Iran War Live Updates: U.S. and Iran Exchange Strikes for Fifth Straight Day

The United States launched new attacks against Iranian targets on Wednesday, hours after Iran targeted American military sites in the region. Neither side has shown signs of backing down as they enter a new stage of the war.

Updated 

July 15, 2026, 8:49 a.m. ET39 minutes ago

Ravi MattuQasim NaumanEric Schmitt and Jenny Gross

Here’s the latest.

The United States and Iran exchanged strikes for a fifth consecutive day on Wednesday, with both sides showing no sign of backing down as they entered a new stage of the war.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, said on social media that it launched a new wave of strikes on military targets in Iran. It said it had targeted “coastal defense systems and cruise missile storage and launch sites” on Greater Tunb island in the Strait of Hormuz, as it seeks to degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels in the critical waterway for oil and gas shipping.

Iran earlier targeted American military facilities in the region, hours after the U.S. military said it had reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian shipping in the waterway, and President Trump scrapped a short-lived plan to impose tolls on shipping in the strait.

The latest strikes, and Mr. Trump’s flip-flops, show that he is struggling to exit a war that he had said would last four to six weeks but has entered its fourth month. The preliminary cease-fire has collapsed, diplomatic efforts have stalled, and the conflict is now focused on control of the strait, which had not been a point of contention before the war.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said on Wednesday that it had launched strikes against U.S. military targets in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait, state media reported. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

The Jordanian military said it had shot down three Iranian missiles, and Kuwaiti and Bahraini forces said they had intercepted Iranian attacks.

Iranian state media reported on Wednesday that seven members of its army were killed after a U.S. strike on military facilities in the southeast of the country. Fatemeh Mohajerani, an Iranian government spokeswoman, said on social media that the U.S. attacks had also killed more than 30 civilians in recent days. She did not provide further details. Central Command did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Trump said on Fox News on Tuesday that U.S. forces would strike Iran “very hard” until Tehran agreed to return to the negotiating table, and could target civilian infrastructure, including power plants and bridges — a potential war crime under international law.

Mr. Trump made the comments hours after walking back a plan he had announced on Monday to charge a 20 percent fee on ships passing through the strait in return for providing security — a practice his administration had previously rejected.

Here’s what else to know:

• Strait of Hormuz: The new U.S. naval blockade could have a more devastating impact on oil prices than the first one imposed from April to June, as global oil reserves are lower and ships face heightened risks.  Read more ›

• Greater Tunb island: The U.S. military strikes on Wednesday were focused on the territory, which the United Arab Emirates claims and says Iran has occupied illegally. The island is strategically located near the opening of the waterway, aiding Iran’s ability to monitor shipping.

• Israel in limbo: Israeli government officials believe a return to full-blown war with Iran is preferable to an agreement that fails to curb the threats they say the country poses. The Israelis fear that another U.S.-Iran deal would not resolve their concerns. Read more ›

July 15, 2026, 9:07 a.m. ET22 minutes ago

Sanam Mahoozi

Iranian officials said U.S. strikes had hit a wheat storage silo and a mineral water production facility on Wednesday, state media reported. U.S. Central Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment but has said that it targeted military facilities in the recent strikes. President Trump on Tuesday threatened to attack Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including bridges and power plants. Doing so could be considered a war crime under international law.

July 15, 2026, 8:19 a.m. ET1 hour ago

Lara Jakes

Lara Jakes has reported on Middle East conflict and diplomacy for more than 15 years.

A new round of U.S. airstrikes against Iran ended on Wednesday after a 90-minute wave of attacks, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. It added that it had targeted coastal defense systems, and cruise missile storage and launch sites on the Greater Tunb island, in the Strait of Hormuz. Control of the island is disputed, with the United Arab Emirates accusing Iran of illegally occupying it for more than 50 years.

July 15, 2026, 8:16 a.m. ET1 hour ago

Lara Jakes

Lara Jakes has reported on Middle East conflict and diplomacy for more than 15 years.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, traveled to Qatar on Wednesday afternoon for what his office described in a statement as meetings and to pay his respects after the recent death of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the former emir. Qatari negotiators have acted as mediators between the United States and Iran, and had been working over the past week to de-escalate the violence.

July 15, 2026, 7:05 a.m. ET2 hours ago

Amelia Nierenberg

Reporting from London

A vague clause in the abandoned Iran deal helps explain the fight over the strait.

The memorandum of understanding signed by the United States and Iran in June was supposed to defuse the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz.

But the wording in the 14-point memo is vague — and the two sides have contradictory interpretations.

