Twenty-two countries have now signed onto a joint statement condemning Iran’s attacks on shipping vessels in the Gulf and saying they are ready to join “appropriate efforts” to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
Those countries include the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, Canada, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Denmark, Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Czechia, Romania, Bahrain, Lithuania and Australia.
The statement does not outline any specific commitments to ensuring the waterway’s safety.
Italy’s Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto, referencing the joint statement on X, said there is “no war mission” and there will be “no entry into Hormuz without a truce and without an extended multilateral initiative.”
-ABC News’ Victoria Beaule
CENTCOM gives update as war enters 4th week: ‘Our progress is obvious’
Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, provided an update on Saturday as the U.S. war in Iran entered its fourth week.
Cooper, in a video message, said the U.S. military has struck 8,000 military targets, including 130 Iranian vessels.
“Their Navy is not sailing, their tactical fighters are not flying and they have lost the ability to launch missiles and drones at the high rates seen at the beginning of the conflict,” Cooper said. “Our progress is obvious.”
Addressing Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Cooper said the U.S. dropped “multiple 5,000-pound bombs” on an underground weapons storage facility on Iran’s coast in an effort to degrade it’s military capabilities in the crucial shipping lane.
“My operational assessment continues to be Iran’s combat capability is on the steady decline as our offensive strikes ramp up,” he said.
Iran says its Natanz nuclear facility was targeted again in US-Israeli attack
Iranian media is reporting that U.S.-Israeli strikes again targeted Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility Saturday morning.
No leakage of radioactive materials has been reported in the complex and there is no danger to residents in the surrounding area, according to social media posts by the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan News Agency and Iran’s semiofficial, IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency.
CENTCOM declined to comment on this or provide details. ABC News has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces.
Earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations — confirmed that entrances to Iran’s underground and previously bombed uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz had been recently damaged by the U.S.-Israeli strikes on the country.
-ABC News’ Morgan Winsor
Israeli-US strikes against Iran will ‘increase significantly,’ Israeli defense minister says
Airstrikes by Israel and the United States against Iran will “increase significantly” in intensity, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Saturday.
“This week, the intensity of the attacks that the IDF and the U.S. military will carry out against the Iranian terrorist regime and against the infrastructures on which it relies will increase significantly, and the campaign led by U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will continue,” Katz said in remarks at an military operations center in Tel Aviv.
“We are determined to continue leading the attack against the Iranian terrorist regime, to behead its commanders and thwart its strategic capabilities — until all security threats to the State of Israel and U.S. interests in the region are removed,” Katz said. “We will not stop until all war goals are achieved.”
