Fighting has spread through the Middle East as Tehran retaliates against a huge American-Israeli military campaign.
A week after Israel and the United States began carrying out strikes on Iran, the conflict has become an international crisis that continues to expand.
In the latest round of fighting, the Israeli military said it had launched “a broad-scale wave of strikes” on Iranian government infrastructure in the early hours of Saturday, with more than 80 fighter jets attacking sites in Tehran and parts of central Iran overnight.
A day earlier, Israel’s military bombarded targets linked to Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia, in the densely populated southern outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital. Iran, for its part, launched drones and missiles at Tel Aviv, according to a statement from its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps reported by IRNA, the state news agency.
Iran has also rained down strikes on other U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf. On Saturday, President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran apologized to the country’s neighbors and said that Iran would no longer attack them, “unless an attack on Iran originates from those countries.” But Qatar and Bahrain announced air-raid sirens warning of incoming fire, suggesting that little had changed.
European countries have stepped up their deployment of military assets in the Middle East, as the fighting appeared to broaden. NATO air defenses shot down a ballistic missile headed toward Turkey this week and a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian Navy ship in international waters off the coast of Sri Lanka, killing at least 80 sailors, according to Sri Lankan officials.
The spiraling conflict started with the U.S.-Israeli bombing of Iran on Saturday. Hundreds of people have been killed; military bases and embassies have been damaged; and travel, energy and shipping have been severely disrupted.
Oil and natural gas prices have surged as Iran has targeted energy facilities in the Gulf and threatened ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, normally a transit point for about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. Traffic there has slowed to a trickle.
No immediate end to the fighting is in sight. President Trump has offered an open-ended time frame for the U.S. military campaign. On Friday, he demanded “unconditional surrender” by Iran, adding to earlier comments that the United States should have a say in choosing Iran’s new leader.
Thousands of airstrikes conducted by the United States and Israel in Iran since Feb. 28 have killed several military leaders and senior officials, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader. Mojtaba Khamenei, his 56-year-old son, is considered a front-runner to replace him, three Iranian officials familiar with the deliberations said.
Want to stay updated on what’s happening in the Middle East? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update
, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
The strikes have killed hundreds of other people, including many civilians. The Iranian Red Crescent said in one recent update that the death toll had risen to 787 across Iran.
At least 175 people, most of them probably children, were killed in a strike on a girls’ elementary school in southern Iran on Saturday, health officials and Iranian state media said. It was not immediately clear why the school had been hit or by whom. Trump administration officials said on Wednesday that they were still investigating whether it was a U.S. airstrike. On Thursday, two boys’ schools were damaged during a bombing campaign, according to images verified by The New York Times.
Israeli and American strikes have damaged government buildings and military infrastructure, including Iranian missile launchers, air-defense systems and headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in an apparent effort to weaken Iran’s internal security agencies. On Saturday, Iranian state media said Israeli strikes had hit the area near Mehrabad Airport in Tehran.
U.S. bases and embassies
Sources: Iranian state news agency; verified satellite images and video; MarineTraffic; and VesselFinder.
Iranian attacks have killed six U.S. service members, including at least four who died after an Iranian strike on a base in Kuwait. Three American jets were “mistakenly” shot down by Kuwait during “an apparent friendly fire incident,” the U.S. military said on Monday, adding that all six crew members had ejected safely. The State Department closed embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait on Tuesday after drone attacks. On Wednesday, the White House said that 17,500 Americans had returned safely since the start of the war, but veteran diplomats and travelers said the State Department had been slow to act.
Israel
At least 10 people have been killed in Israel. Nine were killed on Sunday in an Iranian missile strike in Beit Shemesh, about 18 miles west of Jerusalem. A woman also died after a strike in Tel Aviv on Saturday. Missile barrages and air-raid sirens have sent Israelis running repeatedly to bomb shelters.
Lebanon
On Saturday, at least 26 people died in clashes between Lebanese soldiers and an Israeli commando force in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa valley, the country’s National News Agency reported. The Israeli military on Friday said it was striking infrastructure linked to Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran. Hezbollah joined the fighting on Sunday in what the group said was a response to the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei and what it called Israel’s violations of a cease-fire agreed in late 2024.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said more than 200 people had been killed and hundreds more wounded as Israel has struck areas across the country. Many residents of southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, have fled their homes.
Overnight into Friday, Israel blasted Dahiya, a densely populated commercial and residential area in the south of Beirut that is a stronghold of Hezbollah. It was the most intense attack in the area since the 2024 truce. At least three buildings collapsed, and thousands of people who live in the area were displaced to other parts of the capital. In southern Lebanon, concern was rising that Israel could be preparing to launch a ground invasion.
Turkey
A ballistic missile fired from Iran was shot down by NATO air and missile defenses in the eastern Mediterranean while heading toward Turkish airspace, the Turkish Defense Ministry said on Wednesday. Its target was not disclosed. Iran’s military on Thursday denied firing a missile toward Turkey.
Though Turkey hosts U.S. forces at the Incirlik Air Base, the country has said that it will not allow its airspace to be used for attacks on Iran. A strike on Turkey, a NATO member that shares a 300-mile border with Iran, could activate NATO’s mutual defense clause, potentially drawing the alliance’s 32 member states into the war.
Gulf States
Countries in the Persian Gulf that are allied with the United States or that host U.S. military bases have been targeted by hundreds of Iranian drone and missile strikes.
Most of the Iranian attacks have been intercepted, the Gulf countries said. At least six people were killed and more than 100 were wounded in Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Some countries have been forced to close their airspace.
The United Arab Emirates said this week that its air defenses were “dealing with a barrage of ballistic missiles” from Iran. Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry on Saturday said it had intercepted and destroyed several drones and missiles, but did not say where they came from.
In Dubai, the Middle East’s business capital, five-star hotels caught fire, explosions shattered the windows of residential towers and the bustling international airport was damaged, injuring four people and shaking the city’s image as a safe haven. In Bahrain, a luxury hotel and several residential buildings were hit, and one person was killed after debris falling from an intercepted missile started a fire on a ship, the interior ministry said.
Oman, which had sought to mediate between Washington and Tehran in an effort to avert war, has not been spared. Drone attacks targeting the commercial port and Omani waters have damaged two tankers, killing one crew member, Oman said on Monday.
Sri Lanka
A U.S. submarine torpedoed an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka, Pete Hegseth, the U.S. defense secretary, said on Wednesday. The strike on the warship, the Dena, more than 2,000 miles from Tehran, stretched the battlefield to its farthest point since the war began. At least 80 people were killed, according to Sri Lankan officials. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, accused the United States of committing an “atrocity at sea.”