The top US general said on Tuesday that the United States was carrying out strikes against Iranian mine-laying vessels.

The war has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for global oil and liquefied natural gas transport, leaving tankers unable to sail for more than a week and forcing producers to halt pumping as storage fills.

“(U.S. Central Command) continues today to hunt and strike mine-laying vessels and mine storage facilities,” General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.

Caine added that in the first 10 days of the campaign against Iran, the US had sunk or destroyed more than 50 naval ships.

US President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to escalate the war with Iran if it blocked oil shipments from the Middle East, even as he predicted a quick end to the conflict.

U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News that it’s possible he would be willing to talk with Iran but that it depends on the terms, the cable news network said on Tuesday.

Asked in an interview on Monday evening about the possibility of negotiations with Tehran, Trump told Fox he heard Tehran wanted to talk badly, according to the news network.

The Republican president also reiterated his unhappiness with Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, telling Fox: “I don’t believe he can live in peace.”

Trump also echoed his comments at a press conference earlier on Monday, telling Fox the results of the U.S. military operation in Iran were “way beyond expectation.” Trump added that he was surprised that Iran was striking Gulf countries with missiles and drones, according to the network.

A drone attack caused a fire in an industrial zone in the emirate of Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, UAE authorities said, in an area that houses oil and energy infrastructure.

“Authorities in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi are responding to a fire at a facility within the Ruwais Industrial City, caused by a drone attack. No injuries have been reported so far,” the Abu Dhabi media office said in a statement on X.

Authorities did not say whether any energy infrastructure had been hit.

Iran has pressed its attacks against Qatar’s infrastructure, the Gulf state’s foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday, over a week after Iranian drone strikes forced a halt to Qatari gas production.

“The targeting of civilian infrastructure continues… and we rebuke any justification that the Iranians are offering for these attacks,” Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said without specifying which civilian facilities had been targeted in Qatar.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had begun a new wave of strikes on Tehran, on the 11th day of the Middle East war.

“The [Israeli army] has begun a wave of strikes against Iranian terror regime targets in Tehran,” the military said in a brief statement.

Israel’s military said Tuesday it would soon strike Hezbollah infrastructure in the southern Lebanese cities of Tyre and Sidon, warning residents to move away from targeted buildings.

“Urgent warning to the residents of Tyre and Sidon. The IDF will soon attack military infrastructure belonging to the terrorist organisation Hezbollah,” one of the military’s Arabic-language spokesmen, Avichay Adraee, posted on X.

“We urge residents of the buildings marked in red on the two attached maps and the nearby buildings: you are located near buildings used by Hezbollah. For your safety, you must evacuate immediately and move at least 300 metres away,” he added.

Chinese authorities and airlines have assisted over 10,000 Chinese citizens in returning from the Middle East, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday, after the war in the region forced airspace closures and grounded commercial flights.

Over 10,000 Chinese people have safely returned from countries including the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Saudi Arabia, Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, said in a press briefing on Tuesday.

China’s foreign ministry and civil aviation administration have guided domestic airlines to increase capacity to repatriate Chinese citizens stranded in the Middle East, Guo said.

More than 3,000 Chinese citizens had been evacuated from Iran, the foreign ministry said last week.

The war in the Middle East, which broke out after the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran on February 28, led to flight cancellations across the region.

Major Chinese airlines, including Air China and China Southern Airlines, resumed flights earlier this month between some Chinese cities and Gulf hubs such as Riyadh and Dubai.

China has condemned the US and Israeli strikes, repeatedly called for a ceasefire and sent an envoy to the Middle East for mediation.

 Russia has so far been the only winner from the war in the Middle East as energy prices soar and attention for its war against Ukraine has faded, EU Council President Antonio Costa said on Tuesday.

“So far, there is only one winner in this war – Russia,” Costa said in a speech to EU ambassadors in Brussels.

“It gains new resources to finance its war against Ukraine as energy prices rise. It profits from the diversion of military capabilities that could otherwise have been sent to support Ukraine. And it benefits from reduced attention to the Ukrainian front as the conflict in the Middle East takes centre stage.”

Costa stressed the need for the EU to protect the international rules-based order, which he said was now being challenged by the United States, and for all parties in the Middle East to return to the negotiating table.

“Freedom and human rights cannot be achieved through bombs. Only international law upholds them,” he said.

“We must avoid further escalation. Such a path threatens the Middle East, Europe, and beyond.”

Israeli warplanes carried out air raids on several villages in southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh and Bint Jbeil districts.

According to Lebanon’s National News Agency, an airstrike early this morning struck a residential building in the town of Breqa in the Nabatieh district, completely destroying it.

The agency also reported a series of airstrikes between midnight and the early morning hours targeting the towns of Harouf, where four people were injured, Kfarsir in the Nabatieh district, and Deir Antar and Shaqra in the Bint Jbeil district.

Israel is ahead of schedule in reaching its war objectives in Iran, such as weakening the authorities so that the Iranian people take control of their own fate, Israel’s ambassador to France Joshua Zarka said on Tuesday.

In Lebanon, the Lebanese government has not been able to disarm Hezbollah yet, Zarka said in an interview with French TV station BFMTV, adding he is not aware of any decision from Israel to negotiate an end to the war with Beirut.

A drone crashed into a residential area in Az Zulfi, Saudi Arabia, according to the Saudi Civil Defence on Tuesday.

In a statement, the country’s civil defence said an unmanned aerial vehicle fell onto a residential site in the city of Az Zulfi, located in Riyadh Province in central Saudi Arabia.

The incident caused minor material damage but no injuries were reported.

Iran’s foreign minister said Tuesday that talks with the United States were not on the agenda as their war entered its 11th day.

“I don’t think talking with the Americans would be on our agenda anymore,” Abbas Araghchi told PBS News, saying Tehran had a “very bitter experience” during previous negotiations with the US.

In the interview with PBS News, Araghchi insisted that Iran was acting in “self-defence”.

“We are prepared, we have been prepared to continue attacking them with our missiles as long as needed and as long as it takes,” he said.

Sirens sounded in Jerusalem on Tuesday after Israel’s military warned of incoming missiles from Iran, according to news agency AFP.

The warning came as the US-Israeli war against Iran entered its 11th day, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Israel was “not done yet” with its military campaign.