UN chief decries ‘incendiary rhetoric’ after Trump ramps up threats against Iran as deal deadline looms – Middle East crisis live

Diplomats are frantically working to reach a deal before Donald Trump’s deadline to Iran passes, with Egypt’s foreign minister Badr Abdelatty holding talks with his Pakistani counterpart Ishaq Dar late on Tuesday.

A statement from the Egyptian foreign ministry said they had discussed joint efforts to reach “understandings” between the US and Iran to stop fighting.

Pakistan and Egypt have emerged as key intermediaries, with Islamabad hosting a meeting recently to discuss regional de-escalation and proposals to reopen the strait of Hormuz.

A personal envoy of UN secretary general Antonio Guterres plans to visit Iran as part of his efforts to encourage an end to the Iran war, but his travel plans will depend on security and logistics, a UN source has told Reuters.

Jean Arnault, a veteran UN diplomat Guterres named as his envoy on the conflict last month, headed to the Middle East on Monday.

UN rights chief Volker Turk has decried the “incendiary rhetoric” in the Middle East war, warning that deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure was “a war crime”.

• Donald Trump issued a genuinely shocking – and widely condemned – threat that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran doesn’t capitulate to his demands by 8pm ET. As the world waits to find out how far Trump is willing to go on his threat – which, if carried out, could amount to war crimes – the White House earlier said that, “Only the president knows where things stand and what he will do.” It later said the US president was “aware” of a proposal (from Pakistan) to extend his deadline by two weeks and that “a response will come”.

• As Trump has threatened to bomb Iran’s critical infrastructure, including bridges, power plants, and electrical and desalinisation facilities, the Pentagon has prepared options for him that include targets that are used for both military and civilian purposes, NBC News reported, citing two US officials. Per that report: “Targeting infrastructure that is considered ‘dual use’ could allow the administration to argue the US is hitting military targets and avoid the technical definition of a war crime.”

• The top US Senate Democrat, called Trump an “extremely sick person” in response to the president’s post. “Each Republican who refuses to join us in voting against this wanton war of choice owns every consequence of whatever the hell this is,” Chuck Schumer said.

• But some of the most forceful backlash has come from inside Trump’s own coalition. A number of far‑right commentators who once formed the bedrock of his base have broken with him over the war and his threats to strike bridges and power plants. Former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene – previously one of Trump’s most reliable allies on Capitol Hill – joined Democrats in calling for his removal under the 25th amendment. While conspiracy theorist and rightwing broadcaster Alex Jones also urged Trump’s ouster. “You can have a good leader, and they just go crazy,” he said on social media. And a handful of GOP lawmakers have also come out strongly against attacking civilian targets.

• Pope Leo XIV said that threats directed at Iran’s population are “unacceptable” and would violate international law. In some of his strongest comments yet against the war, the first American pontiff urged Americans and other people of good will to contact their political leaders and congressional representatives to demand they reject war and work for peace.

• The UN rights chief decried the “incendiary rhetoric” in the war, warning that deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure was “a war crime”. “Under international law, deliberately attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime. Anyone responsible for international crimes must be held to account by a competent court,” Volker Turk said in a statement, without naming the United States, Israel nor Iran.

• Iran’s representative to the UN said that Tehran will “take immediate and proportionate” action if Trump follows through on his threats. Amir-Saeid Iravani said Trump’s threats that a “whole civilization will die” if Iran does not make a deal “constitute incitement to war crimes and potentially genocide”. “Iran will not stand idle in the face of such egregious war crimes. It will exercise, without hesitation, its inherent right of self-defence and will take immediate and proportionate reciprocal measures,” he said.

• An Iranian official urged young citizens to form human chains around the country’s power plants, following Trump’s threats to bomb them. Trump responded by saying that was “totally illegal”. “They’re not allowed to do that,” he told NBC News, completely un-ironically.

• Meanwhile, Russia and China vetoed an already watered down draft resolution from Bahrain at the UN Security Council calling for countries to coordinate to open the strait of Hormuz. There were 11 votes in favour, Russian and China against, and abstentions from Pakistan, which has been mediating between Iran and the US, and Colombia. Bahrain’s foreign minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, said the failure to pass the resolution “sends the wrong signal to the world”.

• The White House denied that remarks by vice-president JD Vance about military operations in Iran had contained any suggestion of a US nuclear strike against the Islamic republic. After Vance said US forces have tools they “so far haven’t decided to use” to enforce a dramatic ultimatum from president Donald Trump, the White House said on X: “Literally nothing @VP said here ‘implies’ this, you absolute buffoons.”

• The US hit Kharg Island again ahead of Donald Trump’s deadline, an AP source has reported. Earlier Iran’s Mehr news agency said US-Israeli strikes had hit the key Iranian oil export terminal, and later reported that there was no disruption to the island’s oil facilities.

• Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had struck railways and bridges in Iran “used by the Revolutionary Guards”, after Iranian officials reported damage to at least two bridges and railway infrastructure. “We are crushing the terror regime in Iran… with even greater vigour and with increasing force,” Netanyahu said in a video released by his office.

• Lebanon’s health ministry said that the death toll in more than a month of war between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah had reached 1,530. The toll includes 102 women and 130 children, as well as 57 heath workers, a ministry statement said, adding that 4,812 people have been wounded.

• The Israeli military has urged all vessels in the maritime zone off the coast of southern Lebanon to immediately head north of the city of Tyre, warning that it would operate in the area. “Hezbollah’s activities expose naval vessels in the maritime area between Tyre and Ras al-Naqoura to danger, which compels the IDF to take action against it in the maritime domain,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X.

• The IDF also that its forces had struck a key petrochemical compound in Shiraz in southern Iran. The Guardian was not able to independently verify this claim. According to the IDF, this facility was one of the last remaining facilities that produced critical chemical components for explosives and materials for ballistic missiles.

• Nearly 3,600 people have been killed in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran since attacks began, including at least 1,665 civilians, the Human Rights Activists news agency (HRANA) said. Of those numbers, at least 248 of those killed were children. At least 49 civilians were killed and 58 others were injured on Monday, according to HRANA, which recorded 573 attacks across 215 incidents in 20 provinces over that 24-hour period – the highest rate of attacks seen in the last ten days.

Federal security agencies say that Iranian hackers have begun cyber-attacks aimed at water and energy systems in the United States hours after Donald Trump threatened “every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again.”

In a joint statement, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency and the Energy Department said hackers backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had begun cyber-attacks on US power infrastructure.

Qatar’s interior ministry said that four people, including a child, were injured after debris fell on a house in the Muraikh area following an interception of Iranian missiles.

US senator Ron Johnson, a close ally of Donald Trump, warned on Monday that the US president would lose his support if he struck Iran’s civilian infrastructure, as a small chorus of Republican unease begins to grow.

Speaking on the John Solomon Reports podcast on Monday, Johnson said: “I do not want to see us start blowing up civilian infrastructure.” He added: “I hope and pray that President Trump is just using this as bluster.”

After Trump’s staggering warning on Tuesday morning that Iran’s “whole civilisation will die”, Johnson told the Wall Street Journal that the president would forfeit his backing and it would be “a huge mistake” if he carried out his threat to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages”.

I think it would be a huge mistake. I mean, he loses me if he attacks civilian targets. Whatever we do has to be within the laws of warfare.

Most Republicans have stayed schtum on Trump’s threat, but a handful have urged caution and called for de-escalation.

Representative Nate Moran said a few hours ago that while he had supported the president’s decisions on Iran thusfar, the United States must conduct military operations “for just causes and through just and moral means”. “This must continue in the future; otherwise we forfeit our legitimacy to lead the world,” he wrote on X.

So let me be clear. I do not support the destruction of a ‘whole civilization’. That is not who we are, and it is not consistent with the principles that have long guided America.

He added that, “how we protect the lives of the innocent is just as important as how we engage the enemy”.

Also on Tuesday afternoon, senator Lisa Murkowski said that Trump’s threat “cannot be excused away as an attempt to gain leverage in negotiations with Iran”. She said on X:

Everyone involved – especially the President and Iran’s leaders – must de-escalate their unprecedented saber-rattling before it is too late.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio and UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper spoke on Tuesday about “the need for international efforts” in response to the escalating crisis in the Middle East, according to the US state department.

According to department spokesperson Tommy Pigott, the pair spoke about “the Iranian regime’s ongoing attacks across the Middle East and the critical importance of restoring freedom of navigation in the strait of Hormuz.”

“The secretary and foreign secretary agreed on the need for international efforts to ensure shipping can move freely and energy supplies can reach global markets,” he added.

in Washington

As Donald Trump unleashes curse-filled threats against Iran, Democrats are raising alarm over his mental stability and calling for his removal from office – while Republicans remain conspicuously silent.

Democrats are escalating their rebukes as the 79-year-old president delivers rambling, incoherent speeches, hurls puerile insults at US allies and brazenly threatens to commit war crimes. He used an Easter Sunday social media post to warn Iran to “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell”.

The president followed up by insisting that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran does not meet his latest deadline to agree to a deal that includes reopening the strait of Hormuz.

By Tuesday afternoon, more than 20 Democratic members of Congress had called for Trump’s cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment to the constitution to remove a president who is deemed unfit for office.

They were joined by Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former Republican US representative turned Trump critic. She wrote:

25TH AMENDMENT!!! Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness.

Greene had previously warned that Trump has “gone insane”. And since Sunday, other Democrats have broken new ground by questioning the president’s mental health.

