LAYLA HASSAN | BREAKING | MAY 26, 2026
CAIRO — The United States launched overnight missile strikes against Iranian naval and military installations Tuesday, shattering a fragile April ceasefire and drawing an immediate and stark response from Tehran: Gulf powers will no longer shield American bases, and the United States, its supreme leader declared, will have “no safe haven” left in the region.
The attacks — confirmed by US Central Command as “self-defence strikes” against missile sites and mine-laying vessels in southern Iran — represent the most significant escalation in weeks and threaten to unravel months of behind-the-scenes diplomacy conducted largely in Qatar, where Iran’s top negotiator and foreign minister were meeting on Tuesday.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said within hours it had shot down a US MQ-9 Reaper drone and fired at a US fighter jet that entered Iranian airspace, asserting its “legitimate and definite” right to retaliate against any ceasefire violation. The IRGC’s statement said its air defence units were now fully activated across the country’s southern flank.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei posted on his Telegram channel that Gulf nations could no longer serve as a “shield” for American military presence. The statement, carried by Reuters, signaled that whatever deal Washington and Tehran were constructing in Doha had been dealt a severe setback by the overnight strikes.
The April ceasefire — hammered out after intensive Qatari and Pakistani mediation — was always fragile. Its central provision required Iran to halt enriched uranium progress in exchange for sanctions relief and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Tuesday’s attacks came as Iran’s negotiating team, led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, sat across the table from Qatar’s Prime Minister in Doha, discussing precisely those terms.
Sources familiar with the Doha talks told Reuters the discussions had been “productive” through Monday, focusing on the uranium stockpile and a mechanism to reopen Hormuz. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking from Nato headquarters in Brussels, said a diplomatic solution remained possible but that a “Plan B” was ready if the strait remained blocked. Trump administration officials have previously floated a toll-system proposal that experts say would make any Hormuz deal economically unworkable.
It remains unclear if the strikes were unilaterally ordered by the White House or coordinated with Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, continued his own parallel escalation: an Israeli airstrike on the Bekaa Valley village in eastern Lebanon killed 12 people overnight, according to the country’s state-run National News Agency, and rescue workers pulled a dozen bodies from the rubble. Netanyahu said he had authorized “more intensive” strikes targeting Hezbollah, and Lebanese and Israeli military delegations are scheduled to meet in Washington in three days for direct talks under the extended 45-day ceasefire framework.
Despite the widening conflict — and Iranian drone and ballistic missile strikes that have previously hit Saudi energy infrastructure during the fighting — more than 1.5 million Muslims gathered on Mount Arafat near Mecca on Tuesday for the climax of the annual hajj pilgrimage. Saudi officials said more international pilgrims had traveled from abroad this year than in 2025, even as Iran’s state news agency acknowledged the “wartime situation” had reduced the number of Iranian pilgrims to about 30,000, down from the 86,000 originally expected. Pilgrims prayed beneath misting fans as temperatures soared, completing one of Islam’s Five Pillars undeterred by the regional conflict.
In a development that risks igniting a third front simultaneously, Middle East Eye reported Tuesday that the United States and Israel are “actively working” to strip Jordan of its historic custodianship of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Citing multiple unnamed US, Jordanian, Palestinian and Gulf Arab sources, the outlet said Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee had championed a plan to transfer authority over the mosque — Islam’s third-holiest site — to a body created by the Israeli government. The site would be declared a “multi-faith centre” open to all three Abrahamic religions. Two US officials confirmed Washington had drafted a paper on the proposed transformation.
Jordan, which has held the custodianship since 1924, has not commented officially. Any transfer of authority over al-Aqsa — which has triggered prior uprisings — could dramatically widen the conflict beyond its current Iran and Lebanon axes.
UN Security Council members voted Tuesday to condemn Iran’s strike on a UAE nuclear facility, a development that adds another layer of diplomatic pressure to the already fractured nuclear diplomacy. Trump, in a post on Truth Social, wrote that the US would “destroy” Iran’s enriched uranium if a deal was not reached.
The diplomatic window established in Doha in 2026 — which once appeared to herald a breakthrough — now faces its most severe test. With IRGC forces repositioning, Israeli strikes continuing in Lebanon, and al-Aqsa’s status suddenly in question, the region is balancing on multiple edges at once.
Additional reporting by the Reuters and The National newsrooms. Layla Hassan is a breaking news correspondent for Media Hook covering the Middle East and North Africa. She is based in Cairo.