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Jews across Israel have gathered in bomb shelters to mark the holiday of Purim as a precaution against possible Iranian missile attacks.
In Tel Aviv, people of all ages wearing sequinned suits, bunny ears, pirate costumes and peacock feathers streamed into a mall’s underground parking lot, which also functions as a bomb shelter, the AP reports.
They were there for the reading from the Book of Esther followed by a live band with dancing.
The celebrations are taking place as the Israeli-US war with Iran expands across the Middle East.
Australia says Iranian drones hit airbase in UAE
Iranian drones struck an Australian military facility in the United Arab Emirates but there were no injuries, Australia’s defence minister has said.
Richard Marles said the drones struck the Al Minhad airbase – a logistics hub for Australia’s Middle East operations near Dubai – on the first night of the Iran war.
“We have a number of Australians who operate from a headquarters that we’ve had at Al Minhad now for many, many years,” Marles told Australia’s Seven Network television on Tuesday, cited by the Associated Press.
He said:
They are all accounted for, they are all safe. We’ve got north of 100 serving personnel actually across the Middle East in a range of countries, but most are in the UAE and that base is very important for us.
Multiple explosions have been heard near Al Minhad during the war, as well as many aerial interceptions.
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Israel orders new evacuations in Lebanon
The Israeli military has issued new evacuation orders for dozens of locations in Lebanon on Tuesday, including a warning for residents in two southern Beirut neighbourhoods to stay away from several buildings ahead of imminent military action, AFP is reporting
“Urgent warning to the residents of Lebanon, specifically in the villages which names are shown. For your safety you must evacuate your homes immediately,” said a statement by the military’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, on Telegram, which listed 50 locations.
“You are located near Hezbollah facilities and interests, against which the IDF will operate in the near future,” he told the residents of southern Beirut neighbourhoods Ghobeiry and Haret Hreik in another evacuation warning.
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Tokyo has told Japanese shipowners to have their ships stay away from the Persian Gulf to ensure the safety of their crew members.
Chief cabinet secretary Minoru Kihara said on Tuesday that the transport ministry had notified the Japanese Shipowners’ Association to do the utmost to protect crews onboard the ships in the region.
Kihara said those already in the Gulf were urged to lie at anchor where it was safe to do so, the Associated Press reports.
On Monday, Japanese foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi met with Iran’s ambassador to Japan, Peiman Seadat, and conveyed Japan’s consistent stance that Iran must stop attacks on neighboring countries and other actions destabilising the region.
Motegi also noted the importance of ensuring safety in the Strait of Hormuz, which is key to Japan’s energy security.
Donald Trump has suggested the US will retaliate “soon” after its embassy in the Saudi capital of Riyadh was hit by two suspected Iranian drones.
He said “you’ll find out soon” how the US would respond, without providing details, while talking with the NewsNation network on Monday.
Trump earlier indicated that US strikes on Iran could go much longer than originally predicted, as his administration sought to counter criticism about conflicting messages on the war’s goals.
In his first public comments since launching the military operation on Saturday, the US president laid out what he said were four key objectives for hitting Iran. Agence France-Presse quoted him as saying:
First, we’re destroying Iran’s missile capabilities ... Second, we’re annihilating their navy ... Third, we’re ensuring that the world’s number-one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon.
Stopping Iran from arming and directing proxy militant groups was reported as being the fourth aim.
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Israel’s military claims it has “struck and dismantled” the headquarters of Iran’s state radio and television broadcaster, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (Irib), reportedly saying it had “called for the destruction of the state of Israel and for the use of nuclear weapons”.
The Irib was quoted as saying on Telegram there had been explosions near its headquarters in Tehran but that there was no disruption to its operations.
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The US will take action to mitigate rising energy prices due to a spike in the price of oil caused by the Iran conflict, secretary of state Marco Rubio has said.
Speaking to reporters at Capitol Hill, Rubio said treasury secretary Scott Bessent and energy secretary Chris Wright would announce the plans on Tuesday.
“Starting tomorrow, you will see us rolling out those phases to try to mitigate against that ... We anticipated this could be an issue,” Rubio said.
President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Bessent and Wright at 2pm (1900 GMT) on Tuesday, according to his itinerary released by the White House.
Oil and gas prices surged on Monday following Israeli and US strikes on Iran and retaliation by Tehran that forced shutdowns of oil and gas facilities across the region and disrupted shipping in the crucial Strait of Hormuz.
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Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry is being quoted as saying the country has intercepted and destroyed eight drones near Riyadh and Al-Kharj.
Earlier the ministry confirmed that the US embassy in Riyadh was hit by two drones, according to initial estimates, and caused a limited fire and minor material damage to the building.
There were no reported injuries, according to news reports.
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Netanyahu: this won't be an 'endless war'
Benjamin Netanyahu has said the Middle East conflict triggered by US and Israeli strikes on Iran won’t be “an endless war” but could “take some time”.
The Israeli prime minister was reported as telling Fox News on Monday that the campaign would be “a quick and decisive action”, later adding: “It may take some time, but it’s not going to take years.”
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Oil prices keep rising amid growing fears of supply disruptions
Oil prices have lifted for a third day on Tuesday as the widening Middle East conflict and threats to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz heightened fears of supply disruptions from the key producing region.
Brent crude futures were at $78.83 a barrel, up $1.10, or 1.4%, by 0107 GMT. On Monday, the contract surged to as high as $82.37, its highest since January 2025, though it pared those gains to settle 6.7% higher, Reuters reports.
US West Texas Intermediate crude jumped 74 cents, or 1%, to $71.97 a barrel. In the previous session, the contract initially climbed to its highest since June 2025 before sliding back to still settle up 6.3%.
“With no quick de-escalation in sight, the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed and Iran showing a willingness to target energy infrastructure in the region, upside risks remain and they grow the longer the conflict drags on,” an IG market analyst, Tony Sycamore, said in a note.
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Travellers stranded by the widening war in the Middle East began departing the United Arab Emirates aboard a small number of evacuation flights on Monday, as mentioned earlier, while governments around the world work to extract their citizens from the region.
Airlines Etihad Airways and Emirates, based in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and budget carrier FlyDubai said they would operate limited flights in the wake of the chaos and damage sparked by Iranian missiles and drones after US-Israeli attacks.
Since Saturday at least 11,000 flights into, out of and within the Middle East have been cancelled, affecting more than 1 million passengers, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
The travel chaos looks set to continue, with Donald Trump saying on Monday that the conflict had been projected to last four to five weeks but that it could go on longer.
Late on Monday the US state department called on Americans to immediately depart more than a dozen countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE amid the spiralling conflict.
The full story is here:
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Netanyahu says Iran's nuclear program made it vital to strike now
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Iran was building new nuclear weapon sites that would have been impossible to attack within months, creating an urgent need to strike the country.
“They started building new sites, new places, underground bunkers, that would make their ballistic missile program and their atomic bomb program immune within months,” Netanyahu told Fox News on Monday.
If no action was taken now, no action could be taken in the future. And then they could target America, they could blackmail America, they could threaten us, and threaten everyone in between. So action had to be taken.
Iran’s nuclear programme is among the reasons Israel and the US have given for the attacks, alleging Iran was getting too close to being able to eventually make a nuclear bomb.
However, what remains of Iran’s atomic facilities after the two militaries attacked them in June appears to have been largely spared in this campaign so far.
“We have no indication that any of the nuclear installations … have been damaged or hit,” the International Atomic Energy Agency chief, Rafael Grossi, said on Monday.
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Rubio says US strikes on Iran triggered by Israel’s plan to attack
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, secretary of state Marco Rubio has said, in a new explanation for Washington’s surprise entry into the conflict.
The rationale drew divided reviews from top members of Congress, who on Monday evening received the first briefing by the Trump administration since it ordered the air campaign to begin over the weekend.
Rubio, CIA director John Ratcliffe and joint chiefs of staff chair Dan Caine spoke to the lawmakers behind closed doors in the Capitol ahead of a vote expected later this week in the House of Representatives on a war powers resolution that presents an unlikely opportunity to force Donald Trump to end hostilities against Iran.
Rubio told reporters at the Capitol:
It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone – the United States or Israel or anyone – they were going to respond, and respond against the United States.
We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.
The full story is here:
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Saudis confirm US embassy in Riyadh hit by two drones, sparking fire
Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry has confirmed on social media that the US embassy in Riyadh was hit by two drones, according to initial estimates, and caused a limited fire and minor material damage to the building.
A loud blast was heard and flames seen at the embassy early on Tuesday morning, reports said. Black smoke was seen rising over Riyadh’s diplomatic quarter, which houses foreign missions.
Reuters quoted two people as saying there were no reported injuries, given the building was empty in the early morning hours.
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Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly claimed Iran’s nuclear program would have been beyond attack in months.
Amid the Middle East upheaval, holidaymakers on the first flights out of Abu Dhabi since Saturday have described petrifying experiences.
Thousands of flights have been cancelled across the region, leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded.
A small number of flights have found their way out of the United Arab Emirates, including one that landed at London’s Heathrow airport on Monday evening, Isaaq Tomkins reports.
As passengers emerged they described their fear as missiles flew overhead.
“We could hear the explosions. We could sometimes feel them … and then [there was] black ash landing in the breakfast,” said Pen Harrison, who was on a cycling tour in Sri Lanka and had been on a stopover in Abu Dhabi.
Sahib Matharu, a 31-year-old from London who was also on a stopover through Abu Dhabi, said:
We were on edge the whole time. It was surreal.
Every passenger on the flight who spoke to the Guardian reported seeing missile interceptions from their hotel.
See the full story here:
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The US embassy in Riyadh has issued a security alert advising American citizens to “shelter in place immediately”.
The embassy’s post on X said:
The US Mission to Saudi Arabia has issued a shelter in place notification for Jeddah, Riyadh and Dhahran and are limiting non-essential travel to any military installations in the region – we recommend American citizens in the Kingdom to shelter in place immediately.
The US Mission to Saudi Arabia continues to monitor the regional situation.
The alert came as a Saudi defence ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying an attack by two drones on the embassy had caused a fire.
Fox News is reporting that the embassy was empty at the time of the strike and there were no injuries.
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Fire at US embassy in Riyadh after two drone hits, say Saudis
The Saudi defence ministry is reportedly saying the US embassy in Riyadh has been hit by two drones, resulting in “limited” fire and minor damage.
We’ll bring you more on this soon.
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Fire after blast at US embassy in Riyadh – report
A fire broke out at the US embassy in the Saudi capital of Riyadh after a blast, Reuters is reporting, citing two sources.
