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THE WAR WITHOUT A FRAMEWORK
The ceasefire is gone. US Central Command carried out its fourth consecutive night of strikes on Iran overnight, and the naval blockade of Iranian ports that Washington lifted under June’s memorandum of understanding is back in effect. CENTCOM says more than 20 US Navy warships and hundreds of military aircraft are now operating across the Middle East. Trump told reporters this week the truce is over. Iran says the same, from the opposite direction.
CENTCOM said the latest strikes targeted air defense systems, coastal surveillance sites, and missile and drone infrastructure along Iran’s coast, part of an effort it describes as protecting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told state broadcaster IRIB that Tehran has no remaining obligations under the MOU, for either side. Iran’s Health Ministry says US strikes on July 8 and 9 alone killed 14 people and wounded 78, a figure later raised to 17 killed. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that a strike in Hormozgan province killed three members of a park ranger’s family; CNN has not independently verified the claim.
The fighting has pulled in Iran’s neighbors. Kuwait’s Defense Ministry said one of its navy vessels was struck Tuesday, wounding four service members, as its air defenses intercepted a ballistic missile, five cruise missiles, and 33 drones aimed at civilian infrastructure. Jordan intercepted missiles entering its airspace for the second time this week. Sirens sounded repeatedly in Bahrain. An Indian crew member was killed and several other sailors wounded when Iranian forces struck two tankers in the strait Monday, prompting India to summon Iran’s deputy chief of mission in New Delhi.
Trump has floated further escalation. In a Fox News interview this week he said strikes on Iranian bridges and power plants could begin “next week” unless Tehran returns to the table, and declined to rule out a ground campaign. He also abandoned, within 24 hours, a proposed 20 percent toll on cargo transiting the strait, saying Gulf states would instead make direct investments in the US. The reversal is worth putting in context. Iran’s own toll system, run by an entity linked to the IRGC, has been charging as much as $2 million per supertanker. Analysts calculated Trump’s 20 percent fee would have cost the same ship roughly $32 to $34 million a voyage, more than fifteen times what Iran was asking. In Washington, Senate Democrats blocked the annual defense authorization bill 50-46 over objections to the war, leaving a bill that usually passes with bipartisan support unable to advance.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: The ceasefire your government signed four weeks ago has collapsed, and the US is now bombing Iran on consecutive nights with no public plan for what ends it. Oil prices have climbed for three straight sessions on the news. Congress cannot pass its own defense bill because lawmakers cannot agree on this war.
Sources: CNN live updates (US — Gharibabadi quote, Kuwait vessel, Jordan interceptions, park ranger family claim, NDAA vote, July 14); ABC News (US — fourth night of strikes, Trump bridges/power plants quote, ground campaign comment, July 15); Times of Israel liveblog (Israel — toll reversal, Kuwait interception detail, July 14); Vanguard/GlobalSecurity (Iran Health Ministry casualty figures, July 9); CNBC (US — tanker attack, Indian crew death, oil price move, July 14); The National (UAE — Iran $2 million toll figure, $32-34 million US toll calculation, July 14); NPR (US — CENTCOM warship and aircraft count, July 14)
THE PAUSE
DHS announced Tuesday it is pausing most non-urgent ICE vehicle stops and expanding body camera use. The reversal came the day after agents in Maine killed a man who was not their target, six days after agents in Texas killed another.
In Houston, the Harris County Medical Examiner has ruled Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s death a homicide. The three men who were riding with him remain in ICE detention; their attorney says agents pressured them toward self-deportation, which would remove them as witnesses before investigators can take their statements. According to their account, the fatal shot came through the passenger window, not from the front, contradicting DHS’s version that an agent fired in self-defense after Salgado Araujo tried to ram their vehicle.
In Biddeford, Maine, the officer who killed Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was a recent hire from the Department of Veterans Affairs Police force, according to The Atlantic, which reported that new ICE recruits have received limited training on conducting vehicle stops safely. Maine’s attorney general placed the officer on leave. Colombian President Gustavo Petro said the killing amounted to persecution of a population group, invoking the postwar Nuremberg standard. Neither man was the subject of the operation that killed him; DHS has attributed the lack of body camera footage in both cases to the same line, describing it as a result of “back-to-back Democrat shutdowns.” Republicans control the House, Senate, and White House, including the appropriations process DHS says caused the gap.
Mexico’s government filed formal complaints with US federal and state prosecutors Tuesday over the deaths of 17 Mexican nationals during immigration enforcement operations or in ICE custody since Trump returned to office, alongside cease-and-desist letters to individual detention centers and a request to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk to examine whether the deaths meet Washington’s international obligations. President Claudia Sheinbaum said Mexico “cannot turn a blind eye.”
Asked by reporters Tuesday whether Congress owed DHS an accounting, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he had not been briefed. “I don’t know anything about this event,” he said, adding that he had worked 22 hours over the previous few days.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: ICE just reversed two of its own enforcement practices after killing two bystanders in one week. The witnesses to one of those killings are being pressured to leave the country before they can testify. A foreign government is now asking American prosecutors to investigate American law enforcement, while the Speaker of the House says he hasn’t had time to look into it.
