While many Asian economies have suffered from the Hormuz crisis, it appears to have worked to China’s advantage. The country has been able to avoid inflation and the political and economic fallout from the crisis, according to an analysis published Monday by the Washington-based consulting firm The Asia Group. The analysis showed that China has learnt to adapt to economic disruption and it is able to ease economic shock, through managing exports, currency and prices as well as subsidies.

The consequences of the crisis have also called the U.S.’ reliability as a supplier into question, turning some customers towards not only China. The massive disruptions to the supply of fossil fuel have also driven up demand for green energy, a major industry in China.

IRAN WAS ELIMINATED FROM THE WORLD CUP: After a short but difficult stint in the World Cup, the Iranian football team was eliminated late on Saturday night after Austria and Algeria drew a tie.

Even before the World Cup began the road for the team was rocky. As the first football team in World Cup history to ever compete in a host country it was at war with, the team was not sure if they would be allowed to participate at all. Even when they did get the green light, the U.S. State Department blocked visas for the team’s entire administrative staff. The team was then forced to base themselves in Tijuana, Mexico, as they were not allowed to stay overnight in the U.S.

During the World Cup, the Iranian team was denied a goal in stoppage time against Egypt, and the next day, Austria dashed the team’s hopes of advancing to the playoffs by tying the score in the final seconds of a concurrent match.

In the U.S., the arrival of the Iranian team also got a mixed reception, as they were held in L.A., home to the largest Iranian population outside of Iran. For many, the game turned into a political protest: the Iranian national anthem was loudly booed, and fans wore T-shirts en masse and brought flags bearing pre-revolutionary symbols from 1979.

IRAN SAYS IRANIAN MILITARY CAPABILITIES STRONGER AFTER WAR: A spokesperson for the Iranian military stated that during the war, Iran was able to trial new defense technology which had begun development before the war. Another spokesperson said that Iran’s military has actually come out of the war stronger than it was before the war and that Iran’s attacks on U.S. military assets were more damaging than the U.S. attacks on Iranian military infrastructure,

According to U.S. intelligence, Iran resumed part of its drone production as early as May during the six-week ceasefire and was progressing at a much faster rate than predicted by the U.S. This suggests that the country still has the ability to quickly replenish its combat capabilities. It also casts doubt on the claim that U.S. and Israeli strikes have weakened the Iranian armed forces.

Stay safe out there!

Best,
Kateryna

Iran hits back after U.S. strike... Another Israel, Lebanon peace agreement signed and immediately on the rocks... U.N. works to evacuate ships from the Hormuz Strait.

Featured subscriber comment:

Thank you for offering this bundle. I want war coverage, as local and as human as possible.
By: Ann-Marie Gardner.

Do you want more local and human stories as well? Subscribe for free today!

Subscribe now

OUR LEAD STORY:

Twenty-year-old travel influencer Sophia Lee, was sitting in a cafe in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius, when a strange message landed in her Instagram inbox: it was an offer for a free, all expenses-paid trip to Iran — in the middle of the war.

“I was surprised at first,” she said. “And then honestly suspicious.”

Sophia instinctively zoomed in on the account’s profile picture, showing a man with large headphones and a black baseball cap looking down at a laptop with a concentrated expression.

The message read as follows:

“Hello. Im Meysam translator and journalist in Iran. (sic)

It would be a free trip with everything included. You would visit places damaged in the war, and also see interesting places in Tehran, Shiraz, and Hormuz.

The trip could happen in the next two or three weeks. We would take care of the visa and all bookings in advance.

Would this be interesting for you?

+98xxxxxxxxxx”

Bemused but also concerned, she wondered what this strange offer was, and who it was actually from.

The answer would soon become clear that the Iranian government was attempting to recruit Sophia as part of a coordinated and highly effective operation to control public opinion.

Sophia, who has built a social media brand around trying to become the youngest person to visit every country in the world, had just been offered a front-row seat in the propaganda campaign of the Supreme Leader himself.

When asked why she thought she had been chosen, Sophia guessed, “maybe because they thought that as a smaller creator there’s more potential to kind of shape the message that I would share.”

Since the war began, Iran has dramatically shifted its social media tactics amid an escalating battle over the information space designed to outplay the US and Israel on the very platforms they host and seek to control, The Guardian recently reported.

Anonymous accounts touting regime views have flooded comment sections and Iranian activists abroad have been threatened into silence. In the first 50 days of the conflict, official Iranian government accounts racked up nearly 900 million views and 22 million likes — a thirtyfold jump in engagement compared to before the war, according to one study. Some analysts have called that media dominance Iran’s most significant victory of the war, winning the battle for attention and public opinion even as control of the Strait of Hormuz has remained a competing measure of success.

The propaganda has been creative: AI-generated, filled with childhood motifs and soft animation styles to push the regime’s messaging.

One recurring motif: Lego. One viral clip showed the Iranian national football team walking out alongside ghost-mascot renderings of the 120 children killed at Al Minab, destroyed on the first day of the war by an American Tomahawk missile. If Ukraine rewrote the rules of modern kinetic warfare, Iran is rewriting the rules of weaponizing wartime information.

This battle over monopolizing the narrative was waiting inside Sophia’s Instagram DMs.

Sophia has one large claim to fame: she is attempting to be the youngest person ever to visit every country in the world. Holding dual US and German citizenship, she was raised between Alaska and New York. Sophia told Iran War Dispatches she skipped formal schooling and started solo travelling at 13 years old, with a trip to Costa Rica that kicked off more than a decade on the road.

She has explored Somalia with armed security, traveled alone into wartime Ukraine,, was the only tourist at the America’s largest fortress in gang-controlled Haiti, bribed her way across the Congo River, and slept in a yurt in Kyrgyzstan in -27°C weather.

Funding her adventurous travel through random opportunities here-and-there, she started with volunteering and work exchanges as a teenager, eventually teaching yoga and photography at hotels around the world until she transitioned to social media.. She’s seen 186 of roughly 195 countries - with about five months left to finish in order to beat the previous record holder Lexie Alford. The odds are in her favour.

Iran was one of the countries last left on her list. So she did what she always does: she posed the question to her followers. Was it possible to visit Iran, mid-war?

A screenshot of the conversation, posted to her close-friends story, raised alarm bells and soon enough further investigation uncovered more about her would-be benefactor.

A LinkedIn profile matched the name and face: Meysam Ahmadi — student, football analyst, journalist, at the Mehr News agency, an ostensibly semi-independent organisation owned by the Islamic Development Organisation, which was formed by Khomeini after the 1979 revolution. According to the Iranian media organisation Hamshari, the IIDO was created to promote Iranian Islamic ideology, and is directly overseen by the Supreme Leader. Who reputedly, incidentally, is responsible for picking the director of the MNA.

In other words, this wasn’t a scam or a joke.

This was Iranian state media, recruiting an influencer with 125,000 followers to help carry its message out of a war zone.

Iran has spent decades building an asymmetric playbook against its militarily stronger opponents like the U.S. and Israel: by arming Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis with homemade weapons, and running a perpetually quasi-nascent nuclear program.

When attacks on-the-ground finally came the regime’s leadership quickly took heavy losses.. Missiles flew at Arab states accused of colluding with the U.S., low-level terror plots surfaced in Western countries, and the Strait of Hormuz closed, sending oil prices —and global anxiety — climbing.

Sophia replied to Meysam’s message, asking for more information:

“Is it possible to get a rough idea of what the itinerary of the trip will be?”

He responded quickly:

“Of course. The trip is about 7-9 days with a groupe of bloggers and journalists. We plan to visit civilian sites damaged in the war and we ask you to tell your audience about these or talk to people who were damaged in the war”.