Loud explosions were heard and clouds of smoke seen in the city’s diplomatic quarter, home to foreign embassies in the capital and residences of foreign diplomats, four witnesses told Agence France-Presse early Tuesday morning.
“I heard two explosions followed by smoke rising over the quarter,” a resident said.
The blasts were heard as Iran pressed its campaign targeting Gulf states including Saudi Arabia with waves of missile and drone attacks in response to US and Israeli airstrikes.
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Confusion over status of vital Strait of Hormuz
There’s uncertainty over the status of the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route for the world’s oil supply: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards declared it was closed and threatened to fire on any ship trying to pass, but US Central Command later said the strait had not been shut.
Iran’s threat to fire was its most explicit warning since telling ships it was closing the export route on Saturday, a move that threatens to choke a fifth of global oil flows and send crude prices sharply higher.
“The strait [of Hormuz] is closed. If anyone tries to pass, the heroes of the Revolutionary Guards and the regular navy will set those ships ablaze,” Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the Guards’ commander-in-chief, said in remarks carried by state media.
But US Central Command (Centcom) later said the strait was is not closed despite statements by Iranian officials, Fox News reported on Monday. Centcom did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most vital shipping lanes, especially for oil and gas, with about 20% of global seaborne oil passing through.
That said, some analysts believe that cutting off access would not affect the major Asia-Europe shipping route, with the Gulf ending in a cul-de-sac by the shores of Kuwait, Iraq and Iran.
But the strait is essential to all regional trade as it allows access to Dubai’s Jebel Ali port, the world’s 10th-largest container port and a redistribution hub for more than a dozen countries in the region.
With news agencies
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Loud explosions have reportedly been heard and clouds of smoke seen in the diplomatic quarter of Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
We’ll bring you more on this soon.
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Israel’s military has just been quoted as saying it has launched fresh strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut, after warning it would press ahead with its campaign against the Iran-backed group.
“The IDF is currently striking Hezbollah command centres and weapons storage facilities in Beirut,” said a statement from the military on Tuesday, quoted by AFP.
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Lebanon bans Hezbollah military actions
Lebanon’s government has taken the unprecedented step of banning Hezbollah’s military and security activity, prompting the Iran-backed group to lash out at the decision.
The Lebanese prime minister, Nawaf Salam, was quoted by AFP as saying after an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday:
The Lebanese state declares its absolute and unequivocal rejection of any military or security actions launched from Lebanese territory outside the framework of its legitimate institutions.
This necessitates the immediate prohibition of all of Hezbollah’s security and military activities, considering them to be outside the law, and obliging it to hand over its weapons.
Hezbollah is represented in both the government and parliament, and the government’s move came hours after the Iran-backed militant group said it had attacked Israel early on Monday to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Israel later began bombarding Beirut’s southern suburbs and southern Lebanon, killing at least 52 people and wounded 154, according to the Lebanese government.
In response to the government’s ban, the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, Mohammed Raad, condemned Beirut’s “rash decisions”, saying that “the Lebanese were expecting a decision rejecting the [Israeli] aggression”.
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Several international airlines are resuming a small number of flights from the United Arab Emirates as war-driven airspace closures strand tens of thousands of travellers.
Emirates, Etihad and FlyDubai said on Monday they would operate select departures and arrivals after having suspended flights over the weekend, the AP is reporting.
Dubai officials are telling passengers to go to the airport only if contacted.
Foreign governments are urging their citizens to shelter in place while officials explore evacuation options.
The German government said it planned to send planes to Oman and Saudi Arabia to evacuate ill travellers, children and pregnant people.
As reported earlier, the US state department has urged Americans to immediately depart more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries amid the war on Iran.
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The day so far
The Israeli military says it has begun a new wave of strikes on Tehran. This came shortly after the military issued an evacuation warning for Tehran residents, especially those located near the headquarters of Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB.
Israel’s military said just after midnight (local time) on Tuesday that it was working to intercept a new wave of missiles launched from Iran, warning residents in multiple locations to seek shelter.
The US attacked Iran “pre-emptively” on Saturday to protect US forces from retaliation after learning that Israel was going to strike, Marco Rubio told reporters on Monday.
The US state department has urged Americans to immediately depart more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries amid US-Israeli strikes against Iran.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said that “49 of the most senior Iranian regime leaders” have been killed in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, declaring that “killing terrorists is good for America”. That number includes supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
The number of US service members killed in Iran has risen to six, the US military said on Monday.
The US military said that it has struck over 1,250 targets in Iran since operations started on Saturday.
Israel and the US will not stop their military campaign against Iran until its objectives are achieve, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said earlier.
Earlier, UK prime minister Keir Starmer said that his government does not “believe in regime change from the skies” as he set out to parliament why Britain will not join its closest military partner in offensive action against Iran – suggesting that to do so would be unlawful.
Further to Chuck Schumer’s comments we brought you a few minutes ago, US senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee, has said there was no imminent threat from Iran to the United States before the bombing campaign.
Exiting the classified briefing on the war, Warner told the New York Times that if a threat to Israel is now to be considered equivalent to an imminent threat to the United States, he said, then the Trump administration is “in uncharted territory”.
Israel working to intercept new missiles launched from Iran
Israel’s military said just after midnight (local time) on Tuesday that it was working to intercept a new wave of missiles launched from Iran, warning residents in multiple locations to seek shelter.
“A short while ago, the IDF identified missiles launched from Iran toward the territory of the State of Israel. Defensive systems are operating to intercept the threat,” it said.
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The US Senate’s Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer said a briefing from Trump administration officials about the US war with Iran “raised many more questions than it answered”.
“Look, a whole lot of questions were asked. I found their answers completely and totally insufficient,” Schumer told reporters as he exited the meeting. He departed without taking questions.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio as well as CIA director John Ratcliffe are among those briefing Congress leaders in a classified facility in the Capitol.
A reminder that you can follow our US politics live blog for more US-focused reaction and developments:
in Larnaka
Over in Cyprus local officials are confirming that nearly all residents have been evacuated tonight from the village of Akrotiri surrounding the British RAF facility that has been targeted by combat drones.
“Everyone has left with the exception of about 20 people who refused to leave” the area’s deputy mayor Giorgos Konstantinos told the Guardian. “It’s been a mass evacuation given the circumstances and fear.”
Police forces had been bolstered tonight around the RAF base from where non-essential personnel have also been removed to other parts of the sovereign base areas - a legacy of colonial rule - for safety following the midnight drone attack on Sunday.
It is still unclear if the unmanned vehicles, another two of which were intercepted earlier on Monday, were deployed against the base from Iran, or fired by Iranian proxy forces in Lebanon.
Trump claims Iran 'would have had nuclear bomb three years ago’
Donald Trump has claimed, without evidence, that had he not ripped up the Iran nuclear deal signed by former US president Barack Obama in 2015, Tehran would have had a nuclear bomb by now.
He wrote on his Truth Social platform:
If I didn’t terminate Obama’s horrendous Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA), Iran would have had a Nuclear Weapon three years ago. That was the most dangerous transaction we have ever entered into, and had it been allowed to stand, the World would be an entirely different place right now. You can blame Barack Hussein Obama, and Sleepy Joe Biden. THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!
The IAEA verified that Iran was complying with the JCPOA, which limited its uranium enrichment, at the time. It only breached those limits after Trump pulled the US out of the agreement in 2018.
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Further to our earlier post, the Israeli military said it has targeted the complex of Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB in Tehran, following an evacuation warning for the area.
US urges citizens to immediately depart over a dozen Middle Eastern countries
The US state department has urged Americans to immediately depart more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries amid US-Israeli strikes against Iran.
US citizens were urged to depart using commercial means from Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the [occupied] West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen, according to Mora Namdar, the department’s assistant secretary for consular affairs.
Hundreds of thousands of travellers are currently stranded in the Gulf states, as the airspace over some of the world’s busiest international airports, including Dubai and Abu Dhabi, closed over the weekend.
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The US embassy in Kuwait was struck by drones, three diplomatic sources have told AFP after smoke was seen rising from the diplomatic mission earlier.
One Kuwait-based diplomat and a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the embassy had been damaged by a number of drones while a second Kuwait-based diplomat said the embassy building had been struck directly in the attack.
As an AFP correspondent saw smoke rising from the diplomatic mission on Iran’s third day of retaliatory Gulf attacks, the US embassy said that people should not come to the facility, warning of “a continuing threat of missile and UAV [drone] attacks over Kuwait”.
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Israel’s military has issued a new evacuation warning for residents of the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon.
We will bring you the latest updates as we get them.
Israeli military says it has launched new waves of strikes on Tehran
The Israeli military says it has begun a new wave of strikes on Tehran. This came shortly after the military issued an evacuation warning for Tehran residents, especially those located near the headquarters of Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB.
Israel’s Channel 12 reports Iranian television is one of the targets of the latest strikes, citing an Israeli source.
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The US will take action to mitigate a spike in energy prices after the Iran conflict has sent oil prices rising, Marco Rubio said on Monday.
The US secretary of state said more detail on the plans would come on Tuesday. He spoke shortly after the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps announced it had closed the Strait of Hormuz – critical to the global flow of oil shipments – and would fire on any ships trying to pass.
Rubio told reporters: “Starting tomorrow, you will see us rolling out those phases to try to mitigate against that ... We anticipated this could be an issue.”
Marco Rubio says US would not 'deliberately' target a school
US secretary of state Marco Rubio insisted the US would not “deliberately” target a school, after Iran said 168 people died in an alleged US-Israeli strike.
“The United States would not deliberately target a school. Our objectives are missiles, both the ability to manufacture them and the ability to launch them,” Rubio told reporters, while adding that the Pentagon was investigating the alleged incident.
The strike on school appears to be the worst mass casualty event of the US-Israeli-led bombing campaign on Iran so far.
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Marco Rubio reiterated what Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth said earlier on Monday that regime change in Iran was not the objective of the US-Israeli combat operation.
But Rubio added that the US hoped Iranians would topple the regime.
“We hope that the Iranian people can overthrow this government and establish a new future for that country. We would love for that to be possible,” Rubio told reporters.
“But the objective of this mission is the destruction of their ballistic missile capabilities and of their naval capabilities,” he added.
US attacked Iran 'pre-emptively' after learning Israel was going to launch strikes - Rubio
The US attacked Iran “pre-emptively” on Saturday to protect US forces from retaliation after learning that Israel was going to strike, Marco Rubio told reporters on Monday.
The US secretary of state said: “There absolutely was an imminent threat. And the imminent threat was, that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed that they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us. And we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded.”
He added: “We knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”
Six US service members have been killed since Saturday.
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The news of two more service members’ deaths was announced by US central command. Centcom said it would not release the names of the fallen until 24 hours after their next of kin were notified.
