Closing summary
This blog has closed, but our live coverage of the ongoing crisis in the Middle East continues here.
Here’s the latest news:
Iran’s central military command rejected US president Donald Trump’s threat to destroy the country’s vital infrastructure if it did not accept a peace deal within 48 hours, calling it “helpless”. Earlier, Trump said Iran had 48 hours to make or deal or open the strait of Hormuz before “all hell will reign down on them”.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, confirmed that Israel attacked Iran’s petrochemical plants after reports from Iranian media saying at least five people were killed in an attack on the Mahshahr petrochemical zone.
US search and rescue efforts for the missing second crew member of the downed F-15E fighter jet continued into a second day as Iran came under heavy bombing. A pilot had been rescued on Friday after the F-15E Strike Eagle became the first US plane to be downed over Iran during the five-week-long war.
American and Israeli fighter jets targeted multiple strategic and civilian sites inside Iran’s capital on Friday afternoon, including Shahid Beheshti University, one of the country’s leading academic institutions, Iranian state media reported.
The death toll in Lebanon has reached 1,422 since the conflict with Israel began on 2 March, according to data from the Lebanese health ministry and reported by the Associated Press. In just the past 24 hours, Israeli strikes have killed 54 people and wounded 156.
The Kuwaiti Ministry of Defense said on Saturday that its air defense forces successfully intercepted eight ballistic missiles and 19 drones over the last 24 hours. However, on Sunday a fire has erupted in the Shuwaikh oil sector complex that houses the oil ministry and Kuwait Petroleum Corporation headquarters, after a drone attack, and Kuwaiti state media reported that two power and water desalination plants sustained “significant material damage” after being attacked by Iranian drones.
A Lebanese security source at the main crossing between Syria and Lebanon, said they were evacuating the crossing after Israel threatened to attack it. The Israeli military said on Saturday it would strike an area near the Masnaa crossing urging residents to evacuate immediately as it continued its attacks across Lebanon.
Residents of southern Lebanon’s Kfar Hatta were told on social media by Israel to immediately leave the area, and warned that the Israeli military would soon act “with force” in the area.
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Anti-war protests were held across the world on Saturday – here are some of the images coming into the newsroom.
Kuwait says two power and water desalination plants have sustained “significant material damage” after being attacked by Iranian drones, with two power generation units now out of service.
As we posted earlier in the blog, the Kuwaiti state media, citing the country’s finance ministry, said an Iranian drone had also attacked an office complex of government ministries, and that a fire had erupted in the Shuwaikh oil sector complex.
Gulf countries including Kuwait, have been targeted by Iranian drone strikes in retaliation for attacks launched on Iran by the United States and Israel. At the start of this month, for example, fuel tanks at Kuwait International Airport were attacked by drones.
A Lebanese security source at the main crossing between Syria and Lebanon, says they are “currently evacuating the crossing” after Israel threatened to attack it, AFP reports.
The Israeli military said on Saturday it would strike an area near the Masnaa crossing urging residents to evacuate immediately as it continued its attacks across Lebanon.
“Due to Hezbollah’s use of the Masnaa Crossing for military purposes and smuggling of combat equipment, the (Israeli army) intends to carry out strikes on the crossing in the near future,” said the military’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, urging people to leave the area.
Updating our earlier post about attacks on Kuwait on Sunday, a fire has erupted in the Shuwaikh oil sector complex that houses the oil ministry and Kuwait Petroleum Corporation headquarters, after a drone attack, the Kuwaiti state news agency reported early on Sunday.
No injuries have been reported but the KPC says emergency and firefighting teams are fighting the fire, according to the report.
Separately, Kuwait’s state media, citing the finance ministry, said an Iranian drone attacked an office complex for government ministries, causing significant material damage but no casualties.
US federal agents have arrested the niece and grandniece of the late Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, in Los Angeles, after the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, revoked their permanent resident status, officials said on Saturday.
Rubio confirmed on social media that the mother-daughter pair are “pending removal” from the US. Officials allege the older woman, Soleimani Afshar, celebrated military strikes against American personnel, praised Iran’s new supreme leader after the US and Israel killed his predecessor, and described the US as the “Great Satan”.
You can read more about their arrest, and other moves by the US to terminate the legal status of people connected to the Iranian regime in our story here.
High-resolution aerial pictures of the area involved in the Middle East war will no longer be published by US satellite imagery company Planet Labs after a request from the Trump administration.
Planet said the US government had asked satellite imagery providers to implement an “indefinite withhold of imagery”.
“Effective retroactively from March 9, 2026, Planet is moving to a managed access model, extending the publication delay for all new imagery within the designated AOI (area of interest), and releasing imagery on a case-by-case basis and for urgent, mission-critical requirements or in the public interest,” the company said in a message to clients received by AFP.
Planet, founded in 2010 by former Nasa scientists and whose images are widely used by media and researchers, said it expected the new policy to last until the end of the conflict. The other major provider of satellite imagery, Vantor, (formerly Maxar), has also announced major restrictions.
Under US law any company headquartered in the US that commercially operates high-resolution satellite imagery may be subjected to restrictions for reasons of national security or foreign policy.
Israel has been targeted this morning by missiles launched from Iran, according to the Israeli military, in the latest salvo in the Middle East war.
