SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
For the first time in two weeks, the U.S. did not strike Iran overnight. President Trump said at a press briefing yesterday the U.S. is still talking with Iran but warned that escalating military action was also possible.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And we can take that to a much higher level if we want to. You know, we're prepared to do that. As you know, we're locked and loaded.
SIMON: NPR's Emily Feng joins us. Emily, thanks so much for being with us.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Good morning.
SIMON: And what are people making of this pause in U.S. strikes on Iran?
FENG: So here in the Middle East, where I am, this pause is being widely interpreted as just a pause before an escalation because Trump said this week he'd gotten reports Iran moved uranium refining centrifuges deep under this massive mountain called Pickaxe Mountain. And he said the U.S. was likely to strike the mountain, quote, "very heavily." I've seen increasingly a sign of a split in Iran between hard-liners and moderates there over whether diplomacy or war is the preferred approach to the U.S.
And for example, just this weekend, Iran's government accused its own state broadcaster of censoring Iran's president. So there's a lot of uncertainty, and the United Kingdom, Germany and France withdrew their diplomats from Tehran this week as a precaution. And here in Israel, where I am, governments locally are opening up public shelters once again in anticipation of possible bombing from Iran.
SIMON: Are people in Israel apprehensive about the war coming back to them?
FENG: They are not. And Israeli officials have signaled they are ready and very willing to join the U.S. in hitting Iran again. Politically speaking, resuming war would also be a boost for Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. And his office just confirmed he is heading to Washington, D.C., to meet with President Trump in the White House this coming Tuesday.
SIMON: Meanwhile, Emily, another strategic choke point is being blockaded, this time at the mouth of the Red Sea. What's the latest?
FENG: Right. So Saudi Arabia has been trading fire with the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen again. The Houthis fired at two Saudi ships in the Red Sea this week. It's part of the Houthis' blockade of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. We've heard so much, Scott, about the Strait of Hormuz, right? But this is another key waterway in the region which connects the Red Sea to the Suez Canal, and all this means more disruption to the flow of vessels and international trade.
Then Saudi Arabia struck a port in Yemen and a Yemeni island on Friday. And the Houthis say this weekend, they've now aimed strikes at a city in Saudi Arabia. So this is all a developing situation I am continuing to monitor.
SIMON: Of course, as you note, Emily, you're in Tel Aviv, and there was news out of the region about a deadly confrontation between Israeli Jewish settlers and a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank. What do we know?
FENG: This is the biggest news in Israel right now. Israel's prime minister says Israelis were hiking in an area that Israel itself says is off limits for its citizens when these Israelis were attacked, and one soldier and one hiker were fatally shot. But Palestinian Authority officials dispute this vehemently. We reached Ghassan Daghlas, who is the mayor (ph) of Nablus governorate, where this confrontation happened, and this is what he told us in an interview this morning.
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GHASSAN DAGHLAS: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: So he says it was a group of extreme Israeli settlers who first attacked Palestinians, four of whom were then fatally shot. Six videos taken of the incident analyzed by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch confirm his account. But in Israel, officials are calling this confrontation Arab terrorism, and the Israeli army is now mounting these raids in dozens of homes in the West Bank, and there have been several Israeli reprisal attacks on Palestinian villages.
SIMON: NPR's Emily Feng. Thanks so much.
FENG: Thanks, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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