This live blog has now closed. You follow our continuing coverage of crisis in the Middle East here.
Closing summary
Thank you for tuning into our live coverage of the war in Iran and its regional ramifications. Here is a quick recap of what has happened today:
Donald Trump has attempted to counter a simmering anti-Israel backlash in Congress and among his own Maga supporters by denying suggestions that he had been forced into attacking Iran because Israel had already decided to do so. Asked whether Israel had pushed him into launching military action, Trump told reporters: “No. I might have forced their hand.”
The US military has claimed that the first 24 hours of the operation in Iran was nearly double the scale of the first day of the “shock-and-awe” strikes on Iraq in 2003. American forces have struck nearly 2,000 targets so far in Iran “as part of the largest firepower buildup in the region in a generation,” Admiral Brad Cooper of US Central Command has said.
The US military has destroyed 17 Iranian ships, including a submarine, and struck nearly 2,000 targets in Iran, the commander of the US Central Command said on Tuesday.
Global oil and gas prices have spiked as the US-Israeli war on Iran has halted energy exports from the Middle East, with Tehran attacking ships and energy facilities, closing navigation in the Gulf and forcing production stoppages from Qatar to Iraq.
The conflict has caused turbulence on global markets. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 continued to fall on Wednesday, and was down about 1.7% during early trading. In Seoul, the Kospi - which dropped 7.2% on Tuesday - fell by a further 3.1% at the open. But Wall Street looks set to open flat in New York, according to pre-market trading data.
The US navy could begin escorting oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz if necessary, president Donald Trump said on Tuesday, in one of the administration’s most aggressive steps yet to attempt to contain soaring energy prices sparked by the war.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said at least 787 people had been killed since the conflict began. The worst mass casualty event of the US-Israeli military assault so far has been the direct strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab on Saturday, which killed up to 168 people. You get a sense of the devastation through our visual guide, here.
At least 30,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon, according to the United Nations, following heavy Israeli airstrikes in the country.
Israel said it has launched a ‘broad wave’ of strikes on Iran that were targeting launch sites, defense systems, and additional Iranian infrastructure.
Trump also said he was upset with British prime minister Keir Starmer, who has not joined the US-Israeli attack on Iran but did let US forces use UK bases. “I’m not happy with the UK,” the US president said. “It’s taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land,” Trump said. Referring to Starmer, he added: “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”
Canadian prime minister Mark Carney called on Wednesday for the rapid de-escalation of the conflict unleashed by US-Israeli strikes on Iran, urging all parties to respect the international rules of engagement.
Updated
Qatar, which hosts a major US military base and has been targeted by multiple Iranian strikes since the outbreak of the war, reported after midnight Wednesday that it had dismantled two spy cells linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Ten suspects were arrested who “admitted during the investigation their links to the Revolutionary Guards and having been instructed to conduct espionage and sabotage activities,” the nation’s official press agency said.
The US military has claimed that the first 24 hours of the operation in Iran was nearly double the scale of the first day of the “shock-and-awe” strikes on Iraq in 2003.
American forces have struck nearly 2,000 targets so far in Iran “as part of the largest firepower buildup in the region in a generation,” Admiral Brad Cooper of US Central Command has said.
“We have severely degraded Iran’s air defenses and destroyed hundreds of Iran’s ballistic missiles, launchers and drones,” Cooper said, adding that the US will “continue with 24/7 strikes into Iran.”
In March 2003, the US hit Iraq with more than 1000 strikes as it began the invasion that would eventually topple the government of Saddam Hussein. The “shock and awe” bombing campaign flattened the regime’s infrastructure in and around Baghdad and laid the groundwork for the military’s ground assault.
The Trump administration plans to meet with executives from the biggest US defence contractors at the White House on Friday to discuss accelerating weapons production, as the Pentagon works to replenish supplies after strikes on Iran and several other recent military efforts, five people familiar with the plan told Reuters.
Companies including Lockheed Martin and Raytheon parent RTX, along with other key suppliers, have been invited to attend the meeting, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private.
The meeting underscores the urgency felt in Washington to shore up weapons stocks after the Iran operation drew heavily on munitions.
At least 30,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon, according to the United Nations, following heavy Israeli airstrikes in the country. Thousands of Syrians have crossed the border to their home country, many of whom had fled to Lebanon during the civil war
See this video for on the ground scenes.
Global markets look set for another turbulent day.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 continued to fall on Wednesday, and was down about 1.7% during early trading. In Seoul, the Kospi - which dropped 7.2% on Tuesday - fell by a further 3.1% at the open.
But Wall Street looks set to open flat in New York, according to pre-market trading data.
With all eyes still on the Strait of Hormuz - one of the most important arteries for global trade, which has been in effect closed by Iran - oil prices will also be in focus later after Donald Trump suggested the US could begin escorting tankers.
Donald Trump has attempted to counter a simmering anti-Israel backlash in Congress and among his own Maga supporters by denying suggestions that he had been bounced into attacking Iran because Israel had already decided to do so.
Amid growing criticism among opponents and allies alike, Trump rebuffed claims that he had struck Iran only because Israel had forced his hand, a suspicion fuelled by comments made by Marco Rubio, the secretary of state.
Asked whether Israel had pushed him into launching military action, Trump told reporters: “No. I might have forced their hand.”
Read the full report here:
Updated
The Central Intelligence Agency’s station at the US embassy in Saudi Arabia was hit on Monday by a suspected Iranian drone, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.
There is no indication the station was the target, the source said. The CIA declined to comment.
The attack came amid ongoing strikes in the Middle East following Saturday’s US and Israeli attacks on Iran.
The embassy, which is located in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, is among the US sites that have been hit so far in the conflict. Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry said the embassy was hit by two drones, which resulted in a limited fire and some material damage.
The US military has destroyed 17 Iranian ships, including a submarine, and struck nearly 2,000 targets in Iran, the commander of the US Central Command said on Tuesday.
“Today, there is not a single Iranian ship underway in the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, or Gulf of Oman,” U.S. Central Command’s Brad Cooper said in a video posted to X.
Canadian prime minister Mark Carney called on Wednesday for the rapid de-escalation of the conflict unleashed by US-Israeli strikes on Iran, urging all parties to respect the international rules of engagement.
Speaking in Sydney, Carney said the war in the Middle East represented “another example of the failure of the international order”.
“Canada calls for a rapid de-escalation of hostilities and is prepared to assist in achieving this goal,” he said.
“Canada reaffirms that international law binds all belligerents,” he said.
The Pentagon has released the names of four of the six service members who have been killed in the Iran war, saying they died in a drone strike in Kuwait.
All four Army Reserve soldiers were killed Sunday when a drone hit a command centre in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait. That was just a day after the US and Israel launched its military campaign against Iran, which has launched retaliatory strikes.
The soldiers, assigned from the 103rd Sustainment Command in Des Moines, lowa, were:
Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida
Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska
Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota
Spc. Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, lowa.
Updated
Global oil and gas prices have spiked as the US-Israeli war on Iran has halted energy exports from the Middle East, with Tehran attacking ships and energy facilities, closing navigation in the Gulf and forcing production stoppages from Qatar to Iraq.
The benchmark Brent crude oil contract settled up $3.66, or up 4.7%, at $81.40 a barrel, its highest settlement since January 2025. European gas prices soared as much as 40% before paring gains, adding to a 40% surge on Monday.
