On day 13 of the US-Israeli war on Iran, American and Israeli strikes continues across Iranian cities and infrastructure, displacing millions, while Tehran retaliates with missile attacks on Israel, Gulf states hosting US militray assest, and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Israel continues strikes on Beirut, threatening to expand operations and seize territory in Lebanon, while Hezbollah fires rockets toward Israel.
Meanwhile, Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, vows revenge and reaffirms that the Strait of Hormuz must remain closed, putting oil markets under strain as Brent crude trading above $100 a barrel.
23:00 The commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Aerospace Force announced that the Israeli gas fields of Leviathan and Karish, located in the Mediterranean, have become targets.
General Majid Mousavi said in a post on X that the two fields, “alongside dozens of other new targets,” are within their scope.
“With every additional mistake by the enemy, other fronts against him will be opened,” he added.
22:59 Iran’s Mehr News Agency is reporting that three Red Crescent staff have been injured in US-Israeli air strikes on the Tehran-Qom Road.
22:28 Donald Trump lashed out at Oman’s Sultan on social media, accusing the Gulf state of showing weakness toward Tehran.
In a post on X, Trump mocked the Sultan for congratulating Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, following his rise to power in Iran.
“Oman’s weak Sultan sends grovelling congratulations to Iran’s new puppet Mojtaba — next day Iran’s drones blow up his oil tanks, total disaster,” Trump wrote, claiming the attack was the consequence of appeasing Tehran. “That’s what happens when you kiss terrorists’ asses instead of being STRONG like ME.”
Oman, which traditionally maintains a neutral foreign policy and often acts as a regional mediator between the United States and Iran, including facilitating indirect talks between the two sides before the war, had recently acknowledged the leadership transition in Tehran and congratulated Mojtaba Khamenei after he assumed power following the killing of his father, former supreme leader Ali Khamenei, by a US-Israeli strike.
Officials in Oman have not publicly responded to Trump’s comments.
22:47 Israel renewed its strikes on Beirut, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that if the Lebanese government did not disarm Hezbollah, Israel would do the job "on the ground."
"You are playing with fire," Benjamin Netanyahu said to Lebanese authorities during a press conference, as Israeli jets carried out three strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, two without prior warning, according to the state-run National News Agency (NNA).
Earlier, the Israeli occupation army had announced a wave of strikes across Beirut, with AFPTV footage showing dark smoke rising into the sky above two districts in the heart of the city.
One of the strikes hit a building in Bashoura, adjacent to Beirut's commercial centre, where many large companies and government institutions are based.
Rescue workers carry the dead body of a person, killed with eight family members in a house that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Erkay village, south Lebanon, AP
Man ride scooter past a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs. AP
22:38 The price of Brent crude surged 9.2 percent to $100.46 a barrel, while its US equivalent, West Texas Intermediate, climbed 9.7 percent to $95.73 a barrel.
Markets were not assuaged by US President Donald Trump's proclamation that stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon was more important to him than controlling oil prices.
"Markets are certainly moving with oil prices and the ongoing concerns about energy disruptions," said Angelo Kourkafas, a senior analyst at Edward Jones.
"There is less belief compared to the last couple of days now, at least from an investor's perspective, that there's going to be a quick off-ramp and a quick resolution to this conflict," he said.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright acknowledged that the US army was currently "not ready" to escort tankers through the critical Strait of Hormuz.
Brent is up around 38 percent from the eve of the war, which began on 28 February when the United States and Israel launched airstrikes against Iran. It is up nearly two-thirds from the start of the year.
As we reported earlier, Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, called for using "the lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz," which the country's Revolutionary Guards vowed to carry out.
21:59 Israel’s air force said it has been targeting Basij militia checkpoints and officers across Tehran, claiming it observed units setting up roadblocks at multiple locations across the capital.
In an army statement, Israel said the strikes are intended to “damage the Iranian regime’s core systems and foundations” and signalled its intent to continue operations.
Iranian state media reported that at least 10 officers were killed in drone strikes across Tehran over the past day, without specifying which units were affected.
The Basij, a paramilitary force affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is often used for internal security and crowd control.
IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency framed the strikes as part of a broader effort to weaken internal security and trigger unrest in Iran while the US-Israeli war continues.
