Three Lebanese soldiers were killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday, the Lebanese army said, as Israel carried out new raids and again ordered residents of vast parts of southern Lebanon to evacuate.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war when pro-Iran Hezbollah launched rockets towards Israel in response to US-Israeli strikes that killed Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Trump lambasts Nato allies over resistance to get involved in war on Iran
Donald Trump has continued to lambast Nato countries over the resistance to assist the US in the war on Iran.
This comes after US allies in Europe and beyond ruled out sending warships to the strait of Hormuz, despite threats from the president that Nato faces “a very bad future” if members fail to help reopen the vital waterway.
“I am not surprised by their action,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Because I always considered NATO, where we spend Hundreds of Billions of Dollars per year protecting these same Countries, to be a one way street.”
He said that the member countries “will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need” before heralding the success of US forces degrading Iran’s military capabilities, naval forces, and air defenses.
“We no longer “need,” or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance – WE NEVER DID! Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea,” Trump insisted on social media.
He added:
The United States has been informed by most of our NATO “Allies” that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran, in the Middle East, this, despite the fact that almost every Country strongly agreed with what we are doing, and that Iran cannot, in any way, shape, or form, be allowed to have a Nuclear Weapon.
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Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland, said he believed the implications of the war in the Middle East are “negative on Ukraine” and expressed the fear that the slow moving peace negotiations with Russia could collapse as a result.
The president, on a visit to London, said he believed that the war in the Middle East “takes the focus away, I think, from the peace negotiations in Ukraine” while Russia’s economic and military position has strengthened.
“I hope that the peace negotiations on Ukraine don’t collapse like the negotiations between Iran and the US did,” Stubb said, as at the end of a set of downbeat observations on the state of the war in eastern Europe.
The surge in oil prices, caused by the US-Israel attack, would prop up the Kremlin’s treasury at a point when the Russian economy was “actually doing extremely badly,” he said. Some forecasters predicted a Russian recession later in 2026.
Gulf nations and the US were making heavy use of Patriot interceptors to protect themselves from Shahed drone attacks by Iran which were “taking some of the necessary air defence systems away” from defending Ukraine, Stubb added.
Though Stubb has sometimes been dubbed a “Donald Trump whisperer” for his good relationship with the US president, cemented over a round of golf at Mar a Lago a year ago, he said his personal influence was limited.
“I have no illusions about who can convince president Trump on anything. Especially, I don’t. If I get one idea of 10 in on Ukraine, it’s good,” Stubb said in response to a question from the Guardian at an event at the Chatham House think tank.
Joe Kent’s resignation from the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI) is being met with derision inside the Trump administration this morning, making it unlikely that it will trigger internal splits or opposition to the war in Iran.
Several senior Trump advisers have long made clear that they have not cared about him or his views for some time, evidenced by the fact that Kent has played no role in any major operation or policy in Trump’s second term.
There does appear to be some anger towards Kent for making such a splashy resignation, however, including from his own former colleagues.
DNI Tulsi Gabbard is set to face a bruising Worldwide Threats Hearing on Capitol Hill this week, where she is now certain to be asked about Kent’s resignation.
Earlier this month, the former US secretary of state under Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, who also was deputy secretary of state and deputy national security adviser during the Obama administration, was asked by Bloomberg about the US-Israeli relationship.
The interview came after the current secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said Israel’s determination to attack Iran and the certainty that US troops would be targeted in response forced the Trump administration to take pre-emptive strikes on Iran, a position that was later walked back on. Blinken’s comments made to Bloomberg were revealing. He said:
This has been a long story when it comes to Iran. And back during the Obama administration the Israelis were pushing President Obama to take military action against Iran and were warning that they would do it themselves if he didn’t and he wouldn’t because he thought the better way to get at the nuclear programme, which is what we were focused on, was through very muscular diplomacy backed up by very, very strong sanctions, that we rallied the world to put in place and then we got the Iran nuclear agreement.
In the days after the October 7 attack on Israel … by Hamas the Israelis were insisting that in the north Hezbollah – from Lebanon – was about to attack and they wanted to strike pre-emptively against Hezbollah and President Biden said ‘look we are with you and we will always be with you in defending Israel and if you are attacked we are there’ but we are not there if you are going to start something.
And we came within about 30 minutes of having a war in the north based on bad information that the Israelis had about an imminent attack from Hezbollah.
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken told me that, after October 7th, "we came within about 30 minutes of having a war in the North, based on bad information the Israelis had about an imminent attack from Hezbollah." pic.twitter.com/nQRPbDKunU
— David Gura (@davidgura) March 9, 2026
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US started Iran war due to pressure from Israel, top counterterrorism official claims in resignation
Joseph Kent’s resignation letter in full:
After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today.
I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
I support the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020, 2024, which you enacted in your first term. Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation.
