The US military and Iranian forces exchanged fire in the Gulf region, escalating the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz. At least one person was killed, and four others were wounded in an American attack at an agricultural water pumping station in Iran’s Mahshahr, with Tehran saying the latest strikes had “rendered futile” all the diplomatic efforts of the past few months.

A US military spokesperson claimed the new strikes come after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted another commercial vessel trying to pass through the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, which once saw a fifth of all oil and natural gas pass through it. Both Washington and Tehran have been making contradictory claims about the status of marine traffic through the strait, which is key to Tehran’s leverage in negotiations under the deal signed by the two nations.