Tehran has kept the pressure on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbours, despite US and Israeli insistence that Iran's military capabilities have been all but destroyed. 

In a sign that part of Iran's theocracy could be willing to negotiate, the country's former top diplomat published a proposal for ending the conflict in an influential American magazine.

Iran's attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure and its tight grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas transits in peacetime, have roiled stock markets, sent oil prices skyrocketing, and threatened to raise the cost of many basic goods, including food.

Iran's ability to wreak havoc in the global economy has proved a major strategic advantage, and world leaders have struggled to figure out how to reopen the waterway. The UN Security Council was expected to look at a new proposal.

The US has presented Iran with a 15-point plan for a ceasefire that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz, dismantling Iran's nuclear facilities and limiting its missile production in exchange for sanctions relief. But no signs of progress were apparent in the diplomatic effort.