Hegseth later clarified that „the ceasefire is not over“ even though Iranian vessels on Monday fired on U.S. ships guiding vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, resulting in the U.S. sinking several small Iranian boats.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said Iran had attacked the U.S. „more than 10 times“ since the April 8 ceasefire, but it „fell below the threshold of restarting major combat operations.“
“To be clear, this operation is separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury,” Hegseth said. “Project Freedom is defensive in nature, focused in scope and temporary in duration, with one mission: Protecting innocent commercial shipping from Iranian aggression.”
The secretary said two US commercial vessels have moved through the strait and six other ships that attempted to violate the blockade of Iranian ports “were all turned around.”
„We‘re enforcing the blockade across the board against any ship of any nationality that is transiting to or from an Iranian port or territory,“ Caine said.
„We‘re closely tracking vessels of interest headed towards Iran and those moving away from Iran that were outside the blockade area when this blockade was ordered and … we‘re prepared and postured to intercept them,“ he said.
The U.S. naval blockade on Iran began on April 13.
Watch the full news conference in the video player above.
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, Hegseth said the U.S. blockade of Iranian shipping will continue „as long as it takes“ to accomplish America‘s „bold and dangerous“ mission to end Iran‘s threat to global security.
MIAMI, FL — March 20, 2026 — On Friday morning, 140 people from across the United States will depart Miami for Havana as part of the international Nuestra América Convoy, delivering humanitarian aid to Cuba and protesting U.S. policies that are deliberately creating an economic crisis on the island.
WHAT: Press availability before departure
WHEN: Friday, March 20, 2026 — 10:00 AM
WHERE: Miami International Airport, Terminal G departures, across from Dunkin’ Donuts
SPEAKERS:
– Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK Co-founder
– Brenda Lopez, Global Health Partners
– Danny Valdes, founder, Cuban Americans for Cuba
On day ten of Operation Epic Fury, we are winning with an overwhelming and unrelenting focus on our objectives, which are the same as the day I gave my first briefing here on Operation Epic Fury. They‘re straightforward and we are executing them with ruthless precision.
One: destroy their missile stockpiles, their missile launchers and their defense industrial base; missiles and their ability to make them. Two: destroy their Navy. And three: permanently deny Iran nuclear weapons forever. It‘s a laser focused, maximum authority mission delivered with overwhelming and unrelenting precision, no hesitation, no half measures.
(…)
Second, we continue to strike the Iranian Navy and their capabilities in order to do things like sustain movement through the Straits of Hormuz. And third, we continue to start working on and going deeper into Iran‘s military and industrial base in order to prevent the regime from being able to attack Americans, our interests and our partners for years to come and project power outside their borders. This means servicing production facilities, research and development sites and infrastructure.
(…)
SECRETARY OF WAR PETE HEGSETH: Ultimately, the aftermath is going to be in America‘s interests, our interests. We won’t live under a nuclear blackmail scenario of conventional missiles that can target our people, which is why the objectives have been scoped from the beginning: missiles, missile production, the defense industrial base, navy, all in service of ensuring they don‘t have nuclear power projection capabilities.
That is why Caine’s wording evokes Henry Morgenthau’s wartime vision for Germany. Morgenthau argued that making Germany incapable of renewed aggression required more than smashing its armaments sector. He called for eliminating the metallurgical, electrical, and chemical industries and contemplated a Germany that would become “predominantly agrarian.” Another State Department summary described the plan as looking toward converting Germany into a country “primarily agricultural and pastoral in character.”
No, the administration has not formally announced a Morgenthau Plan for Iran. But that is not the point.
In October 2024, Israel carried out a significant strike targeting Iran‘s missile production and air defenses, saying it could operate „with greater freedom in Iranian airspace.“
Israel conducted another preemptive strike in June 2025, destroying Iranian air defenses so its air forces could attack Iran‘s nuclear facilities. Days later, the US carried out Operation Midnight Hammer aimed at destroying major Iranian nuclear sites.
After that operation, Caine said it didn‘t look like Iran got a shot off at the strike package. „It appears that Iran‘s surface-to-air missile systems did not see us,“ he said.
