Good morning and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.

Here’s what happened overnight.

• Two additional members of the Iranian women’s football team stayed behind in Australia on top of the five who were granted humanitarian visas on Monday night. This masthead reported last night that police had told Iranian-Australian activists at Sydney Airport that two extra women stayed behind in Australia.
• While waiting to board, several players interviewed by this masthead – flanked by chaperones – said they wanted to return home to be with their families.
• Earlier, five members of the Iranian women’s soccer team were granted humanitarian visas to stay in Australia, as part of a secret operation to allow them to escape their handlers.
• US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said that Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) would be “yet again [the US’s] most intense day of strikes inside Iran”.
• Iranian security official Ali Larijani warned US President Donald Trump “not to get eliminated” after he threatened to attack Iran “twenty times harder” if they stopped the flow of oil through the vital transit route the Strait of Hormuz. Larijani added that the strait would either be one of peace and prosperity for all or a strait of defeat and suffering for “warmongers”.
• Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said his government was “not looking for an endless war”, and would “consult with our American friends” when it was time for the conflict to end.
• In a call this week between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia said it had not shared intelligence with Iran, according to US special envoy Steve Witkoff.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong is adamant Australia is not involved in offensive action in the war between the US-Israel and Iran, despite the government’s decision yesterday to send weapons and military personnel to the Gulf to assist the UAE in defending Iran.

During a media blitz this morning, Wong said multiple times that Australia was only participating in “collective self-defence”.

“We’re engaged in what’s described as collective self-defence … We’re not providing boots on the ground to go into Iran,” she told Seven’s Sunrise this morning.

She repeated this argument on Nine’s Today show moments later.

“The missiles that we’re sending are to intercept drones that are attacking countries … My point is, they are a defensive capability, that’s been our focus.”

Each member of the Iranian women’s football teamdelegation was given the chance to decide whether or not to get on a plane out of Australia before it departed last night, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke says.

“Between people going through that departures gate, and before they got on the plane, each of them had an opportunity with a Home Affairs official, and no pressure around them, to make their own decision.”

“Australia’s position has been if you want to stay and wait, you can stay and wait.”

The women were given the chance to contact their families in Iran and “the dignity of making the choice themselves” about whether to board the plane, Burke told media at Sydney Airport last night.

“Every one of those women was given the dignity of agency in Australia that they’re not necessarily given in other parts of the world,” Burke said.

The minister is expected to provide a further update later this morning, after indicating the number of those choosing to stay in Australia was “more than the initial five” who were granted visas in the early hours of yesterday morning.

Two additional members of the delegation opted in the final moments before boarding to remain behind last night.

Two additional members of the Iranian women’s football delegation stayed behind in Australia on top of the five who were granted humanitarian visas on Monday night in dramatic scenes in the Gold Coast.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke will confirm the new numbers at a press conference in Canberra later this morning.

This masthead reported last night that police had told Iranian-Australian activists at Sydney Airport that two extra women stayed behind in Australia.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to justify Trump’s claim that Iran possesses Tomahawk missiles that could have been responsible for a strike on an Iranian school that reportedly killed 175 people.

Trump said yesterday that Iran “also has Tomahawk missiles”, implying for a second time that the regime was responsible for the strike. Previously, Trump was even more definitive, saying: “It was done by Iran.”

In fact, Iran does not have Tomahawks. Only Britain and Australia are known to have the US-made weapon, while Japan and the Netherlands have agreed to buy them. Any country wishing to on-sell them would have to obtain US authorisation.

Asked why Trump had made the claim, Leavitt did not attempt to justify or explain it.

“As the president said yesterday, he will accept the conclusion of this investigation by the Department of War,” she said.

“The president has a right to share his opinions with the American public, but he has said he will accept the conclusion of that investigation.”

Leavitt then criticised The New York Times for reporting details about the incident which she said had “not been verified by the Department of War”.

