Iran's president says supreme leader urges 'unity' amid US sanctions, and other Mideast developments
Iran’s president says the country's supreme leader is calling for “unity and cohesion” as the Islamic Republic faces economic hardships and sanctions stemming from its war with the United States.
Here’s a look at the latest developments in the Iran war and the wider Middle East on Monday. Full coverage can be found here.
President Masoud Pezeshkian described a nearly seven-hour meeting with Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei in an interview Monday with Iranian state television that aired amid apparent tensions among the Islamic Republic’s leaders.
Pezeshkian told the state-run IRIB that he and Khamenei discussed “people’s livelihoods, the state of the market, employment, people’s housing,” as well as “problems that are now being created as a result of the (U.S.) sanctions.” He didn’t say when or where they met.
Most important, he said, was Khamenei’s emphasis on unity.
“All of the enemy’s plans are aimed at creating division,” Pezeshkian said. “What we have to do is prevent divisions from emerging.”
It is only the second time the Iranian president said he has met with the new supreme leader since Khamenei was appointed in March following a U.S.-Israeli strike that killed his father. Khamenei, believed to have been wounded in the same attack, has not appeared in public since then.
An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Iran will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until the United States meets its conditions.
“It is up to the U.S. side to stop and make amends for its illegal and destructive actions,” Esmail Baghaei said Monday, noting the American blockade of Iranian ports.
Iran wants the U.S. to end the blockade, pay compensation for months of war damage, lift economic sanctions and release Iran's frozen assets. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz — a waterway that normally carries roughly one-fifth of the world's traded oil supplies — has become the war’s most lasting consequence. The impasse has kept energy prices as a major focus of U.S. politics ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Iran is holding separate talks with Oman over transit through the strait, including potentially a temporary shipping corridor. But it has said any actual reopening is contingent on talks with the U.S.
Israel's military said Monday it had declared a Christian-majority town in the occupied West Bank a closed military zone to keep out Israeli settlers and other non-residents.
The new tactic is designed to keep Israelis out of Taybeh, which is surrounded by settlements to its east and west and has been subject to arson, vandalism and settlers coming onto private and village property. The order does not apply to Palestinian residents or journalists, who the army said would be allowed unless soldiers determine their presence poses a threat. The army said its troops would detain suspects and disperse gatherings to keep the peace.
The designation comes after months of the army and police struggling to maintain order throughout the territory, where at least 87 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers in 2026, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry. Parts of Taybeh lie in what's called “Area B,” where Israel maintains security control, but residents have complained that the army and police are slow to respond to attacks by extremist settlers.
Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacked a Red Sea port town controlled by government forces on Sunday, killing seven and injuring 30 people. Yemen’s Defense Ministry — which operates under its internationally recognized government — said four military personnel and three civilians were killed.
The attack on Mokha is the latest in one of the largest waves of Houthi strikes on Yemeni military positions and areas held by the Saudi-backed government since a 2022 truce. It comes as threats to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have renewed focus on the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait at its southern tip. Some shipping has shifted toward that route with Hormuz largely off limits to traffic.
More than two years of war in Gaza flattened most of the territory and destroyed sectors of the economy, but beekeepers are now beginning to rebuild their businesses.
Before the start of the Israel-Hamas war, the sector was based in agricultural lands near the perimeter of the strip, which today remains under the control of Israel's military. But beekeepers have returned to areas near the Yellow Line that divides the territory and found enough hives to restart honey production.
Beekeepers say their efforts are constrained by Israel's blockade on many items from entering the strip, including ones used for beekeeping.
“The bee sector is an important sector for sustainability, ecological balance and farming,” said Ibrahim al-Dabbeh, the head of the Cooperative Association of Beekeepers.
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