In a statement posted on X, officials wrote:
As of 4 pm ET, March 2, six US service members have been killed in action. US forces recently recovered the remains of two previously unaccounted for service members from a facility that was struck during Iran’s initial attacks in the region. Major combat operations continue. The identities of the fallen are being withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification.
Six US service members killed in Iran conflict, military says
The number of US service members killed in the conflict with Iran has risen to six, the US military said on Monday.
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The US embassy in Amman, Jordan was temporarily evacuated on Monday due to a threat, it said in a statement. The embassy did not elaborate on the nature of the threat.
In a security alert posted on X, embassy staff wrote:
Out of an abundance of caution, all personnel at the U.S. Embassy have temporarily departed the Embassy compound due to a threat.
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We reported earlier that Kuwait’s army said a sailor with its naval forces was killed during an “operation” by its armed forces. That number has now risen to two, according to Agence France-Presse. The army did not elaborate on the circumstances of their deaths.
The general staff of the army identified the men as Sergeant Walid Majid Sulaiman and Sergeant Abdulaziz Abdulmohsen Dakhel Nasser, adding in two separate statements that they were killed during “duty as part of the national missions entrusted to the armed forces”.
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And here we have a visual guide on how the escalating US-Israeli war on Iran is threatening oil supplies, driving up oil and gas prices, and stoking inflation around the globe.
Strait of Hormuz closed, Iran's Revolutionary Guards says
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards commander has said that the strait of Hormuz – the world’s most critical oil route – is closed and Iran will set any ship trying to pass on fire, Iranian state media is reporting.
It is Tehran’s most explicit warning since announcing it was closing the route on Saturday in a move that could choke a fifth of global oil flows and send prices rocketing.
“The strait (of Hormuz) is closed. If anyone tries to pass, the heroes of the Revolutionary Guards and the regular navy will set those ships ablaze,” Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the Guards commander-in-chief, said in remarks carried by state media.
The strait is the world’s most vital oil export route, which connects the biggest Gulf oil producers, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.
We have an explainer on the strait of Hormuz and why it is so vital for global oil supplies here:
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'Killing terrorists is good for America': White House says 49 senior Iranian leaders killed in strikes
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said that “49 of the most senior Iranian regime leaders” have been killed in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, declaring that “killing terrorists is good for America”. That number includes supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
“Preventing this radical regime and its terrorist leaders from threatening America and our core national security interests is a clear-eyed and necessary objective,” she said in a post on X.
US military claims it has destroyed all Iranian ships in Gulf of Oman
The US military said that it has struck over 1,250 targets in Iran since operations started on Saturday.
In a separate statement, US Central Command said it had struck and destroyed 11 Iranian ships (Trump earlier said 10). In a post on X it said:
Two days ago, the Iranian regime had 11 ships in the Gulf of Oman, today they have ZERO.
The Iranian regime has harassed and attacked international shipping in the Gulf of Oman for decades. Those days are over. Freedom of maritime navigation has underpinned American and global economic prosperity for more than 80 years. US forces will continue to defend it.
Multiple outlets are carrying satellite images showing dark plumes of smoke rising from a number of burning vessels – one of which is 750 feet long – at a military harbour in Bandar Abbas, Iran.
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The Kuwaiti army said a sailor with its naval forces was killed during an “operation” by its armed forces. The army did not elaborate on the circumstances of his death.
Israel's UN envoy says Iran operation will last 'as long as it takes'
Israel and the US will not stop their military campaign against Iran until its objectives are achieve, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said earlier.
Speaking at UN headquarters in New York, Danon said the US and Israel would do everything necessary to ensure that Tehran does not have nuclear capabilities.
He said of the operation’s objectives are “clear”:
No nuclear weapons, no ballistic missile threat, destroy their navy and crash the regime’s proxy network.
The joint operation, he said, will last “as long as it takes” and Israel will do “whatever is necessary to protect our people and borders”.
We will not stop until we achieve our objectives.
Danon also accused Iran of “lashing out in desperation”. He said he believed freedom for the Iranian people “will come sooner than later”, and he hoped for a new leadership.
Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian has condemned US -Israeli strikes on Iranian schools and hospitals.
He said in a post on X:
Attacks on hospitals strike at life itself. Attacks on schools target a nation’s future. Targeting patients and children blatantly violates humanitarian principles. The world must condemn it. I stand with my grieving nation. Iran will not remain silent or yield to these crimes.
A devastating strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, on Saturday killed 165 people and injured 96 others.
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Iranian state media earlier confirmed that Mansoureh Khojaste Bagherzadeh, the wife of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, had also been killed “at home”.
Iranian outlets had previously reported that Bagherzadeh had slipped into a coma after suffering injuries in the US-Israeli attacks on Tehran on Saturday.
Khamenei’s daughter, grandchild and son-in-law were also killed, state media confirmed previously. Khamenei and his wife had six children, four sons and two daughters.
UK 'doesn't believe in regime change from the skies', says Starmer
Earlier, UK prime minister Keir Starmer said that his government does not “believe in regime change from the skies” as he set out to parliament why Britain will not join its closest military partner in offensive action against Iran – suggesting that to do so would be unlawful.
He told the House of Commons:
This government does not believe in regime change from the skies. The lessons of history have taught us that it is important when we make decisions like this, that we establish there is a lawful basis for what the United Kingdom is doing.
Last night, Starmer announced that the UK had agreed to a US request to use British military bases for “defensive” strikes on Iranian missile sites.
Per my colleague Andrew Sparrow, the UK PM has been under pressure from the left and the right for first saying the UK would not get involved in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran and then allowing the US to use UK bases in their operations after criticism from Donald Trump.
Addressing parliament on Monday afternoon, Starmer said that Iran’s “outrageous actions” could not be ignored and that the UK would continue engaging in defensive actions while still not joining in on the strikes.
“I am not prepared to commit our military service people to action unless I am sure that what they’re doing is lawful,” Starmer added.
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US Central Command said in a post on X that last night, U.S. B-1 bombers “struck deep inside Iran to degrade Iranian ballistic missile capabilities”.
As the President stated, ‘we’re going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground’.
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A fire ignited at a fuel storage station in Abu Dhabi after it was targeted by a drone was “promptly contained” today, the Abu Dhabi Media Office said.
“No injuries were reported and there was no impact on operations” after the fire at the Musaffah fuel tank terminal, according to the agency.
The day so far
Here’s a brief recap of the developments so far, on the third day of US and Israel attacks on Iran, and of Tehran continuing retaliatory strikes against US allies across the Gulf after the killing of its supreme leader on Saturday.
At least 555 people have been killed in Iran by the Israel-US attacks across 131 cities since Saturday, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. US Central Command also said a fourth US service member has been killed.
Speaking at the White House for the first time since attacking Iran, Donald Trump said the US military is continuing to carry out large-scale operations in Iran and said the campaign could continue for four to five weeks or more. The US president claimed his objectives in Iran are “clear”. They include “destroying Iran’s missile capabilities” and “annihilating their navy”, as well as preventing them from ever having nuclear weapons; he said that Tehran “cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside their borders”. He also cited the apparent lack of progress in diplomatic negotiations as further justification for the strikes.
Trump notably did not mention regime change today, having previously called on the Iranian people to “seize control of your destiny” and “take over your government”. Since the operation began he has also suggested he has an idea of who he would like to rule Iran next.
The US president earlier did not rule out the possibility of boots on the ground in Iran if necessary, in an interview with the New York Post. “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground – like every president says ‘there will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump said. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’” His defense secretary Pete Hegseth had earlier said there weren’t plans to have service members on the ground in Iran, but had also been reluctant to say whether this was the administration’s lasting stance. “We’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do,” he told a Pentagon press conference earlier.
Trump also told CNN that the “big wave” of strikes against Iran is yet to come. “We haven’t even started hitting them hard,” the US president said. “We’re knocking the crap out of them.”
Hegseth said earlier that the US “didn’t start this war but we’re finishing it”, while also claiming that the US’s goal was not regime change in Iran (even though Trump has pushed for this and Hegesth himself then urged Iranians to “take advantage” of this opportunity for just that). Hegseth also indicated that the US did not plan to effect a democratic transition in Iran – and refused to establish a clear timeline for how long the US operation will continue. We have a story on that here.
Israeli strikes have killed at least 52 people in Lebanon, the Lebanese health ministry said, and wounded more than 150. Israel argued that its strikes were necessary after Tehran’s ally Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel (which Israel intercepted) in response to the Israeli killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday.
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Israeli strikes kill over 50 in Lebanon
Lebanon’s health ministry has said more people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.
It said the death toll is now at 52, with 154 wounded.
The Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah, one of Tehran’s principal allies in the Middle East, had earlier launched rockets towards Israel.
Israel then responded with sweeping airstrikes, which it said targeted the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut and struck senior militants.
The Lebanese state news agency NNA earlier had an initial tally of 31 people killed and 149 injured.
Joseph Aoun, the Lebanese president, condemned both attacks launched from Lebanon and Israel’s counterstrikes.
He warned that “persisting in using Lebanon once again as a platform for wars we have no part in will expose the country to new risks.”
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The spiralling war in the Middle East is putting civilians in “grave danger”, the head of the Red Cross warned Monday, saying a large-scale conflict would outstrip any ability to help.
The war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran has spread across the Middle East and beyond, with Lebanon’s Hezbollah entering the fray and a British military base in European Union member Cyprus coming under attack.
“Widening hostilities across the Middle East are putting civilian lives in grave danger,” said Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
“The scale of major military operations flaring across the Middle East risks embroiling the region – and beyond – into another large-scale armed conflict that will overwhelm any humanitarian response.”
Britons are now being advised against “all but essential travel to Jordan”, as the situation in the Middle East continues to escalate.
The Foreign Office updated its travel advice for the country on Monday.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) website now reads:
FCDO now advises against all but essential travel to Jordan.
FCDO continues to advise against all travel to within 3km of the border with Syria.
Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte on Monday praised US and Israeli military action against Iran, saying it was degrading Tehran’s ability to get its hands on nuclear and ballistic missile capability, but he said Nato itself would not be involved.
“It’s really important what the US is doing here, together with Israel, because it is taking out, degrading the capacity of Iran to get its hands on nuclear capability, the ballistic missile capability,” he told Germany’s ARD television in Brussels.
“There are absolutely no plans whatever for Nato to get dragged into this or being part of it, other than individual allies doing what they can to enable what the Americans are doing together with Israel,” he added.
Two people have been killed attacks on five ships in the Gulf of Oman, the UK maritime trade operations centre has said in a situation report on the critical security situation in the last 24 hours.