Sources: CNN live updates (US — DHS policy pause, body camera expansion, witness accounts, July 14); CBS News (US — witness attorney account, self-deportation pressure, July 11); Click2Houston (US — medical examiner homicide ruling, July 14); Newsweek (US — officer background per The Atlantic, July 14); Al Jazeera (Mexico — formal complaints, cease-and-desist letters, Türk request, July 14); Democracy Now (US — Proaño account, July 14); Courthouse News (US — Johnson quote, July 14)
BRICK BY BRICK
The United Nations and the European Union both defended the International Criminal Court this week against a US campaign to, in Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s words, dismantle it “brick by brick.”
Rubio announced Monday what the State Department calls a whole-of-government campaign to disable the court, including new sanctions on ICC officials, visa revocations, and pressure on allied nations to reject its authority. The UN said the court remains critical to international justice; the EU called threats against it “unacceptable.” The rights group DAWN, which Rubio’s Wall Street Journal op-ed cited by name, said it would take the administration to court this week over the sanctions.
Hungary offered an unplanned rebuke. Its parliament voted to remain a member of the ICC, overturning Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s own government’s earlier move to withdraw.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: Your government is trying to destroy the only permanent international court for war crimes and genocide, using the same sanctions tools it applies to hostile states. The court has issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister and opened inquiries into US conduct in Afghanistan. One of America’s own allies just voted to stay in the court rather than leave it at Washington’s request.
Sources: Time (US — campaign details, DAWN court threat, July 14); Euronews (Europe — EU “unacceptable” statement, July 14); SABC News (South Africa — UN statement, July 15); informat.ro (Romania — Hungary parliament vote, July 14)
EL OBEID
Half a million people are trapped in a Sudanese city the UN says could become the next mass-atrocity site, and almost no one in the United States is watching.
The Rapid Support Forces have encircled El Obeid, capital of North Kordofan state, cutting off routes out in every direction but east. The city holds roughly 500,000 residents, including 100,000 people already displaced from Darfur. The UN Human Rights Council passed a motion Monday, brought by Britain and 14 other nations, condemning the RSF’s escalating violence and warning of an “imminent risk of large-scale atrocities.”
The warning carries specific weight because of what happened in El Fasher. A UN fact-finding mission concluded this month that the RSF’s campaign there, when the city fell after an 18-month siege in October, amounted to genocide: mass killings, gang rapes, and deliberate starvation as a matter of policy, with roughly 6,000 people killed in three days. UN investigators say the RSF is now deploying the same tactics around El Obeid: encirclement, attacks on infrastructure, and restrictions on humanitarian access.
Conditions inside the city are already deteriorating. Food prices have risen as much as 300 percent. Drone strikes have damaged water stations, fuel depots, and at least one school, where shrapnel injured eight students in their classroom. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said residents are selling belongings to finance an escape they often cannot afford, while those who stay face abduction, torture, and sexual violence along the routes out.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: The UN has formally found that the same militia now surrounding a half-million people committed genocide the last time it took a city like this one. The window to prevent a repeat, UN officials say, is closing, and this crisis is receiving a fraction of the American press attention of stories with far less documented certainty behind them.
Sources: Al Jazeera (Qatar, state-funded/editorially independent — genocide finding, El Fasher death toll, July 9); UN News (Türk quotes, siege conditions, July 8); The National (UAE — Human Rights Council motion, siege routes, July 14); Arab News (Saudi Arabia — city’s strategic role, food price surge, July 4)
WAR DAY 138 | NUMBERS AT PUBLICATION
🇮🇷 Iran: 3,485+ killed (Al Jazeera tracker base of 3,468, last updated June 1, plus at least 17 confirmed killed in US strikes July 8-9 per Iran Health Ministry — floor estimate; casualties from strikes July 12-14, including a claimed strike on a park ranger’s family, not yet independently confirmed)
🇱🇧 Lebanon: 4,324 killed (Lebanon Health Ministry, updated July 13)
🇮🇱 Israel: 26 killed (Al Jazeera tracker, frozen since June 1)
🌍 Gulf states/Iraq: 118+ killed (Al Jazeera tracker, frozen since June 1 — does not reflect this week’s Kuwait vessel strike or the Indian and Kuwaiti casualties from July 13-14 tanker attacks)
🇺🇸 US military: 13 killed, 381 injured (Al Jazeera tracker, frozen since June 1)
🛢️ Brent crude: $85.17/barrel (OilPrice.com, July 15 — third consecutive rising session)
⛽ US national gas average: $3.89/gallon (AAA)
Sourcing note: Iran, Israel, Gulf states/Iraq, and US military figures sourced to the Al Jazeera live tracker, last updated June 1, 2026. Iran Health Ministry confirmed 17 additional killed in strikes July 8-9, not yet reflected in the tracker. Casualties from strikes July 12-14 are not yet independently confirmed. Lebanon figure updated separately by Lebanon’s Health Ministry, July 13. Methodology differs between sources; figures should not be treated as directly comparable.
“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1789