“A short while ago, the IDF identified missiles launched from Iran toward the territory of the State of Israel,” the military said on social media.
Iran’s central military command has rejected US president Donald Trump’s threat to destroy the country’s vital infrastructure if it does not accept a peace deal within 48 hours, calling it “helpless”.
Earlier today, Trump said Iran has 48 hours to make or deal or open the strait of Hormuz before “all hell will reign down on them”.
This threat came as the US and Iran were racing to find a missing US pilot after a jet was shot down over the remote Khuzestan province in south-west Iran.
Gen Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi, in a statement from the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said Trump’s threat was a “a helpless, nervous, unbalanced and stupid action”.
And, echoing the religious language of Trump’s social media post, he warned that “the simple meaning of this message is that the gates of hell will open for you”.
The Kuwaiti army says its air defences are intercepting missile and drone attacks.
Posting on X, the army wrote: “Any explosions heard are a result of air defence systems intercepting hostile attacks.”
Kuwait’s defence ministry said it has dealt with eight missile and 19 drone attacks in the past 24 hours.
Pope Leo led the world’s Catholics into Easter at a Saturday night vigil Mass in St Peter’s Basilica and urged people not to feel numbed by the scope of the conflicts raging across the world but to work for peace.
Leo, who has emerged as an outspoken critic of the Iran war, said that mistrust and fear have been allowed to “sever the bonds between us through war, injustice and the isolation of peoples and nations”.
“Let us not allow ourselves to be paralyzed!” the first US pope exhorted in a service for the holiest night in the Catholic calendar, when the Bible says Jesus rose from the dead.
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The Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee issued a warning on social media telling residents of southern Lebanon’s Kfar Hatta to immediately leave the area.
In the statement, Adraee said residents of the southern village should move “at least 1,000 meters away from the village,” warning the Israeli military would soon act “with force” in the area.
“Anyone near Hezbollah elements, their facilities, and combat means is putting their life in danger,” he wrote.
The Kuwaiti Ministry of Defense said on Saturday that its air defense forces successfully intercepted eight ballistic missiles and 19 drones over the last 24 hours, amid ongoing regional hostilities involving Iran.
According to the Kuwait Times, during a briefing at the Government Communication Center, military spokesperson Colonel Saud Al-Atwan stated that the Kuwaiti Armed Forces neutralized all incoming threats within their operational zones. He confirmed there were no reports of fatalities, injuries, or property damage resulting from these specific engagements. He added that army explosive ordnance disposal teams were dispatched to four separate sites during the same period to secure debris.
Argentina’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said it has expelled Iran’s top diplomat on Saturday, as tensions continue between the Iranian government and Argentina’s administration, which maintains a close strategic alliance with the Trump White House.
Foreign Affairs Minister Pablo Quirno confirmed via X that Iran’s Chargé d’Affaires, Mohsen Soltani Tehrani, has departed the country. The exit follows a resolution issued Thursday that gave the diplomat a 48-hour window to leave Argentine territory.
The diplomatic rift reached escalated earlier this week after Argentina formally designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.
Several hundred protesters gathered at Tel Aviv’s Habima Square on Saturday evening to demand an end to the war.
The demonstration took place amid strict wartime restrictions that typically limit public gatherings to 150 people. However, following a legal appeal, Supreme Court justices issued an interim ruling on Saturday allowing up to 600 participants at Habima Square and 150 at various other sites nationwide.
But authorities soon declared the assembly unlawful and police moved in to forcibly clear the square, resulting in at least 17 arrests.
The death toll in Lebanon has reached 1,422 since the conflict with Israel began on 2 March, according to data from the Lebanese health ministry and reported by the Associated Press. In just the past 24 hours, Israeli strikes have killed 54 people and wounded 156.
The ministry reports that the cumulative fatalities include 126 children and 93 women. These losses follow a period of intense aerial bombardment that began after Hezbollah launched rockets into northern Israel in a show of solidarity with Iran.
Among those killed are 54 health workers, while Israeli strikes have targeted 87 emergency medical service facilities, the health ministry said.
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The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, confirmed that Israel attacked Iran’s petrochemical plants following reports from Iranian media saying at least five people were killed in an attack on the Mahshahr petrochemical zone.
“After we destroyed 70% of its ability to create steel, which is used as the raw material for the weapons used against us, today we attacked their petrochemical factories,” Netanyahu said in a video statement posted on his X account.
“I promised you that we will continue to crush the terrorist regime in Tehran, and that is exactly what we are doing,” he said.
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US search and rescue efforts for the missing second crew member of the downed F-15E fighter jet continued into a second day as Iran came under heavy bombing and Israel extended the war in Lebanon.
A pilot had been rescued on Friday after the F-15E Strike Eagle became the first US plane to be downed over Iran during the five-week-long war, but the second of the two-strong crew has not been accounted for.
Iranian media released pictures of a wreckage, including a distinctive F-15 tail fin, and a used ejector seat on Friday, with state media and businesses in the country offering a bounty if the missing crew member could be captured.
The US air force launched a massive search and rescue effort, using low-flying Pave Hawk helicopters and specialist C-130 Hercules transport.
Military pilots said the missing F-15 crew member would be trying to hide for as long as possible from the Iranian military and potentially seeking to transmit their location relative to a known secret point in the hope that US special forces coming in via helicopter would be able to rescue them.
