The Latest: Trump calls for help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz

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U.S. President Donald Trump said he has demanded about seven countries send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open as Iranian strikes continued to rain down on Gulf countries Monday.

Dubai International Airport, the world's busiest, gradually restarted operations after a drone struck a fuel tank and started a fire. Authorities said it was quickly contained and no injuries were reported.

Tehran has accused the United States without evidence of using “ports, docks and hideouts” in the United Arab Emirates to launch strikes on Kharg Island, home to the main terminal handling Iran’s oil exports evidence, as oil prices soared. Brent crude oil was trading near $105 per barrel on Monday.

Trump said the U.S. is negotiating with countries heavily reliant on Middle East crude to join a coalition to police the waterway where about one-fifth the world’s traded oil normally flows, but declined to name them.

Israeli strikes have deepened Lebanon's humanitarian crisis, with more than 850 people killed and over 850,000 displaced.

Here is the latest:

Shrapnel from an interception fell on the rooftop of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem, according to the Patriarchate. That’s just meters from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the spot where Christian tradition holds that Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected.

There were no immediate reports of injuries from the impact.

Jerusalem’s Old City, where there are holy sites sacred to Muslims, Christians, and Jews, has come under uncommon fire this war. In past missile exchanges with Iran — including the 12-day-war — the city had been spared the damage seen in nearby cities like Tel Aviv or Beersheba.

But since the start of the most recent war, shrapnel has struck multiple sites close to the Old City, including homes in east Jerusalem, a main highway into Jerusalem and a concert venue in West Jerusalem.

Oil prices are down, and stocks are up Monday, though such moves have been quick to change since the war in Iran began.

The S&P 500 rose 1% in early trading, coming off its third straight losing week, its longest such streak in a year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 325 points, or 0.7%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.2% higher.

The driver for markets once again was the price of oil. A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude fell 4.1% to $94.62, easing some pressure off the economy after topping $102 earlier in the morning. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 1.4% to $101.72 per barrel after earlier getting as high as $106.50.

Oil prices have been mostly ripping higher from roughly $70 per barrel since the United States and Israel began their attacks on Iran.

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In a Monday statement, the ministry recalled the government’s decision which prohibits “the military and security activities of Hezbollah.”

It added that the ministry’s position in the matter is clear in which “no armed group operating outside the authority of the state” will be permitted to draw Lebanon further into instability in service of agendas that run counter to Lebanon’s national interests.

The ministry was apparently referring to Iran, Hezbollah’s main backer.

The U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as UNIFIL said Sunday that peacekeepers were fired upon, “likely by non-state armed groups” on three separate occasions while conducting patrols around their bases in three villages in southern Lebanon.

The U.N. peacekeeping force did not say Hebzollah was behind the attacks.

The White House sent out a note clarifying the president’s earlier comments announcing a news conference earlier Monday morning.

He is referring to inviting the press in at the start of the Kennedy Center luncheon, which is scheduled for the East Room at 11:45 a.m.

It adds to an already full slate of meetings and other activities on the president’s schedule for Monday morning.

He’s hosting a lunch with members of the Kennedy Center board, as well as signing an executive order on fraud with Vice President JD Vance later Monday afternoon.

The president says the news conference will be before the Kennedy Center lunch.

Israel’s Genesis Prize says it’s doubling the prize it’s awarded to Israeli actor Gal Gadot to $2 million to promote healing and resilience in Israel.

The “Wonder Woman” star was named this year’s laureate in November for her support of Israel. She dedicated the $1 million prize to organizations that “help Israel heal” after more than two years of war.

The Genesis Prize, along with the Jewish Funders Network, a group of philanthropic leaders, said Monday they were doubling that gift with matching funds.

“At a time when Israel’s caregivers are stretched beyond capacity, we must ensure that those who are helping others heal receive the support they need,” Andres Spokoiny, president and chief executive of the network, said in a statement.

The prize is granted each year to a person for their professional achievements, contributions to humanity and commitment to Jewish values.

The Interior Ministry urged people to remain indoors.

Sirens were also sounding in Bahrain Monday afternoon ahead of a potential attack, the country's Interior Ministry said. The ministry urge people to head to the nearest safe place.

Leavitt says “leader-to-leader” talks between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are happening and that “at this point,” Trump looks forward to visiting China.

But those dates “may be moved,” she said.