Al Minab — the bombed school referenced in the Lego World Cup video — was on the list.

Curiosity and confusion has been the driving force for Lee continuing the conversation.

“More than anything,” she said, “I was curious why someone would be organizing a trip like this during a war.”

Not one to accept a free trip from a stranger online, she wanted to know the real motivation.

Lee never replied to Meysam. But, with the clock ticking on the world record attempt and a deep curiosity to see the situation for herself, she went anyway, weeks later on her own, telling no one at Mehr News she was coming.

She spent three days in Tehran. The war had left less of a mark on the skyline than she expected. “It was lovely and modern,” she said, aside from the occasional ruined building.

Life was busy and the streets were full. “During the day there was such a casual energy, people were just walking around. Nobody had their hair covered.” But at night, it was a different story. Because every night, there were organised protests. Not like those that had reportedly seen tens of thousands callously slaughtered in January, but where instead they waved the regime flag and chanted slogans.

According to Sophia, those who were heavily religious had originally been instructed to attend, and now they came of their own volition, believing the government needed their support. Ringing the protests was a heavy police present, armed and watchful. Sophia said they were “quite shocking”, and the “only time” she felt uncomfortable as a foreign tourist. She clearly stuck out here, and the atmosphere was charged. She filmed content quickly and secretly for her social media, aware that being caught meant phone confiscation or even arrest.

Away from her guide, in quieter moments, Sophia talked to locals using Google Translate.

Most people she spoke to disliked the regime, and hadn’t even seen its new leader Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the previous Ayatollah, creating an atmosphere of uncertainty as to who was even leading the country. The January protests had raised hopes of change; when those failed, people anticipated the war itself might finish the job. As neither happened, and the regime kept absorbing blows without buckling, that hope curdled into something closer to dread.

Sophia left Iran the weekend of the 13th, just before the latest ceasefire in the war. She left with love for the Iranian people, and deep concern for their plight. Under the friendliness and what she described as the best hospitality she has ever experienced, she sensed fear.

Whether through nuclear showboating, arming proxy groups, or finding people to take selfies at bombed schools, her story shows how Iran seeks to use whatever asymmetric tool they can to keep the regime in power.

Iran has made a huge noise about the terrible, unforgivable but nevertheless accidental bombing of Al Minab, whilst they themselves have in the last half dozen years imprisoned, shot and hung untold tens of thousands of activists and protestors who want to see change in their country and greater freedoms from the regime.

And that is where the strangest detail of this story emerges: Meysam Ahmadi shares the exact name and probable birth year of another man — one who was killed by security forces as he walked home from work during a protest.

One Meysam Ahmadi promotes the regime. Another was killed by it. Somewhere between these two men is the actual story of modern Iran — the question is, will all these efforts and spilt blood pay off, or is the regime just delaying the inevitable?

Note: It is unclear at the moment if Iran found other people willing to go on the tours organised by Meysam. He has since deleted his Instagram. Iran War Dispatches reached out to Mehr News and its president for comment, and have received no response.

DIVE DEEPER:

A few weeks ago, Iran War Dispatches spoke with about the influencers, propaganda networks, and information campaigns shaping perceptions of the war — and why the narrative fight may matter almost as much as the military one.

If you enjoyed today’s piece, we think you’ll be fascinated by our conversation.

Watch or listen here!

THE LATEST NEWS AT THIS HOUR:

By: Oleksandra Khelemendyk

IRAN HITS BACK AFTER U.S. STRIKE: On Saturday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry stated that Iran targeted regional U.S. military objects in retaliation for U.S. air strikes on surveillance facilities on Iran’s southern coast. In the early morning, Bahrain announced that the country had also been targeted by Iranian drones.

Iranian officials said that the U.S. attacks, launched after Iran had hit a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, breached the UN Charter and the Iran-U.S. Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for ending the war.

ANOTHER ISRAEL, LEBANON PEACE AGREEMENT SIGNED AND IMMEDIATELY ON THE ROCKS: On Friday, Israel, Lebanon, and the U.S. signed a preliminary trilateral agreement to stop attacks from Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

The U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the U.S. will oversee the agreement’s implementation through a trilateral Military Coordination Group for Lebanon. He pledged that the U.S. and the UN would immediately send $100 million worth of humanitarian assistance and over $30 million in funds to Lebanon to improve its defense capabilities.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that, if Hezbollah remains armed, the document lets Israel occupy southern Lebanon. On Friday, Lebanese state media reported that the IDF warned the residents of Mansouri in the south of the country to flee for the first time since a ceasefire took effect earlier this week. On Saturday, a day after the agreement, Israel bombed the town of Markaba 1 mile away from the border and hit an amusement park in the Nabatieh area with drones.

U.N. WORKS TO EVACUATE SHIPS FROM THE HORMUZ STRAIT: The U.N.’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) will continue efforts to evacuate over 500 ships‌ from the Strait of Hormuz. Operations were halted earlier in the week after Iran struck a cargo ship on Thursday.

The IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said that he worked with Oman, the United States, and Iran to ensure the safety of the vessels, but the evacuation will take weeks.

In the meantime, on Saturday, the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations claimed that it had received a report of a tanker struck by an unidentified projectile in the Hormuz Strait and began an investigation. Many of the seamen on vessels in the Hormuz Strait have been there for months and have long been running out of supplies and several have died from attacks launched on tankers in the Hormuz Strait.

Stay safe out there!

Best,
Sam

Editor’s note:

Our team is dedicated to delivering fast, unbiased coverage of developments across the Middle East.

Want the latest updates delivered directly to your inbox?

Subscribe now

The U.S. struck targets in Iran following an Iranian drone attack on a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz a day prior, says U.S. Central Command.

Read more

Featured subscriber comment:

I appreciate your work and it gives me another perspective on the news. Please continue with the good work and be safe. Thank you.

By: Sassyit

Subscribe to keep an eye on another perspective just as Sassyit does.

Subscribe now

Have a friend who might want these roundups, too?

Share

The latest news at this hour:

FIRST ROUND OF U.S.-IRAN TALKS ENDS WITH “PROGRESS”: The first round of talks between high-ranking U.S. and Iranian officials concluded in Switzerland on Monday, with more talks to continue next week. The Pakistani and Qatari mediators said that the sides devised a 60-day roadmap toward reaching a final deal.

The mediators and the Iranian foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi mentioned “major progress” had been made towards resolving the Lebanon issue. However, topics which still present major obstacles were reportedly not touched on, including Iran’s nuclear program.

On Saturday, it was unclear whether the talks would go forward after Iran, once again, closed the Strait of Hormuz, citing Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Meanwhile, on Truth Social Donald Trump threatened to hit Iran unless it ends support for its proxies in Lebanon. Vice President JD Vance downplayed the situation in Lebanon, saying “these things are always a little bit messy”.

The oil prices fell to $78.89 a barrel after the talks concluded, according to Reuters.

…BUT TRANSIT VIA HORMUZ STRAIT IS STILL UNCERTAIN: Only 12 vessels crossed the waterway on Sunday, compared to 35 on Saturday, after Iran closed the strait once again on Saturday, Al Jazeera reported citing an analysis done by the maritime intelligence company Windward.

However, CENTCOM denied the closing of the waterway and stated that 55 ships crossed the strait on Saturday. The possible reason for discrepancy between figures from different sources is the reporting of both visible and invisible transits by CENTCOM. Some ships turn off their Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) to avoid being detected by the Iranian military.

VANCE: UN NUCLEAR INSPECTORS ALLOWED TO VISIT IRAN: Vice President JD Vance announced that Iran will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors into the country, Axios reported.