Völkerrecht? War da was? Stärke des Rechts? Zweifel am Erfolg eines Militärschlags als probates Mittel zum Regimewechsel? Leerstellen allesamt. Im Oval Office saß der deutsche Kanzler überwiegend schweigend und lächelte. Ein stummer Gast eines wie stets gedanklich mäandernden US-Präsidenten, der ansonsten genau weiß, dass er das Recht des Stärkeren definiert.
(March 3, 2026)
The 79-year-old said his father was born in Germany as he fielded questions from reporters on his unauthorized war with Iran.
“My father was born,” Trump said while gesturing towards Merz. “He knows all about my father. My father was born there.”
“So, you know, there are places that you sort of automatically very, very feel warmly about,” Trump added.
In fact, the president’s father, Frederick Trump Jr., was born in the Bronx in New York City in 1905. It was his father’s parents — Trump’s grandparents — who were born in what was then the German Empire, specifically in the Kingdom of Bavaria.
(March 3, 2026)
The exchange took place after Rubio made a jaw-dropping admission on Monday: the U.S. struck Iran because Israel was planning to strike first, and Washington feared Tehran would retaliate against American forces.
But asked on Tuesday if Israel forced his hand, Trump rejected this explanation outright, telling reporters in the Oval Office: “No. I might have forced their hand.”
Asked to explain this a few hours later, a defensive Rubio said: “I was asked a very specific question, so you guys can misrepresent it, but I was asked a very specific question yesterday.
“The bottom line is this: we, the president, determined we were not going to get hit first. It’s that simple, guys, we are not going to put American troops in harm’s way.”
(March 3, 2026)
U.S. President Donald Trump was asked Tuesday if Israel forced his hand on launching strikes on Iran. Trump said no and added, ‚I might have forced their hand.‘ The president, who appeared alongside the German chancellor, took aim at Iranian leadership and defended U.S. conduct as conflict escalates in the Middle East.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Trump yesterday in Mar-a-Lago to discuss how the Gaza ceasefire plan will move into the next phase. (…)
Trump said he was angry yesterday after Putin informed him about the alleged attack. Trump also acknowledged that no one has independently confirmed the incident.
Speaking during his meeting in Florida with Netanyahu, Trump said he believed a pardon was on the way: “How can you not?” he said. “He’s a wartime prime minister who’s a hero. How do you not give a pardon?”
(…)
“There has not been a conversation between President Herzog and President Trump since the pardon request was submitted,” Herzog’s office said in a statement issued just a few minutes after Trump’s comments.
Trump at the outset of the session told reporters that he planned to speak with Netanyahu about “five major subjects,” later suggesting that they’d come close to settling three of them within the first five minutes of their session.
In addition to Gaza, Trump indicated plans to address issues in the occupied West Bank and potential threats posed by Iran.
But more than an hour later, the two emerged with no new milestones to announce.
US-Präsident Donald Trump und der ukrainische Präsident Wolodymyr Selenskyj haben sich positiv über ihre Gespräche in Florida geäußert. Es habe „große Fortschritte“ gegeben, man sei einem russisch-ukrainischen Abkommen seiner Meinung nach viel näher gekommen, sagte Trump.
Allerdings gebe es noch ein oder zwei schwierige Fragen. Die kommenden Wochen würden zeigen, ob eine Lösung zur Beendigung des Ukraine-Kriegs erreicht werden könne. Selenskyj sagte seinerseits, er habe eine großartige Diskussion mit Trump geführt.
Emerging after more than three hours of talks, neither man announced any major breakthrough in the grinding effort to end the conflict started by Russia in 2022. Both emphasized the process was complicated and would take more time. And Trump, who spoke by phone earlier in the day with Russian President Vladimir Putin, still offered a relatively sympathetic view of Moscow’s positions.
Yet unlike some previous meetings, Trump praised Zelensky and remained confident that peace was near.
Spokesman: We continue to be very much engaged with the relevant parties. I mean, as you recall, the Secretary-General was in Doha not too long ago, had conversations with the Emir and the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister. We know the US Ambassador, Mike Waltz, was in Jerusalem. He met with Ramiz Alakbarov, our Deputy Special Coordinator. Mr. Fletcher has had contacts with the US. So, we continue to be in contact. But, we are not directly involved in the negotiations and discussions on the implementation of phase two.
Question: And in the term of Gaza, a couple of days ago, it’s been reported that IDF [Israel Defense Forces] Chief of the General Staff said that the Yellow Line, the Trump ceasefire plan, the Yellow Line is now the new border of Gaza. It’s actually a large chunk of land outside the Yellow Line.
