Trump threatens to bomb Oman over Iran strait deal as Kushner pushes Gaza plan

On Monday, President Donald Trump made an explicit threat to use military force against Oman if the sultanate interfered with American negotiations over control of the Strait of Hormuz. Speaking to Fox News journalist Trey Yingst, Trump said that if Oman "gets in the way, we'll bomb the shit out of them." He also demanded that Iran "put up the white flag of surrender." This was not Trump's first such warning—in May, he had already told reporters that Oman would "behave just like everybody else, or we will have to blow them up."

The threat came as multiple diplomatic tracks were unraveling across the Middle East. Iran and Oman had reached what they described as an understanding on a transit plan for the Strait of Hormuz, which carries roughly one-fifth of the world's traded oil. The proposed arrangement would allow ships to enter through a route near Iran and exit near Oman, with no fees during an interim period. But the talks had moved slowly, and Iran's Foreign Affairs spokesperson Esmail Baghaei acknowledged that finalizing a joint statement remained incomplete. Meanwhile, the United States was pursuing its own separate negotiations, and Trump indicated there was no firm timeline, contradicting the 60-day deadline that had been set in a June memorandum of understanding. Iran's foreign ministry countered that the deadline was now "irrelevant" because the US had violated the agreement within weeks of signing it.

While Trump was making threats about the strait, his son-in-law Jared Kushner was in Jerusalem attempting to salvage a Gaza ceasefire plan that had stalled. Kushner met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was facing domestic political pressure and had publicly rejected the latest version of the American proposal. The two discussed placing an American general in charge of verifying that Hamas had been fully disarmed, with Netanyahu insisting that Israeli forces would not withdraw from Gaza until such verification was complete. Kushner had arrived in the region after holding rare direct talks with Hamas in Egypt, where the group publicly committed to the plan and to disarmament—a move that won Trump's praise but generated skepticism in Israel. Eight Muslim-majority nations, including Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan, issued a joint statement condemning Israel's rejection of Trump's roadmap, saying it "fundamentally undermines the collective efforts undertaken to achieve a just and lasting peace."

The regional landscape was deteriorating on multiple fronts. Iranian drones struck the office of Iraqi Kurdistan's Prime Minister Masrour Barzani and the home of the region's intelligence chief, prompting Barzani to call it "a dangerous escalation and a direct threat to the security and stability of the Kurdistan region." In the Red Sea, Houthi rebels claimed to have targeted a Saudi military landing ship and four accompanying patrol boats off the coast of Mokha using ballistic missiles, as part of what they described as a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia. The claims could not be independently verified, and Riyadh did not immediately respond. In southern Lebanon, Israeli flags had been planted along a main coastal highway, which the UN peacekeeping force said violated a UN Security Council resolution. Israel had invaded southern Lebanon earlier in the year during its war with Hezbollah and established what it called a security zone.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers stood guard as bulldozers demolished a Palestinian building in Qalandia, south of Ramallah, with authorities citing a lack of building permits. The UN's human rights chief, Volker Türk, expressed alarm at the escalating civilian toll in Yemen, where renewed fighting between Houthi rebels and the government was threatening to unravel a 2022 truce. "I urge all parties to halt immediately any actions that risk returning Yemen to full-scale conflict," Türk said. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that if diplomacy with the US failed, Iran would escalate tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and the wider region, signaling a policy shift toward offensive rather than defensive measures. With the 60-day negotiating period expiring and no extension announced, both the US and Iran appeared as far apart as they had been at the start, while the Gaza ceasefire remained deadlocked and regional violence continued to spread.