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As the war in the Middle East intensifies, President Donald Trump said the U.S. has “the capability to go far longer” than its projected four-to-five-week time frame for its military operations against Iran.
Across Tehran, the sound of explosions rang out through the night and into the early hours Tuesday, as the U.S. and Israel have continued to pound Iran since killing its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday.
WATCH: As Iran expands retaliatory attacks, U.S. urges Americans to leave Middle East
Tehran and its allies have hit back against Israel, neighboring Gulf states, and targets critical to the world’s production of oil and natural gas.
The intensity of the attacks and the lack of any apparent exit plan set the stage for a prolonged conflict with far-reaching consequences. Israel and the U.S. have given conflicting answers about what exactly the war’s objectives are or what the endgame might be.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late Monday defended the decision to go to war, contending in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” that Iran was rebuilding “new sites, new places” that would make “their ballistic missile program and their atomic bomb program immune within months,” without providing evidence.
Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed limited activity at two nuclear sites in Iran before the war, with analysts saying it was likely Tehran was trying to assess damage from American strikes in June and possibly salvage what remained there.
Here is the latest.
Trump said on social media he ordered the United States’ development finance arm to provide political risk insurance for tankers carrying oil and other goods through the Persian Gulf “at a very reasonable price.”
Political risk insurance is a type of coverage intended to protect firms against financial losses caused by unstable political conditions, government actions, or violence.
He said that, if necessary, the U.S. Navy would escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. About a fifth of the world’s oil passes through the strait. The disruption to that traffic caused by the war has pushed oil prices higher.
The Navy has at least eight destroyers and three smaller littoral combat ships in the region. These ships have previously been used to escort merchant shipping in the region and in the Red Sea.
Israel’s military says it destroyed what it calls Iran’s secret nuclear headquarters, and claims Iran moved work into hidden bunkers, known as Minzadehei.
On Tuesday, an Israeli military spokesman said the site supported research tied to a key component for nuclear weapons. Israel does not say Iran enriched uranium there.
WATCH: Schumer says Americans ‘do not want an endless war’ after U.S. strikes in Iran
There was no immediate public comment from the U.S. or Iran about the site Israel named.
Israel says Iran tried to rebuild and hide parts of its program after last year’s strikes. The United States said as recently as last week that those strikes destroyed Iran’s nuclear program.
U.S. officials also accuse Iran of trying to restart parts of the program but do not say Iran was restarting enrichment.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Tuesday accused Iran of attacking Gulf neighbors that had worked to prevent war, calling it a strategy of “If I go, I will take the region with me.”
He called Iran’s strikes on countries mediating between Tehran and Washington an “incredibly flawed strategy” and warned the conflict could widen if Gulf states retaliate.
In an interview with state broadcaster TRT, Fidan said Gulf states, including Qatar, had pushed for diplomacy until the last hour before the U.S.-Israeli war began Saturday.
“I believe that if the Iranians had better understood the pressure President Trump was facing and given him something in advance, the pressure from Israel might not have been so effective,” he said.
Associated Press journalists heard explosions and saw smoke rising but no casualties were reported after a new wave of drone and missile attacks was intercepted over Irbil, the capital of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
Multiple drones targeted areas around the U.S. consulate building Tuesday but did not hit it directly.
Debris from the intercepted drones caused fires and property damage.
Iran-linked Iraqi militias have claimed multiple attacks on the Kurdish region, which hosts bases with U.S. troops, since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said he ordered the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to move from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean. He said it will be escorted by its air wing and frigates.
In a pre-recorded speech on French TV, Macron added that Rafale fighter jets, air-defense systems, and airborne radar systems have been deployed over the past few hours in the Middle East.
Daoud Alizadeh, the acting commander of the Lebanon Corps in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, was killed on Tuesday in an airstrike in Tehran, the Israeli military said in a statement.
The Quds Force works with Iran’s allied militant groups in the region, including Hezbollah. The army said the Lebanon Corps “supports Hezbollah force-building and functions as the connection between senior IRGC personnel and Hezbollah leadership.” It said Alizadeh replaced the Lebanon Corps’ previous commander, Hassan Mahdavi, killed in an earlier Israeli strike.
The United Arab Emirates’ Capital Markets Authority said Tuesday that the country’s stock markets will reopen Wednesday following a two-day halt.
Authorities in Dubai and Abu Dhabi say that the Dubai Financial Market, Nasdaq Dubai, and Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange were suspended due to Iran’s strikes on the Gulf nation.
Iranian state media has reported that at least 165 people were killed and dozens of others were wounded Saturday by what Iran says was an airstrike on a girls school in the country’s south.
The Israeli military said it was not aware of strikes in the area, and the U.S. military said it was looking into the strikes.
Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Tuesday that the “devastating” airstrike may amount to war crimes if it is found to have targeted civilians or been carried out indiscriminately in violation of international law.
“Children, little girls, in the middle of the school day, at the beginning of the school day, being killed in this manner, backpacks with blood stains on them,” said Shamdasani.
The U.N. human rights chief called for an investigation into the airstrike.
Seven children have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon over the past two days, Lebanon’s health ministry said Tuesday.
In total, 40 people have been killed in Lebanon — including a Palestinian militant leader and a Hezbollah intelligence official — and 246 wounded in the new escalation between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
On Monday, Hezbollah launched missiles toward Israel for the first time in more than a year, and Israel responded by bombarding southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut with strikes. No casualties have been reported from the Hezbollah attacks in Israel.
