Iran said to fire at 2 commercial ships in Hormuz, including Qatari gas tanker

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired at least two missiles at commercial ships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz overnight Monday-Tuesday, according to reports, causing significant damage to both ships but no casualties.

Iranian state television confirmed that a liquefied natural gas tanker came under attack off the coast of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz after ignoring warnings, and implied that Tehran was behind the attack, though there was no official claim of responsibility from the Islamic Republic.

Tehran has repeatedly declared that only its approved route through the strait is safe and is suspected of attacking ships that have used another route close to the Omani shore. Iran’s joint military command warned on Thursday that all oil tankers moving through the strait must use its designated route, and said that interference by US forces in the strait “will be met with a rapid and decisive reaction.”

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency (UKMTO) said earlier that a tanker was hit by an unknown projectile on its port side while traveling southbound about eight nautical miles (15 km) east of Oman’s Limah, causing a fire.

According to the Wall Street Journal, one of the vessels under attack appeared to be Al Rekayyat, a liquefied natural gas tanker owned and managed by Nakilat, the shipping arm of Qatar’s LNG industry. The report added that the ship had been hit on the port side, at the top of the engine room.

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The vessel was at the mouth of the strait, in the Gulf of Oman, when it was attacked, the report said.

UKMTO WARNING 080-26 – ATTACK

Click here to view UKMTO Products⤵️ https://t.co/Oc7hGsk3Do#MaritimeSecurity #MarSec pic.twitter.com/uK8cm9a76M

— UKMTO Operations Centre (@UK_MTO) July 6, 2026

Another commercial ship also suffered significant damage but had no casualties, Axios reported, citing a US official.

US Central ​Command did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The development comes after indirect US-Iran talks ​ended last week without any public sign of headway toward ​a lasting peace, despite a 60-day ceasefire intended to ⁠create space for diplomacy following the US and Israeli strikes that ​triggered the conflict.

Trump again threatens to ‘finish the job’; Iranian FM fumes

US President Donald Trump warned Iran at the White House on Monday that the US would either “make a deal or we’re going to finish the job.”

He also claimed that Iran had offered concessions in the nuclear talks, before admitting that those proposals weren’t final.

“We’ve gotten concessions, now they have to hold [to] those concessions,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. He insisted that the US will be allowed to extract Iran’s stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, even though Tehran has never confirmed agreeing to that.

The US president then went on to insist that the goal of the war was never to collapse the Iranian regime, even though on the first night of the operation, he called on Iranians to oust their government once the US-Israeli bombing campaign ceased.

“We’re close to maybe making a deal… I don’t know. We’re going to win one way or the other. Either we’re going to make a deal, or we’re going to finish the job,” Trump repeated.

Talks between the US and Iran aren’t currently taking place, as the sides agreed to pause for the week of the slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s funeral proceedings.

“I’d rather make a deal, because I don’t want to affect 91 million people,” Trump said, noting that he has held off on targeting much of Iran’s civilian infrastructure but could decide to do so if necessary. “We can knock down their bridges in one hour. We can knock out their energy supply.”

After Trump’s message, Iran’s foreign minister said that talks to reach a final deal between Tehran and Washington would not restart if US threats continue.

“Negotiations on final deal will not commence if threats continue. Honor your signature,” Abbas Araghchi wrote in a post on X early Tuesday.

Millions of proud Iranians rallied in unity to honor Grand Ayatollah Khamenei and his legacy. Neither them nor our Brave Armed Forces are moved by any threats.

Para 13 of the MoU is clear: Negotiations on final Deal will not commence if threats continue Honor your signature. pic.twitter.com/uQ7OoFyp8U

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) July 7, 2026

The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Mohammad, Baqer Zolqadr, called Trump’s threat “delusional.”

“Iranians are unfamiliar with the language of threats. So speak to the Iranian people with respect, otherwise we will respond in another language,” Zolqadr said in comments carried by state media.

An interim deal signed last month by Iran and the US called upon both sides to refrain from both the threat and the use of force against each other.

The US and Israel launched the war on Iran in late February in a bid to destabilize its leadership and destroy its ballistic missile and nuclear programs. The fighting entered a truce on April 8, and the US and Iran are engaged in peace talks based on the memorandum of understanding they reached last month.

Israel is not a party to the memorandum or the talks, and Israeli officials have criticized the document for failing to secure a concrete concession from Iran on its nuclear program.