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UK will charter flights from Oman to evacuate Britons from region amid Iran strikes

The UK government will charter a flight from Oman in the coming days, prioritising vulnerable British nationals in the region amid continued strikes by Iran, the foreign secretary has said. Yvette Cooper said the closure of the airspace and the ongoing threat of strikes from Iran, retaliating for US-Israeli attacks, meant the situation was “fast-moving”. British Airways will also separately operate a flight out of Oman in the early hours of Thursday, to bring home some of its own customers stranded in the Middle East. The time of the government charter flight is yet to be confirmed, but it would take off from Muscat “in the coming days”, Cooper said, adding that the government was working on increasing the capacity of flights able to depart from Oman. She said 130,000 British nationals had registered their presence with the Foreign Office, allowing them to receive updates as the situation unfolds. Speaking in the Commons, Cooper said airspace was still closed but that many British nationals stranded in countries in the Gulf, including the UAE, were receiving assistance from the local governments. “I am in close contact with my counterparts across the region, speaking again yesterday with the UAE on the excellent support that they are providing and some of the departures that they are now securing as this becomes viable,” she said. Cooper said that the government was “working with airlines on increasing capacity out of Muscat for British nationals”, and that a charter flight would fly from Muscat in the coming days, prioritising vulnerable nationals. She said Britons in Oman would have to wait to be contacted by the Foreign Office (FCDO). “This is a very fast-moving situation. We have unprecedented numbers of British nationals in the region, and I will continue to update members and affected British nationals as the situation evolves,” she said. No 10 said the FCDO had taken 2,700 calls from British nationals, half in the UAE. Citizens have registered to be kept informed from Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, Palestine, Qatar and UAE. British Airways does not normally operate direct flights from Muscat, but its holiday business sells packages to Oman, with passengers flying via Doha on a partner airline. Some BA customers were also diverted to Oman as airspace closed on Saturday. A spokesperson said: “We currently remain unable to operate flights from destinations including Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Amman, and Tel Aviv. We’re continuing to do everything we can to support customers and colleagues in the region and are in regular contact with them.” The airline is not advising those in the UAE to travel to Muscat, which is about 300 miles (480km) by road. But it said BA customers who were now in Oman should call a dedicated phone line if they wished to join the flight for London, departing at 2.30am local time on 5 March. The airline said there would also be scheduled flights on 6 and 7 March. Downing Street said the government remained in touch with commercial airlines, and contingency plans were being worked on. Large areas of airspace over the wider region remain closed since the conflict started, halting most scheduled flights to and from the Gulf. However, the UAE has partially opened its airspace for limited, emergency repatriation and cargo flights, including a first Etihad Airways flight carrying stranded British nationals back to Heathrow airport on Monday. International airports in the region have been targets of Iran’s retaliatory strikes, including Dubai’s international airport. Three leading airlines that operate at Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha airports – Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways – typically have about 90,000 passengers a day passing through those hubs. Qatari airspace remains entirely closed, with no flights of any sort taking off or landing at Doha airport. On Tuesday, the UAE government said its air defences had dealt with 186 missiles launched toward the country since the start of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran. Israeli and US warplanes launched a fresh wave of strikes overnight across Iran, killing 787 people, according to the Red Crescent.

Middle East crisis live: Israel launches fresh attacks on Tehran and Beirut

Israel struck a headquarters belonging to the Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya, an ally of Hamas and Hezbollah, in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on Tuesday, state media reported. “The Israeli enemy carried out an air raid a short while ago, targeting a headquarters of the Jamaa Islamiya” in the coastal city, state media said. The group had previously been the target of Israeli strikes in Lebanon after claiming responsibility for rocket launches towards Israel during the war between Israel and Hezbollah that began in October 2023.

