Iran launched more missiles at Israel and U.S. bases as the war in the Middle East enters a sixth day. Israel announced multiple incoming attacks early Thursday and said it was intercepting the missiles.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said it began new strikes against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. At least eight people were killed there late Wednesday into Thursday according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry and the state news agency.
Tehran has warned of the destruction of the Middle East's military and economic infrastructure, and the war has rattled financial markets, with most taking their cues from what the price of oil is doing. Early Thursday, oil prices resumed their ascent.
The war has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 70 in Lebanon and around a dozen in Israel, according to officials in those countries. Six U.S. troops have been killed.
Here is the latest:
Beirut’s streets are snarled with traffic as residents flee
The exodus comes after the Israeli military warned residents of the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital to “save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately,” signaling plans for heavy bombardment.
Hadi Kaakour, a fleeing resident, said he wasn’t sure leaving would make him safer.
“We don’t put anything past them,” he said, referring to Israel. “They will strike us no matter where we go.”
Some residents voiced anger that Lebanon has been pulled into the wider war.
“We got sucked into a mess that we have nothing to do with,” said Yousef Nabulsi, who was also fleeing. “People have been displaced and are now staying on the streets.”
Nearly 84,000 people had already been displaced since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah resumed Monday.
Taiwanese citizens return and recount the tension of the war
A total of 252 Taiwanese citizens arrived Thursday in Taipei from Dubai, days after being stuck in cities under attack by Iran.
“At first, I didn’t know what was happening. Because there were many drills in Dubai, I thought it was just a drill. Then I followed everyone to the air-raid shelter, and I saw many people crying. I was puzzled; why were so many people crying?” said Yu Shing-lun, a 19-year-old Taiwanese university student at NYU Abu Dhabi. “I checked the news online and realized it was war.”
Tim Liu, a 34-year-old financial analyst, was traveling with his girlfriend in Dubai for a week.
“It was very tense when the attack happened. We heard explosions. I kept checking the flight status and immediately changed my ticket back to Taiwan. Luckily, everything went smoothly,” he said.
Qatar says it was attacked by a salvo of Iranian missiles and drones
The Gulf nation’s defense ministry said 14 ballistic missiles and four drones were fired at the county.
It said air defenses intercepted all the drones and 13 of the missiles, while the 14th fell in the sea off Qatar.
Iran says it launched a new wave of missiles
Iranian state television announced that the salvo of missiles had been launched in a broadcast Thursday night.
Oil prices start climbing again after stabilizing a day earlier
“Yesterday’s bounce in risk assets already looks less like a turning point and more like a classic relief rally in a market that briefly inhaled before realizing the room was still on fire,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.
Uncertainty about the war in the Middle East has been rattling financial markets, with most taking their cues from what the price of oil is doing.
U.S. benchmark crude jumped by $2.59 per barrel, or 3.5%, to $77.25, the highest level in more than a year. Brent, the international standard, gained 2.8% to $82.87 per barrel.
The rise in oil prices has already sent prices at the pump up close to 10%.
UK sends 4 more jets to Qatar
Britain is sending four more Typhoon fighter jets to Qatar to help defend against Iranian missiles and drones.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Britain is “responding to requests” from Middle Eastern allies for additional protection.
Critics say Britain was caught unprepared to defend allies in the region and the island of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean after a drone struck the U.K. base there over the weekend.
Starmer said Britain had already sent additional fighter jets and ground-based air defenses in January and February as the United States amassed forces in the region. He added that British planes have been flying since Saturday to intercept Iranian drones and missiles.
Mideast stands at Berlin's tourism fair are empty
The Iran war has cast a long shadow at the world’s biggest tourism fair, the ITB, underway in Berlin.
Representatives from countries like Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Israel never made it to the fair as they couldn’t leave their countries due to the closed airspace.
Tourism operators, travel agencies and airlines are currently more concerned about how to bring tens of thousands of stranded travelers back home than trying to sell future trips to the Middle East.
Still, Ramzi Maaytah, the managing director of the Jordan Tourism Board, said he was positive that travel would recover quickly after the end of the war.
“We are optimistic that things will be settled soon, the skies will be clear and tourism will be resumed,” Maaytah said.
Turkey condemns Iranian drone attack in Azerbaijan
The Turkish Foreign Ministry has called for an immediate end to the attacks which it said “target third countries in the region and increase the risk of the war spreading.” It added that Turkey would continue to stand by its ally, Azerbaijan.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan discussed the drone attacks with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Jeyhun Bayramov.
A day earlier, NATO forces intercepted a ballistic missile fired from Iran that was heading toward the Turkish airspace.
UN peacekeepers say combat underway in southern Lebanon as Israeli troops move in
U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon say they have seen and heard clashes, including ground combat, in southern Lebanon as more Israeli forces have moved across the border.
“Ground combat was observed west of Kfar Kila,” a village near the border with Israel, overnight, which included “firing of shots,” said Tilak Pokharel, spokesperson for the mission known as UNIFIL.
In the town of Khiyam, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Israeli border, he said, peacekeepers saw “air attacks and flares and heard explosions.”
Iranians rally in Romania in support of the US-Israeli campaign
Members of the Iranian community rallied in Bucharest, the Romanian capital, on Thursday, holding up posters of Iran’s exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, as well as Israeli and American flags.
“Make Iran Great Again … Thank you Mr. President,” read one poster, a reference to U.S. President Donald Trump.
Abdolreza Heidari, one of the rally’s organizers, told The Associated Press that it's “a war that people wanted.”
Mehrbod, a student who only gave his first name because of fears for his loved ones back home said his grandparents and friends are in Iran.
“I couldn’t get in touch with them very well because they can’t connect to the internet,” he said. “Last time I talked to them, they were OK. They have hope that something will change because the regime now is at its weakest point.”
Azerbaijan says 4 people injured in Iranian drone attack
The office of Azerbaijan's Prosecutor General said four airport workers were injured in the Iranian drone attack on Nakhchivan, two more than earlier reported. Nakhchivan is a landlocked autonomous exclave of Azerbaijan that borders Iran.
It said the attack inflicted “significant damage” to an administrative building of the Nakhchivan airport, and a flight to Nakhchivan from Baku, Azerbaijan's capital, was diverted back for security reasons.
Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry decried Iran’s denial of the attack and said it “can in no way be considered acceptable.”
The ministry said Iran fired four drones in the direction of Nakhchivan, including one at a school where classes were underway, and demanded Iran apologize for the attack.
Japanese rugby player in Bahrain endures sleepless nights
Kenta Kutsuna, a professional Japanese rugby player with the Bahrain Rugby Football Club, has had sleepless nights as missile alerts ping on his phone and air sirens wail every few hours since the war began last weekend.
From the balcony of his apartment in Al Janabiyah, west of the Bahrain capital of Manama, Kutsuna has witnessed attacks on a U.S. military base. A warplane hit a skyscraper, a drone smashed into a residential building, and a barrage of missile interceptors launched from the U.S. base, he said.
“All I could do was to pray,” he said in a video interview with The Associated Press.
When sirens go off, he gathers with his teammates in a windowless living room. He mostly stays indoors, away from the windows with the curtains drawn, venturing out only briefly when he needs groceries.
Japan is arranging chartered flights to Tokyo for its citizens, but Kutsuna plans to stay with his teammates, working out indoors to be ready when matches resume.
Israeli army issues mass evacuation warning for Beirut suburbs
The Israeli military issued an evacuation notice Thursday calling for all residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs to “save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately,” apparently signaling plans for heavy bombardment of the area.
Since the resurgence of hostilities between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group, Israel has struck sites in Beirut’s suburbs and issued a blanket warning for residents of southern Lebanon south of the Litani River to evacuate their homes. But it had not issued a blanket evacuation order for areas outside of Beirut’s capital.
After the attacks by the U.S. and Israel on Iran triggered a new war in the Middle East, Hezbollah launched missiles and drones into Israel Monday for the first time in over a year, and Israel has retaliated with bombardment of southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Seventy-seven people have been killed and more than 83,000 people displaced in Lebanon by the renewed conflict.
France, Italy and Greece agree to coordinate deployment of military assets to Cyprus and Eastern Mediterranean
The three countries will work together to ensure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, according to a French diplomat.