Read more here:
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Israel is preparing to attack Iranian energy facilities but is awaiting a green light from the US, a senior Israeli defense official told Reuters on Saturday, adding that any such attacks would likely come within the next week.
The comments came after US president Donald Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum, sharpening focus on whether Washington would back further Israeli military action against Iran.
After an airstrike hit the Shahid Beheshti University in the Iranian capital of Tehran, causing significant damage to academic infrastructure, photos are circulating showing the extent of destruction to the campus.
American and Israeli fighter jets targeted multiple strategic and civilian sites inside Iran’s capital on Friday afternoon, including Shahid Beheshti University, one of the country’s leading academic institutions, Iranian state media reported.
The next phase of the US military offensive against Iran is set to utilize nearly the nation’s entire global inventory of stealthy JASSM-ER cruise missiles, necessitating a massive diversion of stockpiles originally allocated to other regions, according to reporting from Bloomberg.
An order was issued in late March to pull the $1.5 million precision weapons from Pacific command centers, a source told Bloomberg. To sustain the air campaign, missiles currently stationed within the continental US and other global facilities are being rerouted to the US Central Command (Centcom) bases and RAF Fairford in the UK.
The JASSM-ER, or Joint Air-to-Surface Missile-Extended Range, is capable of flying more than 600 miles and was designed to hit targets at a safer distances to avoid an enemy’s air defenses.
Senator Lindsey Graham said on Saturday that he spoke directly with Trump and is “convinced” the president is prepared to follow through on threats to devastate Iran’s power infrastructure.
He warned that if Tehran fails to reach a diplomatic agreement or end its blockade of the strait of Hormuz by 6 April, the administration is prepared to strike major energy sites. Graham expressed his “total” support for the ultimatum, which follows a social media post from the president this morning informing the Iranian regime they have only 48 hours remaining.
“After speaking with President Trump this morning, I am completely convinced that he will use overwhelming military force against the regime if they continue to impede the Strait of Hormuz and refuse a diplomatic solution to achieve our military objectives,” Graham posted on Twitter/X. “If it’s not clear to Iran and others by now that President Trump means what he says then I don’t know when it will ever be.”
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Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya joint military command said Iraq would be exempt from any restrictions on transit through the strait of Hormuz, Iranian media reported on Saturday, signaling preferential treatment for Baghdad as Tehran tightens control over the strategic waterway.
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The Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, said on Saturday that the European Union should end sanctions on Russian oil and gas imports, take steps to restore Druzhba oil pipeline flows and end the war in Ukraine to tackle the energy crisis stemming from the war in Iran.
Fico said in a statement after a call with the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, that the EU should renew dialogue with Russia and ensure conditions so member states can get missing gas and oil supplies from all sources, including Russia.
Hungary and Slovakia’s leaders are outliers in the EU for maintaining relations with Moscow.
Oil prices have surged since US and Israeli strikes on Iran started on 28 February, holding up shipments from the Gulf and creating what the International Energy Agency called the biggest oil supply disruption in history.
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US federal agents have arrested the niece and grandniece of late Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani after the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, revoked their lawful permanent resident status, the state department said on Saturday.
“Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter are now in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” the state department said in a statement after Rubio revoked their green cards.
Officials allege that Soleimani Afshar celebrated military strikes against American personnel, praised Iran’s new supreme leader and labeled the US the “Great Satan”. The statement further claims she voiced “unflinching support” for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, all while maintaining a “lavish” lifestyle in Los Angeles, using her Instagram account as evidence.
In a statement on social media, Rubio confirmed that the mother-daughter pair are “pending removal” from the US, adding that “the Trump Administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes”.
In addition to the revocation of legal permanent resident (LPR) status for Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter, Afshar’s husband has also been formally prohibited from entering the US.
This follows a separate move by Rubio earlier this month to terminate the legal status of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani – daughter of Ali Larijani, the former secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council – and her husband, Seyed Kalantar Motamedi. Both Ardeshir-Larijani and Motamedi have since departed the US and are under a permanent entry ban, according to the state department.
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Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles toward central Israel today, causing extensive damage to homes and wounding six people, Israeli media reported.
Sirens sounded in Ramat Gan, Givata’im, Bnei Brak, and Petah Tikvah, with images showing apartment buildings with blown out walls and windows.
Trump warns 'all hell will rain down' on Iran if Hormuz strait is not reopened by deadline
Donald Trump has threatened “all hell will reign down” on Iran if it does not open the strait of Hormuz by Monday.
In a post on his Truth Social app, he wrote:
Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out - 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!
On 27 March, the US president extended his deadline for Iran to open the key shipping route by 10 days to 6 April.
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Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom has evacuated 198 staff members from the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran, which was reportedly targeted in an airstrike earlier today, according to the Russian Interfax news agency.
Rosatom chief executive Alexei Likhachev was quoted as saying:
As planned, we began the main wave of evacuation today, about 20 minutes after the ill-fated strike. Buses moved from the Bushehr station toward the Iranian-Armenian border. 198 people, to be precise, the largest wave of the evacuation, are on the buses.
Earlier today, Iranian media reported that one person was killed and a support building near the plant was damaged in the attack, which it blamed on the US and Israel. Likhachev said the person killed was believed to be an Iranian citizen who was part of the plant’s security.
