Main PointsThe US and Israel kept up their pounding of targets across Iran on WednesdayUS forces say they have struck more than 5,500 targets inside Iran, including over 60 naval shipsIran says more than 1,200 people have been killedIran said the world should prepare for soaring energy prices as its forces hit merchant shipsPassengers travelling on a second Government-chartered flight from the Gulf region arrived safe and sound in Dublin on Wednesday nightKey Reads
Sarah Burns – 15 minutes ago
Thailand’s foreign ministry has demanded an apology from Iran over damage caused to a Thai vessel that was hit by a projectile in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, which led to a fire and forced the crew to abandon ship.
The ministry said it was seeking clarity from Iran’s ambassador on Thursday on the facts surrounding the incident.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement carried by the Tasnim news agency that the ship was “fired upon by Iranian fighters”.
Sarah Burns – 33 minutes ago
More than three million displaced since Iran conflict began, says UN agency
Up to 3.2 million people have been displaced inside Iran since the conflict began on February 28th, the United Nations refugee agency has said.
“This figure is likely to continue rising as hostilities persist, marking a worrying escalation in humanitarian needs,” UNHCR said in a statement, citing preliminary assessments based on the number of uprooted households.
Sisters play near their family’s tent inside the Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium, which is occupied by displaced people, in Beirut, Lebanon, on Wednesday. Photograph: David Guttenfelder/The New York Times
Sarah Burns – 39 minutes ago
Russia calls on Israel and US to end their attacks on Iran
Russia has called on Israel and the United States to end their attacks on Iran and come to the negotiating table.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the humanitarian situation in the region was extremely difficult and the escalation of the conflict was cause for deep concern.
Sarah Burns – 50 minutes ago
Israel to expand operations in Lebanon, defence minister says
The Israeli military has been instructed to expand its operations in Lebanon, defence minister Israel Katz said, after Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel overnight.
Katz warned Lebanese president Joseph Aoun that if the Lebanese government could not prevent Hezbollah from attacking Israel, it would “do it ourselves”, according to a statement released by his office.
Municipality workers assess the damage in the aftermath of overnight Israeli airstrikes in the southern Lebanese coastal city of Tyre on Thursday. Photograph: Kawnat Haju/AFP via Getty Images
Sarah Burns – 55 minutes ago
Australia has told “non-essential” diplomats to leave Israel and the United Arab Emirates, its foreign minister Penny Wong said on Thursday.
Essential officials would remain in both Israel and the UAE to support Australian citizens who need it, Wong said on X.
Beirut’s new reality: Sudden air strikes, shattered homes and a surge in the displaced. Video: Sally Hayden US was responsible formissile strike on elementary school, investigation finds
An ongoing military investigation has determined that the United States is responsible for a deadly Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school, according to US officials and others familiar with the preliminary findings.
The February 28th strike on the Shajarah Tayyebeh primary school building was the result of a targeting mistake by the US military, which was conducting strikes on an adjacent Iranian base of which the school building was formerly a part, the preliminary investigation found.
Officers at US Central Command created the target co-ordinates for the strike using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, people briefed on the investigation said.
Officials emphasised that the findings are preliminary and that there are important unanswered questions about why the outdated information had not been double checked.
Iranian officials have said the death toll was at least 175 people, most of them children.
A government handout photograph showed weapon remnants displayed on a table near the ruins of the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school, where a precision strike killed 175 people, mostly children, on February 28th. Middle East conflict creating largest supply disruption in history of global oil market
The Iran war is causing unprecedented turmoil in oil markets, hitting 7.5 per cent of global supply and an even bigger swath of exports, the International Energy Agency has said.
“The war in the Middle East is creating the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market,” the IEA said in its monthly report on Thursday.
The previous day, its members agreed to release an unprecedented 400 million barrels from emergency reserves in a bid to calm the market.
A plume of smoke rises after a reported Iranian strike on fuel tanks in Muharraq on Thursday. Photograph: Fadhel Madhan/AFP via Getty Images
Sarah Burns – 2 hours ago
US and Israeli officials have said their aim is to end Iran’s ability to project force beyond its borders and destroy its nuclear programme.
Trump and other officials have sent mixed messages about whether regime change was another goal after supreme leader ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in initial strikes and replaced by his son Mojtaba Khamenei, who an Iranian official said was lightly wounded.
