Donald Trump scoffs at Iran’s demand for war reparations

President Donald Trump has scoffed at Iran’s demand for reparations for devastation caused to the country by the US and Israeli bombardment over the past five months – a demand he said Tehran’s negotiators had not raised until now.

Mr Trump’s social media post on Monday came after Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei stressed that Iran will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until the US meets its conditions.

Tehran wants the US to end its blockade of Iranian ports, lift economic sanctions and release Iran’s frozen assets. It also said the US must pay compensation for war damage.

“It is up to the US side to stop and make amends for its illegal and destructive actions,” Mr Baghaei said.

Mr Trump responded that he is now demanding “compensation from Iran, for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts”.

The US government has blamed Iran-backed militants for the deaths and injuries of hundreds of Americans over several decades. They include a 1983 bombing that killed 241 US military personnel at a marine compound in Beirut and the deaths of at least 603 US troops in Iraq between 2003 and 2011.

Mr Trump said he also wants Tehran to compensate the families of Iranian protesters who were killed.

“I have instructed my representatives to put this firmly into any, and all, future negotiations,” Mr Trump said in his post.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly a fifth of the world’s traded oil supplies passed before the war — has kept energy prices as a major focus of US politics ahead of November’s mid-term elections.

Iran’s president said on Monday the country’s supreme leader is calling for “unity and cohesion” as the Islamic Republic faces economic hardships and sanctions stemming from its war with the United States.

President Masoud Pezeshkian described a nearly seven-hour meeting with Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei in an interview with Iranian state television that aired amid apparent tensions among the Islamic Republic’s leaders.

Mr Pezeshkian told the state-run IRIB that he and Mr Khamenei discussed “people’s livelihoods, the state of the market, employment, people’s housing”, as well as “problems that are now being created as a result of the (US) sanctions”. He did not say when or where they met.

Most importantly, he said, was Mr Khamenei’s emphasis on unity.

“All of the enemy’s plans are aimed at creating division,” Mr Pezeshkian said. “What we have to do is prevent divisions from emerging.”

It is only the second time the Iranian president said he has met the new supreme leader since Mr Khamenei was appointed in March following a US-Israeli strike that killed his father. Mr Khamenei, believed to have been wounded in the same attack, has not appeared in public since then.

Iran on Sunday appointed Mohsen Rezaei, a military adviser to its new supreme leader, to head its powerful Supreme National Security Council.

Mr Rezaei commanded Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard from 1981 to 1997, a period that includes Iran’s 1980s war with Iraq. The 71-year-old hardliner last week threatened American forces with “serious risks and casualties” if the US did not lift its blockade of Iranian ports.

Mr Rezaei replaces Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who will become a political adviser to Mr Khamenei.

While Mr Rezaei appears willing to negotiate with the US to “secure Iran’s maximalist aims, including control of the Strait of Hormuz”, he has also been “unwilling to present any Iranian concessions”, wrote the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think-tank.

Israel’s military said on Monday it had declared a Christian-majority town in the occupied West Bank a closed military zone to keep out Israeli settlers and other non-residents.

The new tactic is designed to keep Israelis out of Taybeh, which has been subject to arson, vandalism and settlers coming onto private and village property. The army said Palestinian residents and journalists would be allowed unless soldiers determine their presence poses a threat. The army said its troops would detain suspects and disperse gatherings to keep the peace.

The designation comes after months of the army and police struggling to maintain order throughout the territory, where at least 87 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers in 2026, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry.

Elsewhere, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacked a Red Sea port town controlled by government forces on Sunday, killing seven and injuring 30 people. Yemen’s Defence Ministry — which operates under its internationally recognised government — said four military personnel and three civilians were killed.

Clashes continued on Monday near the village of Taiz. The Houthi group said a 13-year-old child was killed by artillery shelling and another child was injured.

The attack on Mokha is the latest in one of the largest waves of Houthi strikes on Yemeni military positions and areas held by the Saudi-backed government since a 2022 truce. It comes as threats to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have renewed focus on the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait at its southern tip.