Israeli firefighters hosed down charred vehicles after Iranian missiles struck and, in some places, ignited fires on city streets Tuesday.
Missile and drone strikes — as well as the debris from projectiles intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome — have crashed down in central Israel. They’ve hit residential buildings and street-level property, sending shockwaves booming, damaging shopfronts and reducing some structures to rubble.
Iranian missiles set off air raid sirens and sent Israelis into shelters across the country, although the pace of attacks appeared to be slowing on Tuesday. Israel says it has intercepted most of the incoming strikes, but some missiles have landed, killing 11 people.
No deaths or injuries have been reported so far Tuesday.
As governments race to evacuate citizens from the Middle East, Israel is preparing to fly home its citizens who are stranded abroad.
Transportation Minister Miri Regev said Ben-Gurion Airport will reopen for limited incoming flights around the clock starting early Thursday.
Israel’s airspace has been closed since Saturday, when the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began, although some land crossings remain open. Regev said thousands have returned that way.
Under the plan, one passenger flight per hour will be allowed in the first 24 hours, totaling about 5,000 people, with more later depending on security.
It is unclear whether only Israelis will be permitted on the flights, and no commercial departures leaving Israel have been approved.
Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said Tuesday that before the Iran war he had supported at least one interest rate cut this year as inflation slowly cooled. But now with the conflict pushing up oil and gas prices, he isn’t so sure.
“With the geopolitical events that we talked about, I just need to see,” he said at the Bloomberg Invest conference in New York City, referring to the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. “We need to get a lot more data in.” Kashkari is one of 12 voting members of the Fed’s rate-setting committee.
Kashkari’s comment is a sign of how the war threatens to push up inflation and therefore interest rates. The Fed raises its short-term rate — or keeps it unchanged — to cool the economy and combat inflation. A cut in the Fed’s rate, over time, can lower mortgages, auto loan rates, and other consumer borrowing costs.
Financial markets have forecast two rate cuts this year, according to futures prices, and Trump has loudly demanded many more reductions. But the odds of those two cuts occurring this year have fallen since the Iran war began.
The State Department said Tuesday it is “actively securing” military and charter aircraft to fly Americans stranded in the Middle East to safety following the onset of U.S.-Israel military operations against Iran that has disrupted commercial air travel.
“The State Department is actively securing military aircraft and charter flights for American citizens who wish to leave the Middle East,” said Dylan Johnson, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs.
In a post on X, Johnson said the department has been in contact with nearly 3,000 Americans seeking to leave to region or seeking information about how to leave.
In Israel specifically, a second official said nearly 500 Americans had been in touch with the department about leaving and that it had assisted more than 130 in departing so far. Another 100 Americans are expected to leave Israel on Tuesday, the official said.
In a control room surrounded by large screens with maps of the country, medical emergency responders debriefed Tuesday on the latest strike.
The Magen David Adom headquarters in central Israel is the command center for dispatching medical teams to sites after they’ve been struck.
Their systems provide early warning when missiles are launched and they can sometimes identify locations where missiles have struck before calls come in.
Nadav Matzner, deputy spokesperson for Magen David Adom, says missiles coming from Iran to Israel take about 10-12 minutes whereas missiles from Lebanon to the center of Israel take a minute and a half.
He said so far during this war, missiles from Hezbollah in Lebanon have only struck the north.
A correspondent and cameraman with CNN’s Turkish-language affiliate were reporting Tuesday outside Israel’s military headquarters in Tel Aviv when police detained them on live television. Israeli police said they were held “on suspicion of documenting a security facility” and later released.
Israeli officials vowed to crack down on reporters who allegedly “expose sensitive locations” while Iran strikes the country.
Israel’s military censor requires media to submit certain security-related information for review and in 2025 expanded its authority to mandate prior approval before publishing the locations of missile strikes.
In a statement after the arrests, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi pledged to “intensify the fight against foreign media broadcasting in violation of censorship directives.”
“We will not allow broadcasts that assist the enemy,” Ben-Gvir said, warning that journalists would face a “determined and forceful police response.”
Press freedom groups, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, criticized Israel’s military censor during last year’s 12-day war with Iran, accusing it of suppressing an unfiltered view of the war.
Burhanettin Duran, the head of Turkey’s Communications Directorate, called Tuesday’s detentions “an attempt to conceal the truth.”
The president revived his complaints about the U.K.’s deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, despite his administration previously supporting the move. The remote Indian Ocean archipelago is home to a strategically important American naval and bomber base.
“The U.K. has been very, very uncooperative with that stupid island that they have,” he said.
He also criticized the British for their windmills and immigration policies and said they need to open up drilling in the North Sea.
The president acknowledged that oil and gas prices were going to rise as the U.S. remains engaged in the ongoing Middle East conflict — yet argued that prices would drop once the war ends.
“We have a little high oil prices for a little while, but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, I believe, lower than even before,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
The average price for a gallon of gasoline jumped 11 cents overnight Tuesday to about $3.11 in the United States, according to the American Automobile Association.
Ahead of a briefing by Trump administration officials to Congress, senior House Democrats are questioning what the costs of the Iran strikes will be and what impact they will have on the U.S. stockpile of munitions.
“The American people are entitled to clear answers including why this conflict began, what objectives justify continued military engagement, and what guardrails are in place to prevent a broader or protracted regional war,” said the five Democrats, who hold top positions on committees overseeing national security, in a letter to the Trump administration.
Lawmakers will receive a briefing later Tuesday as Trump tries to win over support for his campaign.
