World
Israel vows to strike back after warnings of Iranian attack, says enemies 'will be met with a strong defense'
Israel warned on Wednesday that anyone who tries to strike them “will be met with a strong defense,” after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed to retaliate against Israel over the attack on its Syrian consulate earlier this month.
“We know how to respond quickly and decisively to the territory of whoever attacks our territory – no matter where that may be in the Middle East,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said. “Over the years, we have been known to prepare surprises for our enemies.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz issued similar warnings Wednesday, saying his country’s forces would strike Iran directly if the Islamic Republic launched an attack from its territory against Israel.
“If Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will respond and attack in Iran,” Katz said in a post on X in both Farsi and Hebrew.
Khamenei made his remarks at a prayer ceremony celebrating the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, saying the April 1 strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus was akin to an attack on Iranian territory.
IRAN’S FOREIGN MINISTER ACCUSES U.S. OF GIVING ISRAEL ‘GREEN LIGHT’ TO ATTACK CONSULATE IN SYRIA
The strike killed 12 people, including Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior figure in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard who led the group’s elite Quds Force in Lebanon and Syria until 2016.
The site of a missile attack targeting the Iranian embassy’s consulate building in Damascus, Syria, on April 2. (Ammar Safarjalani/Xinhua via Getty Images)
“When they attacked our consulate area, it was like they attacked our territory,” Khamenei said, in remarks broadcast by Iranian state TV. “The evil regime must be punished, and it will be punished.”
IRAN’S LEADER SAYS 4 THREATENING WORDS TO ISRAEL, BLASTS THE US AND WEST FOR ‘DISASTER’ IN GAZA
Israel has not acknowledged its involvement, though it has been bracing for an Iranian response to the attack, a significant escalation in their long-running shadow war. The U.S. and its allies have issued similar warnings of a possible retaliatory strike from Iran.
A report from Iran’s state-funded Mehr news agency briefly appeared on X earlier Wednesday concerning airspace over Tehran being closed for “military drills.” That report was later removed and the agency denied it ever publishing it, according to Reuters.
City skyline of Tehran, Iran. (Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)
The escalation of words comes days after the war between Israel and Hamas entered its seventh month. Israeli forces have been fighting Hamas after the Iran-backed terrorist group stormed Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 more hostages.
Per the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, Israel is responsible for the deaths of more than 33,000 Palestinians, though the ministry does not distinguish between civilians and enemy combatants. Israel has disputed these figures.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The United States and China will discuss guardrails on artificial intelligence, including establishing a protocol for keeping powerful A.I. models out of the hands of nonstate actors, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday.
Mr. Bessent, who was speaking from Beijing in an interview with CNBC, did not give more details, including when these discussions would take place. But Xi Jinping, China’s leader, and President Trump had been expected to discuss A.I. during their summit in the Chinese capital.
If these talks happen, it would be the first time the two countries formally take up the issue during Mr. Trump’s second term. The capabilities and usage of A.I. have grown rapidly, and so have concerns that this technology could be weaponized by hackers and terrorists, or spiral out of human control.
“The two A.I. superpowers are going to start talking,” Mr. Bessent said. “We’re going to set up a protocol in terms of, how do we go forward with best practices for A.I. to make sure nonstate actors don’t get ahold of these models.”
Still, Mr. Bessent made clear that the fierce competition between the United States and China for supremacy in A.I. — which has been a major hurdle to cooperation on safety — remained front of mind for U.S. policymakers. Officials and experts in both countries have argued that they cannot slow technological development and risk losing out to their rivals.
Mr. Bessent said that the United States was willing to cooperate with China on A.I. safety because “the Chinese are substantially behind us” in terms of the technology’s development.
“I do not think we would be having the same discussions if they were this far ahead of us. So we’re going to put in U.S. best practices, U.S. values, on this, and then roll those out to the world,” Mr. Bessent said.
Experts have suggested that China’s A.I. models may be a few months behind the leading U.S. models.
Another hurdle to the United States and China working together on A.I. safety is that they have generally focused on different potential threats.
American experts have generally highlighted existential risks, such as the possibility of artificial general intelligence, or super-intelligence that exceeds that of humans. Chinese researchers and officials have more often highlighted risks related to social stability and information control, such as the possibility of chatbots producing content that challenges China’s leadership and policies.
Still, researchers in both countries have highlighted some shared risks, such as the possibility of A.I. being used to develop new biological weapons.
Ship SEIZED near UAE coast, UK military says
Iranian forces seized a vessel 38 nautical miles off the UAE coast early Thursday, a brazen provocation occurring just as President Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met in Beijing discussing key issues like the Strait of Hormuz.
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A ship was seized off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) near the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday morning, the British military reported.
The ship was boarded and “taken by unauthorized personnel” while it was roughly 38 nautical miles northeast of the United Arab Emirates’ oil export terminal Fujairah, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported Thursday.
UKMTO spotted the ship heading toward Iranian territorial waters after the seizure, it reported Thursday.
British authorities did not release information on who the ship belonged to or who seized it. Despite the lack of official corroboration, the BBC reported that the Honduras-flagged Hui Chuan was seized in the Strait on Thursday.
CARGO SHIP ATTACKED BY SMALL CRAFT NEAR STRAIT OF HORMUZ, UK MARITIME AGENCY SAYS
Ships are anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas in southern Iran on May 4. A report on May 15 said a ship was seized off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and is being brought toward Iranian waters. (Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/AFP)
Citing the risk-management company Vanguard, the BBC reported that the ship’s operators told Vanguard that the Hui Chuan was operating as a “floating armory” for ships in the Strait to defend themselves from pirates.
A container ship sits at anchor in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, as a motorboat passes in the foreground on May 2, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
At least two other ships have already been seized in the Strait of Hormuz since February.
IRAN SAYS ITS SMALL SUBS DEPLOYED TO STRAIT OF HORMUZ AS EXPERT EXPLAINS THREAT: ‘VULNERABLE TO DETECTION’
A cargo ship sails in the Persian Gulf toward the Strait of Hormuz on April 22, 2026. (AP Photo)
In April, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seized the Panamanian-flagged MSC Francesca and the Epaminondes ships in the Strait.
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Fox News Digital contacted UKMTO and Vanguard for further information but did not immediately receive a response.
Al Jazeera’s Manuel Rapalo reports from Washington, where the first of two days of US-mediated ambassador-level talks between Israel and Lebanon concluded on Thursday. A ceasefire between them expires on Sunday, though Israel has killed 512 Lebanese since its implementation on April 17.
Published On 15 May 2026
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