An Indian national, who was in the engine room at the time, was confirmed dead after an attack on the crude oil tanker, the MKD VYOM. A fire on board is now under control with plans to tow it to safety.
A second person was killed on the US flagged tanker Stena Imperative berthed in the Port of Bahrain after it was struck in a drone attack just before 3am GMT on Monday.
Three others carriers came under attack, UKMTO said. It reported three attacks on oil infrastructure in the last 24 hours, including an attack on the Jabal Ali port in Dubai and the Tanura refinery in Saudi Arabia following a drone attack.
And it reported traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical pinch point for oil cargo, had dropped 80% in the last 24 hours.
“While no official legal closure has been confirmed … multiple reports indicate Iranian forces are issuing VHF hails claiming the waterway is restricted. Mariners are reporting severe GNSS/GPS interference and disruptions to AIS and communication systems,” it said in its situation report.
Trump says US's mission in Iran 'substantially ahead' and could last 4-5 weeks
US president Donald Trump goes on:
An Iranian regime armed with long range missiles and nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat to the Middle East, but also to the American people.
Our country itself would be under threat, and it was very nearly under threat.
He says the US is already “substantially ahead” of its time projections.
They projected four to five weeks at the beginning, but adds they have “capability to go far longer”, Trump says.
He adds that the US had predicted four weeks to terminate Iran’s military leadership, “and … that was done in about an hour, so we’re ahead of schedule there, by a lot.”
Further, Trump claims the objectives of the operation in Iran are “clear”.
They include “destroying Iran’s missile capabilities” and “annihilating their navy”, as well as preventing them from ever having nuclear weapons.
He adds that the country “cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside their borders”.
Trump then goes on to cite the apparent lack of progress in diplomatic negotiations as further justification for the strikes.
And we thought we had a deal. But then they backed out and they came back and we thought we had a deal and they backed out. I said, you can’t deal with these people. You got to do it the right way.
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Switzerland said on Monday that its diplomatic channel between the United States and Iran has remained active since the US-Israeli air war against Iran began on 28 February.
“It is available to both parties and operates in both directions,” the Swiss foreign ministry said in an email to Reuters, without providing details.
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution when Washington and Tehran cut ties, Switzerland has had a mandate of a neutral “protecting power” representing US diplomatic interests in Iran.
The foreign ministry said that all its embassies in the region remained operational and that it is offering support to its nationals there seeking assistance.
US continues to carry out 'large-scale operations' in Iran, Trump says
Donald Trump is speaking now, he begins with a brief update on the US’s attacks on Iran.
Today, the US military continues to carry out large-scale combat operations on Iran, he says, “to eliminate the grave threat posted to America by this terrible terrorist regime”.
Trump claims that Iran ignored US warnings and “refused to cease their pursuit of nuclear weapons”, even after the US’s “obliteration” of its nuclear program last year, he says.
He goes on to claim that Iran posted an immediate threat to American forces in the region and the US.
The regime’s conventional ballistic missile program was growing rapidly and dramatically, and this posed a very clear, colossal threat to America and our forces stationed overseas.
The regime already had missiles capable of hitting Europe and our bases, both local and overseas, and would soon have had missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America.
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UK businesses with a presence in the Middle East have been urged to step up vigilance against cyber threats from Iran following US-Israeli attacks.
The National Cyber Security Centre said there was “almost certainly” a heightened risk of an indirect cyber threat for organisations who have offices, or supply chains, in the Middle East.
The UK’s cybersecurity agency said Iran remained a threat despite an extensive bombing campaign that has devastated the country’s political and military leadership, including the death of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“Iranian state and Iran-linked cyber actors almost certainly currently maintain at least some capability to conduct cyber activity,” said the NCSC.
The agency said there is “likely” no significant change in the direct cyber threat from Iran to the UK, but organisations should prepare for the risk of collateral damage from Iran-linked hacktivists. It said organisations with a presence in the region should consider boosting monitoring of their IT systems and follow NCSC guidelines for dealing with a heightened threat of cyber attacks.
Jonathon Ellison, NCSC’s director for national resilience, said UK organisations and key infrastructure providers – such as airports and power stations – needed to “act now” in protecting themselves from potential attacks.
“In light of rapidly evolving events in the Middle East, it is critical that all UK organisations remain alert to the potential risk of cyber compromise, particularly those with assets or supply chains that are in areas of regional tensions,” he said.
Israel’s military said it was extending the closure of educational establishments and workplaces until 8pm (6pm GMT) on Saturday, as the US and Israel continued striking targets in Iran for the third consecutive day.
“The Home Front Command has updated the defensive guidelines until Saturday, March 7, 2026, at 20:00,” the military said, extending an earlier advisory.
“The IDF emphasises that, in accordance with these guidelines, gatherings, educational activities, and workplace operations are prohibited, with the exception of essential sectors.”
Trump doesn't rule out possibility of US boots on ground in Iran
In an interview with the New York Post, the US president noted that the possibility of American troops in Iran is not entirely off the table.
“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground – like every president says ‘there will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Donald Trump told the Post. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”
This comes after Pete Hegseth initially said that there weren’t plans to have service members on the ground in Iran, but also was reluctant to say whether this was the administration’s lasting stance. “We’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do,” he said at a Pentagon press conference earlier.
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A drone boat has struck a ship 50 miles north of Muscat, Oman, the UK maritime trade operations centre has said.
The UKMTO, which coordinates intelligence and verifies security threats, for commercial shippers, said in an alert this afternoon that the ship had been struck yesterday and crew had been evacuated to shore.
But it confirmed in an alert on Monday afternoon it was a strike by “an uncrewed surface vehicle”.
The alert comes as the Indian Embassy in Muscat confirms an Indian national was killed in a drone attack on an oil tanker.
It said in a statement on X:
The Embassy of India expresses its deepest condolences on the tragic demise of an Indian national on board MKD Vyom.
The Embassy is in close coordination with the local authorities in Oman to facilitate the safe and early repatriation of our nationals on board the vessel.
We remain committed to extending all possible assistance in this matter.
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The Israeli military said on Monday it hit more than 70 Hezbollah targets including missile launchers in a wave of strikes against the Iran-backed armed group in southern Lebanon.
“A short while ago, the (Israeli military) completed a broad wave of strikes on Hezbollah terrorist organisation targets in southern Lebanon. As part of the strikes, more than 70 weapons storage facilities, launch sites, and missile launchers belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation were struck in a number of locations,” a military statement said.
The war in the Middle East triggered by the joint US and Israeli attack on Iran expanded dramatically on Monday, with casualties and destruction reported across at least nine countries in under 10 hours.
Israeli and US warplanes launched a fresh wave of strikes across Iran, where the Iranian Red Crescent Society said more than 500 people have been killed since the conflict began. Israel also launched an intense wave of attacks into Lebanon after Hezbollah struck at northern Israel in retaliation for the Israeli strike on Saturday that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iranian attacks were reported on oil infrastructure and other targets across a 2,000km swathe of the region – with damage inflicted from the Gulf of Oman, where a bomb-carrying drone boat exploded against an oil tanker, to Cyprus, targeting a British military base.
The US military said Kuwait’s air defences had mistakenly shot down three American F-15E fighters during an Iranian attack. All six crew members were safely recovered. Video showed one of the planes spiralling out of the sky, an engine lit up in flames, until it hit the ground and exploded in a fireball.
Fears that Cyprus is now the target of sustained attack by Iran appear to have been reinforced by statements made by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp.
General Sardar Jabbari has been quoted this afternoon as saying: “The Americans have relocated most of their fighter jets to Cyprus. We will launch attacks on Cyprus until the Americans are forced to leave it too.”
Media in Greece, where the threat has made headlines, reported that the country’s defence minister Nikos Dendias with the commander in chief of the armed forces, Dimitris Choupis will be flying to Cyprus on Tuesday to coordinate defence efforts.
Athens has announced the deployment of two state-of-the-art frigates and two F-16 fighter jets following the overnight drone strikes against RAF Akrotiri on the island.
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Meanwhile, the UK prime minister Keir Starmer addresed Parliament on Monday afternoon to defend his decision to not get involved with the initial US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
“We believe that the best way forward for the region and for the world is a negotiated settlement in which Iran agrees to give up any aspirations to develop a nuclear weapon and ceases its destabilising activity across the region,” he said, adding that this was the “longstanding position of successive British governments.”
Starmer continued: “President Trump has expressed his disagreement with our decision not to get involved in the initial strikes. “But it is my duty to judge what is in Britain’s national interest. That is what I’ve done and I stand by it.”
Trump on Iran strikes: 'The big wave hasn’t even happened'
In an interview with CNN, Donald Trump said that the “big wave” of strikes against Iran is yet to come.
“We haven’t even started hitting them hard,” the US president said.
“We’re knocking the crap out of them,” Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper during a nine-minute phone interview. “I think it’s going very well. It’s very powerful. We’ve got the greatest military in the world and we’re using it.”
When asked about the length of the war, Trump said he didn’t “want to see it go on too long”. Earlier, his defense secretary Pete Hegseth was belligerent with reporters, and insisted that he would not put a timeframe on the conflict.
“I always thought it would be four weeks,” Trump told CNN, “And we’re a little ahead of schedule.”
My US-based colleague is following the latest lines on Iran from Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth and the Washington corridors over in the US politics live blog.
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Spain has denied the US permission to use jointly operated military bases on its territory to attack Iran as Madrid stepped up its criticism of the “unjustified and dangerous military intervention”.
Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has explicitly condemned the US and Israel’s “unilateral military action” against Iran, warning that it is contributing to “a more hostile and uncertain international order”. The rebukes have been reinforced by his government’s refusal to allow the US to use bases in Rota and Morón for the continuing strikes against Iran.
José Manuel Albares, Spain’s foreign minister, said on Monday that while the government wanted “democracy, freedom and fundamental rights for the Iranian people”, it would on no account allow its bases to be used in the ongoing military action.
Footage circulating on social media appears to show a military aircraft falling from the sky in Kuwait.
US Central Command (Centcom) said on Monday that three US F-15 fighter jets flying in Iran-related operations had mistakenly been shot down by Kuwait air defences and that the cause of the incident was under investigation.
The US and Israel launched a large-scale attack on Iran on Saturday, killing several top Iranian leaders including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Dubai Airports said “limited” flights would resume on Monday evening, three days after they were cancelled as Iran began striking targets in the Gulf, including Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports.
“Dubai Airports announces a limited resumption of flights from Dubai International Airport (DXB) and Dubai World Central - Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC) starting this evening, Monday, March 2, 2026,” it said in a statement.
Emirates and low-cost carrier flydubai both said they would resume some flights Monday evening.
Etihad Airways, which operates flights from Abu Dhabi, said it would resume flights on Tuesday.