Rosatom has been evacuating staff from the plant since the war broke out on 28 February.
Iraq has closed the Shalamcheh border crossing with Iran after airstrikes on the Iranian side killed an Iraqi citizen, security sources told Reuters news agency.
A further five Iraqis were injured in the strike, the sources said, adding that Iraqi police recovered the body of a man and the wounded were taken to hospital, most in critical condition.
The crossing, located in southern Iraq’s Basra province, serves as one of the main routes for imports of vegetables and other food supplies from Iran, Reuters reported.
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Further to the Iranian foreign minister’s statement earlier about Pakistan’s efforts to end the war (see post at 12:34), the Pakistani foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, has welcomed Abbas Araghchi’s “clarification”.
Analysis: Trump is using unabashed viciousness in his language against Iran
On 23 March, Donald Trump said that if things didn’t go to his liking in Iran, “we just keep bombing our little hearts out”. A week later the US president told journalists on Air Force One: “You never know with Iran because we negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up.”
On 4 March, Pete Hegseth squirmed in pleasure as he described “death and destruction from the sky all day long”. Whatever happened to the subtle art of political euphemism?
The opposite of a euphemism is a dysphemism: a name for something that makes it sound maximally horrible. Politicians normally use dysphemisms for their opponents: people might be labelled “terrorists” or “fascists”, already engaged in “genocide” or threatening to nuke London within 15 minutes.
The Trump administration, however, revels in the use of dysphemism for its own actions. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight,” Hegseth said on 4 March. “We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”
Read the full piece here:
Indonesia has now received the bodies of three peacekeepers that were killed on deployment in Lebanon as it branded an explosion that injured three other of its blue helmets as “unacceptable”.
AFP reported that the soldiers’ coffins, draped in the Indonesian flag, were carried into a hall at the international airport on the shoulders of uniformed comrades for a ceremony attended by president Prabowo Subianto.
Family members of the men wept over the coffins, each fronted by a photograph of the dead soldier in a gold frame.
Prabowo saluted each portrait and held the hands of grieving loved ones, some weeping unconsolably.
The father of one of the two fallen soldiers, 33-year-old Zulmi Aditya Iskandar, said this week he was shocked that peacekeepers were losing their lives in the conflict.
“We were really sad and regretful, because this is a UN troop, a peacekeeping troop, not deployed for war,” 60-year-old Iskandarudin told reporters at his house in West Java province.
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In Lebanon, the dead are usually given one last glimpse of their home town before they are laid to rest. Hoisted high above the heads of the living, their casket is slowly marched through the streets where they grew up.
It is the hands of their loved ones that guide them into their final resting place, already dug, and gently sprinkle dirt on their body.
In south Lebanon, war has robbed the dead of their final goodbye. As Israel expands its ground invasion, families have been forced to abandon traditional funeral rites and bury their loved ones in temporary graveyards farther north.
In Tyre, 2-metre-wide ditches have been dug to house the dead. The epitaphs are brief: a number spray-painted in bright red on a thin wooden board to count the deceased.
You can read the full report here:
Meanwhile in Senegal, the government has banned all but essential foreign trips for ministers as part of cost-saving measures triggered by the energy crisis linked to the Iran war.
Senegal, like many African countries , imports most of the petroleum products it consumes, leaving its economy vulnerable to supply disruptions such as the closure of the strait of Hormuz, which has sent the price of crude soaring.
PM Ousmane Sonko said that his office was taking steps to limit public expenditure, pointing out that the country’s initial budget forecasts were based on an oil price of $62 per barrel, which is now almost double as a result of the Iran war.
The government-owned Le Soleil newspaper quoted Sonko as saying:
I have taken a number of drastic measures to restrict everything related to government spending, including the cancellation of all non-essential missions abroad.
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Death, displacement and military duties: children plunged into crisis by the war
Millions of children have been plunged into crisis by the war in the Middle East, with reports of child soldiers in Iran, mass forced displacements in Lebanon and the killing of hundreds of minors.
According to the UN agency for children, Unicef, more than 340 children have been killed and thousands injured since the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran, which has retaliated with bombings across the region.
The highest reported child casualty event occurred on the first day of the war when a US missile strike on a school in Iran killed at least 160 children and teachers.
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon – and its continued attacks in the occupied West Bank and Gaza – have compounded the bloodshed. Across the region, more than 1.2 million children have been displaced.
“Children in the region are being exposed to horrific violence, while the very systems and services meant to keep them safe are coming under attack,” said Unicef’s executive director, Catherine Russell.
My colleagues William Christou, Lorenzo Tondo and Oliver Holmes have this report on some of the ways the war has affected children:
In Iran, the country’s science minister has said US-Israeli strikes have hit more than 30 universities since the war broke out in late February.
“To date, more than 30 universities have been directly targeted,” Hossein Simai Sarraf told reporters during a visit to the Shahid Beheshti University in northern Tehran, which was struck on Friday.
…and speaking of Tyre, here are some of the latest images coming out of the city.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued another evacuation order for the southern Lebanese city of Tyre and surrounding areas, ahead of imminent attacks against what it described as Hezbollah targets.
“Urgent warning to the residents of the city of Tyre … Hezbollah’s terrorist activities are forcing the IDF to act against it forcefully. The IDF does not intend to harm you,” the IDF’s Arabic spokesperson, Col Avichay Adraee, wrote on X.