One of the U.S. goals in the negotiations with Iran was to obtain permission for UN inspectors to visit key nuclear sites in Iran. Vance said that planning for the visit will take place this week, however he did not specify what kind of access the inspectors will be granted.

SYRIA OFFERS TO HELP RESOLVE LEBANON ISSUE: Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa proposed that Syria could contribute to resolving the conflict in Lebanon by facilitating communication between different Lebanese political factions, including Hezbollah. Ahmed al-Sharaa emphasized that Syria was not intending to participate militarily, according to Al Jazeera.

Donald Trump also considered engaging Syria in resolving the conflict in Lebanon, after being disappointed by Israel’s inability to defeat Hezbollah, saying that it’s overly reliant on military destruction.

Hezbollah was previously involved in Syria, when it entered the Syrian civil war in 2013 and supported the former President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Ahmed al-Sharaa called Hezbollah a part of a “major Syrian wound”, but agreed to “sit at the same table with Hezbollah if it serves the interests of Syria and Lebanon”.

THE IRAN WAR COST THE U.S. $40 BILLION+: The Iran war cost the U.S. Department of Defense $40 billion, CNN reported, citing analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The figure includes the cost of destroyed equipment and damage to bases and munitions — which account for $26 billion of the total sum. Two U.S. government sources also mentioned the Pentagon’s request for $80 billion in supplemental funding.

Meanwhile the U.S. weapons stockpile has been significantly depleted as a result of the war. Approximately half of Patriot air defense interceptor missiles stockpiles and THAAD missiles, as well as almost half of its Precision Strike Missiles have been used by the U.S. in the Iran war so far, according to the CSIS analysis. In response, Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act that requires private companies to ramp up weapon production.

Stay safe out there.

Best,
Mariana and Oleksandra.

Hormuz Blockade Lost 1.15 Billion Barrels of Oil... U.S.-Iran Talks in Switzerland Postponed... Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire, Immediately Followed by Breach Accusations.

Editor’s note:

The World Cup doesn’t feel like just soccer this year.

We wanted to tell that story: about fandom, belonging, and the politics of sport. So our reporter based in South America found an Iranian-Mexican superfan to take us inside this cultural moment.

New here? Subscribe for free today!

Subscribe now

If this unique coverage feels like something worth supporting, help us keep our reporting machine alive by upgrading to a paid subscription today.

Upgrade now!

OUR LEAD STORY:

BOGOTA, Colombia — Art Eftekhari remembers being woken by his father one memorable sunrise when he was a boy. The two drove together through the dark, empty streets of Anaheim, California, the engine’s hum the only sound cutting through the early-morning silence, to a crowded cafe.

Inside, the smell of coffee wafted through the cramped cafe, father and son squeezed in alongside dozens of fans packed around a giant rear-projection television, watching Iran’s national team, Team Melli, play its first FIFA World Cup matches, broadcast by satellite from Argentina in 1978.

“It didn’t matter if it was 5:30 or 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning,” Eftekhari said. “We were all there. And when Iran scored, we just went crazy.”

On Monday, Art joined thousands of Iranian supporters in Los Angeles as Team Melli opened its 2026 World Cup campaign with a 2-2 draw against New Zealand — the eighth World Cup in which he has watched Iran play. The timing could hardly have been more pointed: hours earlier Washington and Tehran announced a memorandum of understanding that ended nearly four months of fighting.

The agreement stipulated that the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened, the US would lift its naval blockade and there would be an immediate end to military operations on all sides. That diplomatic chill has trailed Iran throughout the tournament; Visa denials for more than a dozen staff forced the team to abandon its planned US training base in Arizona for Tijuana, turning the Mexican border city into Team Melli’s unlikely home.

Nearly 50 years after watching Iran play its first World Cup match as a kid, Art is just as devoted to the national team. Now, a high school world history teacher in Los Angeles by day, he hosts the only English-language YouTube channel dedicated to all things Team Melli by night. More recently, Art witnessed how Tijuana — often described as the “political equator” between the Global North and South — embraced Team Melli, whose histories have both been shaped by complex sociopolitical tensions with the United States.

Soccer, and Team Melli, have shaped much of Art’s life beyond fandom. He didn’t even own a passport until he learned he had secured tickets to the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

“Whenever I go to a different country, I always want to watch a soccer match in person at a stadium,” he shared. “It is the most popular sport in the world and it is only fitting to connect with other people by talking about the beautiful sport of soccer.”

He has attended 11 World Cup matches across the 1994, 2006, 2018, 2022, and 2026 tournaments, describing soccer as his way of experiencing many different countries.

“I’ve even had the privilege of attending an Iran World Cup Qualifier in Tehran, 2009,” he said. “‘Till this day that’s the loudest sporting event I’ve ever attended.”

After enjoying the UEFA Euro 2012 while teaching English in Poland, Art returned to the U.S. and shortly after, started Team Melli Talk as a podcast in 2016 before building out his YouTube channel two years later.

He knows many Iranians are divided in their thoughts about the team: whether it acts as a symbol of the Iranian regime or a unifying representation of the country’s people. Though he welcomes all opinions and comments on his channel, Art only focuses on covering the gameplay and analyzing the team’s performance.

Now, Art takes much of his global experience motivated by soccer into the classroom, sometimes building lessons off his travels and knowledge of World Cup history — occasionally sneaking in Team Melli games while his students are working and he’s ‘just on his computer’.

For years, Art’s favorite jersey had been a replica of Iran’s 1978 World Cup jersey, reminding him of those early mornings watching Team Melli with his father. Now, its rival is the current Team Melli kit, signed by every player he met recently in Tijuana, Mexico.

Tijuana has become Team Melli’s temporary headquarters this year, and the city’s embrace of the team isn’t unexpected for Art — the son of an Iranian father and Mexican mother, he has blended both cultures his whole life.

“They’re both very welcoming people. They’re both very, very opinionated,” Art said about what the two communities have in common. “That’s for sure.”

When reports surfaced that Team Melli would be based in Tijuana during the tournament, Art made an educated guess about where the team would train: Estadio Caliente, home of Club Tijuana’s Xolos.

He booked a room at the nearest hotel.

“That was probably one of my best ideas ever,” he said.

The decision paid off almost immediately. Just hours after crossing the border with his wife and nearly 1-year-old daughter, Art spotted four Team Melli players outside the hotel — the same one the team itself was staying in.

Despite spending years following the national team around the world, and documenting its trajectory publicly since 2016, meeting the players still left him nervous.

“I was starstruck,” he said. “It was a dream come true.”

The morning after waking up in the same hotel as Team Melli, Art found himself standing in line at a Starbucks in Tijuana just a few heads behind star Iranian striker Mehdi Taremi.

Seizing the moment, Art jokingly called out, “I’ll add a cappuccino to that order,” as Taremi stepped up to the counter. To his surprise, Taremi went along with the joke and bought the drink before striking up a friendly conversation. Art later described the encounter as a quintessential display of “Iranian hospitality,” saying it made him “feel like a little kid again.”

Art continued to meet nearly every Team Melli player during his time in Tijuana.

While in Tijuana, Art found himself moving comfortably between cultures, chatting with residents and reporters in Spanish, the language he speaks more fluently than Farsi, while following the Iranian team.

“The joke for a few World Cups now is that when you see the Iranian team, they could all be Mexican,” said Mariana Martínez Estens, a former journalist who covered the U.S.-Mexico border, first started living in Tijuana when she was eight years old.

Since arriving in the city, Team Melli has been serenaded by mariachi musicians outside its hotel and greeted by fans wearing Mexican jerseys customized with Arabic script.