Lebanon’s government has decided on an “immediate ban” of Iran-backed Hezbollah’s military and security activity, prime minister Nawaf Salam said Monday, in an unprecedented move as Israel retaliated to rocket fire.
Hezbollah is represented in both the government and parliament and the move came hours after the party announced it had launched rockets and drones towards Israel early Monday, to avenge the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli attacks Saturday.
Israel began bombarding Beirut’s southern suburbs and dozens of villages in south Lebanon, vowing to make the group pay a “heavy price” and killing at least 31 people and wounding at least 149 according to the Lebanese health ministry.
Unidentified projectiles hit an oil tanker at a Bahrain port on Monday, causing a fire that was extinguished, local authorities said, with the ship’s owner reporting that one crew member was killed.
“US-flagged tanker Stena Imperative was struck by two unknown projectiles in the Port of Bahrain at 02:57 UTC (0257 GMT),” private maritime security company Vanguard Tech said in a statement.
It added that “all crew members are safe and have evacuated the vessel.”
The vessel’s Swedish owner, Stena Bulk, also told AFP that “mariners have reported no injuries and a damage assessment is being conducted.”
Iran Revolutionary Guards say targeted 500 US, Israeli sites
The Iran Revolutionary Guards has issued a statement saying it has so far targeted 500 US and Israeli sites.
“Since the start of the conflict, the brave soldiers of the Iranian armed forces have attacked 60 strategic targets and 500 American military targets and targets of the Zionist regime (Israel),” the Guards said in a statement.
It added they had launched more than 700 drones and hundreds of missiles.
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The US embassy in Beirut’s statement came as Israel reportedly carried out a new wave of airstrikes on Lebanon that were, according to the Associated Press, heard in Beirut and the southern port city of Tyre.
The US embassy in Beirut has shared the following on social media:
We urge US citizens not to travel to Lebanon. If you are in the country, depart Lebanon NOW while commercial flight options remain available.
The security situation in Lebanon is volatile and unpredictable. Airstrikes have occurred throughout the country, especially in the south, the Beqaa, and parts of Beirut.
You can track the market fluctuations in our business live blog, which is leading with analysts warning the US-Israel war with Iran could drive oil prices up to $100 a barrel.
The UK gas price is spiking after Qatar announced it is halting LNG production at Ras Laffan. They say this is due to military action.
As the UK is dependant on foreign gas, this has caused a spike in gas futures. The UK was hoping to get 10 billion cubic metres of LNG from Qatar this year.
Experts have warned of another cost of living price squeeze, just as the country was making some steps towards recovering from the price spikes precipitated by the 2022 Ukraine invasion.
Jess Ralston, head of energy at the energy and climate intelligence unit (ECIU), said:
With many households still carrying debt from the last gas crisis, the spike in prices is a worrying sign that bills for both homes and businesses could rise again. It’s a reminder that the UK is still, as the Energy Crisis Commission warned, too dependent on gas, the price of which is set on international markets beyond the UK’s control.
North Sea output is just too small to make any difference to these prices and will continue to decline irrespective of any new licences.
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IDF says it launched a 'broad wave' of attacks 'in the heart of Tehran'
Here are some of the latest images coming out of the Iranian capital as the Israeli military said in an update to X that its air force launched a “broad wave” of attacks in the “heart of Tehran”.
The IDF said earlier that it was attacking Lebanon and Iran “simultaneously”.
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The IDF has issued an “urgent” evacuation warning for buildings in the south of Beirut.
There are reports in the last hour of huge plumes of smoke rising into the sky over the Lebanese capital. We will have more details on this shortly.
China’s foreign minister Wang Yi told his Iranian counterpart on a call Monday that Beijing supports Tehran defending itself against US-Israeli strikes, as war spread across the Middle East.
Wang told Abbas Araghchi that Beijing “cherishes the traditional friendship between China and Iran, supports Iran in defending its sovereignty, security, territorial integrity, and national dignity, and supports Iran in protecting its legitimate rights and interests”, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
China had “urged the US and Israel to immediately cease military operations, avoid further escalation of tensions and prevent the conflict from spreading to the entire Middle East region”, Wang said according to CCTV.
Russian president Vladimir Putin held a phone call with King King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain on Monday, discussing “unprecedented escalation around Iran”, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
Putin said that Russia is ready to use ’all available means to stabilise the situation in the region,’ TASS reported.
US forces have achieved air superiority over Iran, top US military officer general Dan Caine said on Monday.
Strikes by American forces “resulted in the establishment of local air superiority. This air superiority will not only enhance the protection of our forces, but also allow them to continue the work over Iran,” Caine told the news conference.
Hegseth said that Iran was “building powerful missiles and drones to create a conventional shield for their nuclear blackmail ambitions” and “had a conventional gun to our head as they tried to lie their way to a nuclear bomb”.
The defense secretary said that after the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June, the US threatened Iran with “far worse” consequences if they rebuilt their nuclear program. “They arrogantly refused,” Hegseth said, noting that Trump, top officials and special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner “bent over backwards for real diplomacy”.
“The former regime had every chance to make a peaceful and sensible deal, but Tehran was not negotiating,” Hegseth said.
For more lines from Hegseth’s presser, follow our US politics live blog here:
Pete Hegseth kicked off his Pentagon press conference by saying that for “47 long years”, the Iranian regime has waged a “savage, one sided war against America”.
He noted that they did this through “the blood of our people, car bombs in Beirut, rocket attacks on our ships, murders at our embassies, roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan”.
The defense secretary added:
We didn’t start this war, but under president Trump, we are finishing it.
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Iran’s security chief on Monday said the Islamic republic would defend itself no matter the costs, on the third day of war with the United States and Israel.
“We will fiercely defend ourselves and our six thousand years old civilization regardless of the costs and will make the enemies sorry for their miscalculation,” Ali Larijani, the powerful head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, wrote in English in an X post.
Turkey on Monday said it has cancelled flights to key Middle Eastern capitals for safety reasons because of the war between Iran and the United States and Israel.
“Flights to Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan have been cancelled until March 6, while all scheduled flights to Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates have been cancelled until March 3,” Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said on X.
Strong explosions shook the west of the Iranian capital on Monday about 4:15 local time (12.45 GMT), according to AFP journalists.
At least two explosions, each accompanied by two to three detonations, were heard by AFP journalists in Tehran, though the target of the blasts was unclear.
Iranian media outlets Shargh, Ham Mihan and Etemad confirmed the explosions.
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Pentagon to brief media this morning on Trump's Iran strikes
US defense secretary Pete Hegseth and general Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are planning to hold a press conference on Monday morning about the military operation against Iran.
The Pentagon announced the 8am EST media briefing on social media Sunday night.
On Tuesday, Hegseth and Caine will join US secretary of state Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe in briefing the full membership of Congress on the strikes, the White House said.
Rubio also was slated to brief Hill leadership on Monday.
The Israeli military said it killed Hezbollah’s intelligence chief, Hussein Makled, overnight. The IDF also said earlier it killed Sayed Yahya Hamidi, who it said was Iran’s deputy minister of intelligence for ‘Israel affairs’, and Jalal Pour Hossein, who it claimed was the head of the espionage division (at the ministry of intelligence). We have not been able to independently verify these claims.
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Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has appointed Revolutionary Guards general Majid Ebnelreza as acting defence minister after his predecessor was killed in Israeli-US airstrikes.
Fourth US service member 'killed in action' - Centcom
We have another statement in from the US Central Command (Centcom). It says a fourth American service member has died in action (it was previously announced that three US service members had been killed as part of the US war against Iran).
The full Centcom statement reads:
As of 7:30 am ET, March 2, four U.S. service members have been killed in action.
The fourth service member, who was seriously wounded during Iran’s initial attacks, eventually succumbed to their injuries.
Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing. The identities of the fallen are being withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification.
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QatarEnergy halts liquefied natural gas production after attacks
QatarEnergy, the state-owned energy company, has halted liquefied natural gas (LNG) production after attacks on its facilities in Ras Laffan and Mesaieed.
In a satement shared on social media, it added:
QatarEnergy values its relationships with all of its stakeholders and will continue to communicate the latest available information.
LNG is gas that has been chilled, loaded on to ships and sent overseas to be burned. Qatar is among the world’s top LNG exporters.
The QatarEnergy statement came after the Qatari government said an energy facility belonging to the company was attacked by two Iranian drones on Monday, with authorities still assessing the damage.
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EU officials are meeting today to discuss Iran and the wider regional conflict. “The stability of the region is of the utmost importance: The only lasting solution is a diplomatic one,” Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, told reporters this morning. You can keep up with all the latest developments in our Europe live blog.
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What we know so far...
A joint statement from Gulf states and the US strongly condemned Iran’s “indiscriminate and reckless missile and drone attacks” across the region, which they warned threaten regional stability.
It said attacks have taken place in Bahrain, Iraq (including the Kurdistan Region of Iraq), Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
A major new front in the war, started by Israel and the US on Saturday, opened on Monday when Hezbollah launched missiles and drones toward Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, over the weekend.
Israeli airstrikes on Beirut and southern Lebanon on Monday have killed at least 31 people and injured 149, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said at least 555 people have been killed in Iran by Israel-US attacks across 131 cities since Saturday.
The US’s allies in the Gulf states came under renewed attack from Iranian missiles and drones. There were loud blasts in Dubai and Samha in the UAE, and in Doha, the capital of Qatar. Saudi Arabia shut its biggest refinery after drone strikes caused a fire there.
Kuwait air defences mistakenly shot down three US F15 fighter jets flying in Iran-related operations, the US Central Command (Centcom) said earlier today. All six aircrew ejected safely, have been safely recovered and are in stable condition.
In Cyprus, two drones heading for a UK base were intercepted, after an earlier attack last night.
The mass evacuation of cities across the Middle East may be necessary if civil nuclear power stations are attacked leading to radiological release, Rafael Grossi, the director general of the IAEA UN nuclear inspectorate, warned.
Grossi said there was no indication that any of Iran’s nuclear installations have been damaged or hit after the recent US and Israeli strikes.
Two drones heading towards RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus intercepted, spokesperson says
Two unmanned drones heading towards RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus were “succesfully intercepted”, Cyprus government spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis has said.
This comes after an Iranian drone was reported to have crashed into the UK military base last night. The incident is not thought to have caused any casualties and only limited damage. You can read more here.
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The Guardian’s Caribbean correspondent, Natricia Duncan, and Kejan Haynes have filed this report:
On Saturday, the Caribbean woke up to the news of the US-Israeli attack on Iran. This was just hours after leaders had wrapped-up an extraordinary regional summit, attended by Marco Rubio and one that exposed strong divisions over US policies.
