Trump weighs Iran strikes ahead of midterms as White House warns of ‘easy way or hard way’

Yemen’s government forces said Wednesday they carried out thousands of strikes against Houthi targets as part of Operation “Dawn of Yemen,” claiming 1,860 fighters were “neutralized.”

“As part of Operation ‘Dawn of Yemen’, armed forces executed 2,103 targeting ops against various Houthis militia military targets across all fronts, resulting in neutralizing 1,860 militia members & destroying hundreds of military positions & material,” a spokesman for the armed forces said on X.

In a statement posted on X, coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki also said that 82 targets had been destroyed across Saada, Hodeidah, al-Jawf and Marib, including 11 ballistic missile storage sites found in mountainous areas.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee sharply criticized New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, comparing the mayor’s stance to President Donald Trump’s message on Truth Social.

Mamdani described the Hamas atttack as “horrific,” but devoted much of his statement to criticizing Israel’s ongoing military campaign in the Gaza Strip, which he characterized as an “ongoing genocide.”

“I wish Mayor “Jihad Mandami” sent a message like @realDonaldTrump for Oct 7. But Mayor Mayhem sends loves & kisses to Hamas,” Huckabee said on X.

U.S. Central Command blasted Iran’s claims of control over the Strait of Hormuz as “false” Wednesday, insisting the oil route remains open despite threats.

“Earlier today, a general from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed in media reports that “the Strait of Hormuz is closed” and his country has “full control over it.” This is FALSE,” CENTCOM said in a statement on X.

“Traffic is flowing through the Strait of Hormuz right now carrying commercial goods and energy supplies, including 20 million barrels of crude oil,” the command added.

The United States and its regional partners clearly control the strait, CENTCOM said.

The statement came after Mohammadreza Naqdi, an adviser to the commander of the IRGC, said that shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz considered illegal by Tehran would be closed.

According to the state-run IRNA news agency, foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei also said Wednesday that Iran and Oman had reached an agreement “on the geographical coordinates of safe transit routes in the Strait of Hormuz and on how they will be communicated to the relevant international body.”

President Donald Trump highlighted oil supplies in the Middle East amid the war with Iran on Wednesday, saying the United States had taken out “more oil out of the Hormuz Strait in the last three nights than at any time in the history of the Strait.”

“And we’ll be out of there soon,” Trump said in Texas before adding that “oil prices come down like a rock.”

“Everything else is coming down. Oil is coming down,” he added.

“And we did that whole thing because it was a big operation that should have been done by past presidents for many years. It should have been done, but nobody wanted to take it on,” he said.

Three people were killed and dozens were injured in attacks on Saudi Arabian airports, Saudi civil aviation authorities said Wednesday, as fighting intensified in Yemen between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government troops.

One person was killed and eight others were wounded in a strike on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, the capital.

A separate attack on Abha Regional Airport left two people dead and 28 injured.

In response, the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen vowed retaliation, warning the strikes “will not go unpunished,” Reuters reported.

Late Wednesday, the coalition said it launched retaliatory strikes against more than 80 Houthi military sites across the Yemeni governorates of Saada, Hodeidah, Jawf and Marib, the outlet said

Thousands gathered at Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park on Wednesday night for a memorial ceremony marking the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, the Times of Israel reported.

Organized by survivors and families, the gathering was separate from official state ceremonies held on the Hebrew anniversary of the massacre.

Government ministers were absent, while several opposition leaders attended alongside around 50,000 citizens who came to pay their respects.

The ceremony opened at 9:15 p.m. with a minute of silence, followed by performances by Israeli artists and tributes from families of the fallen.

The event was co-hosted by actress Shani Cohen and former hostage Eli Sharabi, whose wife and two daughters were killed in the Oct. 7 attack on Kibbutz Be’eri and whose brother died in captivity in Gaza.

“On that Shabbat morning, we lost so much,” Sharabi said before describing the destruction of entire communities and the loss of friends and family.

House Speaker Mike Johnson hailed Operation Epic Fury as a success Wednesday, saying Iran had been “dangerously close” to having a nuclear weapon and predicting the country’s economic collapse would force Tehran to reach an agreement with the U.S.

