On Thursday evening, May 7, people in Bandar Abbas heard a run of thuds that Iranian media called explosion-like. Soon Qeshm Island reported the same. Nobody could say where they came from.
Iran’s semi-official Fars agency broke the news, saying residents near the southern port city had heard several blasts. Tasnim and Mehr then echoed it for both locations, quoting local sources. State broadcaster IRIB went further: one explosion, it said, at the Bahman passenger pier on Qeshm, a pier already hit earlier in US-Israeli attacks. Mehr’s reporter tied the noise to clashes at sea off Sirik county. Tasnim’s sources offered a mundane reading, that Revolutionary Guard naval crews were warning off ships Tehran considered to be passing without permission. No official body confirmed any of it.
A denial before any accusation
Israel moved first on the diplomatic side. According to Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel said that “following reports of explosions from an ‘unknown source’ heard in Iran,” it “denies any connection to the events.” Nobody had pointed at Israel yet. As ever, a denial that arrives ahead of the accusation tells you what the denier expected to be asked.
The accusation that did land came from the American side. Jennifer Griffin of Fox News posted on X that a senior US official had told her the American military had just hit Qeshm port and Bandar Abbas. Her wording: “this is NOT a restarting of the war.” In a follow-up she said the official stressed it was neither a restart of the war nor the end of the ceasefire. Early guesses had put the United Arab Emirates behind the attack, and her report overturned that.
The trigger in the strait
The detail that matters is what came just before. US Central Command said Iranian forces had fired missiles, drones and small boats at American destroyers passing through Hormuz. No US asset was struck. CENTCOM said its forces intercepted the attacks and answered with “self-defense strikes” on Iranian launch sites for missiles and drones, plus command centers and intelligence nodes. Tehran told it differently. Iran said it had mounted a big missile and drone attack on the destroyers and that they took “significant damage”. Fars added that Iranian missile fire pushed back “enemy units” after the US hit an Iranian oil tanker.
Two sides, two accounts, one stretch of water.
A ceasefire with holes in it
All of this played out under a truce between Washington and Tehran, brokered by Pakistan and in force since April 8. A US naval blockade of Iranian shipping in the strait had been in place from April 13. Talks toward a longer-term settlement were still going when the blasts were heard.
The week had already been rough. Two days earlier Iran sent 15 ballistic and cruise missiles toward the UAE’s Fujairah Port. Senior Pentagon figures said on Tuesday that this fell short of breaking the ceasefire and called the strikes low-level, which angered Gulf states. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait reportedly halted US use of their bases and airspace for Project Freedom, the operation meant to escort ships through the strait. Griffin’s official said that decision was later reversed, and Trump abruptly called off the operation days after announcing it. Iran, for its part, threatened the UAE with retaliation, with Tasnim warning that Abu Dhabi “will pay the price” if it had carried out airstrikes.
What was actually established that night was thin: sounds near two ports, a US official’s account of a strike, an Israeli denial, and no word from Tehran on what had been hit.
Sources
- Israel denies involvement in explosions in southern Iran
- Israel denies involvement in explosions reported in southern Iran
- Several explosion-like sounds heard near Iran’s Bandar Abbas, Qeshm
- U.S. Bombs Iranian Coastal City, Reports Fox’s Griffin