Trump said he wants to “cut off all trade with Spain” over NATO spending, adding “we don’t want anything to do with Spain.” Trump cited his ability to impose an embargo on Spain, based on the recent Supreme Court decision over the president’s ability to impose tariffs.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent agreed with the president’s claim that he could end trade with Spain.
Bessent told the president, “I agree that the Supreme Court reaffirmed your ability to implement an embargo.”
He said his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, “gave away a lot,” but said “we have plenty.”
He added that the U.S. had an “unlimited” supply of “middle and upper ammunition, which is really what we’re using in this war.”
The German chancellor says that “we are hoping that the Israeli and the American army are doing the right things to bring this to an end and to have really a new government in place.”
“If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand,” Trump told reporters at the start of the Oval Office meeting with Merz.
The Trump administration’s shifting rationale for launching joint strikes with Israel against Iran is spurring criticism, including some from Trump’s MAGA base, that the White House was dragged into the conflict by Israel.
Some prominent allies of Trump stepped up their criticism that the U.S. was following Israel’s lead after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that the U.S. decided to strike because, “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.”
“And we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio added.
“We are, on the same page in terms of getting this terrible regime in Tehran away,” Merz said during a visit at the White House on Tuesday.
The German chancellor said he also wants to talk with Trump about “our trade agreement, which I would like to be in place as soon as possible,” and the Ukraine war.
“There are too many bad guys in this world, actually,” Merz added.
Russia and China have blocked approval of the Trump administration’s program of work as it took over the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council for March because it included a meeting on Iran, three diplomats familiar with the negotiations said Tuesday.
Traditionally, ambassadors from the 15 council nations meet on the first day of the presidency to approve work planned for the month and the president then holds a press conference to present it. That hasn’t happened.
The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private council negotiations.
The dispute was over a U.S.-proposed meeting on sanctions on Iran, which Russia and China claim were illegally reimposed last year, one diplomat said.
As the U.S. and Israel struck Iran, U.S. first lady Melania Trump presided over an approved Security Council meeting Monday on children in conflict.
The president made the comment at the White House while meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
“They have no navy. It’s been knocked out. They have no air force. It’s been knocked out,” Trump said.
He added about Iran: “They have no air detection, that’s been knocked out. Their radar has been knocked out. And, just about everything has been knocked out.”
The U.S. president told reporters that ‘someone from within’ Iranian regime might be best choice to take power once the U.S.-Israel military campaign is completed.
In an exchange in the Oval Office Tuesday, Trump said Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince of Iran’s last shah, is not someone that his administration has considered in depth to take over leadership in Iran.
“He looks like a very nice person, but it would seem to me that somebody that’s there that’s currently popular, if there’s such a person … we have people like that,” Trump said.
Trump noted that “some people like” Pahlavi but that he was not someone the administration had thought about too much as Iran’s next ruler.
Trump said the U.S. would continue its campaign in Iran during his Oval Office meeting with Merz. “The big scale hitting goes now.”
“They’re going to be in for a lot of hurt,” Trump said, “first we have to finish off the military.”
The president told reporters at the White House that in addition to that group of people that he says the U.S. had been eying for leadership, “We have another group. They may be dead also.”
Trump said there is a “third wave” coming in but “we don’t know those people.”
The president said: “I guess the worst case would be do this, and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don’t want that to happen.”
From Romanian religious pilgrims to tourists and diplomats’ families, tens of thousands remain stranded across the Middle East as the war spreads and continues to disrupt air travel.
Gulf airspace is largely closed, cruise ships can’t pass through the Strait of Hormuz and major airlines have canceled flights.
The U.S. State Department says it has evacuated nonemergency personnel and families in six nations, adding the United Arab Emirates to its list on Tuesday, while governments from Russia to Germany and France also scrambled to run repatriation flights.
Some evacuees described fear and relief.
“We called our children at 3 a.m. to ask forgiveness because we might die,” Romanian pilgrim Mariana Muicaru said.
In Germany, after landing Tuesday in Frankfurt following a flight from Dubai, Wassim Mahlas said he was happy to be home: “I’m breathing German air again.”
The embassy says it is closed to the public “due to ongoing regional tensions.”
The U.S. State Department has advised Americans to leave Lebanon and avoid travel to the tiny Mediterranean nation on Israel’s northern border.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group fired rockets into Israel late Saturday in solidarity with Iran, sparking ongoing retaliatory strikes across the Lebanon.
Elsewhere in the Mideast, U.S. bases and diplomatic missions have been targeted in attacks by Iran and its proxies in Iraq.
U.S. embassies and consulates in conflict zones often close to the public for consular services like visa and passport applications and renewals, but they remain operational even after non-essential staffers are ordered to leave for security reasons or remaining personnel work remotely.
Since the onset of the war with Iran, only the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, has completely suspended operations.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Tuesday that Britain is sending a warship and helicopters to Cyprus after a drone hit a U.K. base on the eastern Mediterranean island.
Starmer said he told the president of Cyprus that the U.K. is deploying helicopters with counter-drone capabilities and the air-defense destroyer HMS Dragon to the region.
It comes after an Iran-made drone hit RAF Akrotiri base over the weekend, causing minor damage and no injuries.
Trump has lambasted the British prime minister over his reluctance to join the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
According to an internal State Department memo, the strike on the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh caused part of its roof to collapse, although there were no reported deaths or injuries to staff.
In Kuwait City, there were also no deaths or injuries after the vicinity of the embassy was hit by two drone strikes that caused no damage to the facility, it said.
Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, said it’s “very disturbing” that Trump took the U.S. to war because Israel wanted to bomb Iran.
Netanyahu has been “egging for an invasion of Iran for 20 years,” the senator said, and past U.S. presidents “have consistently said no.”
Senators grilled Defense official Elbridge Colby during an Armed Services committee hearing on the administration’s shifting rationale for the attack and warned against sending U.S. boots on the ground.
WATCH: Expert panel breaks down U.S. objectives in Iran war
Colby told senators the president has directed the military campaign to destroy the missile threat from Iran and deny the country a nuclear weapon.
“The president made the decision,” Colby said.
The satellite images taken on Monday show several damaged buildings at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, compared with imagery from the previous day, along with additional damage across the complex.
Vantor, an imaging company based in Colorado formerly known as Maxar Technologies, released the images showing the damage that it said affected buildings that house the personnel and vehicle entrances to the underground fuel enrichment complex.
Earlier Tuesday, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said that Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment site sustained “some recent damage” amid a U.S.-Israeli airstrike campaign.
It said “no radiological consequence expected,” from it.
The nuclear facility at Natanz is located nearly 220 kilometers (135 miles) southeast of Tehran, and is Iran’s main enrichment site. It had been targeted by airstrikes in the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his military plans to respond with even more force against projectiles from Iran and Lebanon on Tuesday during a visit to an Israeli air force base.
“Our pilots are over the skies of Iran and Tehran, and over the skies of Lebanon. Hezbollah made a very big mistake when it attacked us,” he said.
He added that the Lebanese government and Lebanese people should understand that Iran-backed Hezbollah is “dragging them into a war that is not theirs, just because of the death of that mass murderer that they have nothing to do with.”
A senior Hezbollah official has said that after more than a year of abiding by a ceasefire while Israel launched near-daily strikes in Lebanon, the group’s patience has ended.
If you’re an American in Israel looking for a way to leave the country, get a bus to Egypt or if you must, to Jordan. But don’t expect the U.S. Embassy to help.
That’s according to Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel. In a lengthy post on X Tuesday, Huckabee said the U.S. embassy is directing all U.S. government employees and their family members in Israel to shelter in place “until further notice” as Iran fires missiles into the country.
“The U.S. Embassy is not in a position at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel,” he wrote, adding information about bus service as a courtesy “as you make your own security plans.”
READ MORE: Democrats’ unity against Trump faces a test after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran
The Israeli Ministry of Tourism, he said, began running shuttles to the Taba Border Crossing with Egypt and requires prospective passengers to register via the ministry’s evacuation form.
Passengers who wish to cross to Jordan, he said, shuttle to Eilat in southern Israel and continue by taxi to the Yitzhak Rabin Border Crossing. Flights out of Jordan are harder to get than those out of Cairo, Huckabee wrote.
Foreign Minister Nadezhda Neynsky said that the first evacuation flights for Bulgarians from airports in the Middle East will take place early Wednesday.
“We have already organized the evacuation of some 300 people on the first flight from Oman,” she said adding that the repatriation of Bulgarians from Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab
Emirates is also forthcoming.
Bulgaria’s government said that up to eight aircraft of varying capacity were on standby to carry out evacuation flights for its citizens from the Middle East at short notice.
There are currently more than 10,000 Bulgarians in the region.
The Tourism Ministry said that around 1,400 organized tourists with tour operator programs are currently in countries in the Middle East. The largest number of them are in Dubai, followed by Jordan.
“Ensuring the safety of Bulgarian citizens and creating conditions for their timely return at the first safe opportunity remains the leading priority,” the ministry said.
Communications into Iran remain unstable, with the internet largely blocked. The resident of north Tehran messaged The Associated Press before dawn on Tuesday and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
He said a major blast rattled his building on Monday. “I was by the window and felt the shockwave. Pretty scary, then saw the smoke,” he said.
Most stores in the normally bustling area of Tajrish were closed, he added. Iran has declared an official mourning period following the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the first wave of joint U.S.-Israeli strikes.
By Amir-Hussein Radjy
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said Tuesday that the evacuees were expected to be transported to a border city in Turkey as soon as possible before flying in back to Thailand.
Thai officials say there are about 100,000 Thai nationals living and working in the Middle East, including 60,000 Thai citizens in Israel.
The prime minister said about 1,000 Thai citizens in United Arab Emirate had registered to be repatriated and they could fly back on normal commercial flights. However, the government would also prepare to transport its citizens to other countries if the airspace is closed.
Beijing condemns the military strikes on Iran and calls for an immediate cessation of military operations to prevent the conflict from spiraling out of control.
That’s the message from Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, according to a readout of their call Tuesday published by the state-run Xinhua news agency.
The call was at Sa’ar’s request, Xinhua said.
Wang said China had always advocated for a political settlement of the Iran nuclear issue and that recent talks between Iran and the U.S. had been making clear progress before being disrupted by the military strikes.
Wang asked Sa’ar to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens in Israel.
Iraq’s Ministry of Oil says it will stop its production in a key oil field as the ongoing war in Iran disrupted a key waterway into the oil-rich Persian Gulf.
The widening war between Iran with the United States and Israel has ground tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to a halt, causing crude oil prices to surge worldwide. About a fifth of the world’s oil passes through the strait, carrying oil and gas from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE and Iran.
