Trump Disapproves of Israeli Hospital Strike, Unaware in Advance

A journalist holds a blood-covered camera belonging to Palestinian photojournalist Hussam al-Masri, a Reuters contractor who was killed in an Israeli strike on Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, during his funeral on August 25, 2025. (AFP)
A journalist holds a blood-covered camera belonging to Palestinian photojournalist Hussam al-Masri, a Reuters contractor who was killed in an Israeli strike on Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, during his funeral on August 25, 2025. (AFP)
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Trump Disapproves of Israeli Hospital Strike, Unaware in Advance

A journalist holds a blood-covered camera belonging to Palestinian photojournalist Hussam al-Masri, a Reuters contractor who was killed in an Israeli strike on Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, during his funeral on August 25, 2025. (AFP)
A journalist holds a blood-covered camera belonging to Palestinian photojournalist Hussam al-Masri, a Reuters contractor who was killed in an Israeli strike on Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, during his funeral on August 25, 2025. (AFP)

US President Donald Trump on Monday expressed displeasure over an Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital that killed at least 20 people, while stating he had not been previously aware of the attack. 

Israel struck Nasser hospital in the south of the Gaza Strip on Monday. Those killed included five journalists who worked for Reuters, the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and other media outlets.  

Trump said "I didn't know that" when he was asked about the strike at the White House on Monday.  

"Well, I'm not happy about it. I don't want to see it. At the same time, we have to end that ... nightmare," Trump told reporters.  

Israel's military acknowledged striking the area of Nasser hospital and said the chief of the general staff had ordered an inquiry.  

In a statement, the army said it regrets harm to "uninvolved individuals" and does not target journalists.  

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned Israel for the strikes, saying it represented "an open war against free media, with the aim of terrorizing journalists and preventing them from fulfilling their professional duty of exposing its crimes to the world".  

The syndicate said more than 240 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza since the war started on October 7, 2023.  

The Committee to Protect Journalists, which put the number of journalists and media workers killed since the war began at 197 including 189 Palestinians in Gaza, called for "the international community to hold Israel accountable for its continued unlawful attacks on the press". 



Trump Demands Iran Pay Compensation for Deaths as Hormuz Deal Hopes Fade

US President Donald Trump attends an event to sign executive orders related to birthright citizenship and the polysilicon industry, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, August 6, 2026. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump attends an event to sign executive orders related to birthright citizenship and the polysilicon industry, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, August 6, 2026. (Reuters)
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Trump Demands Iran Pay Compensation for Deaths as Hormuz Deal Hopes Fade

US President Donald Trump attends an event to sign executive orders related to birthright citizenship and the polysilicon industry, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, August 6, 2026. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump attends an event to sign executive orders related to birthright citizenship and the polysilicon industry, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, August 6, 2026. (Reuters)

US President Donald Trump on Monday demanded Iran pay compensation for the deaths of people he said it had killed in wars, attacks and protests, raising the rhetorical stakes with Tehran as hopes faded for an imminent deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. 

Trump said he was responding to Iran's earlier call for Washington to meet conditions, including recompensing Tehran for the damage caused in the more than five months since the US and Israel launched strikes on its territory. 

"I am likewise demanding compensation from Iran, for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts, for which they are famous," Trump wrote on ‌his Truth Social ‌service. 

The abrupt new US demand was not mentioned in any previous talks. Trump ‌said ⁠it would be ⁠included in all future negotiations with Iran, and would include calls for payments to families of hundreds of thousands of protesters he said Iran had killed. 

He also suggested Iran should compensate "families of those killed on the USS Cole", a reference to the October 12, 2000, attack on that naval vessel in Yemen which killed 17 US sailors, and has been blamed on al-Qaeda, not Iran. 

Iran had earlier said it was nearing a final pact with Oman defining new shipping lanes between them through the Strait of Hormuz but repeated that the US must meet conditions, including ⁠compensation and an end to sanctions and military threats before the key waterway ‌is reopened. 

The strait, through which about a fifth of global ‌oil and liquefied natural gas flowed prior to the conflict, has been effectively blocked since the US-Israeli attacks on Iran on February ‌28, pushing up oil prices and inflation. 

Oil prices had jumped 3% after the statement from ‌Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei, as initial optimism about a potential deal over the strait was tempered by Iran's talk of conditions. Brent crude extended gains to trade up 4.25% at 1720 GMT. 

Dutch and British front-month gas prices rose more than 10%. 

Trump, who has said the attacks on Iran were aimed at keeping Tehran from developing ‌nuclear weapons and degrading its ability to threaten the region, is under pressure to end a war that is deeply unpopular at home ahead of midterm elections ⁠in November. 

Washington and Tehran ⁠agreed to a ceasefire in June, but the US reimposed a blockade on Iranian shipping in the Gulf in July, a move that Tehran said violated the truce, which by then had already broken down. 


Iran Supreme Leader Names Guards General Abdollahi Military Chief

A delivery person rides a motorcycle near an image of Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei at Valiasr Square in central Tehran on August 8, 2026. (AFP)
A delivery person rides a motorcycle near an image of Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei at Valiasr Square in central Tehran on August 8, 2026. (AFP)
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Iran Supreme Leader Names Guards General Abdollahi Military Chief

A delivery person rides a motorcycle near an image of Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei at Valiasr Square in central Tehran on August 8, 2026. (AFP)
A delivery person rides a motorcycle near an image of Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei at Valiasr Square in central Tehran on August 8, 2026. (AFP)

Iranian supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei named Revolutionary Guards general Ali Abdollahi head of the country's armed forces on Monday, while also confirming a new commander of the Guards, putting his imprimatur on the country's military.

Abdollahi had previously led the Khatam al-Anbiya, Iran's inter-branch central military command tasked with coordinating operations.

A statement on Khamenei's website announced that "Major General Ali Abdollahi has been appointed chief of staff of the armed forces. Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi has also been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Guard Corps with the rank of major general."

The pair represent Khamenei's first senior military appointments since being named supreme leader early in the Middle East war after the death of his father in US-Israeli strikes.


Iran Presses Demands on US as Shipping Standoff Grinds on

 Vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, August 10, 2026. (Reuters)
Vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, August 10, 2026. (Reuters)
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Iran Presses Demands on US as Shipping Standoff Grinds on

 Vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, August 10, 2026. (Reuters)
Vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, August 10, 2026. (Reuters)

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 US 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 US 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 US 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 US.