“For your own safety, we urge you to evacuate your homes immediately in accordance with the area shown on the map and move north of the Zahrani River,” he added, posting a map of the affected area that extends to Burj el-Shamali camp, the second-largest of the twelve Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
'We never refused to go to Islamabad' for talks, says Iran foreign minister
The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said his country “never refused” to attend talks in Pakistan aimed at ending the war.
He added that Iran wanted “conclusive and lasting” terms to end the conflict.
In recent weeks, Pakistan had put itself at the centre of efforts to bring about a ceasefire to end the war, with officials pushing for talks in the capital city of Islamabad.
In a post on X, Araghchi said:
Iran’s position is being misrepresented by US media.
We are deeply grateful to Pakistan for its efforts and have never refused to go to Islamabad. What we care about are the terms of a conclusive and lasting END to the illegal war that is imposed on us.
While Araghchi blames the US media for apparently misreporting Iran’s willingness to engage in negotiations, Iranian news agencies had reported that Tehran refused talks with Washington (as we reported here). Iranian officials previously accused the US of using talks as a ruse to launch more attacks.
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The search continues for a missing US pilot in Iran after two US warplanes went down in separate incidents.
Iran said it had shot down an F-15 fighter jet over the southwestern part of the country on Friday. It marks the first time a US fighter jet has been shot down in Iran since the war began. US media reported American special forces had rescued one of its two crew members and the other was still missing, with a search operation under way. Iranian state media has urged people in the mountainous provinces of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad and Khuzestan to search for the jet’s crew.
Separately, Iranian state media said a US A-10 ground attack aircraft crashed in the Persian Gulf after being struck by Iranian defence forces. A US official told the Associated Press that it was not clear if the aircraft crashed or was shot down. US media reported that the pilot was rescued.
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AFP news agency reported a hospital in the southern Lebanese town of Tyre was damaged after an Israeli strike hit nearby buildings.
The Lebanese health ministry said 11 people were wounded in the attack. The director of the Lebanese Italian Hospital told the state-run National News Agency (NNA) that the hospital would “remain open to provide the necessary medical care” despite the damage.
An AFP correspondent on the ground reported seeing strikes destroying two buildings near the hospital. The news agency reported other attacks in the Tyre region today, including one at a port that struck a small boat and damaged others moored nearby.
War returned to Lebanon on 2 March as Israel intensifies its attacks against Hezbollah militants across the southern Lebanese border. The Israel military has advanced through southern Lebanon in recent days, bombing bridges around Tyre, which lies 12 miles north of the Israeli border, and cutting it off from the rest of the country.
More on the reported strike near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it has been informed of the incident, and that no increase in radiation levels was reported.
Earlier, Iranian media reported that one person was killed and a support building near the plant was damaged in the attack, which it blamed on the US and Israel.
In a statement on X, the IAEA said:
The IAEA has been informed by Iran that a projectile struck close to the premises of the Bushehr [nuclear power plant] this morning, the fourth such incident in recent weeks. Iran also informed the IAEA that one of the site’s physical protection staff members was killed by a projectile fragment and that a building on site was affected by shockwaves and fragments. No increase in radiation levels was reported.
It added that the IAEA director general, Rafael Grossi, expressed “deep concern” over the reported incident, as he noted that auxiliary buildings “may contain vital safety equipment”.
Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has arrived in Qatar, a day after visiting Saudi Arabia for a previously unannounced trip to the Middle East that will also include meetings in the UAE.
The visit is aimed at showing support for Gulf partners facing Iranian attacks and to protect Italy’s own energy supplies, a government official said. It is the first trip by an EU leader to the Gulf since the conflict began on 28 February.
US-Israeli strikes at Iran petrochemicals zone wound five people - state media
Iranian state media has reported explosions at a major petrochemical complex in southwestern Iran, saying it was hit by US-Israeli airstrikes that wounded five people.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that several facilities at the Mahshahr Petrochemical Special Zone in the Khuzestan province were hit by strikes this morning. The Bandar Imam Petrochemical Complex that operates within the zone sustained damage, the report added.
The news agency quoted the deputy governor for Khuzestan province, Valiollah Hayati, as saying: “The likelihood of human casualties, including fatalities and injuries, from this attack is very high.”
One person killed after US-Israeli attack near Iran nuclear power plant, state media reports
Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant has been targeted in a US-Israeli attack this morning, with a projectile striking the grounds near the facility, according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency.
One person was killed and the plant’s auxiliary buildings sustained damage, the news agency reported. It added that there was no damage to the main section of the power plant and operations remain unaffected.
The news agency claimed it was the fourth attack on the power plant since the outbreak of war.
The US and Israel have not immediately commented on the claims.
Reuters news agency has reported that five EU finance ministers are calling for a tax on windfall profits of energy companies in reaction to rising fuel prices due to the Middle East war.
In a letter to the EU Commission, seen by Reuters, ministers from Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Austria said the measure would “send a clear message that those who profit from the consequences of the war must do their part to ease the burden on the general public”.
Oil and gas prices have spiked since the war against Iran led to the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz, prompting governments around the world to declare emergency measures to limit the impact on consumers and the economy.