US intelligence indicates that Iran’s leadership is still largely intact and is not at risk of collapse any time soon, according to sources familiar with the matter.
ABC News said the Federal Bureau of Investigation had warned of Iranian drones potentially striking the US west coast, although Trump said he was not worried that Iran might launch strikes on US soil.
The US state department also warned that Iran and aligned militias may be planning to target US-owned oil and energy infrastructure in Iraq and warned that militias had in the past targeted hotels frequented by Americans.
The US military told Iranians to stay clear of ports with Iranian navy facilities, drawing a warning from Iran’s military that if the ports were threatened, economic and trade centres in the region would be “legitimate targets”.
US president Donald Trump delivers remarks at Verst Logistics in Hebron on Wednesday. Photograph: Doug Mills/The New York Times
Sarah Burns – 2 hours ago
Hours after an Israeli air strike hit central Beirut without warning, shards of glass were still raining on to the street below, settling on a line of mangled, dust‑coated cars, writes Sally Hayden.
Locals stared upwards at the damage, some still in shock that their neighbourhood had been hit. This area, Aisha Bakkar, is outside of the evacuation zones which now cover huge swathes of greater Beirut.
The attack on Wednesday seemingly targeted one or two apartments in a residential building in a strike which injured four people, said Lebanon’s health ministry. Locals said they did not know who was targeted.
Read her full piece from Beirut here.
The site of an overnight Israeli airstrike in Aisha Bakkar, central Beirut. Photograph: Sally Hayden/The Irish Times
Sarah Burns – 2 hours ago
Iran also targeted fuel tanks at a facility in Bahrain’s Muharraq, the interior ministry said, while drones struck oil storage facilities at Salalah port on Wednesday, Oman’s state news agency reported. Saudi Arabia said it had also intercepted several drones heading towards its Shaybah oilfield on Thursday.
So far there has been no sign that ships can safely sail through the Strait of Hormuz, the now-blockaded channel along the Iranian coast that serves as a conduit for around a fifth of the world’s oil.
On Wednesday, an Iranian military spokesperson said the Strait was “undoubtedly” under Iran’s control and the G7 group of nations – the United States, Canada, Japan, Italy, Britain, Germany and France – agreed to examine the option of providing escort for ships so they can navigate freely in the Gulf.
Trump said US forces had knocked out 58 Iranian naval ships and that Iran was “pretty much at the end of the line.”
He said the US would now “look very strongly” at the Strait of Hormuz, adding: “The straits are in great shape. We’ve knocked out all of their boats. They have some missiles, but not very many.” Trump said earlier ships “should” transit through the strait but sources said Iran had deployed about a dozen mines in the channel, further complicating the blockade.
Iranian weapons also struck elsewhere in the Gulf, with Kuwait reporting a drone hit a building in the south injuring two, while Dubai authorities responded to a drone that fell on a building near the vicinity of Dubai Creek Harbour.
Another container vessel reported being struck by an unknown projectile near the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, a maritime security authority said.
Sarah Burns – 3 hours ago
‘Get ready for oil to be $200 a barrel’, says Iran
At a campaign-style rally in Kentucky ahead of November midterm elections in which his Republican party is trailing badly, US president Donald Trump said the United States had won the war but didn’t want to have to go back every two years.
“We don’t want to leave early do we?” he said on Wednesday. “We got to finish the job.”
Iran has made clear it intends to impose a prolonged economic shock, with the spokesperson for Iran’s military command saying in remarks directed at the US on Wednesday: “Get ready for oil to be $200 a barrel, because the oil price depends on regional security, which you have destabilised.”
Oil prices, which shot up earlier in the week to nearly $120 a barrel before retreating, jumped almost 10 per cent back above $100 a barrel in Asian trade on Thursday amid renewed fears about supply disruption. Wall Street’s main share indexes fell and stocks in Asia followed suit.
Iranian explosive-laden boats appear to have attacked two fuel tankers in Iraqi waters setting them ablaze and killing one crew member after projectiles struck three merchant vessels in Gulf waters, port officials, maritime security and risk firms said.
“This appears to mark a direct and forceful Iranian response to the IEA’s overnight announcement of a massive strategic reserve release aimed at cooling runaway prices,” said Tony Sycamore, analyst at IG.