Sugar, fertiliser and soy prices have all risen too. The conflict risks triggering a spike in inflation that could choke off economic recovery in Europe and Asia if the war is prolonged in a region that accounts for just under a third of global oil production and almost a fifth of natural gas.
Updated
Israel says it has launched a ‘broad wave’ of strikes on Iran.
In a post on X, the IDF confirmed the offensive, saying a wave of “extensive strikes” had now begun targeting launch sites, defense systems, and additional Iranian infrastructure.
The US navy could begin escorting oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz if necessary, president Donald Trump said on Tuesday, in one of the administration’s most aggressive steps yet to attempt to contain soaring energy prices sparked by the US-Israel war with Iran.
As the escalating conflict in the Middle East has raised risks to shipping through key waterways, Trump said that he had ordered the US international Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to provide political risk insurance and financial guarantees for maritime trade in the Gulf.
Global crude prices have spiked since Israeli and US forces began striking Iran over the weekend, leading to fighting that has interrupted Middle East oil tanker shipments.
Ship owners and analysts were uncertain that military escorts and insurance backstopping by the DFC would be enough to stop rising prices, however. The DFC, launched in 2019, is a government agency that partners with private investors to support projects in developing countries.
Trump has made lower fuel costs for Americans central to his economic messaging, and the move signals a willingness to use financial and military tools to prevent disruptions to global crude supplies.
“No matter what, the United States will ensure the free flow of energy to the world,” Trump said in a social media post.
Syria’s defense ministry said it reinforced its border with Lebanon which included rocket units and thousands of troops, sources told Reuters, as conflict spreads in the region including between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Syrian defense ministry said in a statement the army has reinforced its deployment along the Syrian borders with Lebanon and Iraq as part of efforts to “protect and control the borders amid the escalating regional conflict”.
The deployed units belong to the border guard and reconnaissance battalions tasked with monitoring border activities and combating smuggling, the ministry added.
Sources said the move was aimed at preventing arms and drugs smuggling as well blocking Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah or other militants from infiltrating Syria.
Donald Trump said his biggest fear in the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran would be regime change that brought in leadership “as bad as the previous person”, writes Deborah Cole in Berlin and Sam Jones in Madrid.
At an Oval Office news conference with the visiting German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, the US president was asked by a reporter about the “worst-case scenario” of the risky operation that led to the assassination on Saturday of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“I don’t know if there’s a worst case,” Trump said, expressing confidence about superior US-Israeli force.
“We have them very much beaten militarily, from the military standpoint. They’re still lobbing some missiles,” he said. “They won’t even be able to do that because we’re hitting all of their carriers. We’re hitting all of their missile stock … and we’re knocking out a lot.”
However Trump admitted that hopes Iran would soon turn a page with a less repressive government could easily be dashed.
“I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don’t want that to happen. It would probably be the worst,” he said.
“You go through this and then in five years, you realise you put somebody in who was no better. So we’d like to see somebody in there that’s going to bring it back for the people.”
Updated
Kuwait said two of its army personnel were killed on Monday as a result of Iran’s attacks against the country.
It said it relayed a letter to the secretary general of the UN and the security council president.
Updated
Qatar’s security agencies said they have arrested two cells of operatives associated with the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the country, the state-run Qatar News Agency reports.
The opposition leader in the senate of Pakistan, Raja Nasir Abbas, demanded in parliament that the government of Pakistan withdraws from the Gaza Peace Board after the US-Israel strikes in Iran, resulting in massive pro-Iran protests across the country.
Protesters stormed the US consulate in Pakistan that resulted in the killing of more than 30 pro-Iran protesters.
Senator Abbas, referring to US president Donald Trump, said in parliament:
The person came to power in the US and he is creating instability across the world through the use of force. Pakistan should leave the Gaza Peace Board.
The opposition alliance, which includes former PM Imran Khan’s party, soon after the Israeli-US attack on Iran criticized the government for joining the board of peace without taking the parliament and public on board. The opposition alliance said the decision to join the Gaza Peace Board was taken in the ‘closed doors’ without the consultation and any debate.
Pakistan has been facing severe backlash on joining Trump’s constituted board of peace. The country’s former ambassador to the UN and the US, Maliha Lodhi, said on X:
Time for Pakistan to leave the Board of Peace which it should not have joined in the first place, set up and headed by a man who has launched attacks against 7 countries and whose admin is complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Last month, Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif attended the inaugural meeting of the Gaza board and hailed Trump as “man of peace”.
Rafael Grossi has said that there is no evidence that Iran is building a nuclear bomb but noted that Tehran’s refusal to grant International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors full access to facilities is “cause for serious concern”.
The IAEA director general wrote on social media:
I have been very clear and consistent in my reports on Iran’s nuclear programme: while there has been no evidence of Iran building a nuclear bomb, its large stockpile of near-weapons grade enriched uranium and refusal to grant my inspectors full access are cause for serious concern.
For these reasons my previous reports indicate that unless and until Iran assists the IAEA in resolving the outstanding safeguards issues, the agency will not be in a position to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful.
Qatar’s defense ministry has said that Iran launched two missiles towards its territory, with one targeting US-run Al Udeid air base with no reported human loss.
Here are some satellite images taken today showing significant damage at Iranian government and military buildings, as well as a hospital.
The Israel Defence Forces said it has destroyed approximately 300 missile launchers in Iran and struck several targets in Lebanon.
The IDF said in a statement: “In the past 24 hours, hundreds of fighter jets and aircraft have been striking hundreds of targets simultaneously in Iran and Lebanon,”, adding that 4,000 munitions have been deployed in Iran since the start of the operation over the weekend.
“As part of the defensive effort, the Israeli Air Force continues to conduct successive waves of strikes against the Iranian regime’s ballistic missile arrays and air defence systems,” the IDF said.
Thousands of mourners filled the streets of Minab, southern Iran, today during the mass funeral of victims of an airstrike on a girls’ elementary school – the worst mass casualty event since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran.
The attack on Shajareh Tayyebeh school during the US-Israeli bombing campaign killed up to 168 people, dozens of them children attending class on Saturday morning.
Three paramedics have been killed and six were wounded in Lebanon’s Tyre district as they were recovering victims after an airstrike, according to the World Health Organisation’s office in Lebanon.
The WHO said health workers “must never be targeted”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has given more details on a drone striking a car park adjacent to the U.S. consulate in Dubai.
He said: “As I came in, I also saw the media reports about Dubai’s consulate. The last update I had with seconds before getting before these cameras was that a drone unfortunately struck a parking lot adjacent to the to the Chancery building, and then set off a fire in that place.”
“All personnel are accounted for. As you’re aware, we began drawing down personnel from our diplomatic facilities in advance of this,” Rubio added.
He said: “But our embassies and our diplomatic facilities are under direct attack from a terroristic regime”.
UAE says it was exposed to over 1,000 attacks from Iran
The UAE’s foreign ministry said it has been exposed to over 1,000 attacks from Iran since it launched retaliatory strikes in the region in response to US-Israeli strikes.
It added it did not allow its territory to be used in any attack on Iran and it has not taken any decision to change its defensive stance towards the attacks, Reuters reports.