In your first administration, you understood better than any modern President how to decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never-ending wars. You demonstrated this by killing Qasem Soleimani and by defeating ISIS.
Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again.
As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.
I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards.
It was an honor to serve in your administration and to serve our great nation.
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Top US counter-terrorism official resigns over US-Israeli war on Iran
The head of the US national counter-terrorism center, Joseph Kent, has resigned over the US-Israel war on Iran.
He said in a letter to Donald Trump posted on X that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation”.
As my colleague Shrai Popat notes in our US politics live blog, Kent, a former Green Beret and CIA operative, was confirmed to his position in July last year. His nomination was criticized for Kent’s proximity to white nationalist activists such as Nick Fuentes, and for the revolving cast of far-right activists his campaigns employed.
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An Israeli airstrike killed at least three people including a child in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, local health authorities said, the latest violence jeopardising the ceasefire which has been under strain during the Israeli-US war against Iran.
Medics said the airstrike targeted a vehicle in the western area of Khan Younis, south of the enclave, killing three people, including a child, and wounding 12 other people. There was no immediate Israeli comment, Reuters reported.
Israel’s military has continued to strike Gaza during the regional war with Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
On Sunday it killed 12 people in Gaza, including nine police officers in one strike that Israel said targeted a Hamas cell. The military has cited threats or fire from Hamas as the reason for its attacks.
Revealed: UK security adviser attended US-Iran talks and judged deal was within reach
Britain’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, attended the final talks between the US and Iran and judged that the offer made by Tehran on its nuclear programme was significant enough to prevent a rush to war, the Guardian can reveal.
Powell thought that progress had been made in Geneva and that the deal proposed by Iran was “surprising”, according to sources.
Two days after the talks ended, and after a date had been agreed for a further round of technical talks in Vienna, Donald Trump and Israel launched the attack on Iran.
Powell’s presence at the talks, and his close knowledge of how they were progressing, was confirmed by three sources.
One source said he was in the building at Oman’s ambassadorial residence in Cologny acting as an adviser, reflecting widespread concern about the US expertise on the talks represented by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy on multiple issues.
Kushner and Witkoff had invited Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, (IAEA) to the Geneva talks, to provide technical expertise, though Kushner would later claim that he and Witkoff had “a pretty deep understanding of the issues that matter in this”.
Nuclear experts would later say that Witkoff’s pronouncements on the Iran nuclear programme were riddled with basic errors.
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Drone and rocket attacks reportedly targeted the US embassy in Baghdad early on Tuesday and a separate strike killed four people at a house reportedly hosting Iranian advisers in the Iraqi capital, security officials said, pulling the country deeper into the war in the Middle East.
The strikes came hours after air defences thwarted a rocket attack at the embassy and a drone caused a fire at a luxury hotel frequented by foreign diplomats in Baghdad’s fortified green zone, Agence France-Presse reported.
NBC News reported on 6 March that the US president, Donald Trump, had privately expressed “serious interest” in deploying US troops on the ground inside of Iran, citing two American officials. The president has not said he wants to do this publicly but has not ruled out sending US ground troops into Iran either.
Trump has oscillated on the war’s trajectory and has given divergent reasons for the assault, deemed by many observers as having been launched illegally alongside Israel.
As my colleague Jason Burke notes in this analysis piece, some have suggested Trump could order US marines who are on their way to the Middle East to seize Kharg Island, which is Iran’s principal oil export hub, to pressure Tehran.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh, was asked about the possibility of US troops on the ground in a Sky News interview. He said:
Even suggesting that a foreign country can put ‘boots on the ground’ of another country, invade another country, occupy the land of another country is something very much rogue, very reckless, illegal and against all international law.
There is no mandate for Americans to do that and they are doing this because they are so drunk off power they think they can do whatever they want and this is not the case.
When asked what it would mean for US marines if they were to land on Kharg Island, the Iranian deputy foreign minister said: “Just read what happened in Vietnam.”
Sky exclusive interview with Iran’s deputy foreign minister: U.S. boots on the ground would be 'reckless’.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 16, 2026
Sky’s @DominicWaghorn reports from Tehran. pic.twitter.com/753IPPJShI
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Oil and gas prices resume rise after Iran attacks production facilities
Oil and gas prices have risen again after Iran carried out attacks on production facilities for the first time since the start of the war with the US and Israel.
Brent crude, the international benchmark oil price, climbed 3% to $103.2 (£77.52) a barrel on Tuesday and was up nearly 50% from levels before the war began on 28 February.
Wholesale gas prices rose nearly 3% to €52 (£45) a megawatt hour, compared with about €30 before the war.
For the first time, Iran successfully targeted oil and gas production facilities, rather than just refineries, terminals and storage.
The UAE said a drone struck the Shah natural gasfield – one of the largest in the world – on Monday and set it on fire.
