Closing summary
Thank you for tuning into our live coverage of the war in Iran and its regional ramifications. Here is a quick recap of what has happened so far today:
Donald Trump claimed the US and Israel had “decimated” the Iranian regime, but offered only a vague description of what he meant by his demand for an unconditional surrender. “It’s where they cry uncle, or when they can’t fight any long longer and there’s nobody around to cry uncle — that could happen too,” the US president said aboard Air Force One.
Trump left open the possibility of deploying American troops on the ground. The US president addressed reporters hours after travelling to Dover air force base in Delaware to attend the so-called dignified transfer of six US service members killed in the opening days of his war against Iran.
Iran can fight a war of this size and scale for “at least” another six months, a Revolutionary Guards official has claimed. The defiant statement was carried by the semi-official Fars news agency, which has links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian previously apologised to neighbouring countries attacked by Iran. He also said Iran’s interim leadership council had approved that no attacks or missile strikes would be carried out against such countries unless an attack against Iran originated from them.
Vast plumes of smoke and fire have been seen rising over the Tehran skyline overnight. The Israeli military said it struck “several fuel storage complexes” across the city.
At least four people were killed after an Israeli strike on an apartment in the Ramada hotel building in central Beirut, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Ten people were injured. Israel said it conducted a “precise strike” on what it called “key commanders” in the IGRC’s Quds Force foreign operations arm.
The US-Israel war on Iran “should never have happened”, China’s foreign minister said on Sunday. “The world cannot return to the law of the jungle,” Wang Yi told a press conference in Beijing, calling for an end to military operations.
In a post on social media, Trump renewed his criticism of the UK’s lack of immediate support for US-Israeli strikes on Iran, and claimed Downing Street was now “giving serious thought” to sending two aircraft carriers to the region. “That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer – But we will remember,” the US president wrote.
Key events
Show key events only
Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
A fire at Kuwait International Airport has been brought under control, the Gulf nation has said, hours after drone strikes on its fuel storage tanks.
Earlier Kuwait described the attack as “a direct targeting of vital infrastructure”, as its national oil company also announced a “precautionary” cut to its crude production.
Saudi Arabia has meanwhile reported intercepting and destroying a batch of drones, and Qatar said Iran had fired 10 ballistic missilies and two cruise missiles on Saturday, adding that most had been intercepted, as Tehran pressed ahead with retaliatory attacks across the region
Updated at 22.55 EST
Iran claims it can continue ‘intense war’ for six months
Iran can fight a war of this size and scale for “at least” another six months, a Revolutionary Guards official has claimed.
In a statement carried by the semi-official Fars news agency, which has links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Guards spokesperson Ali Mohammad Naini said: “The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran are capable of continuing at least a 6-month intense war at the current pace of operations.”
The remarks, reported by AFP, amount to a starkly different assessment to that put forward in recent days by Donald Trump, who has repeatedly claimed the operation launched by US and Israel over Iran has been very successful.
“We’re winning the war by a lot,” the US president said this weekend. “We decimated their whole evil empire.”
The IRGC is one of the most feared and powerful organisations in Iran, my colleague Jonathan Yerushalmy has previously reported. Its influence stretches beyond military and intelligence to politics, education and the economy.
The US-Israel war on Iran “should never have happened”, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said on Sunday.
Speaking at a press conference in Beijing, the senior official called for an end to military operations, and urged all parties to return to the negotiating table as soon as possible.
“A strong fist does not mean strong reason,” he said. “The world cannot return to the law of the jungle.”
Wang is taking questions at the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s annual parliamentary gathering, which began on Thursday.
With Reuters and AFP
Updated at 22.22 EST
Air raid sirens sounded across northern Israel early on Sunday, warning of missiles from Iran.
An Israeli military statement said the country’s air defences responded to “missiles launched from Iran toward the territory of the State of Israel”, the AFP news agency reported.
There were no reports of damage or casualties. Israeli media said several missiles were launched, with most intercepted.
Alerts are said to have been activated across much of northern Israel, including the port city of Haifa, with the army’s Home Front Command ordering residents to go into shelters or safe rooms. The alerts were later lifted.
ShareLebanon: Israeli strike on Beirut hotel kills four
At least four people have been killed after an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Ten people were injured.
The strike – which hit an apartment in the Ramada hotel building early on Sunday – is the first to hit the heart of the Lebanese capital since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah resumed last week.