Updated
Israel’s UN envoy Danny Danon told reporters the Lebanese government should act now against Hezbollah to prevent further escalation.
Danon added more than a year since the UN security council reaffirmed that Hezbollah must disarm and withdraw from south Lebanon, “it has done the exact opposite.”
He added: “We expect the Lebanese Government to restrain Hezbollah. Take control, act now to prevent further escalation.”
Updated
Fire near US embassy in Dubai
Authorities have put out a limited fire in the vicinity of the US consulate in Dubai due to a drone strike and no injuries were reported, Dubai’s media office said.
Smoke was seen rising from an area near the consulate, two witnesses told Reuters.
Updated
Trump says US Navy to escort tankers through Strait of Hormuz 'if necessary'
Donald Trump has said the US Navy will begin escorting tankers through the strait of Hormuz as soon as possible “if necessary”.
In a post on Truth Social, the US president also said he had ordered the United States Development Finance Corporation to provide insurance and guarantees for the financial security of all maritime trade, including oil tankers, traveling through the Gulf region.
Iran closed the strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical shipping routes, last night, and threatened to attack any ship that tries to pass through, causing oil prices to soar.
Sustained disruption of shipping traffic in the strait, through which roughly 15% of the world’s oil and 20% of its liquefied natural gas passes, poses significant risk to the global economy.
Updated
France sending only aircraft carrier to Mediterranean and further defences to Cyprus, Macron says
in Paris
The French president Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address to the nation that he has ordered the French aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, its air assets and its frigate escort to set sail for the Mediterranean.
He said France has defence agreements with Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE and must show solidarity, but he said any action by France was “strictly defensive”.
France must support its allies in the region and show it was a partner to be trusted, Macron said, adding that French anti-air systems and air radars had been deployed and would continue to be so.
France would also send defence systems to Cyprus and a frigate which would arrive off the coast of Cyprus tonight, the president said.
Updated
British F-35 jets shoot down drones over Jordan, Iraq and Qatar
The UK’s Ministry of Defence said earlier that British F-35 jets had shot down hostile drones over Jordan, Iraq and Qatar.
UK forces are “actively defending partners across the region as part of co-ordinated defensive action”, the MoD said in a statement on its website
It said this was the first time an RAF F-35 has destroyed a target on operations.
RAF F-35B jets shot down drones over Jordan - the first time an RAF F-35 has destroyed a target on operations – supported by Typhoon jets and a Voyager tanker aircraft. A British counter-drone unit neutralised drones in Iraqi airspace heading towards Coalition forces, whilst an RAF Typhoon operating with the joint UK-Qatar 12 Squadron shot down an Iranian one-way attack drone directed at Qatar using an air-to-air missile on Monday.
Updated
Israeli military says it struck a compound in Iran operated to develop capabilities for nuclear weapons
The Israeli military said that it has struck a compound in Iran that it said aimed to develop “necessary capabilities” for nuclear weapons, without providing any evidence for the assertion.
I’ll bring you more on this as we get it.
US military says it has hit more than 1,700 targets since beginning of operation against Iran
The US military has hit more than 1,700 targets in Iran since it began its operations in the country on Saturday, according to an update from the US Central Command.
The targets hit include missile sites, navy ships, submarines and control centres, it said.
Centcom added that the US used aircraft - including multiple fighter jets - as well as missile systems and ships to carry out the attacks.
Centcom is prioritising “locations that pose an imminent threat”, it said.
Israel says it killed commander of Iran's Quds Force in Lebanon
The Israeli military said it has killed the commander of Iran’s Quds Force in Lebanon, Daoud Ali Zadeh, in a strike on Tehran.
The Quds force is the unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in charge of foreign operations.
Iran has not yet commented on the IDF claim.
Updated
The US embassy in Beirut is closing until further notice “due to ongoing regional tensions”.
In a post on X, the embassy said regular and emergency consular appointments have been cancelled. “We will communicate when the Embassy returns to normal operations,” it added.
The day so far
Donald Trump has claimed Iran was going to attack before he did, walking back his secretary of state Marco Rubio’s assertion that Israel triggered the war. “I think they were going to attack first, and I didn’t want that to happen. So, if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand,” Trump told reporters as he met German chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House.
Trump said that the US and Israel are hitting Iran “where it is much more appropriate” adding, “everything has been knocked out”. This comes after the worst mass casualty of the strikes so far, which was on a girls’ elementary school in southern Iran. The devastating attack killed at least 168 people (our visual guide is here). Iran, Trump said, “have no navy, it’s been knocked out, they have no air force, it’s been knocked out, they have no air detection, that’s been knocked out … Just about everything has been knocked out.”
Trump also said he was upset with British prime minister Keir Starmer, who has not joined the US-Israeli attack on Iran but did let US forces use UK bases. “I’m not happy with the UK,” the US president said. “It’s taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land,” Trump said. Referring to Starmer, he added: “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”
It came as Trump said the United States would cut off all trade with Spain after the country refused to let the US military use its bases for missions linked to strikes on Iran. “Spain has been terrible,” Trump told reporters, adding that he had told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to “cut off all dealings” with Spain. “We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain,” he added.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said at least 787 people had been killed since the conflict began. The worst mass casualty event of the US-Israeli military assault so far has been the direct strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab on Saturday, which killed up to 168 people. You get a sense of the devastation through our visual guide, here.
Israel launched further strikes in Tehran and Beirut, saying it was targeting Iranian military sites and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, as its troops intensify their incursion into Lebanon. Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 52 people and displaced at least 30,000 in Lebanon.
Israel also struck the building of Iran’s assembly of experts, which is responsible for electing Iran’s next supreme leader. Iranian news agencies confirmed that attack and said there were no casualties (the building wasn’t in use at the time).
Iran continues to retaliate by striking US targets and allies, prompting the US to close embassies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Lebanon and warn Americans to leave more than a dozen countries in the region (many are scrambling to do so, and we have a story on that here).
Updated
France will deploy anti-missile and anti-drone systems to Cyprus, the Mediterranean island’s government said, following a drone attack on a British base.
After four Greek F-16 fighter jets arrived on the island and two Greek frigates set sail for Cypriot waters, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said Cyprus had secured additional backing from key EU partners.
“France’s assistance has been finalised and concerns a frigate equipped with anti-ballistic and anti-drone systems,” he said.
Fear, defiance, and quiet celebration intermingled in Tehran with everyday chores, locals said, as Iran’s capital continued to be rocked by American and Israeli airstrikes.
Residents said that many had moved to the countryside or were trying to do so, believing that it was safer away from military targets. In Tehran, military and police installations were located in residential areas. There were rumours that security forces were moving into schools and mosques.
Reza, a carpenter who did not want to give his full name, said over the phone that vital public services like hospitals were open, but schools were closed. More security forces and their vehicles were visible on the streets, he said.
“The situation in Tehran is very tense, people are scared, and everyone is trying to stay home,” said Reza. “People are gripped by huge fear about more airstrikes.”
Amid an internet blackout, people were struggling to figure out how much of Iranian media reports about airstrikes at home and the country’s successes in hitting Israel and other nations was true. Some said that they were surprised how strong Iran’s military appeared to be, targeting many nations simultaneously and managing to keep up the barrage.
The streets of Tehran were quiet, but grocery shops and even restaurants were open. When there were airstrikes, people rushed to the roofs of their buildings to see what was hit.