Operations remained suspended on Tuesday while officials assessed the damage. You can read more here:
Trump relied on unverified intelligence to wrongly blame Iran for deadly school strike
Donald Trump’s attempt to blame Iran for the deadly strike on an elementary school stemmed from an early US intelligence assessment that initially suggested the missile was Iranian but was almost immediately dismissed, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The CIA initially told the president that they did not believe the missile that struck the school was a munition used by the US because the fins appeared to be positioned too low for it to be a Tomahawk cruise missile.
Within 24 hours, the CIA realized that early assessment had been wrong after it became clear from additional videos, taken at other angles, that the missile was in fact a Tomahawk, the people said on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations.
But Trump had already settled on the explanation that Iran was responsible for the strike before he raised it to reporters on Air Force One last Saturday, even as the defense secretary Pete Hegseth was more cautious and said only the matter was under investigation.
Trump repeated his position at a news conference the following day. While he appeared to accept the missile that hit the school was a Tomahawk – a missile used only by the US and a handful of allies including the UK, Japan and Australia – he suggested it belonged to Iran.
The president’s efforts to pin responsibility on Iran comes as an ongoing Pentagon investigation into the strike has reached similar conclusions, finding that the missile in question was a Tomahawk fired by the US military, which relied on outdated intelligence. The strike is believed to have killed at least 175 people, many of them children, making it one of the deadliest targeting errors in recent decades.
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Hundreds of Starlink systems sent by the US and Israel have been seized in Iran, the Fars news agency has quoted the country’s ministry of intelligence as having said in a statement.
It was reported that the ministry seized the systems during “a nationwide operation”.
The statement said the law prohibits the acquisition and use of “illegal” Starlink systems. It says the crime, in times of war, “is punishable by the most severe punishment”.
Iran is on the 18th day of an internet blackout, as we reported in an earlier post, but some residents have reportedly been using SpaceX’s Starlink devices to bypass the restrictions.
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Summary of the day so far...
It has just gone past 15:25pm in Tehran, and 13:55pm in Tel Aviv and Beirut. Here is a quick recap of events:
Israel said it killed the Iranian national security chief, Ali Larijani, in overnight strikes, a claim that if confirmed would make him the most senior Iranian figure to be assassinated since the former supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day of the US-Israeli war.
Iran has not confirmed Larijani’s death. There are reports that he could only be injured.
The Israeli military said a separate airstrike killed the Basij paramilitary force commander, Gholamreza Soleimani, along with other senior Basij figures.
For the past hours, massive explosions were reported in different parts of Tehran and other cities across Iran, including Ahvaz, Isfahan and Shiraz.
The UAE shut down its airspace this morning as its military reported it was responding to missile and drone “threats” from Iran.
The closure was soon reportedly lifted, with authorities saying “the situation stabilised”, allowing flights to resume.
Gulf countries came under renewed missile and drone attack from Iran.
There was a reported drone and rocket attack targeting the US embassy in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, early on Tuesday.
Charities have warned of the devastating humanitarian impact of the Israeli assault on Lebanon, where authorities say more than one million people have been displaced.
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IDF launches 'extensive' airstrikes across Tehran
The IDF has said it has launched a “wave of extensive strikes” across the Iranian capital of Tehran. Explosions have been reported across Tehran and other major Iranian cities since the early morning following Israeli attacks.
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A tanker anchored off the eastern coat of the UAE was hit by debris this morning as the Gulf country came under several waves of Iranian attacks.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre reported the incident, saying the vessel was in the Gulf of Oman off Fujairah. It said the tanker sustained “minor structural damage”, adding that nobody was injured.
The UKMTO later said it appeared falling debris from an interception hit the tanker, rather than the tanker being targeted itself.
Here are some of the latest images coming out of the Lebanese capital of Beirut following Israeli airstrikes:
A Pakistani national was killed by falling debris in Abu Dhabi after the interception of an incoming missile, Pakistan’s embassy said. It was the third announced death of a Pakistan national so far in the UAE since the start of the war.
The UAE’s defence ministry said early this morning that it was responding to incoming missile and drone threats from Iran. Since the start of the war, the UAE says Iran, which claims its strikes are targeting US assets in Gulf states, has launched over 1,600 drones and 300 missiles.
Profile: Who is Ali Larijani?
Ali Larijani had been seen as one of the more pragmatic faces of Iran’s establishment – who helped steer nuclear negotiations with the west – but that image later hardened.
Hours after US and Israeli strikes killed the former Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Larijani delivered a defiant message, warning that Iran would make its enemies “regret” their actions and promising a forceful response.
An Israeli official said a strike on Larijani had originally been planned for the previous night but was postponed at the last minute.
Intelligence received on Monday afternoon indicated that Larijani was due to arrive at one of several apartments he used as a hideout, the official said. He was reportedly there with his son when the strike was carried out.