Dominated by concerns about the Trump administration’s military interventions in the region – with deadly strikes against suspected drug boats, an attack on Venezuela and an oil blockade on Cuba – the meeting ended with a commitment to send humanitarian aid to Cuba.
On Iran, governments emphasised de-escalation and negotiations as tensions intensified over the weekend. But there were notable differences in tone and positioning.
Trinidad and Tobago, a strong US ally, whose prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has consistently showered Trump and Rubio with praise, expressed its “support for the continued actions of the United States of America aimed at preventing oppressive regimes from acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities that would jeopardize international peace and security”.
Guyana adopted a firmer tone, condemning what it described as an “unprovoked attack by Iran” on Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait.
While the Barbados government expressed concern “that military action affecting a number of other countries in the region has the potential to undermine international peace and security,”, adding that it joined UN secretary general António Guterres in condemning the military escalation and calling on member states to “respect their commitments under international law”.
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More now from Cyprus, the EU state closest to the conflict, where authorities have opened emergency shelters following Iran’s combat drone strike against RAF Akrotiri.
The island’s interior ministry said civil defense forces had also been seconded to inform citizens of steps to be taken in the event of an attack.
One local official in the village of Akrotiri told the Guardian that residents were “panicked by the blast of sirens and fearful of what might happen” in the wake of the British prime minister’s decision to allow the UK’s military installations to be used by the US against Iran’s missile cache.
As part of authorities activating the civil defense plan trained wardens will be relegated to neighbourhoods.
An emergency reception centre has been set up in Limassol, the nearest town to Akrotiri, to accommodate citizens, many of whom are choosing to leave villages in the affected area.
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A vessel in the Port of Bahrain has been hit by two “unknown projectiles,” the UK maritime security watchdog has reported.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations Centre (UKTMO), which provides mariners, shipping companies the regional authorities with verified and corroborated security information, issued an alert this morning.
“UKMTO received a report of an incident in the Port of Bahrain. The Company Security Officer reported that the vessel had been struck by two unknown projectiles causing a fire.
“The fire has been extinguished and the vessel remains in port. All members of the ships crew are safe and have evacuated the vessel.” It said authorities were investigating.
“Vessels are to remain cautious and report any suspicious activity to UKMTO,” it added. A huge fire at the port, home to the US Navy’s central command and fifth fleet, was reported on Sunday.
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US says three jets 'went down' over Kuwait 'due to an apparent friendly fire incident'
Kuwait air defences mistakenly shot down three US F15 fighter jets flying in Iran-related operations, the US Central Command (Centcom) said. All six aircrew ejected safely, have been safely recovered and are in stable condition, it said in a statement which you can read in full here.
“During active combat-that included attacks from Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles, and drones – the U.S. Air Force fighter jets were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses,” Centcom said, saying the three jets “went down over Kuwait due to an apparent friendly fire incident”.
Centcom added that the circumstances surrounding the incident remain under investigation and that additional information would be released as it becomes available.
We reported in an earlier post that several American warplanes had crashed in Kuwait this morning but the cause was unclear.
Iran's 'reckless' attacks threaten regional stability, US and allied Gulf states say
We can now bring you a joint statement from Jordan, the US and allied Gulf states – Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – condemning Iran’s “indiscriminate and reckless attacks” across the region, which they say “targeted sovereign territories, endangered civilians, and inflicted damage on civilian infrastructure”. The statement goes on:
Iran’s actions represent a dangerous escalation that violates the sovereignty of multiple states and threatens regional stability.
Targeting civilians and non-combatant states is reckless behavior that undermines stability.
We stand united in defense of our citizens, our sovereignty, and our territories, and we reaffirm our right to self-defense in the face of these attacks, while underscoring our commitment to regional security and commending the effective cooperation in air and missile defense that prevented greater loss of life and destruction.
The statement says attacks occurred in Bahrain, Iraq (including the Kurdistan Region of Iraq), Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
This post was edited at 2.30pm GMT to clarify that Jordan is not a Gulf state.
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We have a picture showing the moment an apparent fighter jet falls from the sky in Kuwait and someone parachuting to safety (see earlier post for more details).
Saudi Arabia halts some operations at Ras Tanura refinery after reported attack
Saudi Arabia’s energy ministry has said some operations at its Ras Tanura refinery had been halted on Monday, after an attack that caused a fire at the complex.
The ministry was quoted as having said the refinery sustained “minor damage from falling debris” due to the interception of “two drones in the refinery’s vicinity”.
“Some operational units at the refinery were shut down as a precautionary measure, without any impact on the supply of petroleum products to local markets,” an official source at the ministry said in a statement published by the Saudi Press Agency.
The Ras Tanura complex houses one of the Middle East’s largest refineries with a capacity of 550,000 barrels per day (see earlier post for more details).
Iran’s nuclear programme has been among the reasons Israel and the US have given for the attacks, alleging Iran was getting too close to being able to eventually make an atom bomb.
Iran has a stockpile of uranium enriched to 60%, close to weapons grade, but has expressed willingness to down-blend the purity to 20% or below.
Iran says it is not pursuing weapons and that its programme is intended for peaceful, civilian purposes.
“An Iranian regime armed with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons would be a dire threat to every American,” Donald Trump said as he tried to justify his attacks, despite the fact that there is no credible evidence Iran was trying to build a nuclear weapon.
“We cannot allow a nation that raises terrorist armies to possess such weapons that would allow them to extort the world to their evil will. Not going to happen,” the US president said.
Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility was hit during US-Israeli attacks against the country, Iran’s ambassador to the UN nuclear watchdog said earlier today, according to the Reuters news agency.
“Again they attacked Iran’s peaceful, safeguarded nuclear facilities yesterday,” Reza Najafi told reporters at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors.
As my colleague Patrick Wintour noted in the previous post, the nuclear watchdog said there were no signs that any of Iran’s nuclear facilities had sustained damaged or hit.
The Natanz nuclear facility was among the sites attacked in the US and Israeli airstrikes against Iran in June 2025.
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Mass evacuation of cities across Middle East may be necessary if nuclear power stations attacked, UN nuclear chief says
The mass evacuation of cities across the Middle East may be necessary if civil nuclear power stations are attacked leading to radiological release, Rafael Grossi, the director general of the IAEA UN nuclear inspectorate, warned on Monday at the opening of the quarterly board meeting of the IAEA.
He admitted “a strong sense of frustration” that an agreement between the US and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program had eluded the parties in their recent negotiations. Grossi had attended the talks providing technical assistance.
Opening the board meeting, he said diplomacy “is hard and never impossible. The use of force has been present in international relations since times in memorial. This s a reality, but it is always the least preferred option.”
“I remain convinced that the lasting solution to this long existing discord lies on the diplomatiic table when it comes to nuclear matters, a crystal clear understanding of the scope and verifiability of an agreement is of the essence.
“Diplomacy is hard, but it is never impossible. Nuclear diplomacy is even more difficult, but it’s never impossible. It is not a matter of if, but of when we will again gather at the diplomatic table. We simply must do so as quickly as possible.”
Turning the impact of the current fighting across the Middle East he said: “We cannot rule out a possible radiological release with serious consequences, including the necessity to evacuate areas as large or larger than major cities.”
“Let me underline that the situation today is very concerning. Iran and many other countries in the region that have been subject to military attacks have operational nuclear power plants and nuclear research reactors, as well as associated fuel storage sites, increasing the threat to nuclear safety.
He added: “The United Arab Emirates has four operating nuclear reactors. Jordan and Syria have operational nuclear research reactors. Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have also been attacked. These countries all use nuclear applications of some sort or the other. We therefore urge utmost restraint in all military operations.”
Discussing Iran’s remaining nuclear installations, he said: “We have no indication that any of the nuclear installations, including the Bushehr nuclear power plant, the Tehran research reactor, or other nuclear fuel cycle facilities have been damaged or hit. Efforts to contact the Iranian nuclear regulatory authorities continue with no response so far.”
Experts have said the attacks by Israel and the US on Iran are illegal, as they were in violation of the ban on the use of force under the UN charter and international law.
Here is an extract from an opinion piece by Kenneth Roth, a Guardian US columnist and former executive director of Human Rights Watch who believes the attacks on Iran were an illegal act of aggression.
We shouldn’t beat around the bush: Donald Trump’s and Benjamin Netanyahu’s military attack on Iran is an illegal act of aggression. There is no lawful justification for it. It is no different from Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or Rwandan president Paul Kagame’s invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The United Nations charter allows the use of military force in only two circumstances – with authorization of the UN security council, or as self-defense from an actual or imminent armed attack. Neither was present.
In his video justification for the war, Trump spoke of Iran’s “imminent threat”, but there is no evidence to support it. He recited a litany of past attacks that he attributed to Iran, but none of them is ongoing or imminent. At best Trump sought to prevent future harm – Netanyahu used the term “pre-emptive” – but prevention is no justification for war because it would open Pandora’s box to countless armed conflicts.
In a brief update to X, the IDF said it “struck” a “senior terrorist” from Hezbollah in Beirut a “short time” ago and will be providing more details in due course.
IDF says 'all options on table' in response to question about possible ground invasion of Lebanon
An Israeli military spokesperson has been briefing reporters in Israel. When asked if the IDF is preparing for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon, the spokesperson was quoted as having said that “all options are on the table”.
He said Hezbollah “made a very bad mistake” by choosing to strike Israel overnight.
“The IDF will react very swiftly and they will pay a heavy price,” the spokesperson told reporters. “Hezbollah opened fire at us last night. It knew exactly what it was doing.”
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At least 555 people have been killed in Iran by US-Israeli attacks, Iranian Red Crescent Society says
The Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) has said in a Telegram post that 555 people have been killed in Iran by Israel-US attacks across 131 cities.
Over 100,000 rescuers are on “full alert” across the country, the IRCS said, adding that a “network of approximately 4 million volunteers is on standby” to provide “humanitarian services” and “psychosocial support” to those affected.
We have not been able to independently verify these figures yet.
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Saudi oil refinery reportedly halts operations after drone attack
Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura oil refinery came under attack on Monday from drones, the country’s defence ministry said. Authorities downed the incoming aircraft and there were no reported injuries.
The announcement follows an earlier report in Bloomberg saying that Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Aramco had paused operations at the Ras Tanura refinery after a drone strike in the area.
The Ras Tanura complex houses one of the Middle East’s largest refineries with a capacity of 550,000 barrels per day.
Its shutting will likely add to supply anxieties as shipping through the strait of Hormuz, through which 13-15 million barrels, or 20% of global supply, of oil flows – grinds to a near-halt after vessels were attacked around it yesterday.