The Israeli military said it hit air defence sites and missile storage facilities during a wave of airstrikes in the Iranian capital of Tehran yesterday.
Among the targets was a site belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “where missiles intended to strike aircraft were stored”, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a post on X.
The US and Israel have been bombing military sites in Iran over the past five weeks to erode Tehran’s ability to retaliate, but US intelligence assessments suggest they have yet to achieve that objective. Citing such assessments, the New York Times reported that Iranian operatives have been digging out underground missile bunkers and silos struck by US-Israel strikes and returning them to operation hours after an attack. CNN also reported US sources as saying about a half of Iran’s missile launchers are still intact.
The reports contradict remarks by Donald Trump earlier this week, that Iran’s “ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed” and that the war was “nearing completion”.
Second Turkish-owned ship passes through strait of Hormuz, official says
A second Turkish-owned ship has passed through the strait of Hormuz, Turkey’s transport minister, Abdulkadir Uraloglu, said, as more vessels trickle through the narrow waterway.
According to Uraloglu, there were 15 ships Turkish-owned ships in the strait when war broke out, and two of them have left. Speaking to CNN Turk, he said four ships have not requested to leave, two are energy carriers and two are engaged in regional trade.
“We are working in coordination with the ministry of foreign affairs to remove the remaining nine ships,” he said.
It was not clear when the second ship passed through the strait. Uraloglu announced safe passage of the first ship on 13 March after authorities received permission from Iran.
The strait of Hormuz, which carries a fifth of the world’s oil, has become a key point of contention in bringing the conflict to an end, with Iranian threats to shipping rendering the waterway effectively shut.
Several vessels, however, have been allowed safe passage through the strait, according to reports, including a container ship owned by the French shipping company CMA CGM, which sailed out of the Gulf yesterday. It is believed to be the first ship owned by a western shipping line to have made safe passage since war began on 28 Feburary.
The Guardian’s business reporter, Lauren Almeida, has looked at the number of vessels that have transited the strait so far, and the diplomatic efforts to get the key shipping route reopened. You can read her report here:
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The day so far
Here’s a rundown on the latest news from the US-Israel war on Iran to bring you up to speed. It’s 10.30am in Tehran, 10am in Tel Aviv and Beirut and 3am in Washington DC.
Iranian and American forces were racing each other early on Saturday to recover a crew member of the first US fighter jet to go down in Iran since the war began.
Tehran said it had shot down the F-15 warplane. US media reported American special forces had rescued one of its two crew members and the other was still missing, with a search operation under way. Iran urged people in the rugged south-west to also search for the jet’s crew.
The Iranian military said it also downed a US A-10 ground attack aircraft in the Gulf, with US media saying the pilot was rescued.
Donald Trump told NBC the F-15 loss would not affect negotiations with Iran: “No, not at all. No, it’s war.”
Fresh strikes hit Iran, Israel, Lebanon and Gulf countries. The Israeli military said on Saturday it began striking “Hezbollah infrastructure” in Beirut after destroying a bridge in eastern Lebanon to prevent the Iran-backed group’s reinforcements from crossing. Two loud explosions were heard in the capital within half an hour early on Saturday. Israel said it also launched a wave of strikes of Tehran.
The three UN peacekeepers wounded in a blast in southern Lebanon on Friday were from Indonesia, UN officials said – the third such incident in a week. It came just days after three other Indonesians were killed in separate explosions.
A fire was reported after a drone hit storage facilities belonging to foreign oil companies west of Iraq’s southern port city of Basra, Reuters cited security sources as saying.
Recent US intelligence reports say Iran is unlikely to open the strait of Hormuz any time soon because its grip on the world’s most vital oil artery provides the only real leverage it has over the US, Reuters reported, citing three sources.
Israeli fire killed a man in Syria’s Quneitra province in the south near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Syrian state media said. The man was killed by “an Israeli tank”, the Sana agency said, while state TV said a car was targeted.
An Egyptian national was killed and four others wounded after a fire at a gas complex in Abu Dhabi, caused by falling debris from an intercepted attack, the government media office said.
Israel’s emergency service said a 45-year-old man was treated for minor injuries after Iran fired missiles at the central city of Bnei Brak on Saturday.
Iran executed two men convicted of membership in a banned opposition group and carrying out disruptive actions aimed at overthrowing the Islamic republic, the judiciary said.
Dubai authorities said they responded to a “minor incident” caused by debris from an aerial interception falling on to the facade of the Oracle building in Dubai Internet City. No injuries were reported, the city’s media office said.
Trump asked US lawmakers to approve a $1.5tn defence budget for 2027, which would lift Pentagon spending by more than 40% in a single year – the sharpest increase since the second world war.
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Here are some images coming in from around the Middle East as the war enters week six.
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UN says three wounded peacekeepers are Indonesian
The three United Nations peacekeepers wounded in a blast in southern Lebanon on Friday were from Indonesia, UN officials said, just days after three other Indonesians were killed in separate explosions.
The UN interim force in Lebanon (Unifil) said the blast occurred inside a UN facility near El Adeisse on Friday afternoon, injuring three peacekeepers who were rushed to a hospital. Two were seriously wounded.
The UN information centre in Jakarta said the “origin of the explosion” was unknown but identified the wounded peacekeepers as Indonesian, Agence France-Presse is reporting.