First aid responders inspect a Ramada hotel room targeted by an Israeli strike, in Beirut’s seaside Rawche area, on March 8. Photograph: Ibrahim Amro/AFP/Getty Images
In a statement, Israel said it conducted a “precise strike” in Beirut, aimed at what it called “key commanders” in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force foreign operations arm.
The Israeli military did not name the commanders, but accused them of planning “terror attacks against the State of Israel and its civilians” in a statement.
First aid responders gather at a Ramada hotel in Beirut’s seaside Rawche area. Photograph: Ibrahim Amro/AFP/Getty Images
An AFP photographer at the seafront hotel saw one room on the fourth floor with shattered glass and charred walls, the news agency reported, while security forces cordoned off the site.
The hotel was housing displaced people fleeing the war in southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs, according to Reuters. The news agency reports that some were seen leaving the building for fear of further air strikes.
Updated at 21.30 EST
Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry says it intercepted a drone attack in Riyadh, the kingdom’s capital.
In a statement posted on X, the ministry said an attempt to target the city’s diplomatic quarter had been thwarted. No material damage or civilian injuries resulted from shooting down the drone, it added.
The ministry also intercepted six drones east of Riyadh, it said.
Share
Hugo Lowell
Donald Trump on Saturday offered only a vague description of what he meant by his demand for an unconditional surrender by Iran’s current regime, while leaving open the possibility of deploying American troops on the ground but ruling out asking Kurdish forces to mount an invasion.
“I said unconditional. It’s where they cry uncle or when they can’t fight any long longer and there’s nobody around to cry uncle — that could happen too,” Trump said when pressed by the Guardian aboard Air Force One.
The lack of specifics in Trump’s response made it difficult to ascertain his political endgame for the conflict, an issue that has dogged the White House as it faces scrutiny about what the president wants from Iran and how he would play a role in selecting its next leader.
Trump has been more consistent with his military objectives and has said for days he could send US troops. Still, he caveated using ground troops to secure the enriched uranium, believed to be stored at Iran’s nuclear sites the US bombed last year, as a possibility for later in the conflict.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media traveling on Air Force One while heading to Miami on March 7, 2026. Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images
Earlier, after attending the so-called dignified transfer of six US service members killed in the opening days of his war against Iran, Trump told reporters the moment had not made him think twice about continuing.
“No, we’re winning the war by a lot. We decimated their whole evil empire. It will continue I’m sure for a little while but I’m very proud of the people,” Trump said. Later, he added deaths were “a part of war”.
Read more:
Updated at 20.57 EST
Pictures: Fire and smoke rise over Tehran after fresh strikes
Plumes of smoke and fire have been seen rising over the Tehran skyline overnight. The IDF has said it struck “several fuel storage complexes” across the city.
A large plume of smoke rises over Tehran after explosions were reported in the city during the night on March 7, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. Photograph: Contributor/699095/Getty ImagesSmoke rises over Tehran following an explosion, March 7. Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/ReutersAn explosion erupts following strikes near Azadi Tower close to Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran on March 7. Photograph: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty ImagesShare
Updated at 22.40 EST
Flames have been seen rising above an oil storage facility in Tehran after Israel’s military said it conducted strikes on “several fuel storage complexes”.
Video from the Associated Press news agency showed the horizon glowing against the night sky above Iranian capital.
It appeared to be the first time a civil industrial facility has been targeted in the war, the AP reported. State media blamed “an attack from the US and the Zionist regime” at the facility, which supplies Tehran and provinces to the north.
The Israel Defense Forces claimed on X that the Iranian regime would use the sites it struck in Tehran to “distribute fuel to multiple military entities in Iran”.
Explosions erupt following strikes at Tehran Oil Refinery in Tehran on March 7, 2026. Photograph: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty ImagesFlames rise from an oil storage facility south of the capital Tehran. Photograph: Vahid Salemi/APShare
Updated at 19.58 EST
Kuwait’s international airport has been targeted in a drone attack, the Gulf nation’s defence ministry says, as Iran continued its strikes across the Middle East.
“The fuel tanks of Kuwait International Airport were attacked by drones in a direct targeting of vital infrastructure,” an official defence ministry spokesman said on X.
In a further statement, Kuwaiti military added: “Kuwaiti Air Defenses are currently responding to hostile missile and drone threats.”
Updated at 19.33 EST
Summary of the day so far
Donald Trump, speaking in Florida to leaders of Latin American countries at his golf resort in Miami, said US strikes on Iran have significantly damaged the country’s military capabilities, claiming American forces have destroyed 42 Iranian navy ships in three days.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency, citing figures from the country’s health ministry, reported that 41 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the eastern Bekaa valley. The Israeli military again warned people south of the Litani river in southern Lebanon to leave, saying the Israeli military is operating with “great force” in the area.