Iranian missiles or drones have hit airports, luxury hotels and other civilian targets across the Gulf, with strikes reported in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, sparking outrage among Gulf governments.
Amy Hawkins is the Guardian’s senior China correspondent
China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Monday that a Chinese citizen had been killed in Tehran.
Beijing has urged Chinese citizens in Iran to leave “as soon as possible” via land routes to Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey and Iraq. China’s embassy in Israel also advised nationals to evacuate to safe areas or leave the country.
China’s foreign minister Wang Yi has condmenned the US-Israel strikes on Iran, calling them “unacceptable” and called for a ceasefire. China is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil.
You can watch a video of Israel’s air attacks on the southern suburbs of Beirut in the early hours of Monday morning here:
Here are some of the latest images coming in from Lebanon, where the country’s health ministry is saying Israeli strikes in Beirut and on the south of the country have killed at least 31 people and injured 149.
The deadly Israeli attacks came after Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militia group, launched missiles and drones towards Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday.
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Kuwait says 'several' US warplanes have crashed in the country, with all the crew surviving
Several American warplanes crashed in Kuwait this morning, the country’s defence ministry said.
All the pilots bailed out safely and are been checked up on at a hospital, according to the ministry. They are all in a stable condition.
It is not immediately clear what caused the US warplanes to crash but the incident came during an intense period of Iranian fire targeting the country.
The defence ministry said it is continuing investigations into the “causes of the incident”.
Journalists from the Associated Press reported hearing several loud explosions on Monday morning in Erbil, the capital city of Iraq’s semiautonomous region of Kurdistan.
It comes after loud explosions were heard early on Sunday near Erbil airport, which hosts US-led coalition troops. Since the start of the US-Israel bombing campaign against Iran, drones have frequenty been intercepted over Erbil.
Cyprus has put authorities on alert, closing schools and evacuating people where necessary, after it was dragged into the spiralling conflict across the Middle East following a drone attack on RAF Akrotiri, a British base on the island.
In an early morning address to the nation, president Nikos Christodoulides said his country’s security was the government’s paramount concern.
“We are located in a region of particular geopolitical instability, with many challenges and problems, currently undergoing an unprecedented crisis.
“We are doing what must be done, with the safety of our country and our citizens as our foremost concern,” he said.
The Cypriot leader said it remained the firm stance of the eastern Mediterranean island, the EU’s closest member state to the Middle East and a popular tourist destination, to not “become part of any military operation.”
“We remain committed to the humanitarian role we have fulfilled throughout this period – always as part of the solution and not the problem – and we will continue to act with the same sense of responsibility,” he said in te address.
Referring to the midnight strike, Christodoulides told the island nation that “an unmanned aerial vehicle of the Shahed type struck within the military installations of the British Bases in Akrotiri, causing minor material damage.”
Greek media reports suggested a second combat aerialvehicle, also deployed against the British facility by Iran, approximately 600 miles away, had been neutralised.
The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said it is moving families from the RAF Akrotiri airbase in Cyprus after it was targeted in a suspected Iranian drone strike last night at around midnight local time (22:00 GMT), in an attack which caused limited damage but no casualties,
An MoD spokesperson said:
The safety of our personnel and their families is our absolute priority.
As a precautionary measure we are moving family members who live at RAF Akrotiri to alternative accommodation nearby on the island of Cyprus.
Our base and personnel continue to operate as normal protecting the safety of Britain and our interests.
The UK has agreed to let the US use British military bases to attack Iranian missile sites, with the prime minister, Keir Starmer, saying Tehran’s actions were becoming more reckless and putting British lives at risk,
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Summary
In case you’re just joining us, here’s an overview of the latest news as the US-Israeli war on Iran moves into its third day.
The Israeli military said on Monday it was striking Hezbollah across Lebanon, after the militant group launched missiles and drones towards Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Israeli strikes on Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs and on southern Lebanon killed at least 31 people and wounded 149, Lebanon’s health ministry said. The Israeli military urged people in nearly 50 Lebanese villages to evacuate.
Explosions were heard across the Gulf cities of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Manama as well as in Jerusalem on Monday. Smoke was seen rising from the US embassy in Kuwait City and it warned of a continuing threat of attacks over Kuwait.
Donald Trump warned on Sunday that combat operations in Iran would carry on “until all of our objectives are achieved”. The US president continued to justify the operation and said: “I once again urge the Revolutionary Guard, the Iranian military police, to lay down your arms and receive full immunity or face certain death.”
Trump told Fox News that 48 leaders have been killed in the US and Israeli strikes on Iran. “It’s moving along rapidly … Nobody can believe the success we’re having, 48 leaders are gone in one shot.”
A suspected drone strike hit RAF Akrotiri – a UK base in Cyprus – the British Ministry of Defence confirmed. There were no casualties at the base. The suspected strike came hours after Keir Starmer said the UK had allowed the US to strike Iranian missile sites from British bases as officials plan an unprecedented rescue operation for UK citizens in the Gulf.
Hundreds more flights were cancelled on Monday, extending the turmoil in global air travel caused by the war, with hundreds of thousands of passengers already stranded.
Oil prices soared and stock markets came under pressure on Monday after the strikes on Iran prompted fears of significant global economic disruption.
The death toll from a missile strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran on Saturday rose to almost 165, according to Iranian state media.
Three US service members have been killed as part of US military operations against Iran, US Central Command said on Sunday.
Trump said Iran’s new leadership wanted to talk to him and that he had agreed, according to an interview with the Atlantic. Iran’s security chief, Ali Larijani, later said Tehran would “not negotiate with the United States”.
Updated
Hundreds more flights were cancelled on Monday, extending the turmoil in global air travel caused by the US-Israel war on Iran, with hundreds of thousands of passengers already stranded.
Callum Jones also reports that leading airline stocks came under pressure after days of disruption, with Donald Trump indicating that the US military action could last another four weeks.
Major Middle Eastern airports, including Dubai – the world’s busiest international hub – closed for a third consecutive day amid the most acute aviation shock since the Covid-19 pandemic paralysed the industry.
Flights across the Middle East have been cancelled, disrupting thousands of services so far, as international carriers continued to suspend their services.
Early on Monday, 1,239 flights had already been cancelled. Emirates Airlines, based in Dubai; Etihad Airways, based in Abu Dhabi; and Qatar Airways, based in Doha; have collectively cancelled hundreds of flights.
Almost 2,800 flights were cancelled on Saturday and 3,156 cancelled on Sunday, according to the tracking platform FlightAware.
See full report here:
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Israeli military says fighting Hezbollah could take 'many' more days
Israel’s military chief has said the fighting against Hezbollah that began early on Monday could take “many” more days.
“We have launched an offensive campaign against Hezbollah,” Eyal Zamir said in a video shared by the military on Monday and cited by AFP, hours after rocket fire claimed by the Lebanese militant group prompted a wave of Israeli strikes on Lebanon.
“We must be prepared for several days of fighting – many.”
US embassy in Kuwait warns of attack threat and urges people to take cover
The US embassy in Kuwait City is reportedly urging people not to come to the embassy and to take cover.
It is also saying there is a continuing threat of missile and drone attacks over Kuwait.
The warning comes after smoke was seen rising from the US embassy and amid reports Iran had launched another wave of strikes on Gulf states and on Israel.
Sirens were heard sounding earlier over Kuwait City.
Explosions have been heard in Jerusalem and across the Gulf cities of Dubai, Doha and Manama as Tehran pressed into a third day of strikes in response to US and Israeli attacks.
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Smoke is rising from the US embassy in Kuwait City, an AFP correspondent is reporting.
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Israeli strikes in Lebanon kill 31 – report
Israeli strikes on Lebanon have killed 31 people and wounded 149, AFP is citing a Lebanese ministry as saying.
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Iran launches another attack wave on Israel and Gulf cities
Loud explosions were heard across the Gulf cities of Dubai, Doha and Manama as well as in Jerusalem on Monday as Tehran pressed into a third day of strikes against Israel and Gulf neighbours in response to the US-Israeli attacks.
Agence France-Presse reported several loud blasts being heard in the Qatari and Bahraini capitals, as well as in the United Arab Emirates’ most populous city.
The Israeli air force said on X a short while ago that missiles had been launched from Iran towards Israel and defence systems were operating to intercept them.
The post also said it had directed the public via mobile phones in relevant areas to go to “protected spaces” and stay until further notice.
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Explosions have been heard over Jerusalem after an Iranian missile alert.
Blasts were also heard in Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the UAE, Doha in Qatar and Manama in Bahrain, news agency reports are saying.
We’ll bring you more on these as it comes to light.
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Israeli general says strikes on Lebanon will intensify
A senior Israeli general said on Monday the military would intensify its attacks on Lebanon, after launching strikes in response to rocket fire claimed by Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
“Hezbollah chose the Iranian regime over the state of Lebanon and initiated an attack on our civilians ... they will pay a heavy price,” said Rafi Milo, head of the Israeli military’s northern command.
“The strikes continue, their intensity will increase,” AFP quoted him as saying in a military statement.
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The suspected drone attack on the UK’s RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus came just hours after Britain agreed to let the US use British military bases to attack Iranian missile sites.
The UK has so far not been involved in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, but in a recorded statement on Sunday evening the prime minister, Keir Starmer, said Iran’s approach was becoming more reckless and putting British lives at risk, leading to the decision to allow the US to use two of its military bases.
The suspected drone strike caused limited damage and no casualties, Cypriot authorities and the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.
A security alert put out to residents in the vicinity of Akrotiri by the British base’s administration advised residents to shelter in place until further notice following the impact.
An MoD spokesperson said:
Our armed forces are responding to a suspected drone strike at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus at midnight local time. Our force protection in the region is at the highest level and the base has responded to defend our people.
Britain retains sovereignty over the territory of two bases on Cyprus, which is a member of the EU. RAF Akrotiri covers a sprawling, square-shaped peninsula on the southern tip of the eastern Mediterranean island. The last time it was directly attacked was by Libyan militants in the mid-1980s.
You can read the full report here:
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Kuwait has intercepted drones approaching the country and no injuries have been reported, the official Kuwait News Agency has said, citing the civil defence chief.
Brig Gen Mohammad Al-Mansouri said the reported audible explosions in some residential areas were from the drones being intercepted at dawn on Monday.
The report also said he assured the public that “the situation in the country remains stable” and that there was no cause for concern as authorities continued to monitor regional developments.
Iran's security chief says it 'won't negotiate' with US
Iran’s security chief has declared: “We will not negotiate with the United States.”
The social media post from Ali Larijani – who was a close loyalist and adviser to the country’s slain supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – came in response to reports that Iran is trying to revive negotiations with Washington.