When news he had been targeted began to circulate early on Tuesday, with his fate remaining unclear, another senior Israeli official said “there was no chance he survived this attack”.
Born in Najaf, Iraq, in 1958 he studied in Tehran and after the Islamic revolution rose through the ranks of the state, serving as culture minister, head of state broadcasting and, for more than a decade, as speaker of parliament.
As chief nuclear negotiator, he played a key role in shaping Iran’s engagement with world powers, later backing the 2015 nuclear deal.
Though often regarded as a pragmatist within the system, his stance had hardened in recent months, as tensions with Israel and the US escalated and diplomatic efforts faltered. Reappointed in 2025 as secretary of the supreme national security council, he emerged as a central figure in Tehran’s wartime leadership.
The US had offered a reward of up to $10m for information on senior Iranian military and intelligence officials, including Larijani, as part of a list of 10 figures linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. You can read more here:
Handwritten note posted on Iranian security chief's X account after Israel claimed to have killed him in airstrike
A handwritten note commemorating Iranian sailors was posted on Ali Larijani’s X account shortly after Israel said it had killed the Iranian security chief in an overnight airstrike. It is not clear when the message was written or who posted it. The message, in reference to the Iranian sailors killed in a US submarine attack on the Iris Dena earlier this month, reads:
On the occasion of the funeral ceremony for the valiant martyrs of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Navy: Their memory will forever remain in the heart of the Iranian nation, and these martyrdoms will strengthen the foundation of the Islamic Republic’s Army for years to come within the structure of the armed forces. I beseech the Almighty God for the highest ranks for these dear martyrs.
Larijani had been seen in public last Friday taking part in Quds Day rallies. Iranian authorities have not officially confirmed his death. After reports of his assassination surfaced in the Israeli media earlier today, Iranian media outlets reported that Larijani would be publishing a message shortly.
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We can bring you more comments from the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, who said a short while ago that overnight airstrikes killed Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani.
“The prime minister and I have instructed the IDF to continue hunting down the leadership of the regime of terror and oppression in Iran,” Katz said in a statement quoted by BBC News.
“US President Trump spoke about the high rate of turnover of Iran’s leadership … we will update him that the high rate of turnover continues and is even increasing following the assassination of two of the most senior remaining leaders.”
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Heavy loss of life in Iran is 'alarming', ICRC says, with families 'gathering for funerals instead of festivities'
In a statement, the International Committee of the Red Cross’s head of delegation in Iran, Vincent Cassard, spoke about the devastating humanitarian costs of the US-Israeli war on Iran. Cassard said:
I am seeing the heavy strain that the recent escalation of hostilities has placed on people in Iran, who fear for their lives, the safety of their loved ones and their livelihoods. The heavy loss of life is alarming. Civilian infrastructure has been affected, and many homes have been severely damaged by the hostilities. Daily life in Tehran has been profoundly disrupted: children are not attending school, and many businesses have temporarily closed as a precaution due to the ongoing strikes.
Normally, this is a time when cities across Iran are filled with excitement as families prepare for Nowruz, the Iranian New Year. This year, however, families are gathering for funerals instead of festivities.
The images that we have seen from schools, hospitals and impacted Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) facilities exemplify the heavy price that civilians are paying as a result of hostilities. International humanitarian law is clear: Civilians and civilian infrastructure must be spared from attack. Medical workers and first responders, as well as medical transport and facilities and humanitarian personnel must be respected and protected.
Children are among the hardest hit by the Israeli war on Lebanon, with about 290,000 children displaced from their home, according to Unicef.
“We are having explosions, airstrikes on a daily basis from morning to evening. So these children while fleeing in fear and panic heard these explosions. We are extremely worried for them,” Christophe Boulierac, chief of advocacy and communication at Unicef Lebanon, said.
“We provided water, we provided sleeping bags, we provided hygiene kits, especially for young women,” he said, but warned that lives have been upended on a massive scale with the displacement worsening, amid continued Israeli airstrikes.
Boulierac said many of those displaced are staying at friend’s houses while others are in one of the 600 emergency temporary shelters opened by the Lebanese government.
He said he heard of an instance of 14 people living in one room in Beirut, where many people have fled to. Lebanese authorities said more than one million people have registered as displaced since the Israeli assault began on 2 March.
Sources have told Al Jazeera that certain centres set up by Lebanon’s ministry of education are only accepting displaced Lebanese people, with others such as Syrian refugees, foreign domestic workers and Palestinian people having to find alternatives.
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Israeli defence minister claims country's forces have killed Iranian security chief
The Reuters news agency is reporting that Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, has said Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani had been killed in an Israeli airstrike overnight (see post at 08.56 for more details).
In a statement, Katz said: “Larijani and the Basij commander were eliminated last night and have joined Khamenei, the head of the annihilation program, along with all those eliminated from the axis of evil in the depths of hell.”