For Martínez Estens, the enthusiasm reflects a deeper connection.

“It’s super syncretic and super telling,” she said.

Both Iranians and Mexicans, she argued, can relate to being judged through the lens of U.S. foreign policy and geopolitics.

The journey Team Melli will make crossing the border between Mexico and the U.S. during its group stage stint is one thousands of residents of Tijuana make daily.

“When you give the officer your passport, they have your balls in their hands,” she said.

Although Team Melli likely experiences a far more comfortable version of that crossing, Martínez Estens believes Mexicans understand the stereotypes of xenophobia many Iranians confront.

“One is Muhammad and the other is Pepe, but in the grand scheme of things, they’re treated the same by border agents and by people who are afraid of other people,” she explained.

She also sees Mexico’s embrace of a team rejected from staying in the United States as a subtle geopolitical statement — a “tongue-in-cheek” reminder of a complicated relationship with its northern neighbor.

For many years, Art said he felt conflicted — almost in denial — about being more invested in Iran’s national team than Mexico’s.

In 2006, he witnessed the two countries battle each other in Germany, where Mexico defeated Iran 3-1.

“That was my form of torture. I just wanted the game to end in the tie,” he said.

But for Art, that loyalty was never about nationality at all — it ran straight back to his father.

“I’m more attached to the national team of Iran because my dad taught me how to play soccer,” he said. “That’s why. And that’s just super deep for me.”

Now Art has a child of his own: a daughter who will grow up hearing stories about how, as a baby, she met Team Melli players in a hotel lobby in Tijuana.

This Father’s Day — his first as a father himself — he’ll be back in the Los Angeles stands, watching Iran face Belgium beside the man who ignited the passion for football inside him. His father is older now and doesn’t remember things the way he once did. Still, Art hopes some part of him remembers those early mornings in Anaheim — the cafe, the crowded room, and the crowd going crazy when Iran scored.

“I’d like to think,” he said, “that somewhere he’ll be excited.”

*Correction: Iran War Dispatches made a mistake in the initial version of this article. Art and his father watched the 1998 World Cup Qualifiers together. We apologize for the errors.

THE LATEST NEWS AT THIS HOUR:

By: Oleksandra Poda

HORMUZ BLOCKADE LOST 1.15 BILLION BARRELS OF OIL: On June 17, Iran and the U.S. signed a memorandum, promising to reopen the Strait of Hormuz after nearly four months of a naval blockade. The analytics firm Kpler estimated that since the war started at the end of February oil supply losses totaled 1.15 billion barrels.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that its petroleum reserves have fallen to their lowest level in nearly 4 decades. “You want to see bedlam? We run out of reserves in about four weeks,” President Donald Trump said on June 17 at the G7.

U.S.-IRAN TALKS IN SWITZERLAND POSTPONED: The U.S.-Iran talks, which aim to devise a more concrete agreement, have been postponed, with the White House citing logistics complications. Talks were scheduled for June 19.

The decision came after Israel attacked Lebanon, violating one of the terms of the Iran-U.S. agreement in which fighting on all fronts should cease. Israel has said it is not bound to the agreement and has been prevented from seeing the text by the U.S.

It was reported that Special Envoy Steve Witkoff was already on his way to Switzerland, joining Jared Kushner, who had arrived earlier. Trump stated, “If it doesn’t get done in 60 days, it’s all right. We go back to bombing.”

ISRAEL-LEBANON CEASEFIRE, IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWED BY BREACH ACCUSATIONS: Despite the announced ceasefire that was established at 4:00 p.m. on June 19, Israeli forces continued their strikes on Lebanon in the very first hours after it took effect.

Vice President Vance stated that the explosions in Beirut’s civilian neighborhoods were “not acceptable”, while President Trump said he would be able to stop Israel from striking Lebanon.

The clashes between Israel and Hezbollah could affect the agreement signed the day before between the U.S. and Iran, since Iran made the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon one of the conditions of the agreement.

Stay safe out there!

Best,
Abby

The U.S. and Iran remotely signed the memorandum of understanding, a 14-point agreement that launches a 60-day period committed to negotiating a final deal, according to Reuters. Earlier today, Trump set the stakes high: during his press conference, live from the G7 summit in France, he repeatedly warned that he would resume military action if negotiations fail. “If it doesn’t get done in 60 days, we go back to bombing,” he said, later adding, “It’s amazing what bombs can do.”

Now that the memorandum is signed, here’s what each side has promised.

Read more

Editor’s note:

We have remained committed to reporting on the people living through the headlines. And as you’ll learn from today’s post, that is no simple task.

Support our independent journalism that fights for honest, accurate, and human-centered reporting. Join our community by subscribing today!

Subscribe now

Talking to sources inside Iran remains one of the bigg…

Read more

Featured subscriber comment:

I supported your work because mainstream media is not reporting the REAL facts.
By: Winston Lee-Hai.

Subscribe if you want to stay in touch with our reporting just as Winston does.

Subscribe now

Have a friend who might want these roundups, too?

Share

The latest news at this hour:

U.S. AND IRAN AGREE ON PRELIMINARY END TO WAR: On Sunday, representatives of the U.S. and Iran reached an agreement to end the war, which will be signed in Geneva this Friday, according to Pakistani officials. The memorandum of understanding will reportedly end the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and will bring an end to attacks “on all fronts”, according to Iran’s deputy foreign minister. Attacks in the region, both on Iran, Lebanon and Gulf countries have continued despite the ceasefire signed in April. The MOU paves the way for an official deal, which would address more thorny issues like Iran’s nuclear program.

While the memorandum puts in place the framework for the future peace, there are still concerns about the negotiations needed to reach a final deal and whether both sides have the same understanding of the deal.

The agreement comes as Trump attends the first day of the G7 summit — June 15 — where he will meet with other G7 leaders for the first time since the start of the war in Iran. The main topics of discussion at the summit are likely to be the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

…BUT WILL ISRAEL FOLLOW SUIT?: Israel’s National Security Minister pushed back on the U.S.-Iran agreement to end the war, saying that Israel is not bound to follow the agreement. He also mentioned that the Israeli forces will not withdraw from the occupied territories in Lebanon.

Iran has repeatedly stressed that Israeli strikes on Lebanon are an obstruction to a peace deal and has previously threatened to withdraw from negotiations if they did not cease. Lebanon’s leader responded that this was not done in the interest of the Lebanese people. Since the start of the war, Israel has continued attacking Lebanon, citing the threat posed by Hezbollah to Israel which has continued to attack Israel. Israel has also deepened their occupation of Lebanon, even after a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon.

OIL FALLS WHILE STOCKS CLIMB AMID PEACE AGREEMENT: Following the announcement of the U.S.-Iran peace deal, Brent crude oil fell as much as 5.5%, Asian Pacific and U.S. stocks climbed in the hopes that the Strait of Hormuz will open as promised., Bloomberg and Al Jazeera report.

However, there are also certain technical difficulties before the oil flow through Hormuz can return to normal, with the main one being the mines that have to be cleared.

DISPLACED LEBANESE RETURN HOME DESPITE WARNINGS: Following the announcement of the U.S.-Iran peace agreement, displaced Lebanese residents return to their home to Lebanon, Al Jazeera reported. This comes despite local authorities warning people not to return to Lebanon, as Israel signals it won’t withdraw troops or abide by the U.S.-Iran MOU.

Heavy fighting between Israeli Defense Forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah paramilitary in the southern region of the country has killed 3,800 people in Lebanon and displaced 1.2 million, as Israel occupies more of Lebanon.