The International Energy Agency, made up of major oil consuming nations, on Wednesday recommended releasing 400 million barrels from global strategic reserves to dampen one of the worst oil shocks since the 1970s, the biggest such intervention in history.
Trump said the IEA decision “will substantially reduce oil prices as we end this threat to America and the world.”
US energy secretary Chris Wright said Trump had authorised the release of 172 million barrels from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve from next week.
A plume of smoke rises after a reported Iranian strike on fuel tanks in Muharraq on Wednesday. Photograph: Fadhel Madhan/AFP via Getty Images
Sarah Burns – 3 hours ago
Two tankers ablaze in Iraqi waters
Two tankers were ablaze in Iraqi waters on Thursday after what appeared to be Iranian strikes, the latest wave of attacks on oil and transport facilities across the Middle East, as Iran warned the world should be ready for oil to hit $200 a barrel.
Unleashed with joint US and Israeli air strikes on Iran almost two weeks ago, the war has so far killed about 2,000 people and thrown global energy markets and transport into chaos.
The conflict has spread across the Middle East and prompted plans for a record release of strategic oil reserves to dampen one of the worst fuel shocks since the 1970s.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) said more than 1,100 children had been killed or injured.
A petrol vendor pumps petrol from Iranian fuel oil tankers for resale near the Bashmagh border crossing on Wednesday. Photograph: Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images
Sarah Burns – 3 hours ago
In the US, more than 40 Democratic senators have urged defence secretary Pete Hegseth to provide answers on the air strike on a girls’ primary school on the opening day of the war and hold those responsible to account. Iran has blamed the US for the attack, in which at least 175 people, mainly schoolgirls, were reportedly killed, saying video and satellite images show a US Tomahawk missile hit the structure.
A preliminary investigation by US authorities has found that the strike was the result of outdated target co-ordinates used by the US military, according to a New York Times report. US president Donald Trump, however, has said it was “done by Iran”, without offering evidence.
President Donald Trump watches as defence secretary Pete Hegseth speaks to attendees at the Shield of the Americas Summit, held at Trump’s golf resort in Miami on Saturday. Photograph: Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
Sarah Burns – 4 hours ago
The US and Israel kept up their pounding of targets across Iran on Wednesday. US forces say they have struck more than 5,500 targets inside Iran, including over 60 naval ships. Iran says more than 1,200 people have been killed.
A large funeral ceremony took place in Tehran’s Revolution Square for senior Iranian officials killed in the opening strike of the war, including the armed forces chief and head of the Revolutionary Guard. Thousands attended, waving the national flag and shouting “Death to America” in a show of support for the regime.
Meanwhile, Iran confirmed that Mojtaba Khamenei, the country’s new supreme leader, had been “lightly injured” in an air strike but was still active, even though he hasn’t made a public statement since his appointment earlier this week.
Trucks carry coffins during a funeral ceremony for high-ranking military officials killed by US-Israeli airstrikes in Tehran, on Wednesday. Photograph: Arash Khamooshi/The New York Times
Sarah Burns – 4 hours ago
Elsewhere, there were scenes of joy and relief at Dublin Airport on Wednesday night as passengers travelling on a second Government-chartered flight from the Gulf region arrived safe and sound.
The flight, which took off from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), helped to bring back some of the Irish citizens who became stranded as a result of the regional conflict sparked by US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
Many of those who disembarked had praise for the Irish Embassy in the UAE for keeping them informed and also for the efforts of Emirati authorities in terms of providing safety updates and intercepting Iranian drones.
Passengers are welcomed by family members as they arrive at Dublin Airport following an Irish Government chartered flight from Oman, which stopped at Cairo, before touching down in Dublin in the early hours of Sunday. Photograph: Evan Treacy/PA Wire
Sarah Burns – 4 hours ago
Iran said the world should prepare for soaring energy prices as its forces hit merchant ships and the International Energy Agency recommends a large release of strategic reserves to dampen one of the worst oil shocks since the 1970s.
Three commercial ships were hit by projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz and Iran launched fresh strikes against its oil-exporting neighbours, warning that crude oil prices could rise to $200 a barrel.
“Any vessel whose oil cargo or the vessel itself belongs to the United States, the Zionist regime or their hostile allies will be considered legitimate targets,” the Iranian military said.
Read the full piece here.
US forces say they have struck more than 5,500 targets inside Iran, including over 60 naval ships