Friday’s incident came just days after an Indonesian peacekeeper died when a projectile exploded on 29 March in southern Lebanon, where Israel and Hezbollah are fighting.
AFP quoted a UN security source as claiming on condition of anonymity on Tuesday that fire from an Israeli tank was responsible.
A day later, two more Indonesian peacekeepers died after an explosion struck a Unifil logistics convoy, also in southern Lebanon.
The bodies of the three fallen peacekeepers are scheduled to arrive in Jakarta on Saturday evening, according to the military.
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Iran has executed two men convicted of membership in a banned opposition group and carrying out disruptive actions aimed at overthrowing the Islamic republic, the judiciary said.
The executions on Saturday were the latest in a series targeting members of the banned People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), after four other convicted members of the group were executed earlier in the week.
“Abolhassan Montazer and Vahid Baniamerian ... were hanged after trial and their sentences were upheld by the Supreme Court,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said on Saturday, cited by AFP.
The men were found guilty of attempting “rebellion through involvement in multiple terrorist acts”, as well as membership in the MEK group and carrying out acts of sabotage aimed at overthrowing the Islamic republic.
It was not immediately clear when the men were arrested.
The MEK, which initially supported the 1979 Islamic revolution before falling out with the leadership in the 1980s, has since been in exile and is designated a terrorist organisation by Tehran.
Iran is the world’s second most prolific executioner after China, according to rights groups.
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Foreign oil facilities hit in southern Iraq – report
A fire has been reported after a drone hit storage facilities belonging to foreign oil companies west of Iraq’s southern port city of Basra, Reuters is citing security sources as saying.
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US intelligence warns Iran unlikely to ease Hormuz strait chokehold soon – report
Recent US intelligence reports say Iran is unlikely to open the strait of Hormuz any time soon because its grip on the world’s most vital oil artery provides the only real leverage it has over the US, Reuters is reporting, citing three sources.
The finding suggests Tehran could continue to throttle the strait to keep energy prices high as a means of pressuring Donald Trump to find a quick offramp to the five-week-long war.
The reports also provide the latest indication that the war – intended to eradicate Iran’s military strength – may actually increase its regional sway by showing Tehran’s ability to threaten the key waterway.
Trump has sought to downplay the difficulty of reopening the strait, which nomally carries a fifth of the world’s oil trade. On Friday the US president appeared to suggest he could order American forces to reopen the passage, posting on his Truth Social platform:
With a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, + MAKE A FORTUNE. IT WOULD BE A “GUSHER” FOR THE WORLD???
But analysts have long warned that forcing the reopening could prove costly and draw the US into a protracted ground war.
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Several blasts heard coming from Tehran’s north, according to an AFP journalist. It is now 8.20am on Saturday in Tehran.
We’re seeing images from the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak after Iran fired missiles on Saturday and the Israeli military said it was working to intercept them.
Israel’s emergency service said a man, 45, was treated for minor injuries from glass shrapnel and taken to hospital.
The military said after the launches that civilians were permitted to leave protected spaces nationwide while search and rescue forces were heading to central Israel amid “reports of impact”.
Authorities in Dubai say they have responded to a “minor incident” caused by debris from an aerial interception falling on to the facade of the Oracle building in Dubai Internet City.
No injuries were reported, the UAE city’s media office said in a post on X.
Israel attacks Hezbollah targets in Beirut after destroying bridge
The Israeli military said on Saturday it had begun striking “Hezbollah infrastructure” in Beirut after it destroyed a bridge in eastern Lebanon to prevent the Iran-backed group’s reinforcements from crossing.
Two loud explosions were heard in the capital within half an hour early on Saturday and smoke was billowing from the area of one of them, AFP is reporting.
Local media reported two strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, an area that has been a target of repeated Israeli strikes in recent days as the military presses on with its ground invasion in the country’s south as it seeks to establish a “security zone”.
On Friday the UN interim force in Lebanon (Unifil) said a blast at one of its positions in the country’s south near the border wounded three peacekeepers, as mentioned earlier – the third similar incident in days.
Israel’s military had warned it would target two adjacent bridges over the Litani River in the area “to prevent the transfer of reinforcements and military equipment”.
The Lebanese state-run National News Agency (NNA) said:
Israeli warplanes targeted the bridge that links Sohmor with Mashghara, leading to its destruction.
Lebanese local media reported that a second bridge was also hit.
The strikes in Sohmor continued into early Saturday, with the NNA reporting the town’s centre being hit twice as warplanes roared in the skies.
Israel has previously struck five other bridges over the Litani in the country’s south, including most of the main routes crossing the waterway.
Also in Sohmor, two people were killed and 15 wounded in an Israeli strike that hit “as worshippers were leaving the town’s mosque” after Friday prayers, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Lebanese authorities say more than 1,300 people have been killed in a month of hostilities.
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Further to the last post: as combat search and rescue (CSAR) teams are activated to retrieve a missing pilot after a downing, their soldiers – such as retired master sergeant Scott Fales – have been suiting up in a “ready room”.
Experts like Fales – a pararescue jumper who played a key role in the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” incident in Mogadishu, Somalia – are always standing by whenever US aircraft are over enemy territory.
“Before any operations are conducted ... there is always a CSAR plan,” Fales told Agence France-Presse.