The Guardian spoke to residents among the few in Tehran who had internet access over encrypted services, and reached others on their landlines.
Oman’s foreign minister reaffirmed on Tuesday his country’s call for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict between Iran and the US and Israel and a return to responsible regional diplomacy.
“There are off-ramps available, let’s use them,” Badr Albusaidi said in a post on X.
The Gulf country had been mediating talks between Iran and the United States before the Israeli and US airstrikes began on Saturday.
Israel and the US’s war on Iran is just days old, yet it is already unfolding as an environmental catastrophe that will reverberate across the region for years to come.
As the death toll mounts, so too is the devastation from oil spills from damaged supertankers, heavy metal contamination from bombed military sites and leaks of volatile chemicals from damaged fossil energy infrastructure.
A rapid environmental assessment by researchers from the Conflict and Environment Observatory (Ceobs) identified 120 individual incidents of environmental harm in the first 72 hours following the surprise attack on Iran on Saturday night.
“Three days in and we’re already seeing pollution incidents that are placing people and ecosystems at risk of acute and chronic harm, as well as trends that could lead to substantial environmental harm as the war continues,” Ceobs’s report says.
Researchers from Ceobs searched social and mass media for incidents before undertaking a verification and remote environmental assessment of each.
The most commonly reported targets were military facilities, with the US and Israel attacking missile bases, airfields, weapons depots and military production facilities across Iran, and Iran’s retaliation focusing on US air and naval bases in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE. Israel has also carried out dozens of attacks on alleged weapons depots and launch sites in Lebanon.
Attacks on military facilities risk generating pollution from fuels, oils, heavy metals, energetic compounds and PFAS, with fires burning at such sites likely to release toxic contaminants such as dioxins and furans, Ceobs said.
Attacks on missile sites, which the US had identified as a main objective of its assault on Iran, were particularly concerning, according to the report, which noted that “some liquid propellants — such as unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and inhibited red fuming nitric acid used in SCUD-type systems — are highly toxic and have posed serious management and disposal challenges in other conflict settings”.
As a site of major fossil fuel production, the Persian gulf is already beset with multiple related pollution problems, which the outbreak of war in the region can only exacerbate. Along with extensive damage to Iran’s navy and port facilities, five oil tankers – the MKD Vyom, the Stena Imperative, the Skylight, the Ocean Electra and the Hercules Star – have been hit so far during the conflict, however whether they have begun spilling oil is not yet known.
A drone strike at Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanurah oil refinery is just one of a number of attacks on facilities for producing, refining, storing and exporting oil. The attack triggered a large fire and smoke plume, Ceobs said: “Such plumes can contain particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and toxic organic compounds — including PAHs and potentially dioxins — posing health risks to downwind communities.”
As well as the local effects on the environment of the Persian gulf, the war will have consequences for the global environment through changes in greenhouse gas emissions, Ceobs notes.
“Attacks on oil and gas sites will release methane, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses, but the curtailment of production … does not necessarily reduce emissions.
“Instead energy price signals can lead to short term substitution, as well as more complex downstream energy supply changes over longer timeframes.”
Americans across the Middle East are scrambling to leave the region after the US state department late on Monday urged US citizens in 14 countries there to depart immediately as the conflict with Iran widens.
Mora Namdar, the US assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, issued the advisory on Monday, urging Americans to “DEPART NOW” from more than a dozen countries, citing “serious safety risks”.
The warning applied to US citizens in Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
The BBC estimates that there are between 500,000 and 1 million US nationals living in the Middle East. In her message on Monday, Namdar urged Americans to leave “using available commercial transportation, due to serious safety risks” – and instructed those needing help arranging travel to contact the state department. So far, the US has not organized government evacuation flights.
Since Saturday, US and Israeli forces have carried out large-scale strikes across Iran, including an attack on the compound of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a US-Israeli strike on Saturday. Iran has retaliated, including by launching missiles toward Israeli and US military facilities in the region.
The state department advisory on Monday came as major airlines have canceled flights to and from the region since Saturday, and several airports paused flights and scaled back operations, leaving thousands stranded.
Israel has deployed soldiers on the ground in southern Lebanon and is carrying out heavy airstrikes in the country as conflict in the Middle East continues to spread.
It comes after the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah launched missiles and drones toward Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Nosheen Iqbal speaks to the Beirut-based journalist Will Christou…
Trump says he is 'not happy' with UK and 'cuts off' all trade with Spain over Iran
US president Donald Trump on Tuesday said he was upset with British prime minister Keir Starmer, who has not joined the US-Israeli attack on Iran but did let US forces use UK bases.
“I’m not happy with the UK,” Trump said as he met German chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House.
“It’s taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land,” Trump said. Referring to Starmer, he added: “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”
It came as Trump said the United States would cut off all trade with Spain after the European country refused to let the US military use its bases for missions linked to strikes on Iran.
“Spain has been terrible,” Trump told reporters, adding that he had told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to “cut off all dealings” with Spain.
“We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain,” he added.
Updated
Trump insists Israel did not force US hand and repeats claim Iran was going to attack first
US president Donald Trump has claimed that Iran was going to attack before he did, walking back top diplomat Marco Rubio’s assertion that Israel triggered the war.
“I think they were going to attack first, and I didn’t want that to happen. So, if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand,” Trump told reporters as he met German chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House.
Trump said that the US and Israel are hitting Iran “where it is much more appropriate”. However, this comes after the worst mass casualty of the strikes so far was on a girls’ elementary school in southern Iran. The attack killed at least 168 people.
“We’re hitting them very hard,” Trump said today. “They no longer have air protection. They no longer have any detection facilities at all left. And so they’re going to they’re going to be in for a lot of hurt. These are bad people.”
Updated
The outcome and duration of the war in the Middle East may be decided by a grim calculus based on the size of Iran’s drone and missile stocks v vital air defence munitions held by the US, Israel and Gulf states, analysts and officials say.
Since Saturday, Iran and its proxies have sought to counter the intensive joint US and Israeli offensive with more than 1,000 strikes against targets across almost a dozen countries spread over 1,200 miles. With its antiquated air force unable to compete with those of Israel and the US, Tehran has relied on its arsenal of missiles and drones.
The geographical extent of Iran’s retaliatory attacks have made the conflict the widest in the Middle East since the second world war. Israeli and US aircraft and missiles have struck hundreds of sites across Iran, without losing a plane to hostile fire.
The US and Israel are seeking to destroy as much of Iran’s missile stockpile and infrastructure as possibly, targeting launchers, stores and personnel.
Stacie Pettyjohn, the director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, said the conflict had become “a bit of a salvo competition”, a military strategic concept describing an exchange of simultaneous volleys of large numbers of precision-guided weapons between opposing forces.
“The question is who has the deeper magazines of key weapons, and the big unknown is how deep Iran inventories are,” Pettyjohn said.
Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s death is “historically significant” but will not “automatically” lead to the fall of the Iranian system, the widow of the country’s last shah told AFP in an interview Tuesday.
“The passing of a man – however central he may be to the architecture of power – does not automatically mean the end of a system,” said Farah Pahlavi, three days after US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic republic killed Khamenei.