Many Americans stranded in Middle East after US advisory to depart immediately

Americans across the Middle East are scrambling to leave the region after the US state department late on Monday urged US citizens in 14 countries there to depart immediately as the conflict with Iran widens. Mora Namdar, the US assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, issued the advisory on Monday, urging Americans to “DEPART NOW” from more than a dozen countries, citing “serious safety risks”. The warning applied to US citizens in Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. The BBC estimates that there are between 500,000 and 1 million US nationals living in the Middle East. In her message on Monday, Namdar urged Americans to leave “using available commercial transportation, due to serious safety risks” – and instructed those needing help arranging travel to contact the state department. So far, the US has not organized government evacuation flights. Since Saturday, US and Israeli forces have carried out large-scale strikes across Iran, including an attack on the compound of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a US-Israeli strike on Saturday. Iran has retaliated, including by launching missiles toward Israeli and US military facilities in the region. The state department advisory on Monday came as major airlines have canceled flights to and from the region since Saturday, and several airports paused flights and scaled back operations, leaving thousands stranded. Flight tracking service Flightradar24 said on Tuesday that while some repatriation flights have managed to depart the UAE, the “vast majority of flights remain canceled”, with more than 12,300 cancellations recorded across seven major Middle East airports since the weekend. Meanwhile, prices for private jets in the region have surged. Many Americans in the region, who have been unable to secure flights, have been sheltering in place, uncertain when they will be able to fly back to the US. In an interview with MS NOW on Monday, retired US army Maj Gen Randy Manner said he was stranded in Dubai at the moment. “I was just in transit through the country for work, and with tens of thousands of other people I’m stuck here,” he said. Manner said that “being here in the UAE and Dubai, the government and the people have been extremely gracious – they have been calm”. He added that they “have been supportive of the tens of thousands of travelers from all nationalities as we are stuck here”. Manner also expressed frustration that the US had not arranged evacuation flights for its citizens. “It’s a little bit disheartening, as you can probably imagine, as it was announced earlier today by BBC that the British government is going to schedule flights by British air force transport planes to get the UK citizens out, whereas here for the United States, we still have not heard anything through the state department, even though we’re all registered,” he said. “It feels a little bit disheartening to feel abandoned by our own government.” He continued: “I’ve talked to two embassies and they, quite frankly, are in survival mode – and I don’t blame them. “As you can recall, the state department budgets have been reduced by almost half, so they have very limited capability compared to when I was the deputy commanding general in the area – when we would do small-scale evacuation of civilians around the Middle East.” On Monday, the US embassy in Saudi Arabia was struck by two drones “resulting in a limited fire and minor material damage to the building”, according to the Saudi ministry of defense. The embassy urged Americans in Jeddah, Riyadh and Dhahran to shelter in place. The US embassy in Kuwait also announced on Tuesday that it would be “closed until further notice”. Overnight, the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, described options for Americans seeking to leave Israel as “fairly limited”. Huckabee said that with the airport closed, Americans should “follow the directions of Home Front Command, which are right now to shelter in place, and to be close to a shelter at all times”. He noted that Israel’s ministry of tourism was also providing bus services just across the border in Egypt – and from there “flights could be available”. The US embassy in Jerusalem said on Tuesday that it was “not in a position at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel”. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democratic senator, wrote in an X post that he used to work at the state department – “and the safety of Americans overseas is the highest responsibility”. “Warnings to citizens to evacuate 3 days into this war, when airspace is closed, is a clear sign of ZERO strategy and planning by the Trump admin,” Kim’s post said. “Now Americans have limited options.” On Monday, Donald Trump and his administration signaled that the conflict could intensify and last four to five weeks. Marco Rubio warned that the “hardest hits” from the US military are still to come. “The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now,” the US secretary of state said. Since the strikes began Saturday, six US service members have been killed in action, and 18 have been seriously wounded, according to the Trump administration. Iran’s Red Crescent has said that at least 787 people there have been killed. Lebanese authorities reported at least 52 people have been killed. In Israel, authorities said at least 10 people have been killed.

Macron to address the nation on Middle East as first wave of stranded Europeans start to return home – Europe live

… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today! My colleague Shrai Popat will cover Merz’s meeting with Trump over on the US blog here: For all the latest updates from Iran and the region, follow our Middle East blog here: And here is our summary of the day in Europe: Several EU countries, including Belgium (16:56), France (15:52), Ireland (13:36), Italy (10:57, 14:29), Poland (14:26) and Spain (13:53), were pushing ahead with their plans to move hundreds of thousands of European citizens stranded in the Middle East amid continuing flight disruptions in the region (10:09, 11:28). The French president, Emmanuel Macron, will address the nation tonight to speak about the situation in the Middle East, the Élysée Palace said (15:40). Meanwhile, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that the US involvement against Iran could disrupt the flow of weapons that Ukraine needs to continue defending itself against Russian invasion (12:05). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

US and Israel offer shifting justifications for Iran war: what we know on day four