Speaking at a campaign event for U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett, Johnson also said his membership in the “Gang of Eight” gives him access to some of the federal government’s most sensitive intelligence briefings.

“Operation Epic Fury was an epic success. We had no choice in the matter,” Johnson said.

“I’m on the Gang of Eight. I get the highest level briefing in the federal government. We got the briefing in a bipartisan briefing there, that Iran was dangerously close to having a nuclear weapon.”

“So they had to take care of that. Operation Epic Fury was an epic success, and now it is winding down,” he added.

Johnson said the Iranian currency was worth almost nothing and that the regime had no more assets to sell around the world.

“Their economy is in collapse and they are in a desperate state,” he said, adding that they “will be forced out of desperation to make an agreement with us and to finish this up.”

“The U.S. did the heavy lifting there, and everyone will have to help to make sure that we keep the peace, we keep commerce, and we make sure that jihadism and terrorism is not allowed to go forward and certainly not to have nuclear capabilities.” 

Syria is weighing whether to send troops to Yemen to support the Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis, Axios reported Wednesday.

Citing U.S. officials, the outlet said Saudi Arabia and Syria have been discussing the possible deployment, with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa considering the request but not yet making a final decision.

Syria could send between 10,000 and 20,000 troops, the outlet reported.

The issue was discussed during a meeting between al-Sharaa and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh earlier this week.

Although the United States has not publicly taken a position on a possible deployment, Washington has been consulted by both countries and does not oppose a Syrian deployment in principle, Axios reported.

President Donald Trump said Oct. 5 that the military campaign against the Houthis would “work out very well.”

The White House has asked the Pentagon to develop options for potential strikes on Iranian targets ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, The Atlantic reported Wednesday.

Citing administration officials, the outlet reported that the size and targets of potential strikes — as well as whether the administration will ultimately proceed — are still being debated.

Supporters of limited strikes acknowledge that such action alone would not bring Iran to the negotiating table, restore safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz or lower gasoline prices before Election Day, the report said.

“It would make the president look like he got a win and that gas prices would start going down,” a Republican told the outlet.

The report also said a limited operation could be followed by more substantial military action after the midterms, when Trump has publicly suggested military action could resume.

A White House official told Fox News Digital that the commander in chief has “all options available at any time.”

“The United States is in a very strong position with control of the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian economy collapsing,” the official said.

“Iran has been decimated,” the official said, before adding that “things will go one of two ways; the easy way or the hard way.”

“President Trump holds all the cards and will do whatever is best for the United States.”

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei accused Washington on Wednesday of carrying out what he called “false flag” operations to support its war against Iran.

“False flags are an old craft: manufacture the incident, assign the blame, and harvest the consequences,” Baqaei wrote on X.

“In a world where the American and international public is weary of an unlawful war of aggression against Iran, and where the aggressors have no honest way to justify a war of choice, even a raft made of lies can look like salvation to those who are drowning,” he added.

Baqaei accompanied the post with a video portraying Iran as the target of past and alleged “false flag” operations, culminating with the suspected RAF Fairford bomb plot and the FlyDubai terror incident.

A tanker transiting the Persian Gulf has been struck by multiple projectiles around 51 nautical miles north of Madinat ash Shamal, Qatar, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency (UKMTO).

The agency said casualties have been reported following the strike.

UKMTO also said an investigation is underway and urged vessels to exercise caution and report any suspicious activity or sightings to maritime monitoring agencies.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Wednesday that Iran is facing an “all-out war in all dimensions,” while pledging to push for diplomacy, strengthen the country’s defenses and resist pressure.

According to the IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency, Pezeshkian made the comments during a Cabinet meeting, while characterizing the current climate as “a situation of total war.”

“At the same time, we are powerfully pursuing the program of resistance and resilience, and without a doubt, we will resist and will disappoint and frustrate the enemy,” Pezeshkian said of the United States.

He added that unity in Iran is the priority and said the main issue is relying on “domestic capabilities, empathy and cooperation with one another,” according to Fars.

For GOP congressional candidate Dan Green, the military confrontation with Iran isn’t the start of a new war — it’s the long-overdue resolution of a conflict that began in 1979.