However, some Iranian media outlets are reporting that Larijani will be publishing a message shortly. There has been no official confirmation from Iran. We have not been able to independently verify the reporting and will give you more details as we have them.
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Israel says it has assassinated commander of Iran’s Basij militia unit
The IDF said it has killed the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ all-volunteer Basij force.
The Israeli military said in a post on X on Tuesday that Gholamreza Soleimani was killed in an airstrike in Tehran on Monday. It said that he had acted as the unit’s commander for six years and said the force under his leadership was a “primary instrument” of repression in Iran.
Iran did not immediately acknowledge Soleimani’s killing. If confirmed, Soleimani would be the highest level assassination in the war since joint US-Israeli strikes killed the former supreme leader Ali Khamenei on 28 February, triggering the war.
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Israeli military targeted Iran's security chief in overnight airstrike, Israeli media reports
We are seeing reports in the Israeli media saying the military has targeted Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, in an airstrike overnight on Iran.
We have not been able to independently verify this information yet. It is unclear whether Larijani was killed or injured in the reported airstrike, according to the Times of Israel, citing Israeli officials. Iran has not yet commented on the report.
During an assessment this morning, the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, was quoted as having said: “Significant elimination achievements were also recorded overnight, with the potential to impact the campaign’s achievements and the IDF’s missions.”
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Iran and Iraq discussing passage of oil tankers through strait of Hormuz
Iran and Iraq are holding talks about allowing transit of Iraq’s oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz, Iraq’s oil minister Hayan Abdul-Ghani was quoted by the country’s state-run Iraqi news agency as having said.
“There is communication with Iran regarding allowing the passage of some Iraqi oil tankers,” the oil minister said.
The news agency said Iraq’s oil production has been reduced to 1.2m barrels daily, down from 4.3m barrels daily prior to the war. Iraq is also reported to be trying to restart exports through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline to Turkey.
Tehran has effectively closed the strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil passes, in retaliation for US-Israeli airstrikes at the end of February that killed Iran’s supreme leader. The blockage has caused huge oil supply disruption and sent global oil prices soaring.
Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told reporters yesterday that the strait was only cut off for vessels of the US, Israel and their allies.
Ship-tracking data shows a Pakistan-bound oil tanker passing through the strait of Hormuz over the weekend. The US treasure secretary, Scott Bessent, said on Monday that the US believed some Indian and Chinese as well as Iranian fuel tankers had passed through the strait.
European countries have ruled out sending warships to the strait, despite threats from Donald Trump that Nato faces “a very bad future” if members fail to help reopen the vital waterway.
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Monitoring organisation NetBlocks said the internet blackout in Iran has entered its 18th day.
“Iran’s internet blackout is now entering its 18th day after 408 hours without international connectivity for the general public. Chosen users are granted privileged access, while the remainder are left with a limited domestic intranet under increasingly tight control,” NetBlocks said.
Those without access to Starlink or alternative ways to communicate – which are often expensive – are cut off, not only from the outside world but the blackout also severely curtails Iranian’s ability to communicate with each other, making mobilisation, for example, much more difficult.
Mass civilian displacement in Lebanon caused by 'relentless' Israeli bombing and blanket evacuation orders, charity says
Authorities say more than one million people in Lebanon have been forced to flee their homes since Israel began bombing the country on 2 March after Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group, launched rockets on Israel in reaction to the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in joint US-Israeli airstrikes.
This mass civilian displacement has been caused by “relentless Israeli bombings and blanket evacuation orders that are not sparing anyone,” according to medical charity Medicine Sans Frontières (MSF), which said people are being systematically forced from their villages.
“We are seeing a similarity to what we saw in the past two and a half years in Gaza: broad evacuation orders, constant displacement of thousands of families, and systematic bombing on densely populated areas,” the MSF coordinator in Lebanon, Lou Cormack, said.
“After 15 months of a fragile ceasefire that failed to stop the violence in Lebanon, families are once again trapped between fleeing or facing bombs.”
Hundreds of schools and public buildings have been converted into emergency shelters as Israeli attacks continue across the country, including on residential neighbourhoods. Many people are being forced to sleep in makeshift tents or on the streets as shelters become overwhelmed.
Israel’s military said yesterday that its troops had begun a ground assault in new areas of southern Lebanon, fuelling concerns that the war will be a prolonged one. Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, warned displaced Lebanese people forced from their homes would not be allowed to return until the safety of Israelis near the border was guaranteed.
At least 886 people, including 111 children, have been killed in Israeli attacks in Lebanon since 2 March, according to Lebanese authorities.
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Israel’s health ministry has said 3,530 people have been taken to hospital since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran on 28 February, with 86 currently hospitalised, eight of whom are reported to be in a serious condition.