The clause, which is in the fifth paragraph of the agreement, reads as follows:

American officials want that to mean the Strait is fully open for business. But Iran sees the memorandum as grounds for dictating where ships can sail. It wants trade to pass along a route near Iran, so it can charge fees.

The memorandum does not include a guarantee that ships can safely sail any portion of the strait. At Iran’s insistence, it acknowledges Iran’s power in the waterway. And it postpones the question of fees until another stage of talks.

On Monday, President Trump announced — and then quickly walked back — his own plan to charge fees on ships there, in return for providing security. He has brought up the idea several times, even as top aides have said the waterway should be toll-free.

Former American officials and analysts said that disagreement is not surprising, given the wording.

Diplomats and lawyers typically hammer out every single word of a contract or treaty, so there is little ambiguity to exploit. Here, the wording is so vague that both sides can read what they want into the negotiated document.

“No one should be surprised that Iran views that as explicitly giving them an enduring role controlling passage through Hormuz,” Michael Ratney, a retired diplomat who was the most recent U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, recently told The New York Times.

July 15, 2026, 6:35 a.m. ET3 hours ago

Lara Jakes

Lara Jakes has reported on Middle East conflict and diplomacy for more than 15 years.

The United States launched a new wave of airstrikes against Iran on Wednesday, U.S. Central Command said on social media. The latest attacks — the fifth straight day of U.S. strikes — hit Iran in the early afternoon, local time. They sought to “further degrade military capabilities” that Iran has used to attack commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, Central Command said.

July 15, 2026, 6:15 a.m. ET3 hours ago

Sanjana Varghese

Footage circulating on social media on Wednesday and verified by The New York Times showed thick clouds of dark smoke rising near the coast in the southern Iranian port city of Chabahar. The plumes were near a large maritime control tower that the United States targeted last week.

July 15, 2026, 6:03 a.m. ET3 hours ago

Katie Robertson

Oil prices tick higher as U.S. reinstates Iran blockade.

Oil prices rose on Wednesday as the United States reinstated its blockade on Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz and shipping slowed to a crawl amid the renewed warfare in the critical waterway.

On Tuesday, oil prices soared to their highest level in a month, breaching $87 a barrel, before pulling back slightly after President Trump announced he would “replace” a 20 percent fee on cargo transiting the strait with “trade and investment deals” with Gulf states, though he left many specifics about the plan unanswered.

The United States had put in place a blockade in April, which sent oil prices soaring above $120 a barrel by the end of that month.

Oil prices retain their gains.

• The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, was hovering around $85 a barrel, up 0.7 percent.

• West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, rose about 1 percent to $80 a barrel.

• Investors and analysts are focused on the continued disruption to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that is a vital trading route for oil and natural gas that normally carries as much as one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.

Iranian ships dash through the Strait of Hormuz.

• President Trump said that oil was “flowing like never before.” But much of it was likely Iranian oil as ships moved through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday. The U.S. blockade of Iran’s ports was reinstated late Tuesday local time.

• Just 21 vessels passed through the strait, in both directions, according to data from Kpler, a maritime data company. Of those, 11 were sanctioned or shadow vessels, meaning they had taken steps to evade detection. None of the 21 ships definitively took the Omani route. Before the start of the war, more than 130 vessels passed through the strait on average each day.

Global stocks are mixed.

• Futures on the S&P 500 pointed to a slight increase when stocks begin trading in the United States on Wednesday. The index closed up 0.4 percent on Tuesday, following new data showing a slowdown in U.S. consumer price gains and a reiterated commitment from the Federal Reserve chairman, Kevin M. Warsh, to bring down inflation.

• Stocks in Asia were higher, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 up 1.5 percent and Korea’s KOSPI index up more than 6 percent.

• In Europe, stocks were mixed. The Stoxx 600, a broad index that tracks the region’s largest companies, rose 0.1 percent, while the FTSE 100 in Britain and the DAX in Germany were both down about half a percent.

Gasoline and diesel prices jump.

• Gas prices rose again on Wednesday, went up 3 cents to a national average of $3.89 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club, up from $3.80 a week ago. The increase has raised the cost for drivers by 31 percent since the war began.

• Gas prices don’t move in lock step with crude, usually trailing increases or drops by a few days.

• The average price of diesel jumped 6 cents to $4.94 a gallon on Wednesday, up 31 percent since the start of the war.

What they are saying: Be wary of ‘inflation spillovers.’

• “Hormuz remains the channel from escalation to inflation, supply risk and central bank reactions,” Geoff Yu, a BNY market strategist, wrote in a research note.

