Footage on Thursday evening showed smoke billowing over the neighbourhood of Dahiya. Israel\u2019s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said that the strikes would make the Beirut suburb \u201clook like [Gaza\u2019s] Khan Younis\u201d, a section of southern Gaza that has been almost entirely destroyed by Israeli bombs.<\/p>\n
On the same day, Tehran launched retaliatory airstrikes against Israel and US bases across the region, and Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, promised a further escalation. \u201cIf you think you\u2019ve seen something, just wait,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
At the White House, Donald Trump<\/a> said that members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) would be given immunity if they threw down their weapons, but otherwise would face \u201cguaranteed death\u201d. He said the offer for immunity extended to Iran\u2019s military and the police.<\/p>\n Trump claimed he should be involved in choosing Iran\u2019s next supreme leader to replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a US-Israeli airstrike on the first day of the war.<\/p>\n Trump said Mojtaba Khamenei, the 56-year-old son of the late supreme leader \u2013 the country\u2019s head of state and commander-in-chief \u2013 would be an \u201cunacceptable\u201d choice.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to be involved in the process of choosing the person who is going to lead Iran into the future,\u201d Trump told Reuters. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to go back every five years and do this again and again.\u201d<\/p>\n Iran expanded its campaign of strikes, firing more ballistic missiles towards Israel, striking an airport in Azerbaijan<\/a>, and raising fears that the conflict \u2013 now affecting 14 countries across the Middle East and beyond \u2013 could spread further.<\/p>\n Traffic jams as people leave Beirut. Israel told residents to \u2018save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately\u2019. Photograph: Bilal Hussein\/AP<\/p>\n The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Thursday that the decision to assassinate Khamenei was made in November, far predating the breakdown in the nuclear programme negotiations that Donald Trump claimed led to the US launching a preemptive strike on Iran. The original timeline was for Israel to target Khamenei in the middle of 2026 but Netanyahu moved it up the schedule after riots broke out in Iran, Katz said.<\/p>\n The claim could bolster critics of Trump, who say that Israel had dragged the US into a large war in the Middle East with Iran. Secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said earlier that the US launched the strike on Iran because it expected to be targeted after the Israeli attack.<\/p>\n Katz has also said that Khamenei\u2019s successors will be \u201cunequivocal targets for elimination\u201d.<\/p>\n Thursday\u2019s sweeping evacuation order for southern Beirut was unprecedented in its scale: even during the 13-month war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2024, no evacuation order so broad was issued.<\/p>\n Traffic was at a standstill throughout the city and thousands of people resorted to walking, with women pushing strollers holding infants through bumper-to-bumper traffic. Families made appeals for rescue services to help extract elderly people who could not leave their homes on their own.<\/p>\n The Israeli military spokesperson provided preapproved routes north and east which it said people should use to flee \u2013 a tactic reminiscent of evacuation orders Israel issued in Gaza.<\/p>\n Map of strikes during US-Israeli war on Iran<\/a><\/p>\n At least 102 people have been killed and 638 injured in Lebanon by Israeli airstrikes, Lebanon\u2019s ministry of health reported before Thursday night\u2019s bombardment. The war, now in its sixth day, has also killed at least 1,230 people in Iran and about a dozen people in Israel. Six US soldiers have been killed<\/a>.<\/p>\n The evacuation order was issued just a day after the Israeli military ordered all residents to flee the area south of the Litani River, which compromises about 10% of the country.<\/p>\n Israeli and Hezbollah soldiers were fighting in south Lebanon, according to UN peacekeepers in the area, as Israel continued its retaliatory campaign against the pro-Iran force that launched missiles into Israel on Monday.<\/p>\n The US and Israel continued their bombardment of Iran, hitting key ballistic missile launchers, weapons caches and security installations on Thursday.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s military also warned residents in eastern parts of Tehran to evacuate, while Iranian media reported blasts across the capital. \u201cToday is worse than yesterday,\u201d one resident of the city told Reuters. \u201cWe have nowhere to go. It is like a warzone. Help us.\u201d<\/p>\n A man walks past a destroyed car and shop on a commercial street hit by Israeli airstrikes in Nabatiyeh, south Lebanon. Photograph: Mohammed Zaatari\/AP<\/p>\n Sri Lanka said its navy had recovered at least 87 bodies after a US submarine sank an Iranian warship<\/a>, IRIS Dena, on Wednesday. Thirty-two sailors were rescued out of a total crew of almost 130. The country reported that another Iranian ship had arrived in its waters, without reporting further details.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, reacted with fury to the US\u2019s sinking of Dena, accusing it of carrying out an \u201catrocity of sea\u201d. \u201cMark my words: The US will come to bitterly regret [the] precedent it has set,\u201d Araghchi said in a post on X, while a senior Iranian cleric called for the exacting of \u201cTrump\u2019s blood\u201d on state TV.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s retaliatory campaign of strikes has hit targets as far afield as Cyprus and created the world\u2019s largest travel disruption<\/a> since Covid as countries shut down their airspaces, and caused oil prices to spike.<\/p>\n Gulf countries reported more incoming Iranian projectiles throughout the day, which Iran said were targeted at US bases and personnel stationed there. A drone was shot down near Al Dhafra airbase in the United Arab Emirates<\/a>, wounding six people when shrapnel fell. Qatar said there was a missile attack on the capital, Doha, and Saudi Arabia announced it had destroyed a drone. A tanker was attacked off the coast of Kuwait but it was unclear if the ship was damaged.<\/p>\n
![\"Iran](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/797.jpg\")
Iran denies responsibility for Azerbaijan drone strike \u2013\u00a0video <\/p>\n