Over the past day, 70 injured people were admitted to hospitals, including four in moderate condition, the ministry said. The ministry does not give a breakdown of the causes of injuries. The IDF said early this morning that missiles were launched from Iran towards Israel. There were no immediate reports of any casualties.
Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry says it has intercepted and destroyed three drones in the country’s “eastern region”. The spokesperson did not say where the drones originated from.
Interim summary
In case you’re just just joining us, here’s a snapshot of the latest developments in the US-Israel war on Iran. It’s 10.30am in Tehran, 9am in Tel Aviv and Beirut and 3am in Washington DC.
The Israeli military issued an urgent warning to residents in the southern Lebanese village of Arab al-Jal on Tuesday morning to evacuate as the army was about to attack what it called military infrastructure linked to Hezbollah.
A reported drone and rocket attack targeting the US embassy in Baghdad early on Tuesday came as a strike killed four people at a house reportedly hosting Iranian advisers, security officials said, pulling Iraq deeper into the Middle East war.
Donald Trump has said his trip to China this month to meet with Xi Jinping could be delayed by “a month or so”. “We’ve got a war going on. I think it’s important that I be here,” Trump said at the White House. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent earlier insisted the move was not to press Beijing to help unblock the strait of Hormuz.
The head of the International Maritime Organisation said naval escorts through the strait of Hormuz would not “100% guarantee” the safety of ships attempting to transit the key waterway, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
Qatar said it intercepted a missile attack while the resulting falling debris caused a fire but there were no reported injuries.
Falling shrapnel from the interception of a ballistic missile in Abu Dhabi killed a Pakistani national, the media office in the United Arab Emirates capital said.
Operations at the UAE’s Shah gas field remained suspended on Tuesday after a drone attack, while a fresh attack caused a fire in the Fujairah oil industry zone. No injuries were reported in either incident, local media offices said
The Reserve Bank of Australia increased interest rates amid the energy shock worldwide. The Middle East war is adding to price pressures worldwide, forcing central banks to prepare for higher interest rates. Australia’s had been the only one expected to hike so soon, with central banks in the US, UK, EU, Japan, Canada, Switzerland and Sweden all expected to leave rates on hold this week.
A summary of earlier developments is here.
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Iran's Guards say 10 'foreign spies’ arrested
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have said their forces arrested 10 “foreign spies” amid the war with Israel and the US.
“Ten mercenary, treacherous elements were identified and arrested,” the Guards’ intelligence organisation in the north-eastern Razavi Khorasan province said on Tuesday, according to Isna news agency, cited by Agence France-Presse.
Isna did not identify their nationalities.
The Guards said four among them were gathering information “on sensitive sites and economic infrastructure” while others were linked to a “monarchist terrorist group”.
Falling shrapnel from the interception of a ballistic missile in Abu Dhabi has killed a Pakistani national, the media office in the United Arab Emirates capital has said.
The incident occurred in the Bani Yas area, the office posted on X.
The exiled son of Iran’s last shah has announced a new committee to lay the groundwork for a future truth commission in Iran and named a Nobel peace prize winner to lead it.
US-based Reza Pahlavi, who wields influence among the diaspora but holds no official position, said on Monday that the transitional justice committee would draft “regulations for a truth-finding commission and court”, the AFP news agency is reporting.
According to the former crown prince, the team would seek justice for “victims of injustice, torture and repression by the Islamic Republic”.
Pahlavi said on X that Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi would lead the committee of “experienced Iranian experts spanning four different generations”. He also named Dutch Iranian law professor Afshin Ellian, activist Iraj Mesdaghi and doctor Leila Bahmani as members.
Pahlavi leads one of several opposition movements based outside of Iran. His prominence grew after he encouraged protests in January against Iran’s clerical system, with some demonstrators calling for a return of the deposed monarchy.
As many as 30,000 Iranians were reportedly killed in the ruling regime’s crackdown on the protests.
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Naval escorts through strait of Hormuz no guarantee of safety, says maritime chief
The head of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has said that naval escorts through the strait of Hormuz will not “100% guarantee” the safety of ships attempting to transit the waterway, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
Military assistance was “not a long-term or sustainable solution” to opening up the strait, Arsenio Dominguez told the newspaper.
We are collateral damage of a conflict when the root causes have nothing to do with shipping.
Dominguez said the IMO also had serious concerns about ships stuck in the Persian Gulf running out of food and supplies for their crews.
Reuters reports that the IMO council will meet for an extraordinary session at its London headquarters on Wednesday and Thursday to address the impacts on shipping and seafarers as a result of the continuing Middle East crisis.
Dominguez called for ship managers “not to sail and not to put seafarers at risk and not to put the vessels at risk”, the report said.
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Israel urges evacuation of south Lebanon village ahead of attack
The Israeli military has issued an urgent warning to residents in a southern Lebanese village to evacuate as the army is about to attack what it calls military infrastructure linked to Hezbollah.