Donald Trump said earlier that Iran’s new leadership wanted to talk to him and that he had agreed, according to an interview with the Atlantic.
“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them,” the US president said. “They should have done it sooner.”
At least 10 killed in Israeli strikes on Beirut – report
Israeli strikes on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut have left at least 10 people dead, according to a medical source quoted by Reuters just now.
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The Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, has said rocket attacks on Israel on Monday hurt his government’s efforts to spare Lebanon from a regional war.
“The launching of missiles from Lebanese territory this morning targets all the efforts and endeavours made by the Lebanese state to keep Lebanon away from the dangerous military confrontations taking place in the region,” Aoun said in a statement, cited by AFP.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah had earlier claimed responsibility for launching rocket and drone attacks on Israel on Monday in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth will hold a press conference on Monday morning about the joint US-Israeli military campaign against Iran, the first by a senior Trump-administration official since strikes began on Saturday.
The press conference would be held at 8am local time (1300 GMT), the Pentagon said. Dan Caine, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, would also take part.
Hegseth will visit Congress on Tuesday with secretary of state Marco Rubio to brief lawmakers on the progress of the military operation, the White House said on Sunday.
Democrats in opposition have complained that they were not consulted before the operation began.
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ABC News’s chief Washington correspondent, Jonathan Karl, has said Donald Trump told him the US had identified possible candidates to take over Iran, “but they were killed in the initial attack”.
Karl said Trump told him:
The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates … It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.
Pres Trump told me tonight the US had identified possible candidates to take over Iran, but they were killed in the initial attack.
— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) March 2, 2026
"The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates," Trump told me. "It's not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because…
Trump previously told Fox News that 48 Iranian leaders had been killed in the first two days of bombing. Israel’s Channel 12 cited officials as saying the Israeli air force killed 30 high-ranking Iranian officials within the first 30 seconds of the attack.
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Bahrain has said that one person was killed by shrapnel from an intercepted missile. The death of a foreign worker at Salman Industrial City, working on a boat there, marks the kingdom’s first reported fatality in the war.
Bahrain, home to the US navy’s 5th fleet, said it intercepted 61 missiles and 34 attack drones launched against it. It said some shrapnel had gotten through, striking buildings and the naval base.
Bahrain was among a number of Gulf states that vowed on Sunday to defend themselves against Iranian attacks, including by “responding to the aggression” if need be.
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An Iraqi Shia militia group has claimed a drone attack that targeted US troops at the airport in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, further widening the retaliation over the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The group, Saraya Awliya al-Dam, is one of a group of Shia militias that has operated in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion of the country that toppled Saddam Hussein.
The attack comes as other Iranian-supported militias – including the Lebanese group Hezbollah - have entered the war.
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The wires are carrying images of clogged roads as people flee Dahieh in Beirut, which has been targeted by Israel.
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Streams of people flee Beirut amid airstrikes and evacuation orders
More on the Israeli strikes and evacuation orders in Lebanon here from the Guardian’s William Christou in Beirut:
Residents of the Lebanese capital were awoken by the sounds of about a dozen blasts at 3am on Monday, as Israel struck three locations in Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs.
The explosions rocked windows around the capital and were heard from miles away. People in southern Lebanon heard warplanes and bombs being dropped as airstrikes were carried out over wide swathes of the south of the country, collapsing buildings in the villages near Tyre, southern Lebanon.
Israel carried out the heavy airstrikes on Beirut after the Iran-backed group launched missiles and drones towards Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
An Israeli military spokesperson issued evacuation orders for 55 different villages and towns across Lebanon, asking people to get at least 1,000 metres away from them as they are near “Hezbollah operatives and facilities”.
Streams of people began to flee the Beirut suburb of Dahieh by car and by foot, and lines of cars began to form outside petrol stations in the southern city of Tyre as residents began to head northwards. The highways from Dahieh to the capital city were gridlocked with scooters and cars driving over rubble and debris from the earlier strikes.
In the south, people drove northwards on both sides of the highway to escape the traffic.
Videos showed the tops of buildings in Dahieh engulfed in flames, while burnt out husks of cars lay at the feet of the crumpled buildings. As they scrambled to flee, witnesses reported seeing rocket barrages flying from south Lebanon towards Israel.
See the full report here:
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UK responding to suspected drone strike at Cyprus base, says MoD
British forces are responding to a suspected drone strike at its military base in Cyprus, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Monday, with no casualties reported.
The strike hit the Royal Air Force Akrotiri base at midnight, said the ministry, adding that its forces were handling a “live situation”.
“Our force protection in the region is at the highest level and the base has responded to defend our people,” an MoD spokesperson said in a statement.
Agence France-Presse also reports that the incident came as Britain agreed on Sunday to allow the US to use British military bases to fire “defensive” strikes aimed at destroying Iranian missiles and their launchers.
The RAF Akrotiri base is a British overseas territory near the southern coastal city of Limassol.
London recently deployed additional assets to the site as “defensive measures”, including air and drone defence systems, radars and F-35 aircraft.
While announcing that British bases can be used by US forces for defensive strikes, prime minister Keir Starmer stressed that Britain was “not involved in the initial strikes on Iran and we will not join offensive action now”.
“But Iran is pursuing a scorched-earth strategy, so we are supporting the collective self-defence of our allies and our people in the region,” he said on X.
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Oil prices soared and stock markets came under pressure on Monday after intense US-Israeli strikes on Iran prompted fears of significant global economic disruption, reports my colleague Callum Jones.
Brent crude jumped by as much as 13% during early trading – to hit $82 per barrel, a 14-month high – as the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz, one of the most important arteries for global trade, intensified concerns over oil supplies.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 fell by nearly 2.4% as traders in Asia responded to the weekend’s developments. It later pulled back, to trade down 1.5%. Pre-market trading also put Wall Street on course to open lower on Monday.
In Sydney the ASX 200 opened down sharply, before recovering, to trade about 0.4% lower. In Shanghai the CSI 300 fell 0.6%
Gold, often deemed a safe-haven asset by investors during times of crisis, rose 2.8% to $5,397.10 an ounce.
Here’s the full report from the deputy business editor of Guardian US:
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The Israeli military has reportedly urged people in nearly 50 villages in Lebanon to evacuate.
It urged civilians in eastern and southern Lebanon on Monday to evacuate their homes and move at least 1,000 metres (1,100 yards) away from villages to open areas, the Associated Press is reporting.
The move came Israel’s military said early on Monday it was striking Hezbollah throughout Lebanon after the Iran-backed militant group launched missiles and drones towards Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Hezbollah said on Sunday it had a “duty” to support its backer Iran after the Israeli and US strikes. But until Monday the group has not confirmed action since the US and Israel began attacks on Saturday.
Updated
The Israeli military has reportedly issued a wide evacuation order for several towns in Lebanon.
We’ll bring you more on this soon.
Updated
Israel has carried out heavy airstrikes on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut after the Iran-backed group launched missiles and drones towards Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader.
More than a dozen explosions shook Beirut on Monday, witnesses said, in the most intensive strikes on the southern suburbs since a war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2024.
Lebanese security sources said airstrikes hit several areas of the southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, Reuters reports.
The Israeli military said it had begun striking Hezbollah targets across Lebanon and held Hezbollah responsible.
“Hezbollah opened a campaign against Israel overnight, and is fully responsible for any escalation,” the Israeli chief of the general staff, Eyal Zamir, said in a statement.
The projectiles launched by Hezbollah were the first since the start of US and Israeli strikes on Iran.
Israel also carried out airstrikes in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, the Lebanese security sources said.
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Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our continuing live coverage of events in the Middle East, which is reeling from the US-Israel war on Iran and the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Israeli military said early on Monday it was striking Hezbollah across Lebanon, after the militant group launched missiles and drones towards Israel in retaliation for the killing of Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.
The projectiles launched by the Lebanese militant group were the first since the start of US and Israeli strikes on Iran.
The Shia Muslim group, long one of Tehran’s principal allies in the Middle East, said it launched the attack against Israel in response to Israel killing Khamenei and continuous Israeli violations against Lebanon.
Explosions were heard in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, according to witnesses. Lebanese security sources told Reuters that Israel had struck the city’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.
Ali Khamenei was killed on Saturday after the US and Israel launched a war on the country to trigger regime change. Donald Trump announced the death of the ayatollah, who ruled Iran since 1989, in a post on Truth Social. Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was also killed in strikes.
Trump warned on Sunday that combat operations in Iran were continuing and would carry on “until all of our objectives are achieved”. He continued to justify the operation, saying “an Iranian regime armed with long range missiles and nuclear weapons would be a dire threat to every American … I once again urge the Revolutionary Guard, the Iranian military police, to lay down your arms and receive full immunity or face certain death.”
The US president told Fox News that 48 leaders have been killed in US and Israeli strikes on Iran. “It’s moving along. It’s moving along rapidly. This has been this way for 47 years,” Trump said. “Nobody can believe the success we’re having, 48 leaders are gone in one shot.”
A suspected drone strike hit RAF Akrotiri – a UK base in Cyprus – the British Ministry of Defence confirmed. There were no casualties in the incident at the base. The suspected strike came hours after Keir Starmer said the UK had allowed the US to strike Iranian missile sites from British bases as officials plan an unprecedented rescue operation for UK citizens in the Gulf.
Oil prices have soared and stock markets came under pressure on Monday after the US-Israeli strikes on Iran prompted fears of significant global economic disruption. Brent crude jumped by as much as 13% during early trading – to hit $82 per barrel, a 14-month high – as the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz, one of the most important arteries for global trade, intensified concerns over oil supplies.
Three US service members have been killed in action as part of US military operations against Iran, the US Central Command said on Sunday. These are the first confirmed deaths since the US began launching strikes against Iran on Saturday. Trump warned in his Truth Social video that there would likely be more casualties.
The death toll from a missile strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran has risen to almost 150, according to Iranian state media. Mizan news agency, the official news outlet of Iran’s judiciary, reported that the number killed in Saturday’s strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab in southern Iran had risen to 148 killed, with 95 others wounded. The school, which was struck on Saturday morning, appears to be the worst mass casualty event of the US-Israeli-led bombing campaign on Iran so far.
Trump said earlier that Iran’s new leadership wanted to talk to him and that he had agreed, according to an interview with the Atlantic. “They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them. They should have done it sooner,” he said.
Just 27% of Americans approve of the US strikes that killed Iran’s leader, while about half – including one in four Republicans – believe Trump is too willing to use military force, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that concluded on Sunday.
The war led to major disruption to the airline industry and the plans of hundreds of thousands of travellers in the Middle East and beyond as countries across the region closed their airspace and three of the key airports that connect Europe, Africa and the west to Asia halted operations.
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