LA BRACES FOR PROTESTS AS IRANIAN FOOTBALL TEAM ARRIVES: Not long after the Iranian national football team arrived in Los Angeles to compete against New Zealand on Monday, the U.S. Iran peace deal was signed. However, tensions remain high in Los Angeles, as the city, which is often called Tehrangeles and is home to the largest Iranian population outside of Iran, braces for protests — several of which have already taken place, Al Jazeera reports.

BBC Sport reports that the Iranian team have faced visa problems and had to move their base camp to neighbouring Mexico amid the U.S.-Iran war. According to the team manager, the hostile political climate has had an effect on the team’s preparations. Iran’s striker Mehdi Taremi said in an interview: “This kind of tension undermines the joy of the World Cup”.

Stay safe out there!

Best,
Petro

Editor’s note:

We launched this publication to bring you reporting from inside Iran and reporting that focuses on people to help you go beyond the headlines.

Yesterday, we took you inside the room where Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran was made.

Today, a deal was reached.

But this is not the end of the story. It’s the beginning of a new and far more consequential phase. The real diplomacy starts now.

Stay with us. Subscribe to Iran War Dispatches.

Subscribe now

Over 106 days after the U.S. and Israel launched their first strikes on Iran, sparking a war across the Middle East and a global economic conundrum, they have reached a deal, said Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and confirmed by Trump. Tehran has yet to comment.

Read more

Featured subscriber comment:

“I want to hear about real people from real people”
By: Maria Gabriella Camboni

Agree with Maria? Subscribe for free today!

Subscribe now

OUR LEAD STORY:

CAMBRIDGE, England — In July 2015, Vienna was in a sweltering heatwave, when 600 journalists from around the world flooded the city.

Talks aiming to scale back Iran’s nuclear program had been going on for years — but now it looked as though they were about to close.

Until, suddenly, a crisis hit.

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program had been worsening since the early 2000s, but they peaked in 2009 when U.S. President Obama announced that Iran was secretly enriching uranium. He was eager to avoid military action but wanted Iran to scale back their nuclear program. So, Iran and the P5+1 — the UN Security Council’s five permanent members, consisting of the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and France plus Germany — set about negotiating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA): the Iran Nuclear Deal.

As the heat reached record highs, the P5+1 put forward a proposal for the Iranians. But one point was made especially clear: this would be the last offer.

But then everything took a turn.

Seemingly outraged, a lead negotiator, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stood up and said they had made a grave mistake threatening an Iranian before storming out of the room.

Until then, many of the P5+1 negotiators had been optimistic, but now the prospect of signing a deal seemed far off — precisely what Robert Malley, a lead U.S. negotiator for the JCPOA talks, had feared.

Only a few days later, the Iranian delegation returned asking to review a few of the concessions. It turned out the crisis had been heralding an agreement, not a breakdown, Malley said.

The deal that followed was a breakthrough: Iran agreed to massively roll back its nuclear program, while the P5+1 agreed to lift the sanctions strangling Iran’s economy. And, crucially, war had been avoided.

But today all of Malley’s work has been undone: in 2018, President Donald Trump pulled out of the JCPOA deal, and then in February 2026, he launched a war against Iran.

Just like in 2015 U.S. negotiators have found themselves back in the negotiating room across from the Iranian delegation, rehashing the same issues — sanctions, Iran’s nuclear program, and frozen assets. Reconciling the gap between American and Iranian interests was an arduous diplomatic endeavour in 2015, but today the two sides appear further apart than ever.

Trump’s war on Iran has done little to change the balance of power between the U.S. and Iran. U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s top leadership have only strengthened the hardline elements of Iran’s regime, while Iran’s nuclear sites have seemingly withstood the barrage. Attacks on Iran and Gulf countries have continued despite the Iran-U.S. ceasefire reached in April, and now after months of fruitless negotiations, tensions have reached new highs as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatened that the U.S. could “negotiate with bombs” if needed — pushing the prospect of a deal reached via diplomacy further into the distance.

Despite the years of work Malley put into the talks and the optimism from others on his team — he has often been the voice of caution.

“I was kind of the team’s ‘inveterate pessimist.’ [United States Secretary of State John Kerry] would call [National Security Advisor Susan Rice] and say, ‘I think we’re going to get a deal’… but for months, I was saying I think we’re very far,” Malley said.

When Malley heard the Iranians were ready to come back to the negotiating table, he saw the turning of the tides. “I called Susan Rice and said, ‘This time we’re going to get a deal.’ She turned to President Barack Obama, and said, ‘Rob now thinks we’re going to get a deal. We’re going to get a deal.’”

Malley offered a different perspective to those on his team; after all, the bureaucratic world he found himself in as a U.S. diplomat was light years away from his upbringing, full of anti-colonial activists and tales of resistance fighters.

Malley’s father, Simon, was an anti-Zionist Egyptian-Jewish journalist. His full cheeks, broad smile, and thick-rimmed glasses betrayed a vibrant and rebellious attitude to life. “My father almost defined himself in opposition to the setting in which he found himself,” Malley said.

Simon saw the world through the lens of “third-worldism,” an anti-colonial ideology focused on, Malley puts it, “the global south’s struggle for independence.”

“Algerians, Tunisians, Moroccans, Palestinians who were engaged in a struggle for self-determination, held very anti-Western views often. And so I grew up in that milieu listening to that. They were sort of not your typical dinner guests at least for a Jewish Upper East Side family,” Malley said.

As a Jewish person in Egypt his father was a minority, but as an anti-Zionist he was also an outlier in the Jewish community.

This trend continued into his father’s professional life. “He was a journalist in America who was anti-American. He was a journalist in France who was anti-French. He was expelled from France as an American so he was always sort of on the outside of whatever inside there was,” Malley said.

Malley spent his adolescent years arguing vehemently with his father at the dinner table in their home in Paris. More often than not Malley and his sister would side with his mother, who tended to have more nuanced views, while his brother who was less interested in politics tended to take a back seat — often leaving his father feeling outnumbered.

Despite the fact they often disagreed, his father’s anti-colonial worldview heavily shaped his Malley’s outlook on the world. “I could always hear the voice of people who may not experience American policy the way America thinks that it’s projecting or executing it,” Malley said.

Robert Malley waits to testify about the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) during a hearing on Capitol Hill May 25, 2022, in Washington, DC. Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images.

Malley often took issue with his father’s overly dogmatic view of the world, but he believes it is what shaped his sensitivity to the experience of others.

So Malley — who built a career in conflict resolution — became an expert in trying to see things from the other side.

In order to negotiate, one needs to understand what the other side is up against, their interests, why they may be advancing a certain way, and whether you believe both of your interests can be met at the same time, Malley said.

During the JCPOA talks, Secretary Kerry gave the U.S. team an exercise to help them better understand the Iranian negotiating position. The team was tasked with crafting the Iranian victory speech. The goal of the exercise was to try to construct a narrative about how the Iranians could say “this is a good deal for us,” Malley explained.

But when the U.S. delegation told the Iranians about the exercise, Malley’s team understood that they had missed the mark — the exercise had exposed gaps in their understanding of what an Iranian victory would look like.

“Once you believe that there is at least a joint effort to see if we can find a deal that both sides could defend, then you’re in a different mode than if you’re simply trying to get them to surrender to your terms,” Malley said.

The language of mutual interest is long gone from the current negotiations between Iran and the U.S. Trump has repeatedly threatened to destroy Iran, at one point posting on Truth Social that a “whole civilization will die tonight.”

Since the start of the war, the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran have yielded little if anything. However, the U.S. approach to unproductive negotiations has largely been to continue to increase pressure on Tehran. On April 12, following failed talks with Iran, the Trump administration began a naval blockade of Iranian ports to prevent exports of Iranian oil.

