A crew chief assigned to 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit sends signals from the flight deck of USS Boxer during flight operations in the Indian Ocean on June 29, 2026. (Martin Perez/U.S. Navy)
The United States and Iran exchanged another round of attacks on Sunday, further escalating fighting after Iran fired at a civilian vessel attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz.
Washington and Tehran issued conflicting declarations over whether the Strait of Hormuz remains open to shipping.
U.S. forces hit about 140 Iranian military targets, including missile and drone sites, naval capabilities and communication networks, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command late Saturday.
The Islamic Republic responded early Sunday with drone and missile assaults on American allies across the Middle East, including Kuwait, Jordan and Qatar. So far, only minor damage was reported and no casualties, Bloomberg News reported. Missile alerts and sirens sounded early Sunday in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, all of which host U.S. military personnel.
Iran said the Hormuz strait would now be closed “until further notice,” Bloomberg reported. U.S. Central Command denied that, saying that waterway was still open to all vessels and the U.S. military is prepared to ensure freedom of navigation.
The Joint Maritime Information Center, a global monitoring body, reported Sunday it was still possible to transit the strait’s southern route.
President Donald Trump also said the strait remained open as he spoke Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We bombed the hell out of them last night,” he said.
The IRGC said it fired ballistic missiles at the Prince Hassan Air Base in Jordan on Sunday, targeting a U.S. command and control center and multiple drone hangars, Bloomberg reported. The kingdom reported being hit by three missiles, without giving more details.
Qatar, meanwhile, said three people were injured by falling debris after Iranian missiles were intercepted. Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported the Guards had targeted Al-Udeid Air Base with ballistic missiles.
Kuwait also said it was responding to aerial attacks after Iran’s regular army announced drone assaults aimed at a U.S. Patriot missile battery, an ammunition depot and a radar site in the country. The Bloomberg report said Iranian military said a U.S. communications array and radar installation in Bahrain were targeted too.
Iranian state media reported other strikes against U.S. naval logistics hubs and aircraft carrier refueling platforms at Oman’s Port of Duqm. Oman summoned Iran’s ambassador and protested drone attacks that targeted sites in the sultanate’s Musandam and Alwusta governorates, its foreign ministry said in the Bloomberg report.
The latest strikes raised new questions about whether the fighting can be contained. Although President Donald Trump last week declared the ceasefire over, the White House says it still wants to pursue talks called for in a June agreement that paused the fighting.
On Friday, U.S. officials warned Iran would face “serious consequences” unless it publicly declared the Strait of Hormuz open to commercial shipping and pledged to stop firing on civilian vessels.
“Iran made a poor choice,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on X after the latest U.S. strikes. “Now they pay.”
CENTCOM said its strikes were directed by Trump and meant to impose a “heavy cost by continuing to degrade Iran’s ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships freely transiting the strait.”
“Iran was provided yet another opportunity to demonstrate adherence to the Memorandum of Understanding after being held accountable for earlier attacks on commercial vessels but has again failed,” CENTCOM said.
Iranian media reported blasts on the country’s southern coast, including at the energy and petrochemical hubs of Bushehr and Asalouyeh, the port cities of Bandar Abbas and Bandar-e Dayyer, and the Sirik area near the Hormuz strait, a global energy chokepoint, according to Bloomberg. A communication tower was hit in the southern province of Kerman, injuring two people, according to the Mehr news agency.
The U.S. military said its strikes were a response to Iran’s attack on the M/V GFS Galaxy, a Cyprus-flagged container ship, which experienced significant engine room damage after a fire broke out.
The crew abandoned the vessel and boarded a lifeboat before being rescued by local authorities, according to the United Kingdom’s maritime security office for commercial shipping.
Earlier, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced it had fired warning shots at a vessel that had attempted to take an “unauthorized route” to cross the Strait of Hormuz.
In a statement via state media, the IRGC said the strait was “to be closed until further notice and until regional interference by the U.S. ceases.”
Control of the waterway — through which a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas once moved — has been central to U.S.-Iran negotiations. The IRGC accused the U.S. of seeking “to create disruption in the south of the Strait of Hormuz” by “instigating several vessels.”
There was almost no visible traffic in the strait on Sunday. The maritime security threat “remains severe,” the multinational JMIC said in a note.
Before the latest escalation, both the U.S. and Iran had suggested there was still room for talks even as the rhetoric intensified.
Speaking on X, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf defended the Iranian moves.
“The era of one-sided deals is OVER,” Ghalibaf wrote. “We told you: keep your word or pay the price. Reality is knocking.”
The United States and Iran have been at war since late February, when the U.S. and Israel launched a series of strikes that degraded Iran’s military and killed many of its top leaders.
An interim peace deal reached last month has repeatedly been tested by attacks. Talks to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, halt Tehran’s nuclear program and reach a permanent end to the war that started Feb. 28 are on hold.
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