Drawing on his own military tours in Iraq, the Navy veteran running in Florida’s 9th Congressional District argues that America is finally settling decades-long strife with Tehran, even as he faces a tough domestic battle over inflation, kitchen-table economics, and a 10-year Democrat incumbent in the newly redrawn Orlando-based suburban district.

“I think one thing to know about Iran is that they’ve been at war with us since the 1970s, when they seized our embassy in Tehran and they took our Americans hostage. So to me, this is about ending a long war, not starting a war.

“Whether it’s the Marine Corps barracks in the 80s when Iran bombed those, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and also with my tours in Iraq, the Iranians were killing a lot of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.

“So, the question is, what’s the butcher’s bill you’re willing to tolerate of dead Americans? And we also know they plotted to kill and assassinate our president.

So, to me, this has been a long time coming, but I think what we really need to focus on is how do we get a successful termination of this conflict and stability back in the Middle East?”

This in an excerpt from a report by Fox News Digital’s David Unsworth.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian, held a phone call Wednesday in which the Russian leader expressed Moscow’s willingness to assist Tehran in navigating tensions with Washington, Iranian state media reported.

The call came on Putin’s 73rd birthday.

The two leaders praised the “positive and expanding trajectory of relations” between Moscow and Tehran and stressed a shared commitment to further strengthen strategic alignment.

On the war, Putin “referred to efforts by some countries to mediate and help reduce tensions, saying that Russia supports” them, Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.

Iranian friends “can be assured that Moscow is also ready to play a role and provide assistance in this regard,” Putin said.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, reflecting on the “horrible tragedy” while warning that Hamas and its allies are paying a steep price for the assault.

“I spoke with Bibi Netanyahu, and I wish him well,” Trump told reporters. “And I wish the people of Israel well.

“That was a horrible day, a horrible tragedy, a horrible in there,” he added.

“The other side is paying a very big price for what they did on October 7th. Believe me,” Trump said.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declared Wednesday that the USS Abraham Lincoln’s deployment helped thwart Iran’s missile buildup and ensure the regime never obtains a nuclear weapon while changing the course of history

“You have changed the arc of history, ensuring that crazy people, theocratic leaders, never get a nuclear weapon. It changes the arc of history,” Hegseth repeated.

“There’s only one president, one commander in chief, one military capable and willing to undertake that kind of mission.

“Given the threat that Iran posed, so many conventional weapons, such a large arsenal, when for 50 years you’ve been building a terror state and digging underground and trying to accumulate enough missiles so that no one can attack you, that means you’re a real threat.

“And we called the USS Abraham Lincoln, and you responded from minute one, constant combat operations, which Iran could never have expected, the kind of fire and fury that you were able to bring off this flight deck, along with other incredible Americans,” he said

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth welcomed the USS Abraham Lincoln crew home Wednesday after more than 300 days at sea, hailing its combat deployment against Iran

“What the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group did, no other carrier strike group has ever done,” he said.

“10,000 sorties, 23,000 combat flight hours, almost 4,000 combat sorties, 1.5 million pounds of ordnance dropped on the enemy,” he added.

“You guys were central to an arrangement we made with the Iranian Navy before this conflict.

“We decided to share the ocean with the Iranian Navy. They got the bottom half.”

“You sunk 59 of them. 59 vessels of the Iranian Navy,” Hegseth said.

“They don’t. They had a modern navy before this conflict started. And then they had to deal with the USS Abraham Lincoln and what you’re capable of doing.

“And then you enforced not just once, but twice, an impenetrable steel wall.”

The aircraft carrier left its San Diego base in 2025 for the Indo-Pacific before being sent to the Middle East earlier this year. 

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that “oil will drop like a rock as soon as we’re finished with the war, which we’ll be very soon.

“It’s going to be very soon. One way or the other we will be finished with it,” Trump said at the White House.

“But oil will come down to levels that were, I think, maybe even lower than they were before the war,” he added.

U.S. Central Command released a photo Wednesday showing a U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II jet taking off from the flight deck of the USS Boxer during its deployment to the Middle East. 

The USS Boxer is one of the U.S. military ships enforcing a blockade on Iranian ports.