“If you think that you’re going to get the other side to surrender, to capitulate — which the Trump administration at times seems to believe — then I don’t know how you reach a deal,” Malley said.

The JCPOA negotiations were famous for the countless hours officials like Malley spent negotiating the finest details. The talks relied heavily on nuclear and sanctions experts as they discussed how to implement sanctions, how to conduct inspections of the Iranian nuclear facilities, and the intricacies of the Iranian nuclear program.

It is not possible to say that the Iranians ever befriended the American delegation, but there was some familiarity that developed between the two sides — one which was critical to the talks’ success, Malley explained.

U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi had a certain affinity for one another. Both were scientists — Moniz was a professor at MIT while Salehi was a student there — and both men served as the technical negotiators during the JCPOA talks. Over five weeks the two men had spent 20 hours alone negotiating not politics but science, namely the technical aspects of Iran’s nuclear program.

The two scientists developed something almost like a friendship. Once, Moniz bought a baby onesie for Salehi’s granddaughter from the MIT gift shop. The pink outfit used elements from the periodic table to spell ‘CuTe’. Moniz also said that “between the two nerds” there was “strong bonding”.

“When [Moniz and Salehi] talked about really tangible issues and trying to find a way around an obstacle, their relationship, I think, really made a difference,” Malley said.

Still, the relationship between the delegations was cautious. The American and Iranian delegations would eat separately, but Malley and Kerry — seeing that the Iranian food was significantly better than the food the American delegation was being served — would often walk around in hopes that they would occasionally get invited for dinner.

“We’d have dinner with [the Iranian negotiators], in large part in order to enjoy the food, but also to relax and make conversation,” Malley said.

But this familiarity was marred by tension and manipulation from both sides.

“[The negotiations] could be professional. There were moments of laughter, but there were also moments of crisis, of tension, where one side would walk out, the other side would scream, and that would happen extremely often,” Malley explained.

Whether the crisis was genuine or not was always in question. Often there were theatrics like when Foreign Minister Zarif stormed out of the negotiations or when Kerry would say that the Iranian delegation was negotiating in bad faith, Malley said.

But ultimately, after years of negotiating, the JCPOA deal was signed. “There was a modicum of faith that we’re in this enterprise, which is trying to make this deal succeed together. Both sides want to succeed. Both sides may have different interpretations to some extent and different interests, but they both are in this somewhat together,” Malley said.

However, after Trump came into power in 2016, he pulled out of the JCPOA — effectively causing the deal to collapse. The sanctions on Iran were not only reimposed but increased, and Iran returned to ramping up its nuclear program. But the U.S. withdrawal caused long term damage to the diplomatic process and the prospect of a future deal.

When Biden was elected in 2020, Malley was tasked with trying to revive the deal. The obstacles on both sides were great: Iran had not experienced the sanctions relief it expected, the deal was not a priority for Biden like it was for Obama, and the failure of the JCPOA left Iran looking for new leverage – namely to ramp up their nuclear program. But perhaps most importantly, after Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018, any trust or confidence Iran had in the U.S. as a negotiating partner had been destroyed.

“If you believe that the other side is going to tear up the deal the next day, or is going to blatantly violate its terms, then why reach a deal in the first place?” Malley said.

Malley believes that talking about trust between the delegations is naive — the differences between the Iranian and American interests is simply too great — but there was some belief that a mutually beneficial deal was possible in 2015. Today, we find ourselves farther than ever from that prospect.

“If I put myself in Iran’s shoes again — the habit that I have — after tearing up the JCPOA, after not once but twice being militarily attacked in the midst of negotiations, it is hard to even have that very, very basic belief that you can believe what the other side is saying to some extent… I don’t even know how you take step one, right?” Malley said.

THE LATEST NEWS AT THIS HOUR:

By: Oleksandra Poda

IRAN IS COLLAPSING ENTRANCES TO ENRICHED URANIUM STOCKPILES: According to a CNN exclusive, in recent weeks Iran has been mining and destroying access routes to its enriched bomb-grade uranium stockpiles — roughly half a ton of material. Collapsing entrances would likely prevent the U.S. from being able to access the uranium stockpiles in the event of an invasion.

In mid-March, the U.S. military was reportedly preparing a ground operation to seize the nuclear material, but Trump called off the operation at the time. Trump has repeatedly mentioned the possibility of the U.S. seizing Iran’s uranium, either by force or via a deal, but now that Iran has made access to the stockpiles more difficult, this possibility is increasingly less likely.

IRAN: TRUMP SECRETLY AGREED TO UNFREEZE IRANIAN ASSETS: On June 12, Mohsen Rezaei, military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, claimed that “Trump has agreed to the release of part of Iran’s frozen assets, but he is unwilling to announce it publicly,” he said.

Tehran has repeatedly stated that it wants the frozen Iranian assets to be released in two stages: $12 billion immediately after signing an interim agreement, and another $12 billion later.

The White House has previously refused to unfreeze Iran’s assets, fearing this would strip the U.S. of leverage over Iran. In the past Trump was highly critical of the 2018 JCPOA agreement, accusing the deal of financially empowering Iran’s government, but unfreezing Iran’s assets would be a major financial boost for Iran’s government.

At the same time, the Trump administration is considering directing part of Iran’s frozen assets toward compensating Gulf countries that suffered damage from Iranian strikes.

UAE TO TRANSFER BILLIONS TO TEHRAN: According to Reuters, the UAE has agreed to unfreeze around $10 billion for Iran. Of this sum, over $3 billion has already been transferred, according to Reuters sources. It is unknown whether the funds belong to the UAE or are part of Iran’s frozen assets.

The transfer of funds to Iran would be a significant policy shift, as the UAE’s relations with Iran have considerably worsened during the war. Two sources told Reuters that the transfer of funds was in exchange for halting attacks on the country. 58% of Iran’s attacks on the Gulf region were directed at the UAE, until the last attack on May 4. Since then Iran has concentrated attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain.

On June 13, the UAE Foreign Ministry categorically denied the transfer of funds, stressing that no Iranian funds have been unfrozen or transferred.

INDIA PROTESTS AFTER 3 INDIAN SAILORS KILLED HORMUZ STRAIT: On June 13, India’s Foreign Minister summoned a senior U.S. diplomat to formally lodge a complaint after U.S. forces’ hit three ships off the coast of Oman, killing 3 Indian sailors. India stressed that the use of force against commercial vessels was unjustified. “We expect the U.S. to take due note of our protest against attacks on vessels carrying Indian seafarers,” New Delhi stated.

The same day, CENTCOM reported that as part of the blockade on Iran, U.S. forces had already redirected 139 ships that complied with inspection requirements and disabled 9 ships that refused to comply. Overnight, CENTCOM also reported that Iranian forces had launched several attack drones at commercial ships in the strait. All the drones were shot down by the U.S. forces.

Stay safe out there!

Best,
Alessandra

Editor’s note:

The war in Iran is ramping up again.
That’s why we’re chatting with the top experts in the field to bring you an expertise you can’t find elsewhere.
Upgrade to a paid subscription for access to this exclusive interviews.

Subscribe today!

Subscribe now

I sat down with Dr. Caroline Orr Bueno from , who studies disinformation, AI, and the online information environment, to answer a deceptively simple question: who’s shaping the narrative of the Iran war? Who are the players, what do they want you to believe, and who is winning? Caroline’s answer surprised me.

Read more

Editor’s note:

Consider us your one-stop-shop for the most important breaking news in the Iran war… This newsflash included

To stay informed and to support our hard work, subscribe today!