“What will be decisive,” said the 87-year-old, was “the ability of the Iranian people to unite around a peaceful, orderly and sovereign transition to a state governed by the rule of law”, which she added her son Reza Pahlavi “is in the process of preparing”.
The widow, who has lived in exile in Paris since being driven out of Iran with her husband in the 1979 revolution, urged the international community to respect the right of people in Iran to choose their own path forward.
“What I want is for the international community to clearly support the fundamental rights of Iranians: the right to choose their leaders, to express themselves freely, to live in dignity and prosperity,” she said.
“The support must go to the people, not to geopolitical calculations.”
Pahlavi also called on Iranian authorities “to show restraint and avoid any bloodshed”.
Israel struck a headquarters belonging to the Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya, an ally of Hamas and Hezbollah, in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on Tuesday, state media reported.
“The Israeli enemy carried out an air raid a short while ago, targeting a headquarters of the Jamaa Islamiya” in the coastal city, state media said.
The group had previously been the target of Israeli strikes in Lebanon after claiming responsibility for rocket launches towards Israel during the war between Israel and Hezbollah that began in October 2023.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday offered US allies in the Middle East a swap of some of their air defence missiles in exchange for Kyiv’s vaunted drone interceptors, to better protect them from Iranian drone attacks.
The Israeli and US strikes on Iran have triggered retaliatory Iranian strikes – including with drones – across the region.
Russia has been using Iranian-designed Shahed drones throughout its four-year invasion of Ukraine, and Kyiv has developed a range of cheap and effective drone interceptors – aerial craft designed to hit incoming attack drones mid-air – that it says are world-leading, AFP reported.
At the same time, Ukraine is struggling with a shortage of PAC-3 air defence missiles – expensive ammunition fired at incoming Russian missiles to defend Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure.
“The number one issue is how to protect their skies. We ourselves live with this question,” Zelenskyy said.
“Let’s speak about weapons that we’re short of: PAC-3 missiles – if they give them to us, we will give them interceptors,” he added.
With 30 people inside the neighbourhood bomb shelter on Sunday afternoon, and sirens wailing outside, Oren Katz went to close the reinforced door.
It was an act of generosity that was typical of the father of four, and it would cost him his life. As he reached the entrance, the shelter took a direct hit from an Iranian missile.
“Even when you were in trouble, you would say give, and that giving cost you your life,” his wife, Samadi, said in a tribute at his funeral. “You went upstairs to close the shelter and it took a heavy toll. I can’t digest it,” the ynet news site quoted her saying.
Katz was one of nine victims, four of them teenage children, killed in the deadliest attack Israel has sustained since it joined the US in attacking Iran on Saturday.
The Biton family lost three children, 13-year-old Sarah, 15-year-old Avigail and their brother Yaakov, 16, who are survived by their parents and one sibling. The other boy killed was 16-year-old Gabriel Baruch Revah, Israeli media reported.
The force of the explosion entirely destroyed a synagogue that had stood over the shelter and left the thick, protective roof caved in. Astonishingly much of the structure withstood the force of the blast, despite its age and the intensity of the strike, said an officer who led the search and rescue mission.
“Even with the very severe impact that was here, and the price that was paid in this attack, the vast majority of people that were in the bomb shelter came out of it alive,” Lt Col Oded Revivi said at the site.
“In the bomb shelter there were over 30 people, two are dead, one is injured and 28 people came out alive,” said Revivi, adding that seven people were killed outside the shelter.
One of Iran’s two airports, Mehrabad, which mainly handles domestic flights, was targeted on Tuesday by strikes.
The Mehr news agency published photos showing a cloud of grey smoke rising into the sky behind what appeared to be a runway.
“The American-Zionist terrorists attacked the area around the Mehrabad airport” in the capital’s west, it said.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said Turkey is making “intense” diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in the Middle East.
“Attacks on Iran, and missile and kamikaze drone attacks [by Iran] on neighbouring countries in the Gulf have fuelled instability,” he said in a televised address.
“Through peace-oriented diplomacy, we are making intense efforts to resolve issues at the negotiating table,” he added.
Earlier, foreign minister Hakan Fidan met Washington’s Syria envoy Tom Barrack, ministry sources said.
He also spoke with his UK counterpart Yvette Cooper to discuss “the current security environment in the region”, evaluating “in detail” the “diplomatic efforts that could be undertaken to end the hostilities and establish stability”.
The son of Iran’s last shah Reza Pahlavi, who has positioned himself as an alternative if the Islamic republic falls, called on Tuesday for national unity from Iranian ethnic minorities as war engulfed the Middle East.
Iran’s population of more than 85 million is ethnically diverse, with large Azeri, Lur, Kurdish, Arab, Baloch and Turkmen minorities, AFP reports.
The Islamic republic has long been accused of discriminating against ethnic minorities, with many groups supporting successive waves of anti-government protests in the country and some – particularly the Kurds and Balochis – waging insurgencies seeking self-determination.
Pahlavi in an X post looked to assure ethnic minorities they would not be discriminated against if he were leading the country, and appeared to urge them not to use the current conflict to press for separation.
“We stand at the threshold of this regime’s fall. Yet we must remain vigilant and prepared, and deny opportunistic forces – those who have long cast covetous eyes on Iran’s soil – the chance to exploit this moment,” he said.
“You are an inseparable part of Iran’s historical and cultural fabric... I am confident that you will remain steadfast in this covenant,” he added.
“I firmly believe that through national unity and shared resolve, a bright future awaits you and every Iranian.”
Hezbollah said it targeted an Israeli tank on the edge of a Lebanese border village on Tuesday, hours after Israel’s defence minister ordered his troops to take control of more strategic positions inside Lebanon.
In a statement, the pro-Iran armed group said: “In response to the criminal Israeli aggression... and after monitoring movements by the Israeli enemy army in Tel Nahas on the outskirts of Kfar Kila, our fighters targeted a Merkava tank with appropriate weapons and scored a direct hit.”
Earlier on Tuesday, a Lebanese army source told AFP Israel was undertaking a ground incursion “from Kfar Kila and the Khiam plains” along the Lebanon-Israel border.
IDF claims to have struck building housing Iran's Assembly of Experts - report
Israel’s military struck the building housing Iran’s Assembly of Experts in the city of Qom while they were meeting, according to an Israeli media report.
Kan News, an Israeli news network, said the building was hit in an attempt to disrupt the 88 members from choosing a new supreme leader.
“We wanted to prevent them from picking a new supreme leader,” an Israeli official said.
Iranian news agencies reported that the building was “flattened” by the strike but said it was not in use at the time.
Israel’s military said Tuesday its air force had struck industrial sites “throughout Iran” that were used to produce weapons including ballistic missiles, on the fourth day of a joint US-Israel attack on the Islamic republic.
“During strikes conducted throughout Iran, the IDF (military) targeted industrial sites used by the Iranian regime to produce weapons, particularly ballistic missiles,” the military said in a statement.
While most flights remain grounded in the Middle East because of the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran, some travellers were able to leave and return to their homes after several days in limbo.
Here are some images of the region that are coming out over the wires:
IDF announces more strikes on Tehran
The Israeli Defense Forces announced on Tuesday afternoon that it has begun a large-scale wave of strikes on Tehran.
Earlier Tuesday, the IDF had announced that it was conducting simultaneous strikes on Beirut as well as Tehran.
