15 ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz, says IRGC
Tehran: Iran warns of retaliatory attacks after US President Donald Trump set a Tuesday deadline for Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz or face raids on its power plants and bridges.
Iran’s Fars news agency, which is affiliated to the country’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), said earlier that 15 ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz “with permission from Iran” in the previous 24-hour period.
It added that traffic was still 90% lower than before the start of the war.
Some Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, have repeatedly said that the vital shipping lane is not shut, but it is closed only to “enemy countries”.
For now, Iranian officials and lawmakers have also raised the possibility of tolling vessels using the strait.
Donald Trump has threatened to attack civilian infrastructure inside Iran, including bridges and power plants, if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened by his stated deadline of Tuesday.
Trump made the threat in an expletive-laden social media post on Sunday, in which he repeated previous threats to pummel vital infrastructure across Iran.
Meanwhile, a missile fired by Iran hit a residential building in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, killing at least two people and wounding four others.
Israeli rescuers recovered the bodies of the deceased from the rubble, and two more people remain missing.
