Iran FM warns Israel after Katz threat against Khamenei
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned Israel on Wednesday against threatening Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he was “marked for death.”
“POTUS has committed the US to muzzling its pets in Tel Aviv. If they ignore their master, Iran will school them,” Araghchi wrote on X. “Any threat against our People and Leadership will receive Immediate Powerful Response.”
He said the terms of Tehran-Washington MoU were “crystal clear and public for all to see.”
The risk of renewed US-Iran confrontation could rise after the US midterm elections if talks fail to produce a durable deal, Reuters columnist Joachim Klement wrote on Wednesday.
Klement said Iran retained leverage for now because any renewed threat to the Strait of Hormuz could push up oil and gasoline prices in an election year.
He said that leverage could weaken after the November vote, potentially making renewed US military pressure more attractive.
“The upshot of this seesawing leverage is not permanent war, but persistent risk,” he wrote.
A retired US Navy officer has warned that Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz has exposed a deeper weakness in American naval planning, arguing that conventional warships are poorly suited to counter Tehran’s asymmetric tactics in the Persian Gulf.
Writing for the Center for International Maritime Security, Paul Viscovich said Iran had gained the strategic upper hand despite US tactical successes, with mining threats, missile fire, drones, fast boats and coastal anti-ship systems shaping commercial behavior in and around the Strait.
He argued that reopening the Strait would be far more difficult than simply ordering US naval escorts, because destroyers operating in narrow waters would face close-range attacks while protecting large volumes of commercial shipping.
Viscovich said the war showed that Iran had met US great-power forces with cheaper, more expendable systems, and that Washington should respond by complementing traditional warships with mass-produced unmanned systems suited to asymmetric threat environments.
He also warned that any attempt to seize Iranian coastal launch sites would carry major risks, including exposed landing forces, heavy logistical demands and the threat of counterattack by Iran’s army and the IRGC.
A vessel was approached by multiple small craft carrying several people with small arms south of Balhaf, Yemen, on Wednesday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said.
UKMTO said the crew mustered in the citadel and were reported safe.
The agency said the master of a third-party vessel in the area reported small-arms fire over VHF Channel 16, though the report remained unconfirmed.
UKMTO said it was investigating the incident and advised vessels to transit with caution and report suspicious activity.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf during his state TV interview before the broadcast was abruptly cut short.
Iran’s state broadcaster cut short a pre-recorded interview with Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on Tuesday, triggering protests from parliament and speculation that politically sensitive sections had been censored.
The interview was interrupted while Ghalibaf was explaining the mechanism for releasing Iranian assets abroad.
Video of the broadcast shows his remarks being cut off abruptly, followed by a black screen before the channel switched to other programming.
IRIB later said the interview would continue in a second installment on Wednesday, adding that this had been announced in an on-screen ticker at the end of the program.
Parliament says broadcaster gave no notice
In a statement, parliament's media office said the interview had been recorded more than two hours before broadcast and delivered in full to IRIB.
It said that if the broadcaster had decided not to air parts of the interview, it should have coordinated with parliament beforehand. Instead, it said, "The interview was stopped in the middle of its broadcast without any prior notice."
The statement said the cut section covered some of the most sensitive issues in the interview: possible IAEA inspections of Iranian nuclear sites, efforts to release frozen Iranian assets, the reported $300 billion reconstruction credit in the US-Iran MoU, responses to remarks by US President Donald Trump, and what it called Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s strategic message last month.
Video of missing segment circulates
Several Iranian media outlets later published what they described as a brief clip from the unaired portion of the interview.
In the footage, Ghalibaf defended the mechanism for releasing Iranian funds, saying critics ignored that similar humanitarian purchase arrangements had existed for years.
"Where were these purchases made over the past 15 years? Weren't the letters of credit opened in London?" Ghalibaf said.
"Why has this suddenly become an issue? Because they do not want to admit that this memorandum of understanding opened the way for OFAC authorization. This is the power of the Islamic Republic. Be proud of it and stand by it. This document is America's defeat, and we achieved it with dignity," he added.
Iranian media reported that about 20 minutes of the interview had not been aired.
Messages sent by viewers to Iran International suggested the interview was cut as Ghalibaf referred to an earlier agreement under late president Ebrahim Raisi that enabled about $6 billion in Iranian funds to be transferred from South Korea to Qatar for humanitarian purchases.
Other audience messages linked the interruption to reports that a senior IRIB executive had returned to the broadcaster after leaving following another controversial live broadcast last month.
During that program, hardline lawmaker Mahmoud Nabavian disclosed what he described as confidential correspondence from Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei criticizing the US-Iran negotiations before the interview was abruptly cut short. IRIB later said Nabavian's remarks had violated the law and announced the executive's departure.
Iranian news website Jamaran cited unnamed sources saying the executive had returned to work on Tuesday and raised questions about whether the personnel change was connected to the interruption of Ghalibaf's interview. No official has confirmed or denied the report.
Broader political divisions
The dispute over Ghalibaf's interview came amid growing signs of divisions within Iran's ruling establishment over the US-Iran memorandum of understanding.
Several Iranian media outlets portrayed the interruption as evidence of widening political rifts. Fararu said it reflected the growing influence within state broadcasting of allies of hardline politician Saeed Jalili and the ultraconservative Paydari Front, arguing that IRIB could no longer tolerate "even the official narrative of the conservative parliament speaker."
The outlet described the episode as "factional monopolization," "another crossed red line," and "media self-sabotage at one of the country's most sensitive political moments."
The controversy follows weeks of public infighting over negotiations with Washington. Hardline figures have repeatedly accused Ghalibaf, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and President Masoud Pezeshkian of making excessive concessions, while Ghalibaf and his allies have defended the agreement and pushed back against the criticism.
Iran's acting defense minister said the country's defense, missile and drone capabilities were a "red line" for national security and would not be subject to negotiations.
Majid Ebnolreza said he had told members of parliament's Economic Commission that "the defense, missile and drone capabilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran are a national security red line; they are not negotiable and will not be."
He added that Iran would continue to develop those capabilities by relying on domestic resources.
