Iran plays video of Strait of Hormuz cargo ship hijacking as Trump launches next move

A Philippine government agency said Thursday that 15 Filipino sailors aboard two Iranian-backed ships were “safe and unharmed” and that “their families have been informed and are receiving government support.”

The statement was the first confirmation from a non-Iranian organization that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard had seized two cargo ships yesterday in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Department of Labor said ten Filipinos were aboard the Epaminondas, while five were aboard the MSC Francesca, two ships the IRGC said it seized on Wednesday for violating its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has released a dramatically edited video of what it says are its soldiers boarding and seizing two commercial vessels seized in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday.

The UK military’s Maritime Trade Operations Center (UKMTO) reported incidents involving three cargo ships in the disputed route, while the IRGC claimed to have seized two of them.

The Strait, a key global energy supply route, has been largely blocked for more than seven weeks due to Iran’s shipping threat, which was briefly halted but then reinstated after President Trump imposed a US military blockade on Iranian ports and ships. Both sides have been blocking ships in tit-for-tat brinkmanship ahead of the second round of direct peace talks in Pakistan.

In an IRGC video posted on Wednesday, masked fighters run towards the MSC-Francesca super cruiser in a gunboat and climb a ladder – guns strapped to their backs – to the top.

The video then shows another so-called “speed boat” carrying soldiers approaching the cargo ship Epaminodes, followed by clips of IRGC soldiers on board, opening a door and climbing a flight of stairs, guns raised, although it is not clear which ship they are on.

Earlier in the week, the US military’s Central Command released two videos of US forces seizing an Iranian-flagged cargo ship in the region as part of its blockade.

Ambassadors from Israel and Lebanon are expected to meet in Washington on Thursday for a second round of peace talks, with their current ten-day ceasefire set to expire at the weekend.

Israel’s military and Iran-backed Hezbollah have accused each other of violating the accord almost since its inception. Lebanon’s national news agency reported on Wednesday that Israeli strikes killed two people, adding to the more than 2,000 killed by Israel since the beginning of March, according to health authorities.

Israeli officials say Hezbollah has killed 23 people since the IDF’s attacks on the group intensified along with the Iran war.

The first US-brokered suspension began on April 16 at 1700ET.

The body of a Lebanese journalist who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Wednesday was pulled from the rubble hours after the attack.

The daily newspaper Al-Akhbar confirmed that its reporter, Amal Khalil, was killed in a strike south of the city of al-Tiri.

Information Minister Paul Morcos also confirmed Khalil’s death.

Khalil has been covering the Israel-Hezbollah war since it began in October 2023 and has been reporting from various parts of southern Lebanon on these conflicts.

Earlier on Wednesday, Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, called on the international community to immediately pressure the Israeli army to allow Khalil’s rescue.

Navy Secretary John Phelan is leaving his post immediately, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Wednesday.

The new acting head of the Navy will be Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao, according to Parnell. Cao is a Navy veteran who ran for Senate in 2024 as the GOP nominee in Virginia, losing to Sen. Tim Kaine of the Democratic Alliance.

The Navy Department — which oversees the Navy and Marine Corps — is losing its top officer while the Navy plays a key role in the war with Iran.

The truce between the US and Iran has been in place for about two weeks, but the US has continued to impose a ban on shipping in Iranian ports at the behest of President Trump. The president and other administration officials also suggested that the Navy can provide escorts to the oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz at a certain time.

Phelan is the latest high-ranking official to leave the federal government in recent months.

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The US Central Command said on Wednesday night that the US military had ordered 31 ships to turn around or return to port as part of the blockade against Iran. That’s two of the earlier figures sent by CENTCOM earlier in the day.