Trump wore a Trump-branded golf cap during the ritual dignified transfer of remains at Dover air force base in Delaware on Saturday, as the commander-in-chief paid his respects to six army reserve soldiers killed in Kuwait in an Iranian strike.
In a post on Truth Social, the US president renewed his criticism of the UK’s lack of immediate support for US-Israeli strikes on Iran, and claimed Downing Street was now “giving serious thought” to sending two aircraft carriers to the region. “That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer – But we will remember,” he wrote. “We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!”
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, on his way back to Florida from Dover air force base in Delaware, Trump was asked whether he expects to return there for more dignified transfer ceremonies for US troops killed in the war with Iran he launched last Saturday. “Oh yeah, I’m sure,” he replied. “I hate to do them, but it’s a part of war, isn’t it?”
When asked whether the US bombed a girls’ elementary school in Iran, killing more than 175 people, many of them children, Trump claimed that detailed forensic reporting that indicates the US was responsible is wrong. “No, in my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran,” Trump said without offering any evidence for his claim.
Trump also didn’t rule out deploying US troops to secure Iran’s enriched uranium. When asked about whether he would deploy ground troops in Iran, the president said “possibly” but that there would “have to be a very good reason”. He was then asked whether he might send ground troops into Iran to secure its nuclear facilities. “We wouldn’t do it now. Maybe we’d do it later on,” he replied.
Since the start of US and Israeli airstrikes, more than 6,000 civilian structures across Iran have sustained damage, according to a social media statement from Pir Hossein Kolivand, president of the Iranian Red Crescent.
The president of the UAE, Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, gave his first public comments since Iran launched retaliatory strikes at the Gulf nation. “The UAE has thick skin and bitter flesh – we are no easy prey,” he said.
Iran’s foreign minister warned in a statement that Trump had misinterpreted the statement by Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, in which he apologized to neighboring Gulf states and promised to stop strikes against them, unless an attack against Iran originated from those countries. He said Netanyahu ‘managed to dupe’ Trump ‘into fighting Israel’s wars’
Updated at 19.11 EST
The US Central Command denied on Saturday that any US service members had been taken hostage or captured by Iran.
In a post on X, Iranian security chief Ali Larijani said: “It has been reported to me that several American soldiers have been taken prisoner. But the Americans claim that they have been killed in action. Despite their futile efforts, the truth is not something they can hide for too long.”
US navy captain Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for the US Central Command, told Reuters: “The Iranian regime is doing everything it can to peddle lies and deceive. This is yet another clear example.”
Updated at 19.34 EST
Human Rights Watch said today in a statement that the deadly strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed scores of children in southern Iran must be investigated as a war crime.
The strike occurred the morning of 28 February, amid a wave of hundreds of strikes launched across Iran by US and Israeli forces. While the Iranian government has attributed the attack to the US-Israeli coalition, neither nation has claimed responsibility.
“A prompt and thorough investigation is needed into this attack, including if those responsible should have known that a school was there and that it would be full of children and their teachers before midday,” said Sophia Jones, open-source researcher with the Digital Investigations Lab at Human Rights Watch. “Those responsible for an unlawful attack should be held to account, including prosecutions of anyone responsible for war crimes.”
The Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school was located in Minab, Hormozgan province, situated on the interior boundary of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) naval forces compound. Despite this proximity, Human Rights Watch noted that evidence reviewed indicates the school was walled off from the military site and maintained a separate street entrance.
Earlier today, Trump accused Iran of being behind the deadly school explosion despite evidence suggesting it was likely a US airstrike.
Updated at 19.33 EST
When asked about earlier reports of the US attacking a freshwater desalination plant on Qeshm Island, Trump gave an evasive answer, immediately saying that Iran “are among the most evil people ever on Earth”.
He added: “I know nothing about a desalinization plant, other than to say, if they’re complaining about a desalinization plant, we complain about the fact that they shouldn’t be chopping babies’ heads off.”
US special envoy Steve Witkoff also said the Tehran leadership did not seem “very amenable” during negotiations before the US launched strikes.
“They told me and Jared, we’re not going to give you diplomatically what you couldn’t take militarily,” said Witkoff, referring to fellow negotiator and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. “So you know, I think they’re going to need a change of attitude.”
Updated at 18.32 EST