“As commander-in-chief, it’s his number one priority right now to ensure the continued success of this Operation Epic Fury,” Leavitt told reporters at the White House on Monday morning.

The treasury secretary followed Trump’s lead Monday and dismissed concerns about rising oil prices since the start of the Iran war.

Bessent accused the media of “trying to make it into some crisis that it’s not,” and he insisted prices would come down after the conflict ends.

“I don’t know how many weeks it will be, but on the other side of this, the world will be safer, and we will be better supplied,” Bessent said on CNBC.

He said the Treasury Department hasn’t traded oil futures to try to cap prices. Asked whether it would going forward, the secretary said: “I’m not sure under what authority or what auspices” that would happen.

Trump’s Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Bloomberg Television over the weekend that the administration has talked about that strategy.

The United Arab Emirates was attacked Monday with six ballistic missiles and 21 drones coming from Iran. That’s according to the Emirati Defence Ministry.

The ministry tallied 304 ballistic missiles, 15 cruise missiles and 1,627 drones since the start of the war.

The attacks killed seven people including two troops, it said.

Starmer has defended resisting President Trump’s pressure for the U.K. to join the war against Iran, saying he has “stood by my principles.”

Trump has berated the British leader for limiting the use of U.K. bases by American warplanes and declining to send an aircraft carrier to the Middle East. Trump complained to the Financial Times that “when I asked for them to come, they didn’t want to come.”

Starmer said at a news conference Monday that British troops should only be sent into action that is legal and has “a proper thought-through plan.”

He said U.K. opposition politicians who’ve criticized his stance “would have rushed the U.K. headlong into this war without the full picture of what they’re sending our forces into, and without a plan to get us out. That is not leading. It’s following.”

Iraqi Oil Minister Hayan Abdul-Ghani said Monday in a video statement that a pipeline from the northern city of Kirkuk to Turkey will be operational within a week, allowing the country to resume oil exports interrupted by the ongoing regional war.

Iraq previously exported around 3.4 million barrels of oil a day through its southern port of Basra, he said, but “in light of the military operations and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Iraqi oil exports stopped two or three days after the beginning of the war in the region.”

Abdul-Ghani said the pipeline from Kirkuk to Turkey, with a capacity of 200,000 to 250,000 barrels a day, is currently undergoing hydrostatic testing. The route will bypass the semi-autonomous Kurdish area in northern Iraq after Baghdad could not reach an agreement with local authorities over conditions for exporting via another pipeline in the Kurdish region.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said those that fled southern Lebanon in the face of Israeli fighting against Hezbollah militants won’t be able to return home until northern Israel, which has been hit by barrages of rockets, is safe.

“Hezbollah will pay a heavy price for its aggression and activity in the Iranian axis to destroy Israel,” he said.

“We have promised security to the residents of the north, and that is exactly what we will do,” he said.

The top U.S. military commander in the Middle East says American forces are zeroing in on Iran’s threats to freighters carrying oil and natural gas through a vital chokepoint in the Persian Gulf.

“We will continue to rapidly deplete Iran’s ability to threaten freedom of navigation in and around the Strait of Hormuz,” Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, said in a video posted to X on Monday.

Iranian strikes on commercial vessels have effectively stopped shipping traffic in the waterway, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is transported. That has dramatically increased the price of oil and put pressure on Washington to do something to ease the pain for consumers.

President Trump may delay his China trip due to the Iran war, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday it’s not to pressure Beijing on the Strait of Hormuz.

Bessent said any delay to Trump’s trip to Beijing wouldn’t be because of disagreements over the Iran war or efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“If the meeting for some reason was rescheduled, it would be rescheduled because of logistics,” he said. “The president wants to remain in D.C. to coordinate the war and traveling abroad at a time like this may not be optimal.”

Trump has suggested he may delay the much-anticipated visit to China at the end of the month as he seeks to ramp up the pressure on Beijing to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and calm oil prices that have soared during the Iran war.

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Italy is the latest country to react cautiously to Trump’s demand that allies help open the Strait of Hormuz.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told reporters in Brussels on Monday that Italy backs reinforcing EU naval missions in the Red Sea.

But he added: “However, I don’t think these missions can be expanded to include the Strait of Hormuz, especially since they are anti-piracy and defensive missions.”