Spokesman: I mean, first of all, that seems to me to go against the spirit and the letter of the Trump peace plan, and we firmly stand against any change of the borders of Gaza and Israel.
Question: So, when we’re talking about Gaza in this room, it’s the Gaza, the original one, it’s not the one within the Yellow Line?
Spokesman: Definitely. Okay. Alex, I’ll come back for a second round….
This is a summary of what was said by UNICEF Communication Manager Tess Ingram – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at today‘s press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva
(,,,)
„I have spent many months in Gaza over the past two years, and I see and hear the generational impacts of the conflict on mothers and their infants almost every day; in hospitals, nutrition clinics and family tents. It is less visible than blood or injury, but it is ubiquitous. It is everywhere.
„I have lost count of the number of parents like Fatma who have sobbed while telling me what happened to them, wrecked by how powerless they are to protect their children in the face of indiscriminate destruction and deprivation. Generations of families, including those born into the ceasefire, have been forever altered by what was inflicted upon them.
Mothers who’ve been left starving in Gaza are now giving birth to underweight or premature babies who die in intensive care units or struggle to survive as they endure acute malnutrition, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Tuesday.
Speaking from the shattered enclave, UNICEF Communication Manager Tess Ingram said that at least 165 children are reported to have died “painful, preventable deaths” related to malnutrition during the war between Hamas fighters and Israel.
A lesser-known scourge is acute hunger among pregnant and breastfeeding women and “the devastating domino effect” of this lack of a healthy diet on thousands of newborns.
“In Gaza’s hospitals I have met several newborns who weighed less than one kilogramme, their tiny chests heaving with the effort of staying alive,” Ms. Ingram said.
Thousands of children have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition in Gaza since an October ceasefire that was supposed to enable a major increase in humanitarian aid, the U.N. children‘s agency said on Tuesday.
UNICEF, the biggest provider of malnutrition treatment in Gaza, said that 9,300 children were treated for severe acute malnutrition in October, when the first phase of an agreement to end the two-year Israel-Hamas war came into effect.
Reps. Ro Khanna, Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jeffrey Epstein survivors are holding a news conference ahead of a House vote on a bill that would compel the Justice Department to release all the documents related to the convicted sex offender.
Thunberg told a news conference in Stockholm that she and others were „kidnapped and tortured“ by the Israeli military.
She declined to elaborate, adding when pressed that she didn‘t get clean water and that other detainees were deprived of critical medication.
Israel‘s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment but has repeatedly denied mistreating the detainees.
Alle 12, presso la Sala Caduti di Nassirya del Senato si terrà la conferenza stampa «Global Sumud Flotilla – Resistenza per Gaza». Interverranno diversi parlamentari, tra cui Alessandra Maiorino e Stefania Ascari (M5S), Laura Boldrini (PD), Benedetta Scuderi (Europa Verde). Ci si premura di far valere le ragioni dei pro-Pal contro quelle di Israele: «C’è una grande preoccupazione per la reazione del governo israeliano, e io mi auguro che, essendoci molti italiani a bordo, il governo e il ministero degli Esteri siano in grado di tutelarne l’incolumità e la sicurezza» ha dichiarato il presidente dei senatori del Movimento 5 Stelle, Stefano Patuanelli, a margine di un incontro con il presidente del Senato Ignazio La Russa.
he group of over 365 reservists say the assault puts the lives of Israeli hostages at risk while also ‚killing, maiming and starving‘ Gazan civilians.
Israel has begun mobilising at least 60,000 reservists as part of its planned offensive in Gaza City, and extending the service of an additional 20,000.
„The decision to conquer Gaza will place the hostages, soldiers, and civilians in jeopardy. It is being issued by a messianic government that lacks public legitimacy and is solely concerned with its own political survival,“ says one reserve officer who has already served hundreds of days.
Streamed live 9 hours ago
Barcelona, Spain – The Global Sumud Flotilla is launching from Barcelona, with international activists, artists and human rights advocates taking part in a symbolic journey to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
Speakers at the event include Greta Thunberg, Saif Abukeshek, Thiago Ávila, and actors Liam Cunningham and Eduard Fernández. The flotilla, named after the Arabic word sumud (steadfastness), sets sail as part of a broader call for solidarity with Palestinians under siege.