“CENTCOM forces resumed the blockade against ships attempting to enter or depart Iranian ports July 14 at the Commander in Chief’s direction. In addition to redirecting 130 vessels, American forces have disabled three ships that refused to comply,” CENTCOM said earlier this week.

“Over the past 12 weeks, CENTCOM has destroyed 13 commercial vessels that were violating the blockade or part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ multibillion-dollar shadow network,” it added.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Wednesday that 201,217 people “have been forced from their homes in Yemen” as the conflict is escalating between Iran-backed Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces. 

“People are running for their lives and finding nowhere safe to go,” IOM Director General Amy Pope said in a statement. 

“The speed of this crisis is alarming,” the IOM added. “In mid-September, IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix counted 76,000 displaced people. By the end of the month, the figure had passed 145,000. Today it stands at 201,217 people, or 33,776 households. Nearly all of them, 197,755, have fled since 1 September.   

“Displacement now spans 10 governorates. Ta’iz is the hardest hit, with 114,708 displaced people, 57 per cent of the total,” it also said. “Lahj follows with 42,264, Aden with 20,814, Abyan with 9,030 and Al Hodeidah with 8,244.”

The terrorist group Hezbollah has received $200 million from Iran to help people in Lebanon who have been displaced in the fight against Israel, Reuters reported Wednesday. 

The report, citing two sources with direct knowledge of the transfer, said the funds would go to the hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah supporters in southern Lebanon who have been uprooted due to cross-border skirmishes with Israel’s military. 

Intermediaries who helped facilitate the money transfer charged a 20% fee because of the risks of dealing with Hezbollah, Reuters also reported. 

The development comes after another report emerged last week saying Hezbollah terrorists received $157 million worth of weapons in 2024, most of it given freely by Iran. 

The analysis found that Hezbollah spent just $28 million on procuring weapons, and those were limited to small arms, ammunition, drone components, dual-use equipment and equipment obtained through its international procurement networks. 

The Israel Defense Forces announced Wednesday that it killed two Hamas terrorists, including one who planted explosives that he had obtained from inside of a hospital in northern Gaza. 

“IDF forces identified during the night two terrorists from the Hamas terrorist organization who exited Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza Strip. One of the terrorists planted explosives brought from inside the hospital in the area of the yellow line, with the aim of targeting IDF forces,” the IDF wrote on X. 

“Immediately after the identification, the IDF struck and eliminated the terrorists to remove the threat. Mohammed Tamos, a sniper in the military wing of the Hamas terrorist organization who was eliminated in the strike, simultaneously operated as a civil defense worker in the Gaza Strip,” the IDF added. 

“The IDF reiterates and emphasizes that Hamas continues to cynically exploit hospitals and medical infrastructure in the Strip for terrorist purposes in violation of international law, while turning spaces designated for treating the civilian population into spaces used to advance terrorist activities and rehabilitate the organization’s military capabilities,” it also said. 

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released a statement Wednesday on the third anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel condemning what he described as the “ongoing genocide in Gaza.” 

“This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7. On that day, Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others. We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss,” Mamdani said. 

“The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians — including more than 21,000 children,” he continued. “Even since the so-called ceasefire, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed. That suffering has intensified with every Israeli bomb dropped on ambulances waiting outside hospitals, every drone strike targeting a residential building or journalist, and every shipment of food aid turned away at a border crossing. Many New Yorkers are reckoning with this unbearable grief, and we mourn alongside them — all while knowing that our tax dollars fund these war crimes. 

“Three years later, we must refuse to accept a world in which occupation and apartheid continue, where war crimes are met with impunity, and our federal government continues its complicity with every arms shipment,” Mamdani concluded. “To honor the dead, we must fight for a world in which every person can live with freedom, safety, and dignity.” 

Senior Israeli defense officials told the country’s security cabinet this week that they are concerned Iran could lash out and launch missiles toward Israel as the economic situation inside the Islamic Republic continues to deteriorate, according to a report from The Jerusalem Post. 

“The maritime blockade in the Strait of Hormuz is having a significant effect. The Americans control the strait – much more than the Iranians control it,” Military Intelligence Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder was quoted as telling ministers. 