Subscribe now

Iran shot down an Apache helicopter that was patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz on Monday night, according to U.S. President Donald Trump. He added that the U.S. must respond.

Read more

Editor’s note:
The Iran war just moved from attempted diplomacy into fresh missile strikes. Now is not the time to tune out. Let us keep you informed.

Subscribe now

Have a friend who might want these news roundups, too?

Share

The latest news at this hour:

IRAN AND ISRAEL HALT ATTACKS: On June 7, Iran launched missiles at Israel for the first time since the ceasefire agreed between both countries on April 8, following Israeli strikes on Lebanon.

Israel also attacked Iran, striking a petrochemical plant in the southwest of Iran, BBC reported. This was the first direct Israeli attack on Iran since April 8, when the Iran war ceasefire was signed.

Iranian state media has reported explosion sounds in Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, and near Karaj, BBC reported. While Israeli state media reported attacks on central and western Iran

While Iran said that it would halt strikes on Israel, it threatened to restart them if Israel continued to attack Lebanon. Israel also announced it was halting strikes on Iran, at Trump’s request.

HOUTHIS ATTACK ISRAEL: Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched a missile attack on Israel and warned of a danger to Israeli ships in the Red Sea, The Associated Press reported.

On Monday, Houthis pledged to block all Israeli-linked commercial shipping between the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.

The Houthis could cut off the Bab El-Mandeb Strait, a waterway critical for exporters which lies between Yemen and Djibouti. Since the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab El-Mandeb has become one of the few resources for exporters.

TRUMP TO REBUILD GULF COUNTRIES WITH IRANIAN ASSETS: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s plans to fund the rebuilding of Gulf states hit by Iranian attacks with Iran’s frozen assets, which amount to $100 billion globally, the Financial Times reported.

Iran’s frozen assets remain one of the thorniest issues for the negotiators. In his interview with NBC yesterday, Donald Trump stated that he will not let the funds be unblocked without a lasting ceasefire with Iran. When Trump pulled out of the 2015 JCPOA agreement, one of his main criticisms was that the deal bolstered Iran financially. However, unfreezing Iran’s assets would give the Iranian government a significant financial boost.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said that Iran’s money was neither the U.S. “war spoils” nor the reconstruction fund for its allies, Reuters reported.

HORMUZ STRAIT TO BE OPEN WITH FEES: Iran’s ambassador to Moscow, Kazem Jalali said that the Hormuz Strait would remain open, despite a recent escalation in the Middle East, but under new conditions, Reuters reported. Among them, the authorities of Iran and Oman are planning to impose passage fees on the vessels.

Previously, Iran has claimed that its peace deal with the U.S. should allow it to demand fees for passing through the strait, depending on the type of ship.

Following the latest strikes between Iran and Israel, oil prices rose again by more than 4 percent, with the Brent crude oil global benchmark climbing to $95.50 per barrel. If the tolls are imposed, oil might become even more expensive.

RENEWED ATTACKS SUSPEND FLIGHTS ACROSS IRAN: Following renewed strikes between Israel and Iran, Domestic and international flights from Imam Khomeini and Mehrabad airports in Tehran were temporarily suspended, according to CNN.

While all airports in western Iran have been closed indefinitely, according to the Iranian media outlet Fars.

Stay safe out there!

Best,
Oleksandra

For the first time since the ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. started on April 8, Iran has launched missiles toward northern Israel. The attacks come just hours after Israeli strikes on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

Read more

Editor’s note:

For three months, we’ve covered the Iran war from a place few outlets can: through the people living it. That hasn’t been easy. Between government surveillance and one of the longest internet blackouts in history, every story has required creativity, persistence, and trust.

Today, we’re taking you behind the scenes to show how we do it.

Now, we need your help to make this work possible. Will you support us by upgrading today?

Upgrade now!

OUR LEAD STORY:

YEREVAN, Armenia — To the southwest of Yerevan, the city’s tall buildings fall away abruptly at the cliff edge of the Hrazdan Gorge — like stage curtains parting to reveal an open sky and a clear, unobstructed view of Mount Ararat’s snow-capped peak, the enduring symbol of Armenia.

On the other side of the gorge, Yerevan splits open to the world. The city’s bustle compresses into a noisy three-lane highway which eventually branches out, sprawling in all directions — Turkey, Georgia, Iran, and a place where I spent the majority of the last three months: Kilikia station, Yerevan’s main international bus terminal, where at least once a day a bus from Tehran will arrive.

When the bus station, named after the brewery next door, was built in 1959, it was a daring modernist piece of Soviet architecture with an A-frame structure and a glass front wall, which throws geometric shadows onto its granite floor when the sun sets behind Mount Ararat.

The station was built during Nikita Khrushchev’s Cold War-era campaign to expand travel opportunities, both to improve life for Soviet citizens and to project a positive image of socialism to foreign visitors.

Today, the station looks largely the same, but the world around it has transformed.

Then, Kilikia station was a gateway to the outside world for the shuttered Soviet Union. Today it has become a place of refuge for many Iranians fleeing the war — and, for those returning home, one of the last places they see before being swallowed by the longest internet blackout in history, which has only recently begun to lift.

When I arrived in Armenia, I had a very specific assignment: to find people who would talk to me about life in Iran. In the first week of the war alone, Armenia and Azerbaijan, which border Iran, reportedly received 1,500 refugees from Iran combined.

Between the internet blackout, a highly surveilled authoritarian state and not actually being able to enter Iran, I knew I was going to have to get creative.

I tried several approaches to reach my reporting goals, joining online groups for Iranians in Armenia, walking into Iranian cafes, bars, restaurants, attending protests, and sitting in on song-filled church services for Iranian converts.

By the end of my reporting stint, I had spent countless hours at Kilikia station meeting buses from Iran, butting heads with territorial taxi drivers and hotel touts for the attention of arriving passengers — trying to interview people for Iran War Dispatches.

I arrived on the first day of the war, but three months later, the prospect of an end appears as remote as ever. A ceasefire between Iran and the U.S., brokered by Pakistan in April, has failed to prevent attacks on Iran and other countries in the region. Dialogue between the warring parties has dragged on without a final deal, until recently, when Iran announced its withdrawal from negotiations.

This limbo of uncertainty and instability — the war, Iran’s repressive government, a flailing economy with inflation hitting 87% — has sent many Iranians in search of refuge.

And it is from the margins of that unresolved war — not its front lines — that the most revealing dispatches have come.

For the Iranians I met arriving at Kilikia station, the internet blackout meant they often had just as many questions for me, as I did for them.

One day, two men in their early twenties arrived at the bus station from Iran. Both were young and intelligent — an engineer and a university student. But apart from their over-stuffed camping backpacks, they had come to Armenia completely unprepared. They asked me how they could find a sim card, a place to stay, how to get around the city, and how much it would all cost. They were shocked when I gave them an estimate of the living costs in Yerevan — rent for a single room can be around 200-300 USD. For comparison, in Iran, the minimum monthly wage is 126 USD per month.

For many Iranians, like these men, becoming a refugee during an internet blackout meant there were few ways to prepare for life beyond the border.

For these young men, leaving Iran also meant abandoning their families on the other side of the internet blackout, at best, limiting their communication to short spurts via government-run messaging apps. Despite war, Iran’s crippled economy, and declining quality of life, their families found it difficult to support their decision to leave Iran.

“It’s almost impossible for young people to find employment in Iran right now,” the young engineer told me.

For my reporting, the internet blackout made reaching people in Iran almost impossible. But when I was able to reach them, I got a glimpse of what it was like to live through war without access to the internet.