Updated
Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency services said they were treating seven people with injuries following the latest salvo of missiles fired from Iran.
“At three scenes in central Israel, MDA paramedics and EMTs are providing medical treatment to 7 injured people, including: a woman around 40 years old in moderate condition with blast injuries, and 6 additional casualties in mild condition suffering from glass shrapnel and blast-related injuries,” an MDA statement said.
Israeli police said officers were operating at several sites in the central and Tel Aviv districts where shrapnel had fallen.
Updated
Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva has cast doubt on the prospect of negotiations with the United States on Tuesday, three days after the US and Israel launched join strikes on the country.
“For the time being we are very doubtful about the usefulness of negotiation,” Ali Bahreini, ambassador of the Iranian mission to the UN in Geneva, told reporters.
Tens of thousands of people left stranded in the Middle East as conflict complicates routes home
Tens of thousands of people are stranded across the Middle East and awaiting evacuation as the Iran war spreads throughout the region.
Major airlines have cancelled flights to and from the region and airspace across the Gulf is closed. Some of those who are stuck have been forced to seek shelter amid airstrikes , while others are stuck on cruise ships that currently cannot sail through the Strait of Hormuz, AP reports.
The US State Department urged all US citizens to leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries over the safety risk with the ongoing escalations that have dragged the region into significant chaos.
In Israel, the US ambassador told Americans there that the best way to leave is through Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
In Italy, the government has assisted with flights to Milan and Rome in the wake of mounting criticism against defence minister Guido Crosetto. The minister sparked a political controversy at home after being stuck in Dubai with his family during the initial phase of the US-Israeli attack on Iran.
Meanwhile, an estimated 30,000 German tourists remained on cruise ships, in hotels or at closed airports in the Middle East, and the first plane from Dubai to Frankfurt, Germany, was expected to land Tuesday afternoon.
France is also trying to organise the return of thousands of French people, the country’s foreign affairs minister said Tuesday. An estimated 200,000 French people live in the region affected by the conflict, and authorities believe roughly 25,000 French citizens are currently visiting the area.
The evacuation of Spaniards is already under way by land and air, and the country expects a first group of 175 citizens to land in Madrid from Abu Dhabi on Tuesday afternoon, Spanish foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares told reporters.
South Korea confirmed it had evacuated 23 nationals from Iran, while the UK’s foreign secretary Yvette Cooper said 130,000 British nationals have registered their presence in the Middle East.
A British government charter flight is to take off from Muscat, the capital of Oman, “in the coming days” she also told the Commons.
UK considering sending warship to Cyprus to defend RAF airbase
John Healey, the British defence secretary, is considering sending Royal Navy destroyer HMS Duncan to Cyprus to help defend the Akrotiri RAF airbase from any future drone attacks.
Though a final decision has not been made, multiple sources said a deployment of the warship, currently in Portsmouth, was under discussion as a way to better protect the base in Cyprus.
HMS Duncan is specialised in counter drone operations and last month was engaged on a test exercise off the coast of Wales facing swarms of drones, before hosting a family day on Friday.
No major Navy warships are currently in or have been sent to the Middle East, even though the conflict is now in its fourth day, while concerns have been raised about the ease of which Akrotiri’s air defences were breached.
One drone, thought by Cypriot authorities to have been flown from Hezbollah controlled territory in Lebanon, crashed on to the runway at around midnight yesterday and two other drones were intercepted thereafter.
It would take several days for the HMS Duncan to reach Cyprus from Portsmouth as it travels at about 30 knots (34.5mph).
This is a cross-post from our live coverage on UK politics. For more, click here.
Interim summary
Thank you for following along with our live coverage so far today.
The fighting continued in Lebanon, with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, approving a military ground incursion into the southern part of the country and the Israeli military issuing new evacuation orders for dozens of locations in Lebanon. On Tuesday morning, the Israeli air force said it was attacking Tehran and Beirut simultaneously with “extensive strikes” against the Iranian regime and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group in Lebanon that said it launched drones at northern Israel. Israeli airstrikes have killed 52 people and displaced at least 30,000 in Lebanon.
Israeli and US warplanes launched a fresh wave of strikes across Iran, where the Iranian Red Crescent Society said at least 787 people had been killed since the conflict began.
The International Atomic Energy Agency on Tuesday confirmed that the entrance buildings of Iran’s Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant sustained some damage in the recent strikes.
Casualties and destruction were reported across at least nine countries, with the United Arab Emirates recording a total of 186 missiles and 812 drones sent toward the country since the start of the conflict and two ports in Oman targeted in drone strikes today.
The US embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was hit by a drone strike, causing a fire to break out. The strike came as the state department urged that all US citizens leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries due to risks related to ongoing escalations that have pushed the region into chaos. The 14 countries included in the warning were Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
Updated
UAE air defences tallied 186 missiles, 812 drones launched toward country since start of conflict
The United Arab Emirates and its air defences have dealt with 186 missiles launched toward the country since the start of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, the UAE Ministry of Defence said Tuesday.
Brigadier General Abdul Nasser Mohammed Al-Humaidi, a defence spokesperson, said only one missile fell on the country’s territories – the UAE’s air defences were able to intercept 172 missiles while 13 fell into the sea.
Air defences also detected 812 Iranian drones flown at the UAE, 57 of which fell within the country’s territory.
In addition to the 755 remaining drones that air defences were able to intercept, the UAE also detected and destroyed eight cruise missiles.
In total, three people were killed in the UAE since the start of the conflict, the spokesman said. There have been 68 cases of minor injuries as well as some minor to moderate damage to civilian facitilies.
Drone crashes near Salalah port in Oman
Two drones were shot down on Tuesday above the Dhofar governorate in southern Oman with a third falling near the vicinity of Salalah port, according to state-run media Oman News Agency.
There were no casualties or damages.
Amid soaring energy prices, QatarEnergy to halt production of some downstream products
QatarEnergy, the state-owned energy company, announced Tuesday that it was going to halt production on some downstream products including urea, polymers, methanol and aluminum.
The company previously announced that it had halted production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) after attacks on facilities in Ras Laffan and Mesaieed. QatarEnergy is one of the biggest producers of LNG in the world.
QatarEnergy to stop downstream production
— QatarEnergy (@qatarenergy) March 3, 2026
Further to the decision by QatarEnergy to stop production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and associated products, QatarEnergy is stopping the production of some downstream products in the State of Qatar, including urea, polymers,…
Gas and oil prices have risen worldwide amid the turmoil in the Middle East, with a halt on shipping in the strait of Hormuz and attacks on refineries throughout the region threatening supplies.
Iran’s women’s team decline to sing national anthem before Asian Cup tie
Iran’s women’s football team declined to sing their national anthem ahead of their opening match of the Asian Cup in Australia on Monday, their first fixture since the war in the Middle East began.
Every member of the team stood silently, facing straight ahead, during the anthem prior to kick-off in their Group A match against South Korea, who went on to win 3-0 at the Gold Coast Stadium in Queensland. Iran’s head coach, Marziyeh Jafari, and her players declined to comment on either the war or the death of their long-serving leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, when asked by the media.
At least 30,000 displaced in Lebanon, UN says
With the conflict in the Middle East spreading to Lebanon – the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah launched missiles and drones toward Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader and the Israeli military responded with heavy airstrikes and a ground incursion – at least 30,000 people have been displaced, according to the United Nations.
