This live blog follows the latest developments across the Middle East crisis, including regional diplomacy, maritime security, ceasefire negotiations, and economic fallout.
Catch up on Saturday’s top developments here:
- Iranian president calls for stronger ties with Pakistan, Muslim countries
- Israeli army carries out explosions in southern Lebanon
- Peacekeepers record 1030 projectile trajectories in Lebanon within a week: UNIFIL
- Up to 400 ships stranded in Gulf amid Strait of Hormuz crisis: IMO
- UAE central bank to inspect Egyptian bank's branches after US sanctions
Israeli forces storm Tubas city, fire stun grenades
Published: Aug 30, 2026 | 01:10 GMT | by Web Desk
Israeli military forces stormed the city of Tubas, northeast of the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Wafa quoted local Palestinian sources as reporting that Israeli military patrols stormed the city and raided a shop in the city Centre, with soldiers firing stun grenades at locals.
Saturday at a glance
Published: Aug 30, 2026 | 00:00 GMT | by Web Desk
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called for closer ties with regional and Muslim countries, naming Pakistan among the states with which Tehran seeks to strengthen relations, Iran's semi-official news agency Tasnim reports.
Naming Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Egypt, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, he said: "We are brothers and are not rulers over one another."
He added that Iran and its neighbors should address each other’s concerns through dialogue and mutual understanding, while working together to calm the region and prevent Israeli aggression against Muslim countries.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned regional powers that regional security that depended on the presence of extra-regional powers was inherently fragile.
“Security based on the will of Muslim nations and fraternal cooperation among regional countries can be stable, dignified and lasting,” he said.
Additionally, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced that it eliminated a terrorist team affiliated with the spy agencies of the “Israeli regime and the United States” in Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan, according to state broadcaster IRNA.
IRGC said the group was intending to carry out a series of terrorist acts in the province as forces seized “explosives, light and medium-heavy weapons, ammunition, and Starlink communication devices.”
WAFA, citing security sources, added that the area has been subject to repeated attacks on residents and restrictions on their access to their land, aimed at pushing Palestinians off their lands for settlement expansion.
Meanwhile, up to 400 ships carrying about 6,000 seafarers remain unable to safely leave the Persian Gulf, the International Maritime Organization said on Friday, six months after the conflict in the Middle East began.
IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz remains unresolved, leaving thousands of seafarers working in increasingly uncertain and dangerous conditions.
He stated that the crisis has disrupted the movement of fuel, fertilizer and other key goods, affecting communities and economies “around the world.”
Two Palestinians, including a 15-year-old child, were wounded by Israeli forces during a raid on the al-Amari refugee camp in al-Bireh early Saturday, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its crews treated the child, who was shot in the back with live ammunition, and a young man who sustained a gunshot wound to the leg.
Israeli forces carried out two explosions on the outskirts of Aita al-Jabal in southern Lebanon and set fire to several homes in nearby Beit Yahoun, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported.
UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said that the situation in south Lebanon remained fragile as peacekeepers recorded 1,030 projectile trajectories in a week, an average of 147 per day.
For earlier developments, read our Aug 29 live blog here.