The remarks come after Iran’s currency hit a record low last week. 

In addition to the Iranian port blockade by the U.S. military in Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. Treasury Department also launched its Operation Economic Outcast sanctions campaign against Iran. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday during a visit to Greece that the Iranian regime has “lost complete control” of the Strait of Hormuz. 

“The Straits of Hormuz are open. There’s almost as much oil flowing out now as there was before this conflict began, so they’ve lost complete control of the straits. And their economy, and it’s not only in free fall now, the Iranian economy is about to reach a place that few countries in the world have been in terms of how bad it’s going to get,” Rubio said. 

“And it’s all the fault, all the fault of the radical Shia clerics that make the decisions in that country. They are the ones that have put the poor people of Iran in the situation that they’re in,” he continued. “Because every dollar and every penny that that regime gets, they don’t spend it on roads or bridges or helping improve the lives of the Iranian people. They spend that money on Hezbollah and Hamas and militias that fire rockets out of Iraq and the Houthis. 

“That’s who they spend their money on. They should have spent their money on their people and instead they spend their money on terrorism and on weapons. So hopefully that’ll change, but yeah, they’ll never have a nuclear weapon.”

The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday on the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel that “our countries’ history was forever changed.” 

“We will never forget the horrors of the Oct. 7 Massacre,” the IDF wrote on X, adding, “3 Years Later, Our Promise Remains Unbroken: To Protect Our Nation.” 

The Iranian regime-backed Hamas terrorist movement killed over 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023, including more than 40 American citizens. Hamas took over 250 people hostage on the same day. 

The IDF in recent years has been striking back at Hamas in Gaza, eliminating many of the terrorist group’s leadership. 

Fox News’ Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this post. 

An adviser to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed Wednesday that illegal routes in the Strait of Hormuz will soon be shut down. 

Mohammadreza Naqdi told Iran’s Fars News Agency that the routes were created by blasting through some of the rocky passages along the Strait of Hormuz, and were used by smaller boats smuggling oil, according to Reuters. 

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre (UKMTO) said last week that “vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains approximately 75% below pre-conflict levels, with tankers continuing to dominate observed movements.” 

Since early July, “31 of 48 projectile strike incidents reported to UKMTO have occurred on the southern Omani route,” it added. 

The Houthi terrorist group in Yemen attacked Aden International Airport on Wednesday with ballistic missiles and explosive drones, a report said. 

The development comes as fighting between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen has ramped up in recent days around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key shipping route in the Middle East, according to Reuters. 

The government forces are trying to recapture territory along the strait and around the town of Mocha that the Houthis took control of in September, Reuters reported. 

Saudi-led coalition spokesperson Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki also confirmed on Wednesday the “Interception and destruction of a ballistic missile north of Riyadh… launched by the terrorist Houthi militia.” 

Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis said Wednesday that his country is open to cooperating with the U.S. and offering maritime aid in the Strait of Hormuz if there is a peace process there, according to Reuters. 

Gerapetritis reportedly made the remark as Secretary of State Marco Rubio was visiting Athens. 

“Arrived in Greece for the 6th U.S.-Greece Strategic Dialogue. Greece is a steadfast, capable NATO ally,” Rubio wrote on X. 

“We are united in defense, energy, and shared democratic values. The U.S.-Greece bond is deep, and our partnership is stronger than ever,” he added. 

The flow of commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains reduced during the U.S.-Iran war. 

Vice President JD Vance said Monday that any deal with Iran would need Iran to reduce its nuclear enrichment capacity, rather than give assurances of future nuclear drawdowns.

“If you don’t want a nuclear weapon, then why do you need 60% enriched fuel? And if you want to show commitment to not building a nuclear weapon, don’t build highly enriched fuel. That’s a very basic threshold issue,” Vance told Reuters after a campaign trip in Alaska.

“I think if they want to show a commitment to not building a nuclear weapon, they would do something meaningful on their enrichment capacity,” he added.

Vance also told the outlet that Washington is uncertain about decision-making in Tehran.

“One of the things we picked up on is it’s not totally clear how their country makes decisions,” Vance said.

Yesterday’s Fox News Digital live blog offers additional coverage of the conflict with Iran.