Iran-US war latest: Tehran vows to fight on ‘until the last drop of blood’ after Trump talks threat

President Donald Trump told reporters that the US is “hopefully toward the end” of its war with Iran, adding that he has spoken with Iran “directly”.

He also repeated his claim that Tehran was seeking a deal.

He told the crowd in North Carolina that gas and oil prices will “come down very quickly” after the war ends in Iran.

A building housing half a dozen families gave out in Gaza City overnight into Wednesday, killing sixteen people as they slept and leaving rescuers digging through rubble for dozens more who’d been sheltering inside the structure.

The sudden collapse of the building, which was known to be unstable due to damage from Israeli strikes earlier in the war, underscored how perilous and desperate living conditions have grown for the majority of the enclave’s population as a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas stalls.

The sixteen dead include at least twelve women and children, according to Zaher al-Wahidi, a spokesperson for the Gaza Health Ministry. The toll was expected to rise as more bodies were recovered from the wreckage.

Saudi Arabia says its air defences destroyed an incoming Houthi drone south of Mecca before it entered prohibited airspace over the holy city.

The drone, intercepted on Tuesday, marked the second Houthi attempt to target Mecca after a ballistic missile launch in 2017, a spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition said, warning that the security of holy sites was a “red line”.

Saudi Arabia issued security alerts for Mecca – along with Taif and Jeddah – but Houthi political bureau member Mohammed al-Farah denied the group had targeted the holy city, calling the allegation “an outright lie”.

Russia has been helping Iran to develop supersonic cruise missiles in secret for years, including through the US-Iran war, according to a report.

Moscow has enlisted some of its most experienced specialists to help Iran to develop a new class of missile capable of threatening US aircraft carriers and warships stationed in the Middle East, according to an investigation by the Financial Times.

The programme’s central objective was to help Iran to develop a special ‘ramjet’ propulsion system that would allow its cruise missiles to fly at several times the speed of sound, the report said.

The top Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Gregory Meeks, has said he will not support the sale of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel over concerns the munitions would not be used in accordance with international law.

President Donald Trump’s administration is planning to sell to Israel a munitions package worth $2.8 billion, which will include tens of thousands of highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs, according to a US official familiar with the sale.

The leaders of congressional committees review sales under an informal process, but Meeks’ objection alone is not enough to prevent the president from going ahead with the sale.

The US Treasury has said that its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has called a meeting of global financial institutions to advance Operation Economic Outcast, a pushisolate Tehran and limit its ability to fund the war in the Middle East.

“The event armed financial institutions with the information they need to shut down revenue streams and procurement networks tied to the Iranian regime,” the Treasury said in a statement.

The US House of Representatives voted to end the war in Iran for the third time late on Tuesday, approving a war powers resolution that would halt president Donald Trump’s ability to continue military action without congressional approval.

The result – 220 votes to 204 – was similar to earlier efforts this summer, with a few more Republicans joining most Democrats voting to bring an end to the conflict.

None of the resolutions have made it to the president’s desk, where president Trump would almost certainly veto the measure.

The vote comes as a defence department report revealed that Trump’s “Operation Epic Fury” assault on Iran cost $38bn in its first four months and has resulted in a munitions shortfall.

President Donald Trump’s “Operation Epic Fury” assault on Iran cost $33.4 billion in its first four months and has resulted in a munitions shortfall, according to a report by the Department of Defense’s inspector general.

The 44-page report to Congress states that, between February 28 and June 30, the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran saw the Trump administration spend $22.3 billion on munitions alone.

The onslaught “has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply,” Inspector General Platte B Moring III concludes.

Washington has largely ignored the lingering disruption created by the Houthis around the Red Sea. But a wider conflict with Saudi Arabia could force them to intervene.

Here’s what the developments in Yemen mean for Donald Trump’s war with Iran: