The offer was made by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, with spokesperson Chen Binhua saying “peaceful reunification” would provide stronger protection for Taiwan’s energy and resource security under what he called the backing of a “strong motherland.”

The proposal comes as governments worldwide scramble to secure alternative fuel supplies following disruptions to shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz, a key artery for global oil and liquefied natural gas flows.

Taiwan, which previously sourced about one-third of its liquefied natural gas from Qatar and imports no energy from China, has said it has secured alternative supplies for the coming months, including from the United States, its main international backer.

President Lai Ching-te said energy supplies for the near term were assured and that additional U.S. gas imports would begin from June, according to a statement from his Democratic Progressive Party.

China has long framed economic and security incentives as part of its strategy to persuade Taiwan to accept unification under its “one country, two systems” model, which no major Taiwanese political party supports.

Chen said Beijing was willing to provide “stable and reliable energy and resource security” to improve living conditions for people in Taiwan, reiterating a narrative that closer integration would bring material benefits.

Taiwan’s government, which rejects China’s sovereignty claims, has consistently maintained that only the island’s people can determine its future.

The energy proposal comes against the backdrop of heightened geopolitical strain, with the Middle East conflict triggering volatility in global energy markets and prompting countries across Asia to reassess supply security.

China, the world’s largest oil importer, has also taken domestic measures to safeguard supply, including restricting fuel exports in recent days, according to reports.

Beijing has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, though it has repeatedly stated a preference for peaceful unification.

The latest offer underscores how energy security has emerged as a central element in cross-strait dynamics as global supply disruptions reshape strategic calculations.

The Dubai Media Office said emergency services were dealing with the blaze after what it described as a “drone-related incident” near the airport. In a post on X, the office said authorities were taking necessary steps to secure the area and ensure public safety.

Videos circulating on social media showed a large column of smoke rising from the area near the airport, though officials did not immediately report casualties or provide details on the extent of the damage.

The attack occurred hours after Iran issued warnings calling for the evacuation of three major ports in the United Arab Emirates, signaling an expansion of threats to infrastructure in neighboring Gulf states.

Iranian officials accused the United States of using facilities in the UAE, including ports and docking areas, to launch strikes against Kharg Island, which hosts Iran’s primary oil export terminal.

Tehran did not provide evidence to support the allegation.

The drone strike comes amid an intensifying regional confrontation following the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran on Feb. 28.Officials say Gulf Arab states have faced more than 2,000 missile and drone attacks since the conflict began, targeting U.S. diplomatic facilities, military bases and key civilian infrastructure including oil installations, ports, airports and commercial areas.

The UAE, which normalized relations with Israel in 2020 under the Abraham Accords, has experienced a significant share of the attacks, though governments across the Gulf have reported incidents and have condemned Iran over the strikes.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump confirmed that contacts with Iran were taking place but suggested negotiations had yet to reach a decisive stage. “Yes, we’re talking to them,” Trump said when asked whether diplomatic efforts were underway to end the conflict. “But I don’t think they’re ready

. But they are getting pretty close.”The war, which has rattled global markets and spread across parts of the Middle East, intensified after coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets on Feb. 28. The opening day of the campaign killed several senior Iranian officials, including Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Trump offered few details about the nature or level of the contacts, and suggested uncertainty about who currently represents Iran’s leadership after the initial strikes.“I’m not sure I want to make a deal, because first of all nobody even knows who you’re dealing with, because most of their leadership has been killed,” he said.

Iranian officials, however, rejected the notion that talks were underway.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran was not engaged in negotiations with Washington and criticized the United States for pursuing diplomacy after launching military strikes.“We are stable and strong enough. We are only defending our people,” Araghchi said in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” broadcast on Sunday.

“We don’t see any reason why we should talk with Americans, because we were talking with them when they decided to attack us,” he added. “There is no good experience talking with Americans.”Trump nonetheless maintained that Iranian authorities were seeking an agreement to end hostilities.

“They want to make a deal badly,” he said, without elaborating on possible terms or channels for future negotiations.

The conflicting statements highlight uncertainty over whether diplomatic efforts could emerge alongside the continuing military confrontation that has expanded across the region since late February.

Tedros said the global health body had verified that the victims included doctors, paramedics, and nurses working at the facility. In a statement posted on X, he described the incident as a “tragic development” amid the rapidly intensifying crisis in the Middle East.

According to the WHO chief, the deaths followed another attack earlier in the day in the southern Lebanese village of Al Sowana, where two paramedics were killed when a health facility came under fire. The combined toll brought the number of health workers killed within 24 hours to 14.

The strikes come as Israel continues an extensive aerial campaign targeting the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah across southern Lebanon.

The bombardment campaign, which Israel says aims to curb Hezbollah’s military capabilities, has already resulted in significant casualties and widespread displacement.

Lebanese authorities and humanitarian agencies report that more than 770 people have been killed since the escalation began, while hundreds of thousands have fled their homes amid the growing violence.

Hezbollah has responded by launching hundreds of rockets toward northern Israel, triggering air defense responses and raising fears of a broader regional conflict.

International organizations have repeatedly warned that attacks on healthcare facilities and medical personnel violate international humanitarian law and further deepen the humanitarian crisis in conflict zones.

WHO has called for the protection of health workers and medical infrastructure, urging all parties to respect international law and ensure safe access to healthcare for civilians caught in the crossfire.

The latest strike marks another escalation in the widening confrontation involving Iran, Israel and regional armed groups, which has expanded across several fronts in recent days.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah said its fighters were involved in “direct clashes” with Israeli forces late on Saturday in the southern Lebanese town of Khiam.The group said the fighting involved light and medium weapons as well as rocket-propelled projectiles.

Israeli authorities did not immediately comment on the reported engagement.Cross-border exchanges between Israeli forces and Hezbollah have intensified as the broader conflict spreads across the region.

Lebanon is preparing to form a delegation aimed at negotiating with Israel in an effort to halt the war with Iran-backed Hezbollah, a Lebanese official said.

“Negotiations are on the table and preparations are underway to form a delegation, but neither the timing nor the location has been determined,” the official said, adding that Paris and Cyprus were being considered as potential venues for talks.

Israel has not publicly committed to participating in such negotiations.

Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes had killed 826 people since the start of the latest conflict with Hezbollah, including 65 women and 106 children, while 2,009 others had been wounded.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Ankara feared Israel was “moving toward a new genocide under the pretext of fighting Hezbollah” during its ongoing assault on Lebanon.

Trump said U.S. strikes had already “totally demolished” much of the island’s infrastructure and signaled the possibility of additional attacks, telling NBC News on Saturday that Washington could “hit it a few more times just for fun.”

The remarks marked a sharp escalation from earlier statements by the administration that had framed operations as limited to military facilities on the island.

Kharg Island is Iran’s primary oil export terminal and a critical node in global energy markets. Any prolonged disruption to its facilities risks tightening global crude supply at a time when energy prices are already climbing sharply due to the conflict.

The fighting has heightened concerns over the security of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow maritime corridor through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes. Tehran has long maintained the capability to disrupt shipping in the waterway, a scenario that analysts say could amplify volatility in global energy markets.

Trump called on countries that rely on oil shipments through the strait to take a more active role in securing it. In a social media post on Saturday, he said nations receiving oil through the passage “must take care of that passage,” adding that the United States would coordinate with them to ensure maritime transit remained secure.

The push for allied naval deployments comes as oil markets face what industry observers have described as the largest disruption to global supply flows in modern history, according to recent market assessments cited by Reuters.

The war launched on Feb. 28 by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expanded beyond direct strikes on Iranian targets. Missile and drone attacks continued across the region on Sunday, underscoring the conflict’s widening geographic scope.

Saudi Arabia said its air defenses intercepted and destroyed 10 drones over Riyadh and eastern regions of the kingdom, according to the Saudi defense ministry. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards denied involvement in the attacks, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

A separate drone strike disrupted a major energy hub in the United Arab Emirates on Saturday, while Washington advised American citizens to leave Iraq amid rising security risks.

Despite signs that Tehran may be open to negotiations, prospects for a diplomatic resolution remain uncertain. Trump said Iran appeared willing to consider a deal to end the conflict but added that “the terms aren’t good enough yet.

”At the same time, three sources told Reuters that the U.S. administration had rejected attempts by Middle Eastern allies to initiate talks, a move that has complicated diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting.

More than 2,000 people have been killed since the conflict began, most of them in Iran, according to figures reported by governments and state media. In one of the latest incidents, an airstrike struck a refrigerator and heater factory in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, killing at least 15 people, the Fars news agency reported.

Humanitarian organization Norwegian Refugee Council said the number of displaced people now represents roughly one in seven residents of Lebanon. The government has so far been able to accommodate only about 120,000 people in shelters as authorities scramble to open additional facilities and bring in emergency supplies.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said more than 700 people, including 103 children, have been killed since the fighting escalated.

Thousands of families fleeing Israeli evacuation orders have struggled to find accommodation, forcing many to sleep in tents, vehicles or on the streets of the capital Beirut.

Fatima Nazha, a wheelchair user who fled Beirut’s southern suburbs after evacuation warnings, said she spent two days sleeping outdoors with her family before moving into a tent at the country’s largest stadium after schools designated as shelters reached capacity.

Authorities have converted the stadium into a temporary shelter housing more than 800 displaced people in semi-open corridors beneath the stands. Facilities include basic toilets and sinks but limited electricity and no showers.

Humanitarian agencies say years of financial strain and underfunding have limited their ability to respond to the rapidly escalating crisis.

“The needs are escalating much faster than our capacity to respond,” said Mathieu Luciano, head of the International Organization for Migration in Lebanon, during a recent briefing.

Displaced residents have reported rising rents and stricter hotel screening in Beirut after Israeli strikes targeted locations where authorities said members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard were present.

An overnight Israeli strike in the Ramlet el-Bayda district of Beirut killed at least eight people and wounded more than 30, according to local officials, in an area where displaced families had been camping along the seafront.

The latest wave of displacement began after Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel following the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at the start of the wider regional war.

Israel subsequently intensified air strikes across Lebanon and issued evacuation notices for dozens of villages south of the Litani River, later expanding warnings to residents of Dahiyeh, a densely populated area on Beirut’s southern edge.

Traffic congestion stretched for miles on major highways leading north from southern Lebanon as residents attempted to flee bombardment.

Along the border, some villages remained briefly populated as residents weighed whether to evacuate, but many ultimately fled after continued strikes and drone activity near the United Nations-monitored Blue Line separating the two countries.

In a statement, the Palestinian Islamist movement said it supported Iran’s right to respond to what it described as aggression but appealed to Tehran to avoid military actions that could draw additional countries into the conflict.

“While affirming the right of the Islamic Republic of Iran to respond to this aggression by all available means in accordance with international norms and laws, the movement calls on the brothers in Iran to avoid targeting neighboring countries,” Hamas said. The statement marked the group’s first public appeal of this nature directed at Tehran.

Hamas also called on the international community to work toward an immediate end to the war that has engulfed the region since late February.

The group previously condemned the killing of Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, on the first day of the conflict, describing it as a “heinous crime” and crediting him with providing political, diplomatic and military backing to the Palestinian movement over many years.

Despite facing U.S. and Israeli military pressure, Iran has launched retaliatory missile and drone strikes that have reached at least 10 countries since the start of the conflict, according to statements cited by Hamas.

Authorities in Qatar said two missiles were intercepted on Saturday after explosions were heard in the capital Doha, prompting evacuations in parts of the city.

Meanwhile, NATO forces intercepted a ballistic missile fired from Iran in the airspace of Turkiye on Friday, Turkish officials said.

The conflict has also intensified along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where the Iran-aligned group Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets at Israel shortly after the war began. Lebanese authorities say nearly 800 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since the escalation.

Iran has long been one of Hamas’s principal backers, with analysts estimating that Tehran provided the movement with tens of millions of dollars annually.

Under Khamenei, support for Palestinian groups formed a central element of Iran’s regional strategy against Israel and its allies. Several Sunni-majority states have also maintained ties with Hamas, including Qatar, which has funded humanitarian and reconstruction programs in Gaza, and Turkiye, which has provided political and diplomatic support under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Qatar has hosted Hamas’s political leadership in Doha, enabling the group to maintain international contacts and participate in mediation and negotiation efforts related to Gaza.

An AFP journalist reported hearing explosions followed by the sight of black smoke rising above the diplomatic complex in central Baghdad shortly after the blasts. Two security officials said the embassy compound was hit, although the precise cause remained unclear.

One security source said a drone had struck the complex, while another said a projectile believed to be a rocket had fallen within the diplomatic zone near the embassy’s air base. The U.S. embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The embassy incident occurred hours after overnight strikes targeted positions linked to Kataeb Hezbollah, a powerful militia group aligned with Iran. According to security sources, a missile struck a house used by the group at around 02:15 a.m. local time, killing what officials described as a “key figure” and wounding two other members.

Roughly two hours later, another airstrike hit a vehicle in eastern Baghdad, killing a member of the Popular Mobilization Forces, also known as Hashed al-Shaabi. A senior official within the organization told AFP the individual belonged to Kataeb Hezbollah.None of the sources identified who carried out the strikes, and the militia group has not publicly commented.

Iraq has long been an arena for rivalry between Washington and Tehran, with armed groups aligned with Iran maintaining a strong presence across the country. The situation has intensified since U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran on Feb.

28 triggered a broader regional conflict.Several Iran-backed factions operate under an umbrella movement known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq. The groups have claimed responsibility for repeated drone and rocket attacks targeting U.S. military facilities across the region.

Saturday’s incident marked the second reported attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad since the outbreak of the wider conflict.

Witnesses in the Arasat district of the capital said they heard multiple blasts followed by ambulance sirens and saw smoke rising above residential areas where several Iran-aligned groups maintain offices.

Speaking at a Pentagon briefing, Hegseth said the younger Khamenei had issued only a written statement following the attacks and had not appeared publicly in audio or video since an Israeli strike early in the war killed members of his family, including his father, former Iranian leader Ali Khamenei.

“We know the new so-called not-so-supreme leader is wounded and likely disfigured,” Hegseth said. He added that the absence of a public appearance suggested the Iranian leader was injured and in hiding, questioning his legitimacy and ability to govern.Iranian officials have acknowledged that Mojtaba Khamenei was wounded but dispute the severity of the injuries.

Iran’s ambassador to Japan, Peyman Saadat, told Asahi TV that the Iranian leader had suffered injuries during the conflict but remained capable of carrying out his duties. “He is a functioning leader,” Saadat said, adding that his condition had not impaired his ability to govern.

Hegseth and Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. military operations in Iran have focused on degrading Tehran’s missile and drone capabilities as well as elements of its naval forces.

The briefing came as Washington increased military pressure on Iran following nearly two weeks of strikes carried out by the United States and Israel against Iranian military infrastructure.

Officials said additional U.S. firepower was being sent to the region as the conflict widened across the Middle East.

During the briefing, Hegseth said U.S. forces would continue their campaign without easing pressure on Iran’s military.

“We will keep pressing, keep pushing, keep advancing,” Hegseth said. “No quarter, no mercy for our enemy.

”The phrase “no quarter” refers to refusing to spare an opponent who attempts to surrender, a practice prohibited under the laws of armed conflict.

Reports during the conflict have indicated Iranian drone activity in several countries across the Gulf and Middle East, including Kuwait, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman.

The fighting has also affected U.S. forces in the region. Six U.S. service members died in an aircraft crash in Iraq during the conflict, U.S. officials said.