A car rides along the coast of Musandam overlooking the Strait of Hormuz amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, Oman, March 2, 2026. Photo by Amr Alfiky/ Reuters
The ministry cited a shortage of tankers entering the gulf, forcing them to “stop production and pumping” from the southern Rumaila fields near the city of Basra. That tanker shortage caused “storage levels at our oil warehouses rising to critical levels.”
The strait is about 33 kilometers (21 miles) wide at its narrowest point. It connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman. From there, ships can then travel to the rest of the world.
An Iranian-backed militant group in Iraq has issued a veiled threat against Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates amid the widening war in the Middle East.
Kataib Hezbollah, one of the most powerful militant groups in Iraq, claimed that American aircraft that hit their camps earlier this week took off from an airbase in Jordan which houses U.S. forces.
The group also lashed out at Saudi Arabia and the UAE apparently for their criticism of Iranian missile and drone attacks in their territories.
It warned the two Gulf countries to “adjust their statements according to their true size … since their territories and capabilities are harnessed to serve the Zionist-American project.”
Ukraine is ready to give its domestically produced interceptor drones to Middle East countries in return for American-made air defense missiles it desperately needs, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday.
Ukraine needs U.S. PAC-3 missiles to counter cruise and ballistic missile attacks by Russia’s invading forces in their more than four-year war. Kyiv has also developed cheap and efficient interceptors to combat Russia’s Iranian-designed Shahed drones.
Countries in the Middle East are using the same surface-to-air U.S. missiles to defend against Iranian attacks.
“If they give them (air defense missiles) to us, we will give them our interceptor. This is an equivalent exchange,” Zelenskyy said at a briefing.
Ali Bahreini, Iran’s top envoy to U.N. institutions in Geneva, said the Islamic Republic doesn’t need help from outside Iran and “we are capable of defending our country.”
He told reporters on Tuesday that “there hasn’t been any coordination between Iran and Hezbollah” and said of the Lebanese group: “They decide independently and act independently.”
In a statement posted Monday on X, the Israeli military said: “Hezbollah is operating on behalf of the Iranian regime, opening fire against the Israeli civilians, and bringing ruin to Lebanon.”
The Iranian-backed militant group fired missiles at Israel on Monday, prompting Israel to retaliate. Israel’s military said its soldiers were operating in southern Lebanon on Tuesday as it continues strikes against Hezbollah.
South Korean officials say they evacuated 62 nationals from Israel to Egypt by bus, following the earlier evacuation of 23 Koreans from Iran.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry said Tuesday it also evacuated four Americans of Korean descent from Israel.
A sell-off for stocks is slamming Wall Street after careening from Europe and Asia, and oil prices are leaping even higher as rise that the war with Iran is widening and may do more sustained damage to the economy than feared.
The S&P 500 dropped 1.6% in early trading on Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 880 points, or 1.8%, and the Nasdaq composite lost 1.8%.
Crude oil prices jumped more than 8% as Iran struck the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia, part of a widening of targets that’s also including areas critical to the world’s oil and natural gas production. Treasury yields rose.
Merz has expressed understanding for the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran but has not explicitly supported it.
Speaking on Sunday in reaction to the widening conflict, Merz said that Germany “shares the relief of many Iranians that this mullah regime is now coming to an end.”
WATCH: Trump meets with Germany’s Merz as U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran widens
The chancellor added “together with the United States and Israel, we share the interest in ending this regime’s terror and stopping its dangerous nuclear and ballistic armament.” At the same time he warned that the military action “is not without risk.”
Merz also pointed out that it was not clear what kind of escalation the attacks and counter-attacks could lead to in the region and whether military strikes from outside Iran could bring about political change from within. The chancellor referred to the U.S. interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, which did not lead to the desired outcome.
The U.S. president is hosting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House later Tuesday.
The topics of discussion is sure to include Iran, although Merz’s visit was confirmed by the German government before Trump made the decision to strike.
WATCH: Trump leaves door open for ground troops in Iran
The two leaders will meet in the Oval Office in front of a pool of journalists, and then have lunch. It’s Merz’s third trip to Washington since he took office 10 months ago.
A person stands next to a motorcycle as smoke rises in the Fujairah oil industry zone following a fire caused by debris after interception of a drone by air defenses, according to the Fujairah media office in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, March 3, 2026. Photo by Amr Alfiky/ Reuters
The average price for a gallon of gasoline jumped 11 cents overnight to about $3.11 in the U.S., according to motor club AAA.
Gas prices were already rising before the U.S. launched strikes on Iran as refiners switch over to summer blends of fuel, but crude futures have risen sharply this week because of the war.
On Tuesday, oil futures soared to levels not seen in more than a year as Iran launched a series of retaliatory attacks, including a drone strike on the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia.
Benchmark U.S. crude jumped 8.6% to $77.36 a barrel.
South Korean officials say they evacuated 23 South Korean nationals from Iran to Turkmenistan by bus.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that they were being transported to the capital, Ashgabat, and were expected to fly back to South Korea or to third countries on Wednesday.
The head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation has said that the Russian-built nuclear power plant in Iran faces growing threats amid the war.
Rosatom head Alexei Likhachev said the plant in Iran’s southern port of Bushehr hasn’t come under attack yet, but explosions have taken place just a few kilometers (miles) away from the site as nearby military facilities were targeted by strikes.
Likhachev warned that a hit on the plant’s reactor or reservoirs holding spent fuel could release dangerous radioactivity and contaminate wide areas, causing a “catastrophe on a regional scale.”
Likhachev said that 639 Russian nuclear workers are now in Iran. Some of them, who are now in Tehran, are leaving the country, and some of the personnel in Bushehr will be evacuated later.
Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger announced that a repatriation flight carrying Austrians would depart on Wednesday from the Omani capital Muscat. The minister said a first evacuation flight carrying “particularly vulnerable individuals” already took off Sunday.
Nearly 18,000 Austrian citizens are registered in the region, authorities said.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene also said her country will commence the evacuation of “the most vulnerable groups of Lithuanian citizens” from the United Arab Emirates and other surrounding states.
The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia has warned of an “imminent” missile and drone attack on the oil-rich eastern Saudi city of Dhahran.
“Do not come to the U.S. Consulate” in Dhahrab, the embassy advised. “Take cover immediately in your residence on the lowest available floor and away from windows.” It did not provide further details.
Nearly 1,900 out of more than 5,450 flights scheduled to the Middle East were canceled on Tuesday, aviation analytics company Cirium said.
The United Arab Emirates said that it possesses all defense capabilities and ammunition stockpiles to protect itself “regardless of the time frame and the length of the escalation period in the region”.
The country’s defense ministry said in a briefing Tuesday that it has so far repelled hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones fired into the country.
It said a total of 186 missiles and 812 drones were fired toward the country since the weekend.
Ministry spokesperson Abdel Nassir al-Hameedi said injuries that resulted from the Iranian attacks and what he called “minor damages” were the result of shrapnel from interception efforts, not a result of successful attacks against the country.
The U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, says its peacekeepers saw Israeli forces crossing into Lebanon in several areas Tuesday morning “before returning south of the Blue Line,” referring to the border between the two countries.
It said Israeli forces were seen crossing in areas near the villages of Markaba, Odaisseh, Kfar Kila and Ramia.
“Over the past two days, as well as dozens of rockets and missiles fired into Israel claimed by Hizbullah, UNIFIL has recorded several airstrikes and hundreds of incidents of firing across the Blue Line and 84 air violations,” the statement said.
The Israeli military said earlier that its troops were positioned at several points near the border as it continues strikes against Hezbollah.
A drone struck Oman’s largest port of Salalah on Tuesday, authorities said.
The government media office also said two drones were shot down in the southwestern province of Dhofar.
The attacks left no casualties or damage in both Salalah and Dhofar, it said.
Thousands of Syrians have crossed from Lebanon into Syria to flee Israeli strikes over the past two days as Israel and the Iran-allied Lebanese militant group Hezbollah escalated their attacks against each other.
The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said in a statement that around 3,900 to 4,400 people would typically cross from Lebanon into Syria during Ramadan. On Monday, after Hezbollah launched missiles toward Israel and Israel retaliated with bombarding Lebanon, a total of 10,629 people crossed, the vast majority of them Syrian.
Azzam Sweiri, a Syrian farm worker who had been working in southern Lebanon, crossed back into Syria Tuesday.
“The streets were packed with cars and people” as he fled, he said. “It took us 10 or 12 hours just to make it 30 or 40 kilometers.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that he has offered to help the United Arab Emirates protect itself against Iranian aerial attacks.
Ukraine has built significant expertise in countering Iranian-designed Shahed drones that Russia has launched almost daily at Ukrainian targets since Moscow’s invasion more than four years ago.
Zelenskyy said on X that he spoke by phone with the United Arab Emirates president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and “discussed how we can help” protect lives in the UAE.
On Sunday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that Ukrainian and British experts will work together to help Middle East countries shoot down Iranian drones.
The U.N. human rights chief is calling for a “prompt, impartial and thorough investigation” into what Iran says was an airstrike that hit a girls’ school in the southern city of Minab.
Volker Türk said he is “deeply shocked” by the fallout of the hostilities on civilians and civilian infrastructure in the conflict.
Alluding to the reported strike on the girls school, rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said “the onus is on the forces that carried out the attack to investigate it.”
She called for those forces to make the findings public and ensure accountability and redress for victims. The rights office said it was making no assessment who might be responsible.
An Israeli military spokesperson said Sunday he is not aware of any Israeli or American strikes in the area.
A Qatari official says Iranian attacks in the gas-rich country “will not go unanswered” as the Iran war expands in the Middle East.
Majed Al Ansari, a spokesman of the Qatari foreign ministry, said the Iranian attacks not only targeted military facilities but struck across all of Qatar’s territory.
“Such attacks will not go unanswered,” he said in a briefing.
He said there were attempted attacks on the Hamad International airport, adding that more than 8,000 people have been stranded as the country’s airspace remains closed.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan renewed his call for an end to escalating violence and a return to diplomacy.
“Our fundamental request and demand is clear: the mutual attacks must stop immediately and diplomacy must resume,” Fidan said, according to a transcript of his remarks to journalists late Monday.
The minister said Turkey consistently emphasizes this message during talks with other leaders.
Commenting on Iran’s attacks on Gulf states’ facilities, Fidan said Iran hopes these countries will pressure the United States to stop the war, while adding he believes that outcome “is not likely.”
The Italian government says it is working “non-stop” to assist Italian citizens stranded in the Middle East.
Italy scheduled two flights including one from Muscat, Oman, to Rome’s Fiumicino airport Tuesday to carry around 300 people and another from Abu Dhabi to Milan to carry about 200 people, mostly young students.
Another two flights are set to depart from Abu Dhabi to Milan and Rome Tuesday. An additional flight from Muscat has been scheduled for Wednesday.
Romanian tourists arrived in Bucharest early Tuesday after traveling from Israel to Cairo to escape the conflict.