President Donald Trump’s demand for “unconditional surrender” from Iran did not mean he expects the Iranian regime to actually surrender, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

She said Trump will judge when the Iranian regime was “in a position of complete and unconditional surrender” because enough of its weapons had been knocked out.

“He’s not claiming the Iranian regime is going to come out and say that themselves,” Leavitt said.

“What the president means is that Iran’s threats will no longer be backed by a ballistic missile arsenal that protects them from building a nuclear bomb in their country.”

“I could make an empty threat, but if I have no actions to back it up, then it’s an empty threat.

“President Trump will determine when Iran is in a place of unconditional surrender, when they no longer pose a credible and direct threat to the United States of America and our allies.”

Multiple American news sources are reporting this morning that US intelligence has seen early signs Iran is preparing to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

CBS News first reported on X that there were early indications Iran was “taking steps” to deploy mines in the critical passageway, citing intelligence sources.

CNN also reported moments ago that Iran had begun laying mines in the strait, according to two people familiar with US intelligence operations.

CNN’s report says the mining is not extensive yet, with a few dozen having been laid so far, the sources said. However, Iran has retained between 80 and 90 per cent of its small boats and mine layers, according to one of the sources, meaning it could lay hundreds of mines in the waterway.

The choke point carries one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. Iran’s de facto blockage of the strait has wreaked havoc on oil markets and fuel supplies by effectively halting marine traffic from moving through the passageway.

Reuters

During a White House press briefing this morning, press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked by a reporter how many US service members had been injured and killed in the US and Israel’s war on Iran.

The question followed a report by Reuters that 150 American service members had been injured since the beginning of the conflict.

Leavitt could not give an answer, but conceded that the figure was “in the ballpark”. She referred the reporter to the Pentagon.

Seven US service members have been killed in the conflict so far.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Kyiv had sent air defence experts to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE amid Iran’s aerial attacks on those countries.

During a question and answer session with the president on WhatsApp, his communications adviser also told reporters that Ukrainian specialists had been deployed to a US military base in Jordan, without giving details.

In a post on X, Zelensky said he had also met with Turkish President Recep Erdogan and “discussed the situation around Iran”.

“We are ready to share our expertise to prevent the expansion of war and protect lives, but at the same time, Ukraine needs to strengthen its own air defence, and we are counting on appropriate support from our partners,” he said.

with Reuters

Nearly 700,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since the beginning of the war, the UN’s refugee agency says.

Last week, the Israeli military issued an evacuation order for 53 villages in southern Beirut, triggering chaos across the city as hundreds of thousands of panicked residents tried to flee.

According to Lebanese authorities, as of today, more than 667,000 people have registered on the government’s online displacement platform, while 120,000 people are sheltering in government-designated sites.

Lebanon has become a major site of conflict in the war, as Israel targets Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

A total of 570 people have died and 1444 others have been wounded since the outbreak of the conflict in Lebanon, according to a report by the Lebanese government’s disaster risk management unit released on Tuesday local time.

US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright deleted a post on X in which had said the US Navy successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz “to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets.”

It was unclear why Wright deleted the post.

In response to the post, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the US had not yet escorted any oil tankers or vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.

A spokesperson for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also denied an oil ship had been escorted by the US through the Strait of Hormuz.

“Any movement of the US fleet and its allies will be stopped by our missiles and drones”, Alimohammad Naini said in comments carried by Iranian state media.

“The claim that an oil tanker escorted by the US terrorist army passed through the Strait of Hormuz is a complete lie.”

The disappearance of the post and its accompanying video added confusion to a tense oil market that’s looking for confirmation of efforts by the Trump administration to unblock millions of barrels of Middle East oil trapped inside the Persian Gulf.

Almost all commercial trade through Hormuz halted after the Iran war began, with owners concerned about security. That stopped tankers from exiting the gulf, filling storage and causing producers to cut output sharply.

With Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates all pumping millions of barrels less oil each day, the need to resume normal traffic through the waterway is pressing. Some tanker owners previously said that they would navigate again if a convoy program were available.

Reuters, Bloomberg