The Arabic-language spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces, Avichay Adraee, said in a post on X particularly addressing residents of Arab al-Jal village that residents should move at least 300 metres from a building it marked on a map.
He said the building was used by the Iran-backed militant group and that the army would attack in the “near timeframe”.
Remaining in the area of the specified buildings exposes you to danger
#عاجل ‼️ إنذار عاجل إلى سكان لبنان وتحديدًا في قرية عرب الجل
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) March 17, 2026
🔸سيهاجم جيش الدفاع على المدى الزمني القريب بنى تحتية عسكرية تابعة لحزب الله الإرهابي
🔸نحث سكان المبنى المحدد بالأحمر في الخريطة المرفقة والمباني المجاورة له: أنتم تتواجدون بالقرب من مبنى يستخدمه حزب الله الإرهابي فمن… pic.twitter.com/JSss59XQA1
Australia hikes interest rates amid inflation fears from Iran war
The Reserve Bank of Australia has increased interest rates amid the energy shock worldwide.
The hike takes the central bank’s cash rate target from 3.85% to 4.1%, back to where it was in February 2025, wiping out the relief offered by two cuts last year.
The broadening Middle East conflict has triggered fears of fuel shortages and is adding to price pressures around the world, forcing global central banks to prepare for higher interest rates, report Luca Ittimani and Patrick Commins.
Australia’s Reserve Bank (RBA) had been the only one expected to hike so soon, with central banks in the US, UK, European Union, Japan, Canada, Switzerland and Sweden all expected to leave rates on hold this week.
In a statement accompanying the decision, the RBA board said:
Developments in the Middle East remain highly uncertain, but under a wide range of possible scenarios could add to global and domestic inflation.
Key event
Operations at the United Arab Emirates’ Shah gas field remained suspended on Tuesday after a drone attack, while a fresh attack caused a fire in the Fujairah oil industry zone.
No injuries were reported in either incident, the local media offices said.
Separately, an unknown projectile struck a tanker 23 nautical miles (43km) east of Fujairah, causing minor structural damage, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said on Tuesday.
Reuters reports that Monday’s attack on the Shah field – located about 180km south-west of Abu Dhabi and one of the world’s largest sour gas fields – adds to disruptions to the UAE’s energy sector.
The country’s daily oil output is down by more than half since the Iran war conflict broke out, with the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz forcing state oil giant Adnoc to implement widespread production shut-ins, two sources told Reuters.
Oil loading operations at the UAE’s port of Fujairah, a key export terminal, were suspended twice in recent days after separate drone attack incidents, although some loading has since resumed, sources said.
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Qatar intercepts missile attack as debris sparks fire
Qatar says it has intercepted a missile attack while the resulting falling debris caused a fire but there were no reported injuries.
The word came in social media posts from the ministries of defence and the interior.
Civil defence was dealing with the minor fire in an industrial area, the interior ministry said.
Qatar is among several Gulf states that Iran has targeted with drones and missiles in recent days in retaliation for US-Israeli attacks.
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US embassy attack came after Iran-backed group's commander killed
Following from the previous post, the attacks in Iraq came shortly after the powerful Tehran-backed Kataeb Hezbollah group announced that its senior security commander Abu Ali al-Askari had been killed.
It did not provide details on the circumstances of his death. Iraq’s interior ministry initially said that a “projectile” fell on the roof of the luxury al-Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad’s heavily fortified green zone, before clarifying that it was a drone, AFP is reporting.
The ministry did not specify whether the building itself was the target. “The incident caused no casualties or material damage,” it said.
A street leading to the hotel – which hosts diplomatic missions including the US embassy – was blocked by a large security deployment, with firefighters and ambulances present, according to an AFP correspondent.
Witnesses saw a fire break out on the roof of the hotel.
Shortly after the hotel incident, a loud blast was heard in Baghdad, as air defences were seen intercepting an attack over the US embassy. A security official said “air defences thwarted an attack with four rockets” on the embassy.
The Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who is head of the armed forces, denounced the attacks – including a strike on a southern oil field – calling them threats to his country’s “security and stability”.
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US embassy targeted as four reportedly killed in Baghdad house linked to Iran
More now on Iraq: the reported drone and rocket attack targeting the US embassy in Baghdad early on Tuesday came as a strike killed four people at a house reportedly hosting Iranian advisers, security officials said, pulling Iraq deeper into the Middle East war.
The strikes came hours after air defences thwarted a rocket attack at the embassy and a drone caused a fire at a luxury hotel frequented by foreign diplomats in Baghdad’s fortified green zone, Agence France-Presse reported.
Iraq was drawn into the Middle East war after having long been a proxy battleground between the US and Iran, with strikes targeting Iran-backed groups that have claimed daily attacks on US interests in Iraq and across the region.