The decision was announced Thursday after French President Emmanuel Macron called Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The diplomat spoke anonymously in line with government practices.
Noting that the Suez Canal and the Red Sea were under strain, Macron said earlier this week that France was taking the initiative to build a coalition to bring together the necessary means, “including military ones,” to restore and secure traffic through these maritime routes.
Supply of food to 50 million people in Gulf affected by blocked ports, group says
The war in the Middle East has blocked access to major ports in the Gulf region, impacting the supply of food to over 50 million people in a region highly dependent on agricultural imports, a ship-spotting platform said Thursday.
MarineTraffic.com said that container vessels heading to ports in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait are now stranded.
This has impacted agricultural supplies to over 50 million people in the Gulf, a region that imports over 90% of its food, it said.
Sri Lanka says another Iranian vessel is in its waters
A Sri Lankan minister said Thursday that another Iranian ship has arrived in its waters, a day after a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian warship off the country’s coast, killing at least 87 people and wounding 32 others.
Government spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa confirmed the presence of the second Iranian ship in response to a question in parliament. But he did not provide further details about the ship or the number of people on board.
He said the government was making an “intervention to minimize loss of lives and to safeguard the regional peace.”
At least 38,000 people have crossed from Lebanon into Syria, U.N. refugee agency says
The U.N. refugee agency, citing Syrian authorities, told The Associated Press that at least 38,000 people have crossed from Lebanon into Syria – mostly Syrians – in the wake of new fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.
On Wednesday, UNHCR and Lebanese officials said 84,000 people have been internally displaced within Lebanon.
“Across the Middle East and beyond, a troubling displacement picture is emerging in the aftermath of the ongoing conflicts in the region,” UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said Thursday.
UNHCR said Wednesday that 100,000 people were displaced within Iran in the first two days after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, but there are no immediate signs of large numbers of people trying to leave the country.
Oil tanker struck in Iraq
A security official with Iraq’s navy said an oil tanker flying the Bahamas flag was hit by an explosion Thursday while docked near Khor al-Zubair port in southern Iraq. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly.
The official said a small, unidentified boat approached the tanker at 01:20 a.m. local time, shortly before an explosion was heard near the vessel’s left side. The cause of the explosion and the extent of the damage were not immediately clear.
Also Thursday, Iraq’s state-run Iraqi News Agency reported that an attempt to launch missiles from an area in Basra province in southern Iraq “intended to target a neighboring country,” was thwarted and that security forces seized a mobile launch platform carrying two missiles that were ready to be fired.
UAE hit by missile and drones
The United Arab Emirates’ Defense Ministry said Thursday that one ballistic missile and six drones hit the country’s territory, as the war widens in the Middle East.
The ministry added in a statement that it repelled six missiles and 131 drones Thursday, and hundreds since the start of the war.
Earlier this week, shrapnel from the interception of cruise missiles killed three residents, and falling shrapnel in past days has wounded 94, it said.
Rising death toll in Iran
The death toll in Iran from the ongoing war with the United States and Israel has reached at least 1,230 people, an Iranian government agency said Thursday.
The Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs offered the toll.
Iran denies launching drone toward Azerbaijan
Iran’s general staff of the armed forces denied Thursday that it had launched a drone toward Azerbaijan.
The denial comes, however, as Iran has repeatedly denied targeting oil infrastructure and other civilian targets during the war, despite its drone and missile fire hitting those sites.
Iran targets Israel with large missiles, Revolutionary Guard says
Iran launched its large Khorramshahr-4 missiles in an attack Thursday targeting Israel, the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said.
The Guard said the missiles had a 1-ton warhead. The missiles also can be multiple warhead. Israel has said Iran used cluster munitions in attacks.
The Guard claimed attacks in Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates as well.
Iranian warship sunk by US had participated in India-hosted naval exercises
Indian authorities say that an Iranian warship that was sunk by a U.S. submarine near Sri Lanka had participated in naval exercises hosted by India before heading out into international waters in the Indian Ocean on its way home.
The sinking on Wednesday underscored the spread of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. It also ignited a debate in India about maritime security in the Indian Ocean — a region where New Delhi maintains a significant naval presence.
The Indian government has not yet publicly commented on the incident but opposition leaders questioned its lack of response.
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