Iran has agreed to allow humanitarian aid and agricultural shipments through the Strait of Hormuz following a request from the United Nations.

Pakistan said Saturday Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt will send their top diplomats to Islamabad for talks aimed at ending the Iran war.

More than two dozen U.S. troops have been wounded in Iranian attacks on Saudi Arabia's Prince Sultan Air Base in the past week, according to two people who have been briefed on the matter.

U.S. President Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff said Friday he believes Iran will hold talks with Washington "this week" to end the month-long war in the Middle East.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told G7 foreign ministers on Friday that the war with Iran will continue for another two to four weeks, three sources with direct knowledge told U.S. news portal Axios.

U.S.-Israeli strikes hit a uranium processing facility in central Iran on Friday, the country's atomic energy organization said.

Iran appears to be setting itself up as the gatekeeper for the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important artery for oil shipments. The move could cement Tehran's de facto chokehold over the crucial waterway and formalize its ability to keep its own oil flowing to China.

Iranian communications to the United Nations maritime authority and the experience of ships transiting the strait suggest the creation of something akin to a "toll booth." Ships must enter Iranian waters and be vetted by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. At least two vessels have paid for passage.

As fears of a wider regional conflict escalate following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran that began in late February, Pakistan has emerged as an unexpected mediator, offering to help bring Washington and Tehran to the negotiating table.

Islamabad isn't often called on to act as an intermediary in high-stakes diplomacy, but it's stepped into the role this time for a number of reasons, both because it has relatively good ties with both Washington and Tehran and because it has a lot at stake in seeing the war resolved.

Group of Seven foreign ministers met on Friday in France to discuss the Russia-Ukraine conflict, with deep divisions apparent over the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, following U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated complaints that America's allies have ignored or rejected requests for help in the military operation and in confronting Iran's retaliatory attacks, including the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to most international shipping.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined his counterparts from the G7 just 24 hours after Trump's latest round of insults lobbed at NATO and as instability in oil markets persisted with the Iran war entering its fourth week along with uncertainty over the status of potential negotiations to end the crisis.

Israel launched a new wave of strikes on Iran and threatened on Friday that its attacks "will escalate and expand" after U.S. President Donald Trump claimed talks on ending the war were going well and gave Tehran more time to open the Strait of Hormuz, though there have been no signs of Iran backing down.

With stock markets reeling and economic fallout from the war extending far beyond the Middle East, Trump is under growing pressure to end Iran's chokehold on the strait, a strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world's oil is usually shipped.