Iranian officials indicated on Wednesday they have received an official US response to their latest proposal to end the war, which Donald Trump had rejected just days earlier.

The officials did not say what the response contained, and whether it was a rejection or not.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi presented the US response to President Masoud Pezeshkian at a cabinet meeting, government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told the state-run IRNA news agency.

Mr Pezeshkian said: “We will make every effort to bring the agreement to fruition and will firmly stand up for the rights of the Iranian people.

“The agreement must now be based on a win-win strategy.”

Iran's judiciary says it has executed two men for taking part in anti-government protests and over their involvement in the deaths of four security personnel in January this year.

The two, Ali Hemmati and Majid Nik-Andish, were involved in what the judiciary's Mizan Online website called "the riots of January" and "the martyrdom of four security personnel". It said they were hanged on Wednesday morning after the country's supreme court upheld their sentences.

The brutal crackdown on the protests early this year saw thousands of those taking part killed by the Iranian security forces. Estimates for the death toll from the episode vary, with a rights group saying just over 7,000 deaths were confirmed, the overwhelming majority of them being protesters.

The regime then began hanging protesters who had been detained, though there was a brief stay on executions after Donald Trump expressed outrage and before the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

The US military announced today that it had completed the withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq, ending a 12-year mission to fight Isis. The last US troops left an air base in northern Iraq under a deal between Baghdad and Washington.

The withdrawal, agreed on two years ago, comes against the backdrop of the ongoing war between the United States and Iran that has also sometimes spilled over into Iraq, with Iran-backed militias firing on US troops and the US striking the groups' strongholds.

Baghdad touted the end of the US mission as a sign of the country's increasing strength and sovereignty.

The withdrawal was also celebrated by Iran-backed groups but raised concerns among some other Iraqis, particularly in the Kurdish region. Questions loom around the future of the Iraqi militias, which the Baghdad government has sought – with little success so far – to disarm.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that US troops and equipment had completed an “orderly departure” from the air base in Irbil, in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

“This milestone reflects the success of a 12-year campaign that defeated Isis as an organised military threat in Iraq and across the region,” he said. “It also marks a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort supported by a more normal bilateral security relationship.”

American troops are scheduled to exit their final military posts in Iraq on Wednesday, a pullout welcomed as a triumph by Iran and its partners. Their sway runs deep across the country, where over two decades of fighting claimed 4,500 US lives.

Nevertheless, the United States has retained practical power over Iraq's oil revenue since its 2003 invasion. That financial leverage grants Washington immense control over affairs in Baghdad, carrying significant implications for regional dynamics involving Iran.

Read more here:

Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip killed four people yesterday, including a Hamas commander, Palestinian and Israeli officials said.

An early strike on an apartment west of Gaza City killed two people and wounded five others, officials at Shifa Hospital said. Israel said the overnight strike targeted Izz al-Din Bik, a Hamas commander it said was involved in plotting attacks and recruiting new members.

Hamas confirmed his death, describing him as one of the main overseers of the 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel, in which more than 1,200 people were killed.

Yesterday afternoon, a separate Israeli airstrike in the Jabaliya refugee camp, north of the Gaza Strip, killed one person and injured several others, Gaza's health ministry said.

Another strike around the same time, east of Gaza City, killed a further person, officials at Shifa Hospital said. Israel's military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the afternoon strikes. The deaths are the latest since a ceasefire took effect nearly a year ago.

Qatar's interior ministry said it would ⁠permit the use of drones ⁠in ​designated areas ⁠and within set ⁠permitted times ​starting on ⁠Tuesday, ‌according to a statement.

Qatar banned the ‌use, operation ‌and launch of ⁠drones nationwide in March in the wake of the regional crisis stemming from ‌the ​US war ‌on ⁠Iran.

Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad group have agreed to form an unlikely electoral coalition with a former top Fatah official who has close ties to the United Arab Emirates, Israel's closest ally in the Middle East, Palestinian officials have told The Associated Press.

The alliance could be well positioned to threaten the dominance of president Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party over the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority – but only if the first national elections in 20 years actually happen, which is very much in doubt.

Abbas has said parliamentary elections will be held 28 November in Gaza and the West Bank. But he has repeatedly delayed elections, most recently in 2021, when Fatah appeared headed for defeat. When Hamas won the last elections, in 2006, Israel and Western countries boycotted its government, fuelling months of unrest that led to its takeover of Gaza the following year.

Islamic Jihad deputy Secretary General Mohammed al-Hindi confirmed the formation of the electoral alliance in a rare interview with The Associated Press in Istanbul on Monday. He said it would support “a unified national list” that could be made up of independent figures rather than members of the groups.

More than a hundred Israeli settlers scuffled with Israeli soldiers who were trying to escort a Palestinian man back to his home in the West Bank village of Jalud.

The homeowner, Mahmoud Tubasi, told the Associated Press that soldiers initially brought him to his house, but rioting settlers forced him to leave with his family in a military vehicle. He said he still cannot access the property, which settlers have besieged for two months.

Israel's military acknowledged the overnight mission to return the family "was not completed" and said three of its officers were injured after settlers threw rocks, blocked roads and set Palestinian property on fire.

Israeli police said they had arrested three settlers suspected of taking part in the riot, which was condemned by Israeli officials including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, foreign minister Gideon Saar and president Isaac Herzog. Rights groups have accused the military of colluding with settlers amid a broader wave of settler violence it has struggled to contain.

A crucial oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia that was shut down earlier this month after coming under attack is operating again, Reuters reported.

An anonymous official told Reuters the operations were near pre-attack levels and that the East-West pipeline should reach full capacity within a few weeks. The kingdom relies on the 1,200km (745-mile) pipeline to move crude from processing facilities on the Gulf to ports on its Red Sea coast.

Saudi Arabia blamed an Iran-backed militia in Iraq for the drone attack that forced the pipeline's temporary shutdown. Satellite imagery showed tankers loaded around 12.5 million barrels of oil on Sunday at the Yanbu export terminal, which the pipeline supplies, and the nearby Al Muajjiz terminal, according to the data and analytics firm Kpler.