The outlet wrote that the strikes aim to “create conditions for the entry of rioters … and armed riots simultaneously with a foreign invasion,” describing it as part of a US-Israeli plan to undermine authority and destabilize the country through high-intensity violence.
Fars warned that empty streets would make the capital vulnerable to sabotage, riots, or infiltrators during the attacks, urging citizens to stay in public areas: “If the streets are emptied today, the enemy will undoubtedly achieve its goal, namely armed chaos.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier today that the war on Iran was also aimed at enabling Iranians to overthrow the country's clerical rule.
"I have added a third objective, which is to create, for the Iranian people, the conditions to bring down this regime," Netanyahu said in a televised media briefing, adding that the other two goals remained preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons and destroying its ballistic missile capabilities.
21:37 Iran threatened to wreak havoc on the region's oil and gas industry if its own energy infrastructure was attacked during the US and Israel war on the country.
"We will set the region's oil and gas on fire with the slightest attack on Iran's energy infrastructure and ports," said a spokesman for the Iranian military's central operational command, known as Khatam Al-Anbiya.
20:57 Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi sharply condemned Israel's attacks on the country’s historical monuments and criticized the “unacceptable” silence from the United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO.
In a social media post, Araghchi said “multiple UNESCO World Heritage Sites have been struck” amid the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran, and asked why global institutions charged with protecting cultural heritage have not responded more forcefully. “Naturally, a regime that won’t last a century hates nations with ancient pasts,” he wrote, urging UNESCO to speak out.
Video and images from the sites show shattered glass, broken woodwork, and debris scattered inside Golestan Palace, a cultural jewel often compared to France’s Palace of Versailles for its architectural grandeur.
In Isfahan, explosions near government buildings have caused surrounding historic monuments, including palaces and mosque complexes, to suffer collateral damage.
UNESCO has expressed deep concern about the fate of heritage sites across Iran and the broader region, urging all sides to protect cultural property.
Araghchi’s criticism comes amid a stark contrast with past responses to cultural destruction. When the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan in 2001, UNESCO’s leadership condemned the act as "a crime against culture and humanity."
In the Russian invasion of Ukraine, UNESCO and Western leaders publicly decried attacks on cultural heritage sites and urged protection under international law.
The speed and extent of the damage made Iran and Lebanon so concerned that they sent a request this week to UNESCO to add more sites to its enhanced protection list.
One nonprofit group has pointed to US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, saying last week that America’s approach to the war would not include “stupid rules of engagement.”
“That’s an extremely important statement because it’s those rules of engagement that embody international humanitarian law, which is not just the protection of cultural heritage, but the protection of all civilian populations and structures, including your hospitals, your schools, etc.,” said Patty Gerstenblith, president of the US Committee of the Blue Shield, an international organization dedicated to protecting heritage in conflict, disaster, and crisis.
20:32 The world has entered a "new dark age of abuses," with the United States "raining death" on Iran and Venezuela, a UN special rapporteur said.
Ben Saul, the United Nations' special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, said the war in the Middle East would not improve global security.
"We have entered a new dark age of abuses in the name of countering terrorism," he told a press conference in Geneva.
"Recently, it has excused naked aggression and renewed imperialism against Iran and Venezuela, raining death and violating the right to life and making the world less safe."
Saul slammed the UN Security Council for passing a resolution on Wednesday, "which failed to condemn Israeli and US aggression, contrary to international law, and instead condemned the excessive and unlawful response only of Iran."
"Nobody knows how this is going to end, and when we look at the last series of US-led interventions — Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan — these were all disasters," said Saul.
"It's a recipe for further destabilisation, possible insurgency, fragmentation politically within Iran, in the region; destabilisation of neighbours through refugee flows."
He added, "It's very disturbing that at the moment you're seeing states kind of all over the map sympathizing with these attacks, not calling it illegal, or calling it illegal but then saying we support the US anyway."
Saul said a few countries had spoken out against the attacks because they were afraid of US retribution.
"But the more the international community remains silent... the more it emboldens bullies like the United States and Israel."
20:22 Iranian security chief Ali Larijani said that his country would not give up fighting until the US came to regret the "grave miscalculation" of launching its war against Iran.
"Trump says he is looking for a speedy victory. While starting a war is easy, it cannot be won with a few tweets. We will not relent until making you sorry for this grave miscalculation," Larijani said on X.