Meanwhile, a strike on a house in Baghdad killed four people early on Tuesday, with initial reports suggesting that two of the dead were “Iranian advisers” to Tehran-backed groups, a security source told AFP.
Another source from an Iran-backed faction confirmed that four people were killed in the strike on a house hosting Iranian advisors in al-Jadiriyah neighbourhood.
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The United Arab Emirates’ air defences are currently responding to incoming missile and drone attacks from Iran, the Gulf state’s ministry of defence has just said.
It posted on social media that sounds being heard there are from air defences intercepting ballistic missiles and fighter jets intercepting drones and loitering munitions.
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Trump seeks to delay China trip because of Iran war
Donald Trump has said his trip to China this month to meet with the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, could be delayed by “a month or so”.
But a key Trump administration official insisted the move was not to press Beijing to help unblock the strait of Hormuz.
Trump said:
We’re speaking to China. I would love to, but because of the war, I want to be here.
We have requested that we delay it a month or so, and I’m looking forward to meeting with him. We’ve got a war going on. I think it’s important that I be here. So it could be that we delay it a little bit, not much.
Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, earlier cast doubt on the trip but insisted this was not to pressure Beijing to help unblock the strait of Hormuz, telling CNBC:
We will see whether the visit takes place as scheduled. But what I do want to parse, and there’s a false narrative out there that if the meetings are delayed, it wouldn’t be delayed because the president’s demanded that China police the straits of Hormuz.
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Welcome summary
Hello and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the US-Israel war on Iran and the repercussions for the region, the world and the global economy.
Here are the latest developments:
A wave of drone and rocket attacks targeted the US embassy in Baghdad early on Tuesday, Iraqi security sources said. They described it as the most intense assault since the attacks began, with at least five drones used, Reuters reported. It quoted a witness as saying a powerful explosion was heard in the Iraqi capital.
Air traffic operations in the United Arab Emirates have returned to normal after the temporary closure of its airspace earlier on Tuesday, the Gulf state’s aviation authority has said, quoted by the state news agency. The UAE’s ministry of defence said earlier that the country’s defences were responding to incoming missiles and drones from Iran.
Donald Trump said he will “soon” announce countries that have agreed to help the US reopen the strait of Hormuz, as he criticised his many allies – including Nato and the UK – that have so far declined to get involved. He said South Korea, Japan and China should be helping the US, also warning that Nato faced a “very bad” future if it didn’t help and saying he was “not happy” with the UK.
Allies responded by saying “this is not Nato war”, with the EU insisting it has “no appetite” to expand its naval mission to the strait of Hormuz. German chancellor Friedrich Merz earlier said this war “is not a matter for Nato”, while Nato said “allies have already stepped up to provide additional security in the Mediterranean”. UK prime minister Keir Starmer had earlier resisted Trump’s call to send warships to the strait, saying the UK “will not be drawn into a wider war” but was working with allies on a plan to reopen the strait.
Trump also said the war would be “wrapped up” soon, and that it wouldn’t be this week but “it won’t be long”.
US vice-president JD Vance deflected and attacked the media when asked if he supported Trump’s war on Iran, given his prior criticisms of open-ended US foreign interventionism. It followed US media reports that he had privately expressed scepticism and counselled Trump against striking Iran. Vance accused the media of trying to “drive a wedge” between him and his president, and repeated Trump’s claim that Tehran was close to developing a nuclear weapon. “I trust President Trump to get the job done,” he said.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi denied recent contact with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and said their last contact was before the US-Israel attack on Iran. Araghchi wrote on X: “My last contact with Mr. Witkoff was prior to his employer’s decision to kill diplomacy with another illegal military attack on Iran. Any claim to the contrary appears geared solely to mislead oil traders and the public.” It followed an Axios report that a direct communications channel between Witkoff and Araghchi had been reactivated in recent days, with Araghchi attempting to engage with Witkoff about ending the war.
The leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Canada and Italy expressed “grave concern” after Israel launched a ground invasion of Lebanon. They called for meaningful engagement by Israeli and Lebanese representatives to negotiate a sustainable political solution. A significant Israeli ground offensive would have devastating humanitarian consequences, they warned in a joint statement, adding that it could lead to a protracted conflict with “devastating humanitarian consequences”.
Earlier on Monday, the Israeli Defence Forces said its troops had begun what it described as “limited and targeted” ground operations against Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon, and told hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians they could not return to their homes.
It came as the latest reports indicate that Israeli strikes have killed at least 850 people in Lebanon, including at least 107 children, and left more than a million displaced.
Operations at the UAE’s Shah gas and oil field were suspended after a fire that broke out due to a drone attack. Abu Dhabi authorities said on Monday night that the fire had been brought under control.
Qatar said it intercepted a second wave of missiles from Iran after an attack earlier on Monday.
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