TV News LIES

U.S. Central Command (Centcom) on Monday said U.S. forces fired “defensive strikes” in southern Iran amid discussions to bring the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Tehran to an end.

These strikes were intended “to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces” — specifically boats attempting to lay mines and missile launch sites, Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a Centcom spokesperson, told The Hill.

“U.S. Central Command continues to defend our forces while using restraint during the ongoing ceasefire,” Hawkins said.

Earlier Monday, Reuters reported explosions in southern Iran in Bandar Abbas city and around coastal areas near the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. and Iran have held a ceasefire since April 7. The stalemate has seen few small attacks since last month, though none have violated the ceasefire’s terms.

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It has been over seven months since Hamas and Israel came to a ceasefire agreement that promised to end the genocide in Gaza. But since then, senior leaders of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad say, Israel and the U.S. have tried to implement terms that Hamas never agreed to—specifically, disarming the resistance while Israeli forces continue to occupy most of Gaza and violate the ceasefire on a daily basis.

President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” has unilaterally rewritten the Gaza ceasefire agreement, resistance leaders told Drop Site News, in an effort to compel Palestinians to surrender their liberation cause and institutionalize Israeli domination over the future of the Gaza Strip. Since mid-March, Hamas officials have been summoned to a series of meetings where U.S. officials, regional mediators, and the Trump-appointed “High Representative for Gaza” have pressured the group to disarm, warning a large-scale Israeli military assault may resume if they refuse to capitulate.

This campaign, they said, will fail and ultimately lead to a resumption of the armed struggle. “The [Israeli] aim is to end the Palestinian presence in the Gaza Strip, not merely occupation,” said Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas leader, in an interview with Drop Site. “They are trying to send a message to the Palestinians that there is no solution within Palestine, and that the only solution is for them to leave.”

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Iran has destroyed $1bn worth of MQ-9 Reaper Drones, or roughly 20 percent of the US’s pre-war inventory of the sophisticated unmanned aerial vehicles, according to a report by Bloomberg on Friday.

The report said that many of the drones were downed by Iran in flight, but that others had been destroyed on the ground when Iran targeted US military bases in the Gulf.

The MQ-9 is both a surveillance drone and capable of carrying a payload, typically Hellfire missiles or Joint Direct Attack Munition guided bombs.

Bloomberg reported that the US may have lost up to 30 MQ-9 Reaper drones in the war, a higher number than the 24 that a report released this month by the Congressional Research Service noted.

The $1bn price tag adds to the cost of the war on Iran, which a senior official at the Pentagon told Reuters in May reached up to $29bn. The MQ-9 Reaper drone is being gradually phased out by the US military, although General Atomics continues to produce it for foreign customers.

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An excavator stood on top of what used to be a house in Deir Qanoun Al-Nahr, in southern Lebanon, moving broken concrete from one side of the crater to the other. Rescue workers in fluorescent vests pried away the rubble with their hands. Ahmed Hariri, a paramedic and photojournalist was among them.

Dust rose from the ruins as the men dug hurriedly for any sign of life—or death. “There’s something here,” one of them shouted. He pulled a bloodstained piece of concrete from the wreckage. The others rushed toward him and began to dig faster. Somewhere beneath the flattened family home lay the remains of three people still missing on Wednesday after an Israeli airstrike a day earlier killed 14 people, including four children, in one of the single deadliest attacks in Lebanon in weeks. Ten of the dead belonged to three generations of the same family. A Syrian family of four was killed alongside them.

Barely two days later, Ahmed Hariri was killed along with another paramedic in another Israeli airstrike on Deir Qanoun Al-Nahr on Friday that left a total of six people dead. That airstrike had followed the killing overnight on Thursday of four paramedics and wounding of five more in an Israeli attack on Hannawiyah that destroyed both the town’s main Health Authority center and a newly established ambulance station in Tyre.

Israel’s wanton killing of rescue workers and targeting of medical infrastructure in Lebanon has been one of this war’s most brazen features. For the past five weeks, the relentless Israeli aerial and ground assault has continued despite a nominal ceasefire being announced by President Donald Trump on April 16. Last week, Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 45-day extension of the “ceasefire” after holding their third round of direct talks in Washington, of which Hezbollah is not a part. The declaration of a ceasefire has not stopped the Israeli military from continuing its bombardment of Lebanon, mostly in the south and the eastern Bekka Valley. Since March 2, Israel has killed more than 3,100 people across the country and wounded more than 9,400, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health, over 900 of them since the so-called ceasefire went into effect.

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The heavy burden the US endured to defend Israel has caused the shortage of interceptors that Middle East Eye and other outlets reported on previously.

The US's Gulf allies were brushed off when they requested interceptor refills, MEE reported during the height of the war. Israel did send Iron Dome batteries and personnel to defend its close Arab partner, the UAE.

The US launched more than 200 Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad) interceptors in defence of Israel, roughly half of the Pentagon’s total inventory, the Washington Post reported.

The US also fired more than 100 Standard Missile-3 and Standard Missile-6 interceptors from vessels in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Israel fired fewer than 100 Arrow interceptors and around 90 David’s Sling interceptors. The latter were also used to shoot down projectiles fired from the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both groups generally have fewer advanced missiles and drones than Iran.

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Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said Thursday the U.S. is pausing a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan because of the Trump administration’s war with Iran.

Speaking during a Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing, Cao insisted the U.S. still had “plenty” of missiles and interceptors, even as scrutiny grows over America’s dwindling munitions stockpiles.

“Right now we’re doing a pause in order to make sure we have the munitions we need for Epic Fury — which we have plenty,” Cao told Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “We’re just making sure we have everything, but then the foreign military sales will continue when the administration deems necessary.”

Asked by McConnell if he expects the sale to be approved at some point, Cao said that it would be up to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

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