Larijani’s comment follows remarks by Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, in which he emphasised revenge over the US‑Israeli war that killed roughly 1,300 Iranians and claimed the life of his father, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with several other family members, including his mother and wife.
"The revenge we have in mind is not just because of the martyrdom of the illustrious Leader of the Revolution. Every member of the nation martyred by the enemy is a separate case that demands we seek revenge."
"A limited amount of this revenge has so far taken concrete form, but until it is fully achieved, this case will remain among our priorities," Khamenei said.
Iran’s new supreme leader has a new verified account on X in English, Arabic and Farsi, and went on a tweetstorm about the war against Iran.
"We will seek compensation from the enemy, and if they refuse, we will take as much of their property as we determine, and if that is not possible, we will destroy the same amount of their property," he added.
He singled out a deadly strike on a school in Minab in southern Iran that was carried out by the US and left at least 165 children dead, describing it as a "crime the enemy deliberately committed."
He, however, said to the leaders of regional countries, "We share borders with 15 countries & have always wanted, & still want warm relations with them."
"But for years, the enemy has been establishing military & financial bases in some of these countries to secure its dominance over the region."
19:57 US air strikes killed at least 11 fighters in Iraq near the Iraqi-Syrian border and in the capital Baghdad, senior security and armed faction officials told AFP.
Iraqi authorities denounced the "blatant attacks" on bases that belong to the Hashed al-Shaabi, a former paramilitary group now integrated into the regular army.
Nine fighters were killed and another 10 wounded in strikes that targeted a base housing the Harakat Ansar Allah Al-Awfiya, two security officials said.
"The base was destroyed, and the rescue teams who arrived at the site were also targeted," one of the officials said on condition of anonymity.
The base belongs to the Hashed Al-Shaabi or the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), whose positions have been repeatedly targeted in attacks blamed on the United States and Israel since the start of the war.
The PMF confirmed that nine of its members were killed in the attack.
It accused the US of striking its positions, and said that these sites "had no role in targeting US bases in Iraq or elsewhere."
The PMF added that "all fighters killed were carrying out their official duties, and some were stationed near the borders."
It added that the group was an "essential part of Iraq's security apparatus."
In a separate attack, at least two fighters from a different group were killed in a strike on a base in Baghdad's suburbs, according to officials in the powerful Hezbollah Brigades, allied with Tehran.
The bombing targeted a site shared by police and PMF forces, a government security source told AFP.
Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani denounced the "blatant attacks" on the PMF, whose members were "performing their sacred duty within the missions of our security forces."
"This systematic and repeated aggression, and the targeting of sites and headquarters without distinction, is not merely a military violation. It represents a desperate attempt to create confusion and weaken Iraq's security.
19:54 The UAE Ministry of Defence said its air defences intercepted 10 ballistic missiles and 26 drones launched from Iran. In a post on X, the ministry said that since the start of Iranian aggression, air defences have intercepted 278 ballistic missiles, 15 cruise missiles, and 1,540 drones.
The ministry reported that the attacks killed six people of Emirati, Pakistani, Nepalese, and Bangladeshi nationalities and caused 131 minor to moderate injuries among civilians of various nationalities.
Since the United States and Israel unleashed war on Iran, the war has spread across the region, and casualties have been reported in countries around the Middle East.
Iran's health ministry said the US and Israel killed more than 1,300 people, including around 200 women and 200 children under the age of 12, with more than 10,000 civilians injured.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said on March 11 that at least 1,825 people had been killed, including 1,276 civilians, among them at least 200 children, as well as 197 military personnel and 352 people whose status had not been classified.
Lebanon's information minister, Paul Marcos, said that Israel has killed at least 687 people in Lebanon since March 2, including 98 children and 52 women.
The Lebanese army has said three of its soldiers have been killed.
Israel's first responders and the country's authorities have reported 14 deaths.
The Israeli occupation army has separately announced the deaths of two soldiers in combat in southern Lebanon.
Authorities in Gulf states and the US Central Command (CENTCOM) have reported 24 people killed, 11 of them civilians.
The rest of those killed were military or security personnel, including seven US soldiers, six of them in Kuwait and one in Saudi Arabia.
Armed groups and officials have said at least 37 people have been killed in Iraq, while Jordan's military spokesman Brigadier General Mustafa al-Hiyari said 14 people have been injured in various parts of the country due to falling debris from Iranian missiles and drones.