Hundreds of Romanian Orthodox Church pilgrims were stranded in Israel while visiting Bethlehem on a trip led by Romanian priests when the war broke out. The group was forced to cut their trip short to return to Romania.
Romanian pilgrim Mariana Muicaru said she was terrified as rockets flew across the sky in Israel.
“We called our children at 3 a.m. to ask forgiveness because we might die and to tell them we love them and to let them know that it’s over for us,” she told The Associated Press.
The Kremlin said Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin will convey the Gulf leaders’ concern over the Iranian strikes on their territory to Iran.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Putin will “make every effort to facilitate at least minor easing of tension.”
WATCH: On the ground in Tehran, reporter describes tense and volatile conditions
He noted that after Monday’s calls with the leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Putin will convey their “deep concern about the strikes on their infrastructure” to Tehran.
A senior Hezbollah official says that after more than a year of abiding by the ceasefire as Israel’s strikes continued on Lebanon, the group’s patience has ended, leaving it with no option “but to return to resistance” and fight an open war with Israel.
Mohamoud Komati said Tuesday that Hezbollah exercised patience since a ceasefire ended the Israel-Hezbollah war in November 2024, hoping the government’s diplomatic efforts would yield positive results in ending Israeli strikes.
Komati blasted the Lebanese government for calling Hezbollah’s actions illegal and demanded it hand over its weapons, saying it did not act to stop Israel’s airstrikes that continued on almost daily basis for nearly 15 months.
“The Zionist enemy wanted an open war, which it has not stopped since the ceasefire agreement,” Komati said. “So let it be an open war.”
Saudi Arabia has condemned in the strongest terms Iran’s drone strike that hit the U.S. embassy in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
“The brutal Iranian behavior … will push the region into further escalation,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement, which reiterated the nation’s right to protect Saudi territories and interests, including “the option of responding to the aggression.”
The Saudi Defense Ministry said the U.S. embassy came under attack from two drones early Tuesday.
Footage aired by the Saudi-owned satellite news channel Al Arabiya showed fire damage on one part of the roof of U.S. Embassy in Riyadh after the drone attack.
Sirens sounded in Bahrain on Tuesday afternoon as a new Iranian attack was expected.
China, a major importer of oil and natural gas from the Mideast, has called on all sides to stop the fighting and ensure ships can pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has attacked several ships in the narrow strait through which a fifth of all oil traded passes, sending oil and gas prices soaring.
WATCH: How the war in Iran is impacting global energy markets
“China urges all parties to immediately cease military operations, avoid escalating tensions, safeguard the safety of shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz and prevent greater impacts on the global economy,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in Beijing.
The Israeli military said Tuesday it has struck Iran’s presidential office and the building of the country’s Supreme National Security Council.
It said the airstrikes happened overnight.
“In addition, the gathering site of the regime’s most senior forum responsible for security decision-making was targeted, as well as the institution for training Iranian military officers and additional key regime infrastructure,” it added.
Iran did not immediately acknowledge the strikes.
The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said Tuesday that Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment site sustained “some recent damage” during a U.S.-Israeli airstrike campaign, though it said there was “no radiological consequence expected” from it.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the damage was focused on “entrance buildings” to the underground portion of the atomic site.
Natanz earlier came under attack by the U.S. in the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June.
The IAEA said it saw “no additional impact” detected at Natanz’s fuel enrichment plant, which is buried underground.
Nuclear material is still believed to be buried at the plant alongside damaged and destroyed centrifuges. However, the IAEA has not been allowed to visit any of the attacked sites by Iran since that war.
Debris at the historical monument Golestan Palace after it was damaged in an Israeli and U.S. strike in Tehran, Iran, March 3, 2026. Photo by Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
Airstrikes by the United States and Israel have killed at least 787 people in Iran since the start of the war, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said Tuesday.
The organization offered the toll in a message on X.
Israel’s military said Iran launched missiles at the country and it was working to intercept them.
The Israeli military struck a building in a southern suburb of Beirut housing Hezbollah’s TV and radio station, causing heavy damage.
The strike after midnight Monday came after a warning by the Israeli military to evacuate the building. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV was interrupted for about an hour before the station resumed its programs.
WATCH: Hezbollah and Israel reignite conflict in Lebanon after Iran strikes
During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, Al-Manar TV and al-Nour Radio station were both struck but continued broadcasts from secret locations.
Cypriot officials say France will dispatch a warship to Cyprus to help bolster the country’s anti-drone defenses after a Rashed drone struck a British military base on the east Mediterranean island.
France also will send additional land-based, anti-drone and anti-missile systems to the country, officials confirmed Tuesday.
Germany also responded positively to a request to send a warship, according to three officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to provide details publicly.
The equipment will arrive in Cyprus as soon as possible, they said.
The drone struck the British base, RAF Akrotiri, shortly after midnight Monday and caused only minor material damage to an aircraft hangar. Another two drones were intercepted by British warplanes Monday after they were scrambled from the air base, officials said.
Greece has sent four F-16 fighter jets to Cyprus while two of its frigates are on their way.
A fire broke out in an oil industrial facility Fujairah, one of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates, as forces intercepted a drone attack, authorities said.
No casualties were reported.
The government media office in Fujairah said the drone was intercepted and that shrapnel landed in the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone.
The office said the fire was put down and operations resumed.
At least five people were killed or wounded in airstrikes in Iran’s western city of Hamadan, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
Strikes also were reported across other cities, including Isfahan and Shiraz.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the Lebanese army is evacuating some of its positions along the border with Israel.