Yassamin Ansari, the only Iranian American Democrat in Congress, wrote on social media: “The President of the United States is a deranged lunatic, and a national security threat to our country and the rest of the world.”

Ansari told the Guardian on Tuesday:

I am devastated and appalled by the lack of action from Trump’s cabinet, from Republicans in Congress who are standing idly by as Donald Trump is threatening genocide, war crimes, and essentially speaking as though he intends to use a nuclear weapon in Iran.

This is a grave moment not just for the United States but in world history and we will be judged on what we did in this moment. I am urging Republicans to put party affiliation and blind loyalty to Donald Trump aside and take action immediately to restrain him.

But the chances of Trump’s notoriously loyal cabinet turning against him to install JD Vance as president are close to zero. Even as Trump threatens to target civilian infrastructure in Iran in breach of international law, few Republicans have raised any voice of dissent. Many in the party support the war.

Kurt Bardella, a former Republican congressional aide turned Democrat, said:

The one mechanism that we know could be executed immediately is the 25th amendment. All that’s standing in the way of the complete annihilation of a civilisation or not is if there are a dozen or 13 Republicans who have a spine, a soul, a conscience and the fortitude to do what they know is right.

Read David’s full report here:

Further, Donald Trump has been made aware of Pakistan’s request to extend his deadline by two weeks and will respond, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said.

“The president has been made been aware of the proposal, and a response will come,” she said in a statement.

In a brief phone call with NBC News, Donald Trump declined to provide any update on the status of any supposed negotiations with Iran, but he sharply criticized Tehran’s call for young people to line up as human chains around the power plants Trump has threatened to bomb.

Totally illegal. They’re not allowed to do that.

Asked what motivated him to post this morning that “a whole civilisation will die tonight”, which has genuinely stunned the world, Trump said:

You’ll have to figure that out.

Pope Leo XIV has said that threats directed at Iran’s population are “unacceptable” and would violate international law.

In some of his strongest comments yet against the war, the first American pontiff urged Americans and other people of good will to contact their political leaders and congressional representatives to demand they reject war and work for peace.

Speaking to reporters as he left the papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo, outside Rome, he said.

Today, as we all know, there has also been this threat against the entire people of Iran. And this is truly unacceptable.

There are certainly issues of international law here, but even more, it is a moral question concerning the good of the people as a whole, in its entirety.

He encouraged “all people of goodwill to always search for peace and not violence, to reject war, especially a war which many people have said is unjust, which is continuing to escalate and which is not resolving anything.”

In recent weeks, the pope has escalated the tone of his opposition to the US-Israeli war on Iran after initially issuing muted appeals for peace and dialogue.

Last week for the first time, Leo publicly named Trump in saying he hoped the US president was truly “looking for an off-ramp”.

in Islamabad

Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, pleaded for an extension to the deadline for an Iran deal set by Donald Trump, saying that diplomatic efforts “are progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully with the potential to lead to substantive results in near future”.

Islamabad is mediating between Iran and the United States. Trump has set a deadline of 8pm Washington time on Tuesday for an agreement with Iran, or the US will bomb civilian infrastructure.

Sharif asked Trump to give negotiations another two weeks. He also called on Iran to open the strait of Hormuz for those two weeks, as a goodwill gesture.

“We also urge all warring parties to observe a ceasefire everywhere for two weeks to allow diplomacy to achieve conclusive termination of war, in the interest of long-term peace and stability in the region,” Sharif said.

Separately, Pakistan’s foreign minister, said that Israeli bombing of Iran had upset advances being made in the talks.

Tehran and Washington are speaking indirectly, through mediators, led by Pakistan, and also involving Turkey and Egypt. Proposals have been exchanged between the two sides through Islamabad.

HMS Dragon has docked in the eastern Mediterranean after suffering technical problems with its water systems.

The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, announced on 3 March that the type 45 destroyer would be deployed to reinforce security around RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, two days after the base was struck by a Shahed 136 drone.

HMS Dragon left Portsmouth on 10 March after the crew completed in six days work that would normally take six weeks, according to the defence secretary, John Healey.

The warship will still be able to sail at short notice “if required”, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Tuesday.

It is understood that minor technical problems with onboard water systems will be addressed during the stop, but that the malfunction has not affected the ship’s operational capability. All crew have had access to water and catering, and they have been able to take showers.

Angry protesters stormed the Kuwaiti consulate in the Iraqi city of Basra, police sources said on Tuesday, after a rocket attack fired from the direction of Kuwait, killing three people, Reuters reports.

At least three people were killed and five others wounded when rockets fired from the direction of Kuwait hit a house in Khor al-Zubair near Basra, security and health officials told Reuters.

Police said the death toll could rise as some family members remained under the debris.