• Slowing inflation in the United States has offered some relief, but higher oil prices and cooling economic growth in China will test central bank officials. “Investors would be wise to stay protected against geopolitical and inflation spillovers while policymakers still have room to act,” Mr. Yu wrote.

July 15, 2026, 5:52 a.m. ET4 hours ago

Ismaeel Naar

Reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Bahrain’s military said its air defense systems intercepted and destroyed a number of Iranian projectiles on Wednesday morning, without specifying how many or what type of aerial attacks had targeted the small island nation in the Persian Gulf.

July 15, 2026, 5:08 a.m. ET4 hours ago

Francesca Regalado

Oil, shipping and flight disruptions are back as the war reignites.

Global oil markets, shipping and air travel are again facing disruptions as the United States and Iran ramp up hostilities in the Middle East.

American warplanes have struck hundreds of targets in Iran over the past week, according to U.S. Central Command, while Iran has resumed attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz and on U.S. allies in the region. President Trump this week reinstated a naval blockade on Iranian ports, which analysts say could cause more damage to markets than the first such blockade in April.

As fears grow of a return to full-scale war, here’s what to know about the renewed disruptions in three key sectors:

Oil

The price of Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, rose as high as $87 a barrel on Tuesday after Mr. Trump said the blockade on Iranian ports would resume.

He also proposed, and later scrapped, a plan for the United States to charge a 20 percent fee on cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for military protection. That reversal only added to the uncertainty, including concerns among shipping experts that other nations would try to monetize waterways, undermining the freedom of navigation that has underpinned global trade by sea for decades.

Roughly a fifth of global oil shipments passed through the Strait of Hormuz before the war. To avoid depending on the strait, oil-exporting countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have sought to expand pipelines or develop new ones, approaches that are costly and would take time.

U.S. oil reserves are now at their lowest levels since 1983, and commercial inventories have also been depleted. China, the world’s largest oil importer, has slashed imports of crude in recent months, which helped keep oil prices from soaring even higher. But if it eventually decides to start buying more oil, it could put upward pressure on prices.

Shipping

The Strait of Hormuz isn’t just a conduit for oil: Fertilizer, bulk goods and plenty of other cargo typically transit the waterway. Before he walked it back, Mr. Trump’s plan to charge fees in the strait would have doubled shipping costs, analysts said.

Logistics companies have reported higher freight rates than a year ago, while shipping companies have taken on additional costs to transport goods such as furniture, electronics and food to Persian Gulf countries by rail and truck, instead of through the strait. With the disruptions set to continue, those higher costs could be passed on to consumers, according to experts and industry officials.

The International Monetary Fund said last week that global inflation would rise to 4.7 percent in 2026, up from 4.1 percent last year, because of higher prices for energy, metals, fertilizer and food. Those calculations were made while the United States and Iran were observing a cease-fire, when oil prices had returned to near their prewar levels.

Flights

Airlines have operated fewer flights and raised fares after months of war caused jet fuel prices to nearly double. With airstrikes flying across the Middle East again, the skies over the region, once a major hub for international travel, are threatened anew.

On Tuesday, the European Union’s Aviation Safety Agency issued a bulletin telling airlines not to operate within the airspace of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — countries in the Persian Gulf that host U.S. military installations and have been attacked by Iran. Before hostilities resumed this week, the European authorities had allowed flight restrictions it instituted in the region earlier in the war to expire.

European airlines only operated a few dozen flights to the four affected countries in July, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider. But the new bulletin also applies to non-European airlines that operate thousands of flights between Europe and major connecting airports in the Gulf states.

Jenny Gross and Niraj Chokshi contributed reporting.

July 15, 2026, 4:41 a.m. ET5 hours ago

Sanam Mahoozi

U.S. attacks have killed more than 30 civilians in southern Iran in recent days, Fatemeh Mohajerani, the Iranian government spokeswoman, said on social media on Wednesday, without providing further details.

July 15, 2026, 4:41 a.m. ET5 hours ago

Sanam Mahoozi

Iran’s state media reported that seven members of the Iranian Army were killed following a missile strike on military facilities near Iranshahr, a city in southeastern Iran, early this morning.

According to state media and the Public Relations Office of the Army Ground Forces, the attack targeted accommodation facilities — including dormitories, a guesthouse, and guard posts — at a Ground Forces barracks in Bampur, near Iranshahr in Sistan and Baluchestan province.

July 15, 2026, 4:27 a.m. ET5 hours ago

Jenny Gross

Business and economics reporter

President Trump said that oil was “flowing like never before.” But much of it was likely Iranian oil as ships made a dash through the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. blockade of Iran’s ports was reinstated late Tuesday local time. Just 21 vessels passed through the strait on Tuesday, in both directions, according to data from Kpler, a maritime data company. Of those, 11 were sanctioned or shadow vessels, meaning they had taken steps to evade detection. None of the 21 ships definitively took the Omani route.