Syrian state media reported eight people injured by falling debris from exchanges of fire between Iran and Israel.
19:39 Italy is temporarily withdrawing all personnel from a military base in Iraqi Kurdistan, which came under a drone attack, completing a retreat that was already underway, Rome said.
"A retreat was already planned" before Wednesday's attack, which caused no injuries, Defence Minister Guido Crosetto told Italian news programme TG1, in what he said was "only a temporary retreat."
Italy has soldiers in Erbil training the Kurdistan security forces as part of an international force.
Crosetto said 102 personnel had recently returned to Italy from the base, while 141 were present on the base at the time of the drone attack.
19:24 Pro-Iranian hackers are targeting sites in the Middle East and starting to stretch into the United States during the war, raising the risk of American defence contractors, power stations and water plants being swept into a wave of digital chaos that could expand if Tehran's allies join the fray.
Hackers supporting Iran claimed responsibility for a significant cyberattack today against US medical device company Stryker, a Michigan-based medical technology company.
A group known as Handala said the attack was in retaliation for US strikes that killed Iranian schoolchildren.
Since the war began, they have also tried to penetrate cameras in Middle Eastern countries to improve Iran's missile targeting. They have targeted data centres in the region, as well as industrial facilities in Israel, a school in Saudi Arabia and an airport in Kuwait.
19:17 TotalEnergies said it had shut down 15 percent of its total oil and gas production due to the war in the Middle East.
"Production has been shut down or is in the process of shutting down in Qatar, Iraq and UAE offshore, representing approximately 15 percent of our total output," the French oil and gas major said.
It said, however, that higher oil prices were more than offsetting the loss of Middle East production.
19:09 Saudi Arabia intercepted three drones headed towards the Shaybah oil field, as Iran targeted the facility again in its retaliation for the Israel-US war.
The Gulf kingdom's defence ministry said an "unmanned aerial vehicle heading towards the Shaybah field... was intercepted and destroyed."
Earlier, the ministry said two drones heading towards the same field were similarly destroyed, announcing the interception in a separate post on X.
18:45 UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the US-Israeli war, followed by Iran’s retaliatory attacks, has caused “immense suffering” and pushed the region to a breaking point.
“And as always, the most vulnerable are being hurt first and worst,” Guterres said. “De-escalation and dialogue are the only way out.”
He made the comments in the Turkish capital, where he received the country’s peace prize on behalf of the global UN staff.
Smoke rises from a building hit by a targeted Israeli strike in central Beirut, Lebanon. AP
18:34 The Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Amy Pope, said she was “gravely alarmed” by reports that an Israeli strike hit displaced people in Beirut, leaving eight dead and dozens injured.
“Civilians and civilian objects must never be deliberately targeted; their places of shelter, and related infrastructure must never be the target of military hostilities,” Pope said.
The IOM said more than 800,000 people have been forcibly displaced in Lebanon following several blanket displacement orders issued by Israel for Beirut’s southern suburbs, the Bekaa region, and the area south of the Litani River. About 125,000 are currently living in government-run shelters.
18:32 Israel renewed its strikes on Beirut, threatening to expand attacks and seize territory in Lebanon.
The Israeli occupation army widened its force displacement orders for residents in Beirut and in southern Lebanon to include areas below the Zahrani river, around 40 kilometres north of Israel.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that he had ordered troops to "prepare for expanding" attacks in Lebanon, saying that Tel Aviv "will take the territory," if the Lebanese government does not prevent Hezbollah from firing toward Israel.
The Israeli army later announced a wave of strikes across Beirut, with AFPTV footage showing dark smoke rising into the sky above Bashoura, in the heart of the Lebanese capital.
Bashoura is generally a busy part of town, adjacent to Beirut's commercial centre, where many large companies and government institutions are based.
The strike there was the fourth in central Beirut since the beginning of the latest round of fighting on 2 March.
An Israeli strike hours later in Ramlet Al-Bayda, on Beirut's seaside, killed 12 people and wounded 28, according to Lebanon's health ministry.
An AFP correspondent at the scene saw a damaged motorcycle and two damaged cars, with the area, usually bustling with crowds, now sealed off by security forces.
Blood stains were on the pavement, and there was a small hole in the ground.
