Iran’s parliament speaker warns US Treasury bond holders could be targets

Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez called for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the protection of energy infrastructure in the Middle East, warning that further escalation could trigger a global energy crisis, in a post on X on Sunday.

“The Government of Spain demands the opening of Hormuz and the preservation of all the energy sites of the Middle East,” Sanchez said.

“We stand at a global tipping point. Further escalation could trigger a long-term energy crisis for all humanity,” he added.

“The world should not pay the consequences of this war,” he said.

Israel’s ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter said the war with Iran must continue until the country’s leadership is weakened to the point it has “no power” and the Iranian people can rise up and topple it.

“The campaign will end … when there is not an entity in Tehran that’s going to threaten the region,” Leiter said in an interview with CNN.

He said the goal was to degrade the leadership’s power to the point it has “no power,” adding that such an outcome could enable Iranians to rise up.

“I think that we need boots on the ground but they’ve got to be Iranian boots, and I think they’re coming,” he said.

Leiter said a popular uprising was likely, adding that “it’s going to take place because the Iranian people have had enough.”

Iran’s deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi said threats to target the country’s power plants and vital infrastructure violate international law and would be met with a proportional response.

“Any attack on Iran’s vital infrastructure will be met with a proportional countermeasure,” Gharibabadi said in a post on X Sunday.

“An open threat to target power plants and vital infrastructure … is directed at civilian objects,” he added.

He said such actions would amount to war crimes and warned that responsibility for any further escalation would lie with those initiating it.

Explosions were heard across central, southern and western parts of Iran on Sunday morning, while low-flying fighter jets were reported in multiple areas, eyewitnesses told Iran International.

Witnesses said blasts were heard in cities including Arak and Isfahan in central Iran, Ahvaz in the southwest, and Bandar Abbas and Bushehr along the southern coast, as well as Parsian, Karaj, Konarak, Mohammadshahr and Yazd.

Residents in Ilam, Qeshm, Malekshahi and Hamadan said fighter jets were flying at low altitude.

Iran’s exiled prince Reza Pahlavi called on US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to continue targeting Iran’s leadership while avoiding civilian infrastructure, after Trump threatened to target Iran’s energy facilities.

“Iran’s civilian infrastructure belongs to the Iranian people and to the future of a free Iran. The Islamic Republic’s infrastructure is the machinery of repression and terror used to keep that future from becoming reality,” Pahlavi said in a post on X Sunday.

“I ask President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu to continue targeting the regime and its apparatus of repression, while sparing the civilian infrastructure Iranians will need to rebuild our country,” he added.