The agency said the troops are redeploying to other posts.
The report comes after Israel’s military said it is conducting operations inside Lebanon along the border with Israel.
Israel’s army said Tuesday that Iran’s firepower has been weakened.
Army spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said Israeli and U.S. attacks on Iran have “limited significantly” Iran’s ability to fire.
Shoshani said Israel has been going after Iran’s missile launchers and have taken out dozens of them.
Iran has fired hundreds of missiles but it’s hard to tally the total amount with Iran also striking other countries, he said.
The pace of missiles being launched at Israel has slowed since the first two days of the war.
Shoshani said the slowdown also could be partly attributed to Iran understanding the war could go on for longer than they had thought and they are trying to pace themselves.
Iran has started the process of returning Iranian pilgrims from the shrine cities of Mecca and Medina, state media said Tuesday.
Alireza Enayati, Iran’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said the process of returning 9,000 Iranians currently in the cities of Mecca and Medina began Monday.
In a report carried by the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency, Enayati said the departure is taking place in the same manner as during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in 2025. Iranian pilgrims will leave Saudi Arabia through Saudi–Iraqi border crossings and return to Iran from Iraq.
The announcement came during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and a widening that has seen Iran target sites in Saudi Arabia.
The U.S. ambassador in Israel told Americans there that the best way to leave is through Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
Mike Huckabee said in a social media post early Tuesday that the embassy was receiving lots of evacuations requests as embassy staff “are sheltering in place.”
“There are VERY LIMITED options,” he wrote. “Not sure when Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv will reopen.”
He advised Americans to take buses to Egypt’s resorts of Sharm el-Sheikh and Taba in southern Sinai, describing that route as “best.”
A mother kisses her child after they returned from Dubai amid the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, India, March 3, 2026. Photo by Francis Mascarenhas/ Reuters
The U.S. State Department evacuations of non-emergency personnel and family reached six nations on Tuesday with the inclusion of the United Arab Emirates.
The UAE, home to Dubai and Abu Dhabi and long considered a safe corner of the Middle East, has been dragged into the Iran war with interceptions and attacks.
The other countries include Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan. Kuwait and Qatar.
The U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi also warned there could be militant attacks in the UAE as well.
“Terrorists may attack with little or no warning and may target tourist locations, transportation hubs, shopping areas, government facilities, places of worship, and in particular locations associated with the Jewish and Israeli communities,” it added.
A camp for Iranian Kurdish opposition in the semiautonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq was attacked Tuesday morning, an official said.
A missile and drone hit the Azadi camp in Irbil and slightly injured one person, according to Kareem Parwizi, a senior official with the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran.
Oman said a drone hit a fuel tank at its port in Duqm on Tuesday.
The state-run Oman News Agency said no one was hurt in the attack.
Duqm has been a key resupply route for the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, which is operating in the Arabian Sea.
The Israeli military says one of its divisions is operating inside southern Lebanon and took positions on several strategic points close to the border.
The Arabic language spokesperson of the Israeli military posted on X that the troops’ move inside Lebanon is part of its efforts to bolster the forward defense system and create an addition layer of security.
The military said that at the same time the air force is conducting strikes against Hezbollah infrastructure in the area to thwart threats and prevent infiltration attempts into Israel.
The Israeli operations inside Lebanon came after a long night of airstrikes on southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
The Israeli military says soldiers are “operating in southern Lebanon’ as it continues strikes against Hezbollah.
In a statement, it said the troops are positioned at several points near the border in what it described as a “forward defense posture” as it battles Hezbollah militants.
It says the deployment is part of a broader effort to increase security for residents in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon. It has also beefed up troops and air defenses in the area.
The army says there are no plans to evacuate Israeli residents of border areas.
The U.S. State Department added Kuwait and Qatar to the evacuation list from its Mideast diplomatic outposts.
The U.S. Embassy in Kuwait said in a social media post Tuesday that it is closing “until further notice” due to the war.
Iran on Tuesday held a mass funeral ceremony for 165 people killed in what it described as an attack on a girls’ school in the southern city of Minab.
Iranian state television showed thousands of people filling a public square. Men waved the Islamic Republic flag while largely standing apart from women draped in black chadors.
From the stage, a women who said she was the mother of “Atena” held up a printed image of portraits that she called “a document of American crimes.” She added, “They died in the way of God.”
The crowd erupted into chants of “Death to America,” “Death to Israel” and “No surrender.”
Amazon said Monday that two of its data centers in United Arab Emirates were hit by drones, while a drone strike near one of its facilities in Bahrain “caused physical impacts to our infrastructure.”
The tech giant said on its website that the strikes have caused structural damage and gotten in the way of power getting to infrastructure. The company did not say who was responsible for the strikes.
“We are working to restore full service availability as quickly as possible, though we expect recovery to be prolonged given the nature of the physical damage involved,” Amazon said.
Iran is continuing to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Perisan Gulf through which a fifth of all oil traded passes.
Brig. Gen. Ebrahim Jabbari, an adviser to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, issued the threat on Iranian state television on Monday.
“The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Anyone who wants to pass, our devotee heroes in the IRGC navy and the army will set those ships on fire,” he said. “Don’t come to this region.”
The Israeli military said Tuesday it was conducting “simultaneous targeted strikes against military targets in Tehran and Beirut,” without elaborating.
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Left: An emergency personnel member works at the site of an Iranian missile strike, in Petah Tikva, Israel March 3, 2026. Photo by Ronen Zvulun/ Reuters
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