18:21 Spain's government said it would soon present a plan to contain the Middle East war's impact on electricity and fuel prices in one of the most dynamic developed economies.
Fears have risen for the fallout on household budgets worldwide, especially for the most vulnerable, if the conflict drags on.
Spanish Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo said the government's response "will essentially be in the form of fiscal measures," with the 2022 energy crisis triggered by Russia's war with Ukraine serving as a guide.
"There is a broad consensus regarding the positive effect on price containment and inflation they had. These will be the tools we will work with," he told a news conference following talks with unions and business representatives.
Cuerpo said "specific" aid would be targeted at agriculture and road transport, hit hard by diesel prices that have soared by more than 20 percent in Spain since the start of the war.
18:03 In Egypt, the US dollar rate slipped slightly to around EGP 53 per $1 at the week’s close, fluctuating as escalating regional tensions continue to pressure the currency, according to close-of-business data from the Central Bank of Egypt.
18:01 Israel says it has detected multiple incoming Iranian missiles, adding that its army was working to intercept the barrage. It also said the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah fired rockets across the border.
18:00 The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) said a fire broke out in the main laundry spaces aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN‑78) in the Red Sea.
CENTCOM said the blaze was a “non-combat related incident” and had been contained, adding that there was no damage to the propulsion plant and the carrier remains fully operational. Two sailors were injured.
The Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, is currently deployed for the war against Iran.
The carrier is on track for an 11-month deployment, the longest in US naval history, after crossing the Atlantic twice in the past year. Its mission has also been extended twice, and the ship has reportedly faced ongoing problems with its sewage system.
17:41 Iran is not laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi said, after US President Donald Trump claimed US forces had struck 28 Iranian mine-laying vessels in the waterway.
"Not at all. This is not true," said Takht-Ravanchi in an interview with AFP when asked about reports of Iran laying mines in the strategic strait that sees one-fifth of world oil pass through it.
He said that Iran has allowed ships from some countries to cross the Strait, as the waterway remained effectively closed during the US and Israel war on Iran.
"Some countries have already talked to us about passing the strait, and we have cooperated with them," said Takht-Ravanchi.
"As far as Iran is concerned, we feel that those countries that joined the aggression should not benefit from safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz."
He added that Iran wants to ensure that a war will not be imposed on it again in the future.
"When the war started last June, after 12 days there was so called cessation of hostilities... but after eight or nine months, they regrouped, and they did it again."
Oil tankers and ships line up in the Strait of Hormuz as seen from Khor Fakkan, United Arab Emirates. AP
17:28 The price of Brent crude spiked back to above $100 a barrel, just days after it soared to $120, spiralling global markets and heightening concerns over energy stability, as war grips one of the largest oil and gas-producing and exporting regions in the world.
17:07 In an ongoing debate over Iran's participation in the upcoming FIFA World Cup this summer, US President Donald Trump said that the national team is welcome to take part in the tournament, but that it would not be "appropriate," citing safety concerns.
"The Iranian national (football) team is welcome to the World Cup, but I really don’t believe it is appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Iran's Sports Minister Ahmad Donyamali has already ruled out Iran's participation in the World Cup, co-hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico, over the killing of late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the ongoing US-Israel war on Tehran.
"Considering that (the US) has assassinated our leader, under no circumstances can we participate in the World Cup," Donyamali told state-run TV yesterday.
17:00 In his first statement as Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei said that Iran had successfully thwarted attempts to divide the country and urged neighbouring Arab Gulf countries to shut down US bases on their territory.
He insisted that Iranian forces are focusing only on US military assets in the region.
The new leader also noted that his country's forces must keep the strategic Strait of Hormuz closed. “The leverage of closing the Strait of Hormuz must definitely be used,” he said.
He added that Iran must also act across what he described as the "enemy’s vulnerable arenas."
"I sympathize with the families of the martyrs. I have a similar experience to these noble people," he said.
"In addition to my father, I’ve entrusted my loyal wife, my self-sacrificing sister and her young child, and the husband of my other sister to the caravan of martyrs."
Iran's Revolutionary Guards vowed to keep the strategic Strait of Hormuz closed after Mojtaba Khamenei's call.
"In response to the order of the commander-in-chief, we will deliver the harshest blows to the aggressor enemy while maintaining the strategy of closing the Strait of Hormuz," said Guards Navy commander Alireza Tangsiri in a post on X.
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