18\/03\/2026 – 05:07Blast heard in Beirut after Israeli warning<\/p>\n
A blast was heard in central Beirut early Wednesday, AFP correspondents said, as state media reported an Israeli strike following an evacuation warning.<\/p>\n
“The enemy targeted the threatened building in Bashoura”, a central Beirut neighbourhood, the official National News Agency reported, while AFPTV footage showed smoke billowing from the area.<\/p>\n
Israel’s military earlier issued a warning to residents of Bashoura, calling on them to stay away from a building it said it would strike, targeting Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.<\/p>\n
18\/03\/2026 – 04:30Iran’s foreign minister says global repercussions of war ‘will hit all’<\/p>\n
The repercussions of the war in the Middle East will be felt globally, Iran’s top diplomat said on Wednesday, suggesting more Western officials should push back against the conflict.<\/p>\n
“Wave of global repercussions has only begun and will hit all \u2013 regardless of wealth, faith, or race,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X, accompanied by a copy of the US National Counterterrorism Center director’s resignation announcement prompted by the war on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“A rising number of voices \u2013 (including) European and US officials \u2013 exclaim that the war on Iran is unjust. More members of the international community should follow suit,” the post added.<\/p>\n
18\/03\/2026 – 03:34Iranian army vows revenge for security chief Larijani’s killing<\/p>\n
Iranian army chief Amir Hatami threatened on Wednesday to launch a “decisive and regrettable” retaliation for the killing of security chief Ali Larijani in an Israeli air strike.<\/p>\n
“Iran’s response to the assassination of the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council will be decisive and regrettable,” Hatami said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s powerful military force that is separate from the army, said in a statement Wednesday that it had launched missiles at central Israel “in revenge for the blood of martyr Dr Ali Larijani and his companions”.<\/p>\n
18\/03\/2026 – 03:33US embassy targeted in Baghdad: security source<\/p>\n
A drone attack targeted the US embassy in Baghdad early Wednesday, a security source told AFP, and an AFP journalist reported hearing an explosion.<\/p>\n
A security official told AFP that “a drone directly hit the embassy”, but did not specify whether there was any damage. A second security official said the drone fell “near the embassy’s security fence”.<\/p>\n
It comes hours after another drone and rocket attack targeted the US embassy in the Iraqi capital.<\/p>\n
18\/03\/2026 – 03:11At least 6 dead, 24 wounded in Israeli strikes on central Beirut<\/p>\n
Lebanon’s health ministry said that two Israeli strikes on central Beirut early Wednesday killed at least six people and wounded 24 others, noting the toll was preliminary.<\/p>\n
“Human remains were also recovered from the site and their identities will be determined after DNA testing,” the ministry statement said.<\/p>\n
18\/03\/2026 – 03:10Iranian projectile hits near Australian military HQ in UAE, no injuries<\/p>\n
An Iranian projectile hit near Australia’s military headquarters for the Middle East in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday but caused no injuries, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. It landed at 2:15 am local time (10:15 am GMT Tuesday) near the Al Minhad base.<\/p>\n
“I can confirm that no Australian personnel were injured, and everyone is absolutely safe,” Albanese told reporters.<\/p>\n
18\/03\/2026 – 03:09Two killed near Tel Aviv after Iranian missile launches<\/p>\n
Two people were killed near Tel Aviv during an Iranian missile barrage, Israeli medics said on Wednesday, as security services reported that falling munitions had hit multiple sites.<\/p>\n
The deaths brought the toll from missiles fired on Israel to 14 and came after another day of another day of heavy Israeli bombardments of targets in Iran and Lebanon.<\/p>\n
The Magen David Adom emergency responders said the fatalities occurred in Ramat Gan, a city near the Israeli commercial hub of Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n
18\/03\/2026 – 02:35US hit Iran missile sites near strait of Hormuz with ‘bunker buster’ bombs<\/p>\n
The US military said it had hit Iranian missile sites near the strategic Strait of Hormuz with some of the most powerful bombs in the US arsenal.<\/p>\n
“US forces successfully employed multiple 5,000-pound deep penetrator munitions on hardened Iranian missile sites along Iran’s coastline near the Strait of Hormuz,” Central Command said in a statement on X. “The Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles in these sites posed a risk to international shipping in the strait.”<\/p>\n
The bombing raid comes after Iran closed off the strategic waterway, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil flows, in retaliation for the war on the country by the United States and Israel.<\/p>\n
The bomb \u2013 which according to an Air Force Times report in 2022 cost an estimated $288,000 each \u2013 are still less powerful than the 30,000-pound (13,600-kg) bombs dropped by the United States against Iranian nuclear sites last year.<\/p>\n
18\/03\/2026 – 02:22Israeli strike hits central Beirut<\/p>\n
Lebanese media said Israeli strikes hit central Beirut and the city’s southern suburbs early Wednesday, in raids that came without warning.<\/p>\n
Local media reported one strike hit an apartment in the central Zuqaq al-Blat neighbourhood, where the Israeli military last week hit a Beirut branch of the Hezbollah-linked financial firm Al-Qard Al-Hassan. The area is close to the government’s headquarters and several embassies. In last week’s strike there, the Israeli military had released an evacuation warning in advance.<\/p>\n
Another strike hit the central Basta district, where Israel had struck during a 2024 war between Israel and Hezbollah, according to media reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"18\/03\/2026 – 05:07Blast heard in Beirut after Israeli warning A blast was heard in central Beirut early Wednesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[90432,22892,86,85,87,46,88,47,2899,43,79,2586],"class_list":["post-344997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-air-strikes","tag-drones","tag-hezbollah","tag-il","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-lebanon","tag-middle-east","tag-military","tag-news","tag-united-arab-emirates","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344997","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=344997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}