U.S. President Donald Trump said he has demanded about seven countries send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, as Iranian strikes continued to rain down on Gulf countries.

A vessel tracker says a first tanker carrying non-Iranian oil has transited through the Strait of Hormuz.

The Pakistani-controlled tanker Karachi, which carries crude oil from Abu Dhabi, passed the strait on Sunday, according to data from MarineTraffic.

The tanker is now sailing in the Gulf of Oman, it said.

India’s shipping ministry said Monday that an Indian-flagged vessel carrying liquefied petroleum gas is expected to arrive at a port later in the day with more than 40,000 metric tons of fuel.

Local media reported that the vessel sailed from Qatar’s Ras Laffan anchorage. The AP was not able to independently verify that.

A second ship is scheduled to dock on Tuesday, the ministry said. Both vessels crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday.

Officials said 22 Indian-flagged vessels remain west of the strait.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer says Britain is working with allies on a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but “will not be drawn into the wider war.”

He spoke after U.S. President Donald Trump said he’d demanded U.S. allies send warships to open the key oil shipment route.

Starmer said Britain is discussing with the U.S. and allies in Europe and the Gulf the possibility of using mine-hunting drones that the U.K. has in the region. But he signalled the U.K. is unlikely to dispatch a warship.

Trump has berated Starmer for a perceived lack of support for the war, after the prime minister initially refused to allow the U.S. to use British bases to strike Iran.

Starmer said at a news conference Monday that Britain is seeking “a viable collective plan” to reopen the strait, adding that it is, “to say the least, not easy.”

Iran’s top diplomat says the key Strait of Hormuz is only cut off for vessels of the United States, Israel and their allies.

“From our perspective it is open,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said of the strait. “It is only closed to our enemies, to those who carried out unjust aggression against our country and to their allies.”

Araghchi spoke at a press conference in Tehran on Monday.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry says an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Qantara killed four people, including two children.

Two Palestinian women and a child were killed Monday when a wall collapsed in the Gaza Strip, hospital authorities said.

The three-meter-high wall collapsed over tents sheltering displaced people in the southern city of Khan Younis, the city’s Nasser Hospital said.

The dead were relatives and included a six-year-old boy, a 17-year-old pregnant woman and an elderly woman, according to a hospital casualty list.

The Israel-Hamas war has wrecked Gaza, leaving the majority of the strip’s more than 2 million people living in tents or damaged buildings.

The war left 61 million tons of rubble — about as much as 15 Great Pyramids of Giza or 25 Eiffel Towers by volume, according to the U.N.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Monday it will be important for the U.S. and Israel to define “when they consider the military aims of their deployment to have been reached.”

Before meeting EU colleagues in Brussels, Wadephul said he told his U.S. and Israeli counterparts “we need more clarity here.”

He also said the Iranian government poses a significant danger to the region, the freedom of shipping and the global economy and “this danger definitely must not continue.”

Wadephul said without elaborating that he would back sanctions against those responsible for blocking the Strait of Hormuz.

He said once there is clarity on the U.S.-Israeli aims it will be time for a phase when “a security architecture for this whole region” is defined, which will entail speaking to Iran.

Britain is sending 5 million pounds ($6.6 million) to humanitarian organizations in Lebanon.

The funds are intended to help provide food, water and shelter for some of the more than 800,000 people displaced by Israel’s offensive against the militant group Hezbollah.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said she is “gravely concerned about the developing conflict in Lebanon and the scale of the humanitarian impact.”

She condemned Hezbollah’s strikes on Israel and said the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese people by Israeli operations “is completely unacceptable.”

Cooper said the U.K. is working with European allies and the U.S. to prevent the conflict from escalating.

Bahrain’s Defense Ministry says air defense systems have responded to attacks Monday morning.

The ministry says four missiles and three drones were fired.

The Israeli military says it sent additional ground troops into Lebanon for what it calls a “limited and targeted operation.”

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani says the latest deployment is meant to defend Israeli border communities against attacks from the Hezbollah militant group.

Shoshani says Hezbollah has sent hundreds of fighters from its elite Radwan unit toward the border since the militant group entered the war two weeks ago.

He says Israel carried out artillery and airstrikes on multiple sites before sending in the troops.

Earlier in the war, Israel beefed up the presence of ground troops inside Lebanon in what it says is an attempt to prevent attacks on its northern border towns.