{"id":319626,"date":"2026-03-03T13:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T13:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/319626\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T13:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T13:14:09","slug":"why-the-us-and-israel-are-at-war-with-iran-and-everything-we-know-on-day-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/319626\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the US and Israel are at war with Iran and everything we know on day 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Israel exchanged further strikes with Iran<\/a> overnight into Tuesday while it continues its assault on Lebanon, intensifying a conflict which has already killed hundreds, caused Washington to warn Americans to leave much of the region and threatens to spark a global energy crisis.\n <\/p>\n

\n Tehran has retaliated with a campaign aimed at US bases and embassies in a host of Middle Eastern countries, as well as oil refineries and tourist infrastructure like airports and hotels.\n <\/p>\n

\n As the US-Israeli war on Iran intensifies, here\u2019s what to know.\n <\/p>\n

Continuing Israeli strikes: Israel launched simultaneous strikes on Tehran and Beirut on Tuesday morning, targeting both Iranian military sites and Hezbollah. Israeli forces have also seized more locations in southern Lebanon, carrying out strikes against what it says are Hezbollah\u2019s sites in the country.<\/p>\n

US closes two embassies amid Iran strikes: The US Embassy in Riyadh was hit by two suspected Iranian drones, prompting it to close Tuesday. The US Embassy in Kuwait also announced it was closing until further notice. Elsewhere across the region, the US State Department<\/a> ordered non-emergency US government personnel and their families to depart from Jordan, Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates due to security concerns.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s response: CNN teams in Qatar heard loud booms and saw objects falling from the sky overnight. Kuwait\u2019s armed forces responded to \u201cmissiles and drones\u201d detected in its airspace, warning sirens sounded in Bahrain, and Iranian missiles were detected in Israeli airspace, according to officials in each country.<\/p>\n

Americans urged to leave Middle East: The US State Department urged American citizens<\/a> to depart from countries across the Middle East using available commercial travel, even as much of the region\u2019s airspace remains closed and most flights are cancelled.<\/p>\n

Iran death toll climbs: More than 700 people<\/a> have been killed in Iran since the war began, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. One Tehran resident described enduring a \u201cheavy bombardment\u201d on Monday night. \u201cIt feels like an onslaught,\u201d said the 36-year-old man, whom CNN is not naming.<\/p>\n

Coming \u201cbig wave\u201d of US strikes against Iran: US President Donald Trump warned Monday that the US hasn\u2019t \u201ceven started hitting them hard,\u201d while a senior US official told CNN on Monday night that Washington was preparing for a \u201cmajor uptick<\/a>\u201d in attacks over the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n

Damage to Iranian nuclear facility: The United Nations\u2019 nuclear watchdog confirmed damage Tuesday to a fuel enrichment plant at one of Iran\u2019s most sensitive nuclear installations following US-Israeli strikes.<\/p>\n

Why did the US and Israel attack?<\/p>\n

White House offers competing, shifting rationales for war: Three days after the US and Israel first launched their offensive against Iran, the Trump administration is still offering different explanations for doing so<\/a> \u2013 at times exaggerated or at odds with US intelligence \u2013 as senior officials scramble to justify what has been characterized as a preemptive strike.<\/p>\n

What was the threat posed by Iran? In short, the Trump administration still hasn\u2019t clearly defined that. After the first wave of strikes, Trump cited an \u201cimminent threat\u201d to the US \u2013 claims contradicted in Pentagon briefings to Capitol Hill that stated Iran was not planning to attack unless struck first.<\/p>\n

What about the nuclear threat? Before striking Iran, Trump and his top officials overstated just how close Tehran was to developing a nuclear weapon, sources told CNN. Trump repeatedly said<\/a> that Tehran\u2019s nuclear program was \u201cobliterated\u201d<\/a> following US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last summer \u2013 but in recent weeks, administration officials have suggested without offering evidence that Iran posed an imminent nuclear threat. Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is peaceful.<\/p>\n

What about regime change? That\u2019s not a clear goal either. One end result Trump has floated is \u201cfreedom for the people\u201d in Iran and for Iranians \u201cto take back your country.\u201d At the same time, he has said that a similar outcome to Venezuela \u2013 where US forces seized President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro but left much of the administration in place \u2013 would be \u201ca perfect scenario.\u201d And US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth insisted Monday \u201cthis is not a so-called regime change war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei\u2019s death: Iran\u2019s supreme leader was killed Saturday, alongside several other senior military officials, leaving the Islamic regime battered, but still able to launch attacks across the region.<\/p>\n

A three-person leadership council now holds power until a new supreme leader is named. It includes the country\u2019s moderate president, Masoud Pezeshkian; the hardline head of the judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei; and a senior cleric, Alireza Arafi.<\/p>\n

When will a new supreme leader be named? That\u2019s still unclear, though Iranian officials have indicated the process could be quite quick. The country\u2019s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi<\/a> said a new supreme leader could be chosen within days.<\/p>\n

Oil prices continue to climb Tuesday to their highest level since June 2025<\/a>. Brent futures, the global oil benchmark, jumped another 6% to $82 a barrel, per FactSet data. Natural gas futures, the European benchmark, climbed another 34% to around \u20ac59 ($68) per megawatt hour, as Qatar\u2019s biggest gas producer stopped production after Iran targeted one of its energy facilities.<\/p>\n

Iran wields its power over Strait of Hormuz: An adviser to the commander of Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned Monday that vessels passing through the strategically important waterway would be targeted.<\/p>\n

About one fifth of the world\u2019s global trade in LNG and daily oil production passes through the narrow stretch of water off Iran\u2019s southern coast, and there are few other options for transporting those cargoes to global markets.<\/p>\n

Stocks slid in Europe and Asia on Tuesday, reflecting the growing anxiety of markets.<\/p>\n

Thousands of tourists have been left stranded by the aviation chaos<\/a> in the Middle East, with large parts of the region\u2019s airspace closed, forcing airlines to cancel flights.<\/p>\n

Some airlines resumed a limited service on Monday night. Emirates and Fly Dubai resumed some flights but all of Etihad\u2019s commercial flights to and from Abu Dhabi remain suspended until at least Tuesday afternoon, as do Qatar Airways\u2019 flights until at least Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

Other Western countries are advising citizens to avoid the region too. Canada told tourists to leave the UAE once they can get on a flight and advised avoiding all travel to much of the Gulf. The United Kingdom told British nationals in Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, Palestine, Qatar and the UAE to register their presence to receive direct updates from its foreign ministry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel exchanged further strikes with Iran overnight into Tuesday while it continues its assault on Lebanon, intensifying a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-319626","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}