At the beginning of the war, I was able to contact a man in Tehran over the messaging platform Telegram. He had used some of his last funds on an expensive VPN, buying himself a temporary window to the outer world.

“We aren’t connected to the internet…what is the world saying about the war?” he asked. We texted for a few minutes, but before long his connection was, once again, cut off.

In the weeks that followed, he reached out when he could, but his situation had deteriorated. As a graphic designer, the internet blackout had gutted his work; spiralling inflation ate through his savings quickly, and, on top of everything else, the blackout stopped him from being able to distract himself from his reality.

“Without the internet, we are all going insane,” he wrote.

In recent days, internet connectivity in Iran has been partially restored. My final meetings in Armenia were punctuated by sudden bursts of joy — phones ringing as family and friends in Iran reached their loved ones in Armenia.

But many families are still waiting, as internet connectivity remains restricted or very weak, with restrictions on social media and international news outlets still in place.

One man from northern Iran, who regularly helped me with my reporting, meticulously kept track of how many days had passed since he heard from his family in Iran and would regularly update me.

One day at dinner, he finally got a call. Overjoyed, he showed me a pixelated, choppy video of his niece in Iran. Her weak connection turned her face into a blur almost immediately —but I could just make out that she was waving and smiling.

The internet blackout was not my only challenge — many people flat-out refused to speak with me.

The first obstacle I encountered at Kilikia was not only that the “daily 1 o’clock bus” arrived anytime between 11 am and 4 pm, but that one of the Iranian bus operator’s employees, upon learning I was a journalist, refused to tell me when the bus was arriving and even told me never to come back.

Most people declined an interview due to safety reasons, fearing the consequences of being caught talking to Western media. Those who did agree often placed their phones on airplane mode and spoke in hushed tones.

The war has driven out regime supporters, just as it had political refugees and, now, Armenia carries its own risks.

There were also those who declined a conversation for ideological reasons. More than once people had initially been eager to be interviewed, but on the condition that it “was not an ‘anti-war’ article”. After reading Iran War Dispatches, an independent outlet, some refused to reach out again.

There were also people on the other end of the political spectrum, who also refused to be interviewed by me. One young man turned his back on me when I approached him. When he turned around to pick up a few suitcases, I assumed he was frustrated by the long journey, but then he called after me as I was leaving.

He leaned in and in a low, angry voice said. “Everything bad that has ever happened to Iran comes from Britain.”

This view — that the West, and Britain in particular, is to blame for Iran’s problems — was a recurring theme, cutting across all political persuasions, even those who supported the war. One woman, an Iranian activist in Yerevan, whose cousin had been killed in the January protests, told me she was glad the U.S. was bombing Iran because she hated Iran’s current government. But she too named Britain as the source of Iran’s problems.

For centuries, Britain interfered in Iranian affairs, most notably during the ‘Great Game’ of the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the British and Russian empires vied for influence over Persia and Central Asia. In the decades that followed, Britain continued to exert influence over Iranian politics. Over time, many grievances accumulated, but the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh remains the most prominent.

After being elected in 1951, Mossadegh, Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, had radically reshaped power in Iran, namely by nationalising the British-run Anglo-Iranian oil company. In 1953, the U.S. and the UK then organised the coup, which put an end to Mossadegh’s reforms and strengthened Shah Mohammad Pahlavi’s power. After the coup, Pahlavi’s reign entered a much more vicious and repressive chapter.

Unlike Mossadegh’s premiership, the Anglo-Iranian company survived, but was rechristened: British Petroleum.

At Kilikia station, I also heard stories of those who had chosen to return home during the war. Many had simply come for a holiday or to work as day labourers in construction. I met one woman in her late 30s, waiting with a small suitcase outside the bus operator’s office. She ran a tour company in Russia, but business had declined since the war in Iran.

She started planning a return trip to Iran from Russia as soon as the ceasefire was announced, hoping to return and convince her family to leave Iran, fearing the ceasefire would end.

Others had built lives abroad and visited Iran during the war — but by the time their visit was over, their lives looked completely different. One Iranian woman living in the UAE had gone home for Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, only to find that she might not be able to return to the UAE — the UAE had started canceling residency visas for Iranians. She had gone to Armenia to try to resolve the issue at the UAE embassy.

As time has passed, the flow of Iranians arriving at Kilikia station has slowed to a trickle.

On quiet afternoons, the station returns to something like its old self — the taxi drivers lean against their cars, small private vendors offering cigarettes and tissues, drift between the occasional customers as Mount Ararat sits, white and immovable in the distance. Designed to open up the world and broaden horizons, Kilikia station now stands at the edge of a war — and an uncertain future.

ISLAM, NEUROSCIENCE & THE IRAN WAR:

THE LATEST NEWS AT THIS HOUR:

By: Oleksandra Poda and Alessandra Hay

U.S. TARGETS IRANIAN PROJECTILES AND AIR DEFENSE: On June 6, CENTCOM announced that U.S. forces intercepted a wave of Iranian missiles and drones launched towards the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf region. CENTCOM also confirmed that it attacked coastal radar surveillance facilities in Iran. On the same day, the U.S. also intercepted six out of seven ballistic Iranian missiles launched towards Kuwait and Bahrain. Iran said that, in response, it struck the “enemy bases in the region”.

Despite the ceasefire agreed between the U.S. and Iran in April, in the last weeks both countries have increasingly launched attacks, many of which have targeted other countries in the region.

LEBANESE PRESIDENT: IRAN IS USING LEBANON AS A PAWN: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, in a rare interview with CNN, accused Iran of unjustly using Lebanon as a pawn in negotiations with the U.S. and Israel. “This is not your country, this is our country,” he declared, addressing Iran. He rejected the notion that Iran was standing up for Lebanese citizens: “You are not trying to help us … the people of Lebanon are paying the price … for the sake of your own interest,” President Aoun said.

Lebanon recently agreed to renew the U.S.-brokered peace agreement with Israel, but Hezbollah rejected the peace agreement saying it was equivalent to a “surrender”. Iran also recently threatened to withdraw from peace talks due to Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

IRAN WAR PUTS 45 MILLION PEOPLE IN FOOD CRISIS: A UN World Food Programme report released in March warned that 45 million people could face acute food insecurity, if the regional conflict continued and if the price of oil remained at $100 per barrel. An updated report on June 5 confirmed that the trend was progressing as predicted.

In addition to the 45 million, 2.5 million people in Somalia, 1.3 million in Sri Lanka and 2.3 million in Afghanistan are unable to meet their basic food needs, according to the report.

Iran recently renewed threats to close the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait, a waterway between Yemen and Djibouti which is critical for exporters around the world. This would likely worsen global food insecurity as well as global fuel prices.

IRAN: U.S. MUST RELEASE FROZEN ASSETS AS SIGN OF ‘TRUST’: One of Tehran’s main conditions for signing any deal with the U.S. is the return of funds frozen abroad, Mohsen Rezaei, a military adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said in an interview with CNN. The official framed the release of these funds as a “test of trust” and said that the U.S. must pass the test and then “the path will be opened”.

Iran demanded that $12 billion be immediately released when the interim agreement and the rest would be released later. The official told CNN that the process had reached a deadlock: “Trump must break this deadlock…The ball is in Trump’s court.

However, Trump is committed to signing a deal which is more beneficial for the U.S. than the JCPOA deal signed in 2015 and has emphasized that any deal signed should not bolster Tehran financially, which was a key criticism of the JCPOA agreement.

Trump also recently said that Iran was not agreeing to the deal out of pride. “They are strong, they are proud…they have no choice, and it takes a little while.”

Stay safe out there!

Best,
Alessandra