Simultaneously, an immense amount of intelligence is gathered and analysed on the location and status of the missing aviator. Fales said:
Everything from human intelligence to imagery intelligence to, you know, all the different drones we have looking – signals intelligence. It’s all being used to try to find this guy.
Once the missing aviator is located, a rescue plan is formulated in real time inside the helicopters.
“Those gunners are spotting and looking for threats, the pilots are looking for a place to land, we’re reaching out to that downed aviator,” Fales said.
On the ground, they ensure the pilot is actually the person they are searching for, and a threat-versus-medical-needs assessment is done. In their minds, Fales said, would be:
What kind of immediate threat are we in? How much time do we have to get this person out? What kind of injuries do they have? And then we’ll make up our mind on the type, amount of treatment that’s needed on the scene – or do we just grab and go depending on the threat?
With a fellow soldier still unaccounted for in south-west Iran, Fales said he was “very hopeful” the aviator would be located.
I’m hoping that friendly people have found him and are hiding him. Or he’s still evading.
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Hide, find water: ex-pilot tells how to survive being shot down
As US forces race against time and Iran’s military to locate an aviator reportedly shot down on Friday, a former air force pilot has detailed what it takes to hide, survive and extract someone behind enemy lines.
“You’re like, ‘Oh my God, I was in a fighter jet two minutes ago, flying 500 miles an hour, and a missile just exploded, literally 15 feet from your head,’” said retired brigadier general Houston Cantwell, who is now at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
With that said, a pilot’s training – known as survival, evasion, resistance and escape (Sere) – would likely kick in before he or she parachutes to the ground, the Agence France-Presse news agency’s report says.
“Your best view of where you may want to go or where you may want to avoid is while you’re coming down in your parachute,” said Cantwell, who logged 400 hours of combat flight experience, including missions over Iraq and Afghanistan.
Parachuting to the ground risked foot, ankle and leg injuries, the former airman said.
There are many stories of survivors from Vietnam that had severe injuries – compound fractures – just from the ejection.
Upon landing, “take an inventory of yourself to figure out: what condition am I in? Can I even move? Am I even mobile?”
Aviators then figure out where they are, whether it is behind enemy lines, where they can hide and how they can communicate.
Cantwell said:
Try to avoid enemy capture, as long as you can. And if I were in a desert environment, I’d want to try to find some water.
Simultaneously, combat search and rescue teams – highly trained soldiers and pilots already on alert – would be activated. But the missing crew member can increase the odds of a safe rescue. Cantwell said:
My priority would be, first of all, concealment, because I don’t want to be captured. I want to try to get to a location where I can get extracted.
In a city, that may be a rooftop. In a rural setting, a field where helicopters can land. Movement was best at night, he said.
Cantwell said that when he flew, he also carried a pistol.
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Welcome summary
Hello and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the US-Israel war on Iran and its impact on the region, the world and the global economy.
Iranian and American forces were racing each other early on Saturday to recover a crew member of the first US fighter jet to go down inside Iran since the start of the war.
Tehran said it had shot down the F-15 warplane, while US media reported American special forces had rescued one of its two crew members and the other was still missing.
Iranian authorities urged people living in the country’s rugged south-west to search for the jet’s crew, as state TV broadcast images of what was said to be the mangled debris.
Iran’s military said it also downed a US A-10 ground attack aircraft in the Gulf, with US media saying the pilot was rescued.
US Central Command did not immediately comment on the loss of the F-15, but the White House said Donald Trump “has been briefed”.
The US president told NBC the F-15 loss would not affect negotiations with Iran, saying: “No, not at all. No, it’s war.”
Fresh strikes meanwhile hit Israel, Iran, Lebanon and Gulf countries – and large blasts reportedly rocked northern Tehran. Israel said it had launched a wave of strikes in the Iranian capital, alongside parallel attacks in Beirut.
Strikes by all sides have increasingly targeted economic and industrial sites, raising fears of wider disruption to global energy supplies.
Here are the other main news developments:
Tehran rejected a US proposal for a 48-hour ceasefire, said Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, citing an unnamed source. There was no immediate comment from the US. Earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran had officially told mediators it was unwilling to meet with US officials in Islamabad in the coming days.
The UN force in Lebanon said a blast at one of its positions had wounded three peacekeepers, two of them seriously, in the third such incident in a week.
Israeli fire killed a man in Syria’s Quneitra province in the south near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Syrian state media said. The man was killed in an attack by “an Israeli tank”, the Sana agency said, while state TV said a car was targeted.
An Egyptian national was killed and four others wounded after a fire at a gas complex in Abu Dhabi, caused by falling debris from an intercepted attack, the government media office said. Two of the four people hurt were from Egypt, while the others were from Pakistan, it said.
Trump asked lawmakers to approve a $1.5tn defence budget for 2027 as the US faces rising costs from its war with Iran and mounting global security commitments. The proposal would lift Pentagon spending by more than 40% in a single year – the sharpest increase since the second world war.
The US embassy in Lebanon said Iran and allied groups could seek to target universities in the country, where Tehran-backed Hezbollah is at war with Israel and Israeli troops are carrying out a ground invasion.
Three tankers, including one co-owned by a Japanese company, crossed the strait of Hormuz by hugging close to Oman’s shore – a rare transit route – maritime traffic data showed on Friday.
With agencies
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