AFP reports that Babar Baloch, spokesman for the UN refugee agency, said that “conservartive estimates” suggest that nearly 30,000 people were hosted and registered at shelters, with many more forced to sleep in their cars on the side of roads.
On Tuesday, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said that he and Benjamin Netanyahu approved for the IDF to advance and seize additional areas in Lebanon in order to prevent any more rockets launched at Israeli border settlements.
IAEA confirms damage to Iran's Natanz nuclear site
The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that the entrance buildings of Iran’s Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant sustained some damage in the recent strikes.
However, there was no additional impact detected at the nuclear facility itself, nor were any radiological consequences expected, said the IAEA, which made its assessment based on the latest available satellite imagery.
The underground nuclear facility had been “severely damaged” in the June strikes, the IAEA said.
Based on the latest available satellite imagery, IAEA can now confirm some recent damage to entrance buildings of Iran’s underground Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP). No radiological consequence expected and no additional impact detected at FEP itself, which was severely… pic.twitter.com/7CS7BRZo1s
— IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency ⚛️ (@iaeaorg) March 3, 2026
Iranian Red Crescent updates death toll to 787
The Iranian Red Crescent has updated the total death toll in the US-Israeli war on Iran to 787, a more than 40% increase from the humanitarian relief organisation’s earlier numbers.
However, in its latest update, the Norway-based human rights group Hengaw said the death toll on day three had reached at least 1,500, including 200 civilians and 1,300 members of the Iranian forces.
There have been at 1,039 recordeed attacks on 504 locations, according to the Iranian Red Crescent.
Albanese working with UAE over Australians stranded because of flight disruptions
Anthony Albanese has discussed the situation facing stranded Australians in the Middle East with, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates.
About 24,000 Australians are in the UAE, many stranded due to global flights disruptions caused by bombings by the Iranian regime, in retaliation to weekend strikes by the US and Israel.
The two leaders were able to exchange views on the current situation in the Middle East, and Albanese thanked the president for support for Australians stranded by the conflict.
The pair also discussed the importance of the resumption of commercial flights as soon as possible.
Albanese also spoke with his New Zealand counterpart Christopher Luxon on Tuesday.
They exchanged views on the the Middle East and discussed the consular challenges brought about by the conflict.
State media: Oman port targeted in suspected drone strike
The Port of Duqm in Oman was targeted by several drones, one of which struck a fuel tank, according to the country’s state news agency.
There were no casualities.
Israel accuses Spanish prime minister of being on wrong side of history
Israel has hit back at the Spanish government’s refusal to give the US permission to use jointly operated military bases on its territory to attack Iran, accusing the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, of being on the wrong side of history.
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.
In a post on X on Monday evening, Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, accused Sánchez - a staunch critic of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza - of pandering to terrorists and oppressive regimes.
“First, Hamas thanked Sánchez,” wrote Sa’ar. “Then the Houthis thanked Sánchez. Now Iran thanks him. Is that being on the “right side” of history?”.
Sa’ar also retweeted criticism of Sánchez from the US Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who wrote: “The current government in Spain is becoming the gold standard of pathetically weak European leadership that has lost its moral way, apparently reluctant to condemn the terrorist regime in Iran and have nothing but criticism for the United States.”
On Saturday, Sánchez said Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s offensive was making the world less stable and called for a lasting political solution to the conflict.
He returned to the theme in a speech in Barcelona on Sunday. “Today, more than ever, it’s vital to remember that you can be against a hateful regime – as Spanish society is as a whole when it comes to the Iranian regime – and, at the same time, against an unjustified and dangerous military intervention that is outside international law,” he said.
Updated
Trump criticises Starmer, laments US-UK relationship in interview with The Sun
Donald Trump said the relationship between the US and UK is “not like it used to be” and that Keir Starmer “has not been helpful” in the US and Israeli war on Iran.
In his second interview with a British newspaper in two days, Trump told The Sun: “It’s very sad to see that the relationship is obviously not what it was”.
“I never thought I’d see that. I never thought I’d see that from the UK.”
In an address to the Commons on Monday, Starmer said the UK will not join the US and Israel in offensive strikes but will focus on “defensive actions” – a drone hit the RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus on Sunday and two more drones were shot down heading in that direction on Monday. On Sunday night, Starmer announced that the UK would allow the US to use British bases in its operations in Iran.
Trump told The Sun that the prime minister “has got his own difficulties” and that the UK was not “such a recognisable country”, specifically calling out London and its mayor Sadiq Khan. “London is a very different place, with a terrible Mayor. You have a terrible Mayor there, some terrible people,” Trump said.
IDF positions soldiers in southern Lebanon
The Israeli military has deployed additional soldiers to southern Lebanon as part of the Israeli Defense Forces’ efforts to provide additional security for the residents of northern Israel, the IDF said on Telegram.
According to Reuters, military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told an online briefing of reporters that troopers are “only at the borderline area in a defensive manner to prevent attacks against civilians and very strategic important points”.
The AFP reports that Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said Tuesday he has instructed the military to take control of more positions in Lebanon following an attack from Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have authorized the Israel Defense Forces to advance and take control of additional strategic positions in Lebanon in order to prevent attacks on Israeli border communities,” Katz said in a statement.
Updated
Israel’s Iran war brings new Gaza siege that threatens hunger crisis
The Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison and Seham Tentash report that with the war in Iran, Israel has closed all border crossings into Gaza indefinitely, imposing a siege that has already pushed up food prices and threatens to plunge 2 million people into a new hunger crisis.
After more than two years of war, and with Israeli forces in control of about 60% of the territory, almost all of Gaza’s food must be brought in.
Humanitarian groups feeding much of the population say the supplies they had on Saturday, when the war began, will only last a few more days.
“If [the borders] stay closed, World Central Kitchen will run out of food this week,” said the organisation’s founder and chief, José Andrés, in a post on social media.
“We are cooking 1m hot meals every day. We need food deliveries every single day.”
Read more here:
Interim summary
In case you’re just joining us, here’s a snapshot of the key developments as the US-Israel war on Iran dramatically expands across the Middle East.
Israeli and US warplanes launched a fresh wave of strikes across Iran, where the Iranian Red Crescent Society said more than 500 people had been killed since the conflict began.
The Israeli air force said on Tuesday morning it was attacking Tehran and Beirut simultaneously with “extensive strikes” against the Iranian regime and Hezbollah.
The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for dozens of locations in Lebanon earlier on Tuesday.
Hezbollah said it had launched drones at northern Israel.
Iranian attacks were reported on oil infrastructure and other targets across a 2,000km swathe of the region.
Casualties and destruction were reported across at least nine countries.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed it attacked a US air base in Bahrain, “destroying the base’s main command headquarters”, without providing evidence.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the US and Israel’s war against Iran may take “some time” but not years.
US president Donald Trump repeated his calls for Iranians to rise up and overthrow their leaders, and said the air campaign could last weeks.
The US embassy in the Saudi capital of Riyadh was hit by a drone strike, causing a fire to break out.
The state department urged that all US citizens leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries due to risks related to ongoing escalations.
