US-Iran war highlights: Houthis say 'Saudi criminal air force' targeted Yemen with 54 strikes in 24 hours

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis launched a new attack on Saudi Arabia on Monday and Gulf Arab states postponed planned talks with Iran, underscoring fears that the Middle East conflict could spread further and threaten global oil supplies.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wanted to reach a deal with Washington, signalling a possible diplomatic opening despite the widening regional tensions.

"The failing Nation of Iran wants to make a deal, quickly and badly. I will determine whether or not the U.S.A. will choose to engage - The concept of which we are open to," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The Houthis said on Monday that Saudi Arabia targeted Yemen with 54 strikes over 24 hours, as the Iran-backed group made rapid gains on the Red Sea coast.

"The Saudi criminal air force conducted 54 airstrikes over the past 24 hours using F15 and Typhoon aircraft that took off from the enemy Saudi bases," the Houthis' military spokesman Yahya Saree told news agency AFP.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Monday of heavy reprisals on Israel's enemies if they attacked, as he lauded the recent demolition of a Hezbollah tunnel network in southern Lebanon.

Netanyahu said Israel's destruction of Hezbollah positions at the Beaufort and Ali al-Taher ridges was a "massive victory" and vowed to "continue to destroy terrorist infrastructure".

"I say to our enemies: If you haven't learned the lesson by now, and you choose to attack us again, you will suffer even heavier blows. There is still work to complete," Netanyahu added, according to a video published by his office.

A Palestinian has died from injuries sustained in an Israeli airstrike west of Gaza City, according to a source at al-Shifa Hospital cited by Al Jazeera.

President Donald Trump said on Monday that Iran wants to make a deal and he will decide whether the U.S. will engage in that effort.

"The failing Nation of Iran wants to make a deal, quickly and badly. I will determine whether or not the U.S.A. will choose to engage - The concept of which we are open to," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Saudi Arabia pushed back against concerns over its ambition to build a nuclear power industry and enrich uranium, signaling that its approach was not comparable to Iran’s.

The Gulf nation wants to have access to the entirety of the nuclear fuel cycle — a series of industrial processes from uranium mining to the disposal of nuclear waste — but intends to do it transparently and alongside international monitors, Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said Monday.

“The kingdom follows a clear approach founded on transparency, openness and international cooperation,” he said at the International Atomic Energy Agency annual conference in Vienna. “It does not seek to develop its peaceful nuclear program in isolation from the international community nor through activities conducted in secrecy or in facilities concealed deep within mountains.”

(Bloomberg)

Oil and gas prices rose on Monday after Saudi Arabia shut down a key east-west oil pipeline following a series of drone attacks. Brent crude rose by around 3% to $108 a barrel on Monday morning, The Independent reported.

Etihad Airways' passenger-carrying capacity is higher than a year ago, its chief executive said on Monday, as Gulf carriers recover from disruption to airlines at the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran that has affected this year's revenue.

At Abu Dhabi-based Etihad, available seat kilometres — the industry's standard measure of passenger-carrying capacity — is 15% to 17% higher than a year ago, Reuters reported.

For nearly two days, injured and alone in hostile territory, a US Air Force colonel hid in the mountains of Iran as enemy forces closed in around him. Read more

A crucial Saudi oil pipeline that was struck in an attack last week will mostly be out of service for weeks as the damage is repaired, two regional officials told The Associated Press on Monday, as Yemen's Houthi rebels seized more islands dominating key Red Sea shipping routes in new blows to Saudi Arabia's oil exports.

Eleven people were injured after an ammonia gas leak at the Aqaba Industrial Complex in Jordan, Al Mamlaka TV reported.

Iran on Monday condemned the exclusion of the head of its Atomic Energy Organization from the annual gathering of the United Nations nuclear agency in Vienna saying that it constitutes “a serious breach” of Tehran's rights as a member nation, AFP reported.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Monday said the United States opposed the Iranian nuclear agency head attending an annual conference of the UN nuclear watchdog, AFP reported.

"He's a sanctioned individual and we don't want sanctioned individuals evading their sanctions. He asked for a waiver of the sanctions and it was denied," Wright told reporters in Vienna, the seat of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

An Iranian atomic official on Monday accused the United States of "malicious" behaviour and "bullying" after Tehran said US officials had blocked it from a conference of the UN's nuclear energy agency.

"The denial of access to the general conference is something that is creating a precedent which is going to affect everybody. And that is why we must resist such bullying political pressure," Behrouz Kamalvandi, a senior official from Iran's atomic energy agency (AEOI), told AFP.

"One cannot interpret this latest malicious act of the US administration (as) anything more than a childish type of behaviour."

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have seized the strategic islands of Greater and Lesser Hanish in the southern Red Sea, bolstering the Iranian-backed rebels' ability to control a key maritime shipping route.

Meanwhile, Iran says Saudi Arabia was behind Oman’s decision to postpone a meeting bringing together Iran with other regional countries to discuss the Strait of Hormuz.

Yemen's Houthis launched a fresh barrage of missile and drone attacks on Saudi military targets on Monday, as Iran denied any involvement in the country's revived civil war.

A meeting between Iran and several Gulf Arab nations over a temporary shipping lane through the Strait of Hormuz was postponed, Bloomberg reported.

Beijing rejected on Monday "groundless" reports that Chinese entities supplied Tehran with satellite images of a military base housing US troops in Jordan, before and after an Iranian strike killed three American soldiers.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels captured more strategic islands in the southern Red Sea, Yemeni government and Houthi officials said on Monday, strengthening their control of a major maritime shipping route.