Before the start of the war, more than 130 vessels passed through the Strait of Hormuz each day.

July 15, 2026, 4:21 a.m. ET5 hours ago

Lisa Friedman and Rebecca F. Elliott

What Trump’s new Iran blockade could mean for oil prices.

President Trump’s first naval blockade on Iranian ports in April caused oil prices to rise, but not to the stratospheric levels some feared. And Tehran’s oil exports plunged, depriving Iran of billions in revenue.

The strategy may be harder to pull off a second time without inflicting broader collateral damage to markets.

U.S. oil reserves, which have been steadily drawn down since the start of the war to help combat global shortages, are now at their lowest levels since 1983. Commercial inventories also have been run down. And other oil-producing countries in the region may have a harder time getting their ships out because of the heightened risks.

Another wild card is China. Usually the world’s largest oil importer, China has been helping to keep oil prices at bay by significantly decreasing imports of crude. New data on Tuesday showed that pattern held at least through June. But China might not continue on that path.

“We have now run through all of the buffers which helped moderate oil and natural gas and to some extent fertilizer and helium prices for the first three or four months of the war,” said David L. Goldwyn, a former U.S. diplomat and Energy Department official.

A month after signing a truce, Iran and the United States have slid back to open warfare. Conditions around the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for oil and gas shipments, have deteriorated significantly after days of back-and-forth strikes.

With Iran attacking more ships, Mr. Trump announced on Monday that the United States would reinstate its blockade of Iranian ports. He also said he would charge a 20 percent fee on cargo transiting the strait, though a day later said he would “replace” the fees for “various” states in the Persian Gulf that invested in the United States.

His turnabout left key questions unaddressed and could stir more uncertainty for shippers. Oil prices soared in response. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading near $87 a barrel on Wednesday, its highest level in about a month.

“Even without a return to full-out combat, it might be hard to keep a lid on prices,” Clearview Energy Partners, a Washington research firm, warned in a note to clients.

Before the war, roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz, making any threat to shipping a major concern for energy markets. But increasingly, analysts said, countries and companies are adapting to a new normal in which moving energy out of the Persian Gulf is fraught and, at least for a while, expensive. Countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are increasingly seeking ways to avoid the strait by expanding pipelines or developing new ones, costly endeavors.

“There will be a geopolitical risk premium on oil and gas prices in the future,” said Jorge León, a senior vice president with Rystad Energy, a consulting firm.

After the war began on Feb. 28, with joint strikes by the United States and Israel, Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz to ships from most countries. Global oil prices rose, of course, reaching around $100 per barrel a week into the conflict.

Then on April 13, the United States put in place its first blockade, prompting oil prices to shoot above $120 per barrel by the end of the month, the highest since the conflict started.

But slowly prices sank again. By the time the United States and Iran signed the short-lived memorandum of understanding ending hostilities in mid-June, oil was trading around $80 a barrel. Prices eventually dropped even further as a growing number of vessels sailed through the strait.

For Iran, the effect of the blockade was dire. Oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz accounted for about 80 percent of total Iranian exports. The United States choked off more than 1.5 million barrels per day — amounting to billions of dollars. Squeezing Tehran’s most important source of income put pressure on Iran to agree to the cease-fire, analysts said.

And yet Iran also acquired some advantages during that time. As part of the agreement, Mr. Trump granted a temporary waiver to sanctions that allowed for the sale of Iranian oil and an agreement to lift the blockade. Those measures gave Iran “valuable breathing space,” said Robin Brooks, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

Iran exported around 45 million to 50 million barrels of crude oil after Mr. Trump lifted the first blockade, according to data provided by Rystad. That translates into billions of dollars that went to replenish the government’s coffers.

That was made possible, Mr. Brooks noted, because Iran was using empty tankers to store oil around the strait.

“The big mistake that was made in the first round of the blockade was to allow empty Iran tankers into the gulf,” he said, adding that the Trump administration “definitely can’t do that again.”

He and others speculated that Iran might be in a better position now to ride out the effects of a new blockade.

The Trump administration, according to Mr. Goldwyn, the former U.S. government official, is essentially trying to convince the oil market that the United States has control over the strait. And, he noted, ahead of critical midterm congressional elections in November, Mr. Trump is also facing political pressure to keep prices at heel.

“The Iranians can take this pain well past November,” Mr. Goldwyn said, adding, “The question is, can the Trump administration?”