{"id":216907,"date":"2026-07-13T05:59:59","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T05:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/u-s-insists-strait-of-hormuz-remains-open-despite-iran-declaring-it-closed-as-strikes-escalate-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T05:59:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T05:59:59","slug":"u-s-insists-strait-of-hormuz-remains-open-despite-iran-declaring-it-closed-as-strikes-escalate-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/u-s-insists-strait-of-hormuz-remains-open-despite-iran-declaring-it-closed-as-strikes-escalate-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. insists Strait of Hormuz remains open despite Iran declaring it closed, as strikes escalate – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The U.S. launched another round of strikes on Iran<\/a> on Sunday, part of an effort it said was intended to thwart its attacks on traffic in the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, a waterway crucial to the world\u2019s oil supply.
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The latest round of strikes began at 5 p.m. ET, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. It said on X<\/a> around 10:30 p.m. that the strikes had been completed. The goal was to curb Iran\u2019s ability to target commercial shipping in the strait at a time when the U.S. has declared it open for business and Iran has said it\u2019s closed.
President Donald Trump<\/a> directed the strikes, as he did those launched Saturday, \u201cto hold Iranian forces accountable,\u201d CENTCOM said.
The strikes the U.S. launched Saturday were retaliation for Iran\u2019s attack on a Cyprus-flagged container ship in the waterway, CENTCOM said.
Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy declared the strait closed Saturday ET, <\/strong>blaming foreign interference and attempts by several vessels to pass through unauthorized routes, and said it struck one transiting ship.
CENTCOM said that a crewmember was missing and that the ship, the M\/V GFS Galaxy, could not continue its voyage after a fire and engine room damage.
Iran\u2019s shuttering of the strait was not mentioned in CENTCOM\u2019s statement on overnight strikes, which mentioned only the attack on the vessel. At the conclusion of the Saturday strikes, it said, U.S. forces had hit 140 military targets, including Iranian missile and drone sites, naval capabilities and coastal surveillance locations. It said Sunday that dozens of targets were struck.
The Revolutionary Guard said earlier that the strait was closed as the result of \u201cinsecurity created by the unlawful interference of foreign actors\u201d and warned that any military strikes over the matter would be met with \u201ca forceful response.\u201d
\u201cAdditional enemy bases in the region will be targeted,\u201d the Revolutionary Guard said via the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.
In statements following the U.S. strikes over the weekend, the guard said it hit military targets in Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain. The targets included bases, it said.
The strait, the key waterway that was the route for roughly one-fifth of the world\u2019s oil supply before the war, has been a sore spot for Iran and the U.S. amid attempts to broker peace.
The Revolutionary Guard said it had warned that \u201cforeign interference and the unlawful designation of shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz would be met with a firm response and would disrupt the increasing flow of maritime traffic through the strait.\u201d
It said its military struck one vessel with warning fire and stopped it after it \u201cswitched off its tracking and identification systems, thereby endangering maritime security.\u201d
\u201cThe Strait of Hormuz is closed until further notice and will remain closed until the end of U.S. interference in the region,\u201d the Revolutionary Guard said.
\u201cNo vessel will be permitted to transit the strait,\u201d it said.
Early Sunday ET, after the U.S. strikes, CENTCOM declared the strait open, despite Iran\u2019s claim that the bottleneck along its shoreline is shuttered.
\u201cIran does not control the Strait of Hormuz,\u201d CENTCOM said. \u201cIt remains an international waterway. U.S. forces are positioned and prepared to keep it that way.\u201d
Of the strait, it said, \u201cTraffic is flowing.\u201d
The rapid return to warlike stances took place in the wake of the burial in the holy city of Mashhad of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a>, who was killed Feb. 28 in the opening strikes of the war.
Iran\u2019s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, promised Sunday to take revenge for his father\u2019s death.
\u201cWe pledge that we will take revenge for the pure blood of the martyred leader and all the martyrs of these two wars from the criminal and disgraced killers,\u201d he said in a funeral message reported by Iranian state media.
\u201cRevenge is the demand of our nation and must certainly be carried out,\u201d he added. \u201cSoon, the free people of the world will carry out a part of this divine mission.\u201d
Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, was seriously wounded in the attack that killed his father<\/a>, sources have told NBC News. Though Iranian officials have downplayed reports of his injuries, no photo or audio recording of him has been released.
The younger Khamenei, who has not been seen since the war began, did not attend any public events as part of his father\u2019s sprawling funeral ceremony<\/a>, during which his body was taken to five cities in Iran and Iraq. The statement attributed to him, like all others issued in his name as supreme leader, was a written message.
The late supreme leader was laid to rest at the shrine of Imam Reza, Iran\u2019s holiest Shia Muslim site, on Thursday, marking the end of six days of public mourning ceremonies. Neither the U.S. nor Israel directly targeted funeral sites during the ceremonies.
Trump earlier warned Iran against any attempts to assassinate him after Khamenei\u2019s funeral featured numerous English-language banners openly calling for him to be killed <\/a>along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A thousand missiles \u201care Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat,\u201d Trump wrote in the overnight post.
Trump said he had issued instructions for the U.S. military in the event of his death, adding that it would \u201ccompletely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran.\u201d
He signed off the post \u201cPRAISE BE TO ALLAH!\u201d \u2014 an invocation Khamenei has repeatedly used during the war. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nationwide advocacy group, has criticized Trump\u2019s \u201cderanged mocking of Islam\u201d in the past.
The threats against Trump have further underlined the tensions gripping the Middle East as an interim deal to end the war buckles under repeated crossfire in the region.
There had been multiple days of U.S. airstrikes targeting Iran, as well as Iranian retaliatory fire targeting countries across the region. Those strikes were sparked by Iran\u2019s attacking three ships in the strait last week.
The foreign ministers of Iran and Oman met Saturday to discuss the Strait of Hormuz, which lies between them, after days of Iranian attacks on ships and U.S. retaliation <\/a>that dealt a blow to the interim deal<\/a> to end the war.
Oman said it had agreed to keep talking about the crucial waterway \u201cat the technical and political levels,\u201d a day after the U.S. called on Iran to publicly say the crucial waterway is open and ships will not be attacked.
Iran has said that the strait must be under its sole control and that vessels should begin to pay fees to Tehran \u2014 even though the world has considered it an international waterway for decades.
Iran\u2019s grip on the strait during the conflict led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped <\/a>since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the U.S. on Saturday of violating the interim deal by ending waivers allowing Iran to sell crude oil on the open market in U.S. dollars, which Washington did in response to the attacks on ships in the strait.
\u201cReality check: There can only be mutual compliance,\u201d Araghchi wrote on X.
Freddie Clayton is a freelance journalist based in London.\u00a0
Dennis Romero is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.
The Associated Press
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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