There was confusion over the status of navigation in the strait of Hormuz after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards threatened to “burn any ship” seeking to navigate the waterway – a vital route for oil and gas – while US Central Command reportedly later said the strait was not closed.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio claimed the US attacked Iran after learning that ally Israel was going to strike, which would have meant retaliation against US forces. He also said the US military’s “hardest hits” on Iran were yet to come.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images coming in from Beirut and Tehran as the Israeli air force said it was attacking the Lebanese and Iranian capitals simultaneously with a wave of extensive strikes.
US orders 'non-emergency’ staff to leave Qatar and Kuwait
The US state department has reportedly ordered the departure of non-emergency government personnel and family members from Qatar and Kuwait.
The move came after the department said earlier on Tuesday it had ordered non-emergency personnel and their families to leave Bahrain and Jordan.
It also announced it had ordered staff in Iraq to leave a day earlier, amid Iran’s retaliation over US-Israeli strikes.
The department said in a post on X before the latest order that it had updated travel advisories for Bahrain and Jordan “to reflect the ordered departure of non-emergency US government personnel and family members of government personnel”.
In an updated travel advisory on Iraq, the department said it had on Monday “ordered non-emergency US government employees to leave Iraq due to security concerns”.
The use of AI tools to enable attacks on Iran heralds a new era of bombing quicker than “the speed of thought”, experts have said, amid fears human decision-makers could be sidelined.
Robert Booth and Dan Milmo report that Anthropic’s AI model was reportedly used by the US military in the barrage of strikes as the technology “shortens the kill chain” – meaning the process of target identification through to legal approval and strike launch.
The US and Israel, which previously used AI to identify targets in Gaza, launched almost 900 strikes on Iranian targets in the first 12 hours alone, during which Israeli missiles killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Academics studying the field say AI is collapsing the planning time required for complex strikes – a phenomenon known as “decision compression”, which some fear could result in human military and legal experts merely rubber-stamping automated strike plans.
See the full story here:
US secretary of state Marco Rubio has claimed the US attacked Iran after learning that Israel was going to strike, which would have meant retaliation against US forces.
“We knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” he told reporters
The justification for the attack differs from justifications given by Donald Trump and defence secretary Pete Hegseth, as our latest “what we know” explainer on the war says.
Rubio also said the “hardest hits” on Iran from the US military were yet to come.
Trump signalled the US strikes on Iran could go much longer than the four to five weeks he originally predicted, and has sought to justify a broad, open-ended conflict.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said the war against Iran may take “some time” but it would not take years, telling Fox News: “It’s not an endless war.”
For more on those points and others as the US-Israel war on Iran dramatically expands across the Middle East, see here:
Updated
Further to our earlier post, the Israeli air force is saying on X:
The Air Force is now attacking Tehran and Beirut simultaneously
The Air Force has now begun a wave of extensive strikes against the Iranian terror regime and the Hezbollah terror organization.
US orders 'non-emergency’ staff to leave Bahrain, Jordan and Iraq
The US state department said on Tuesday it had ordered non-emergency personnel and their families to leave Bahrain and Jordan, as well as announcing it had ordered staff in Iraq to leave a day earlier, as Iran retaliates to US-Israeli strikes.
The department said in a post on X that it had updated travel advisories for Bahrain and Jordan “to reflect the ordered departure of non-emergency US government personnel and family members of government personnel”.
In an updated Iraq travel advisory, the department said it had on Monday “ordered non-emergency US government employees to leave Iraq due to security concerns”, Agence France-Presse reports.
Updated
The US embassy in the Saudi capital of Riyadh has reportedly confirmed it was struck by drones and said it was closing temporarily.
Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry earlier confirmed on social media that the embassy was hit by two drones, according to initial estimates, and that it 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, reports said. There were no reported injuries.
Black smoke was seen rising over Riyadh’s diplomatic quarter, which houses foreign missions.
Updated
The Israeli military has just been quoting as saying it it currently attacking Tehran and Beirut simultaneously.
More on this shortly.
Further to the last post, 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, 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 amid the US-Israel war on Iran.
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.
You can read our full story here:
Updated
Indian airlines said on Tuesday they were resuming limited commercial services to the Middle East in a bid to collect thousands of passengers stranded by war.
IndiGo said it would operate four return flights to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia as part of efforts to “progressively normalise” operations between the countries. Air India Express said it would resume flights to and from the Omani capital, Muscat, from Tuesday.
But services to and from Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates remain suspended, the airlines said in a statement, cited by Agence France-Presse.
Budget carrier Akasa Air said it would operate select flights to Jeddah.
Iran claims attack on US air base in Bahrain
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have targeted a US air base in Bahrain, the Islamic republic’s elite force said in a statement carried on Tuesday by the official Irna news agency.
“The IRGC announced that ... its naval forces carried out a large-scale drone and missile attack at dawn on the US air base in the Sheikh Isa area of Bahrain,” Irna posted on Telegram, using the acronym for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Agence France-Press reports the force as saying in its statement that 20 drones and three missiles were launched, “destroying the base’s main command headquarters”, without providing evidence.
Updated
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the US-Israel war on Iran and the widening Middle East crisis.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the US and Israel’s war against Iran may take “some time” but it will not take years.
The US and Israeli air war against Iran began with attacks across the country on Saturday, killing supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and prompting Iranian retaliation against Arab nations hosting US bases across the Middle East.
President Donald Trump initially projected the war to last four to five weeks, but added it could go on longer, and has since sought to justify a broad, open-ended war on Iran.
Netanyahu rejected the idea of the conflict lasting years, like previous wars in the region. “I said it could be quick and decisive. It may take some time, but it’s not going to take years. It’s not an endless war,” Netanyahu said on Fox News’ Hannity program.
On Tuesday morning, the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for dozens of locations in Lebanon, including a warning for residents in two southern Beirut neighbourhoods to stay away from several buildings ahead of imminent military action.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it had launched drones at northern Israel.
Here are the other big developments:
The US embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was hit by a drone strike, causing a fire to break out. 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.
The state department has urged that all US citizens leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries due to risks related to ongoing escalations that have pushed the region into chaos. The 14 countries included in the warning were Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
There was confusion over the status of navigation in the strait of Hormuz after a general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards threatened to “burn any ship” seeking to navigate the waterway, a vital route for oil and gas shipments. However, US Central Command said the strait was not closed, according to Fox News.
The United States attacked Iran after learning that ally Israel was going to strike, which would have meant retaliation against US forces, secretary of state Marco Rubio said. “We knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio told reporters. The justification for the attack differs from justifications given by Donald Trump and defence secretary Pete Hegseth.
Rubio also said the “hardest hits” are yet to come from the US military. “The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now,” he told reporters.
Trump signalled that US strikes on Iran could go much longer than originally predicted. The president laid out what he said were four key objectives for hitting Iran: “First, we’re destroying Iran’s missile capabilities ... Second, we’re annihilating their navy ... Third, we’re ensuring that the world’s No 1 sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon. Finally we are ensuring the Iranian regime can’t continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.”
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US claims to have destroyed Iranian Revolutionary Guards' command facilities
US Central Command has just claimed on social media that US forces have destroyed the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ command facilities as well as Iranian missile and drone launch sites and more.
Centcom said in a post on X including military images:
U.S. forces have destroyed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and military airfields during sustained operations. We will continue to take decisive action against imminent threats posed by the Iranian regime.
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