The Israeli military said it began a new wave of strikes on Tehran early on Tuesday. This came shortly after the military issued an evacuation warning for Tehran residents, especially those located near the headquarters of Iran’s state broadcaster, IRIB. Fighting continued in Lebanon, with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, approving a military ground incursion into the southern part of the country and the Israeli military issuing new evacuation orders for dozens of locations. On Tuesday morning, the Israeli air force said it was attacking Tehran and Beirut simultaneously, with “extensive strikes” against the Iranian regime and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group in Lebanon that launched drones at northern Israel. Israeli airstrikes have killed 52 people and displaced at least 30,000 in Lebanon. The Iranian Red Crescent Society said that at least 787 people had been killed across Iran. However, in its latest update, the Norway-based human rights group Hengaw said the death toll on day three had reached at least 1,500, including 200 civilians and 1,300 members of the Iranian forces. Casualties and destruction were reported across at least nine countries, with the United Arab Emirates recording 186 missiles and 812 drones sent toward the country since the start of the conflict and two ports in Oman targeted in drone strikes today. The International Atomic Energy Agency on Tuesday confirmed that the entrance buildings of Iran’s Natanz fuel enrichment plant had sustained some damage in the recent strikes. Israel’s military said in the early hours of Tuesday that it was working to intercept a new wave of missiles launched from Iran, warning residents in multiple locations to seek shelter. After the latest salvo, Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency services said they were treating seven people with injuries. The US attacked Iran after learning that Israel was going to strike, which would have meant retaliation against US forces, secretary of state Marco Rubio said. “We knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio told reporters. The justification for the attack differs from justifications given by Donald Trump and the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth. Rubio also said the “hardest hits” were yet to come from the US military. “The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now,” he told reporters. Netanyahu said the war against Iran may take “some time” but would not take years. He told Fox News: “I said it could be quick and decisive. It may take some time, but it’s not going to take years. It’s not an endless war.” Trump signalled that US strikes on Iran could go much longer than originally predicted. He initially projected the war to last four to five weeks, but added it could go on longer, and has since sought to justify a broad, open-ended conflict. The president laid out what he said were four key objectives for hitting Iran. The US embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was hit by a drone strike, causing a fire to break out. The state department urged Americans to immediately leave more than a dozen countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, amid the worsening conflict. Mora Namdar, the state department’s assistant secretary for consular affairs, said US citizens should leave using available commercial transportation “due to safety risks”. The US has not organised its own evacuation flights. Other countries, including Italy, Germany and France are trying to organise the return of their citizens. The evacuation of Spanish citizens is under way by land and air, and the country expects a first group of 175 citizens to land in Madrid from Abu Dhabi on Tuesday afternoon. A British government charter flight is to take off from Muscat, the capital of Oman, “in the coming days”, according to the UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper. There was confusion over the status of navigation in the strait of Hormuz after a general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards threatened to “burn any ship” seeking to navigate the waterway, a vital route for oil and gas shipments. However, US Central Command said the strait was not closed, according to Fox News. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has said that “49 of the most senior Iranian regime leaders” have been killed in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, declaring that “killing terrorists is good for America”. That number includes supreme leader Ali Khamenei. The number of US service members killed in Iran has risen to six, the US military said on Monday. The US military said that it had struck more than 1,250 targets in Iran since operations started on Saturday.

South Sudan risks return to full-blown civil war as violence escalates

South Sudan is reeling from an escalating conflict between the government-aligned army and opposition forces and allied groups that observers say risks returning the country to a full-blown civil war. Violent confrontations in the world’s youngest country between the military, which is loyal to President Salva Kiir, and insurgents believed to be allied to the suspended vice-president, Riek Machar, have increased in recent weeks. On Sunday, at least 169 people were killed after armed youth from Mayom county in the north raided a village in neighbouring Abiemnom county near the Sudan border. The victims included including women, children and members of government security forces, said James Monyluak Majok, the information minister for the administrative area of Ruweng, where Abiemnom is located. The UN mission in South Sudan said it was sheltering more than 1,000 civilians in its base in the area and providing medical care to those injured. It said about 23 people were wounded in the attack. Stephano Wieu de Mialek, the chief administrator of Ruweng, said the assault was carried out by people linked to the White Army, a militia that was allied to Machar during the civil war, alongside forces affiliated with Machar’s political party and rebel group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO). The group denied responsibility for the attack and said it had no military presence in the area. On Monday, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said 26 of its staff were unaccounted for after recent violence in parts of Jonglei state, which has witnessed intense fighting between government and opposition forces since December. The humanitarian organisation said on 3 February that its hospital in Lankien had been hit in an airstrike by government forces and later burned and looted, and its health facility in Pieri was looted. It said of the missing staff: “We have lost contact with them amid ongoing insecurity.” MSF said it had been forced to suspend medical activities in Lankien and Pieri due to the insecurity. Machar and Kiir were both members of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army guerrilla movement that fought for independence from Sudan, which it gained in 2011, with Kiir becoming president and Machar first vice-president. South Sudan descended into a bloody civil war in 2013 after Kiir fired Machar and later accused him of planning a coup. Machar founded SPLM-IO and both groups engaged in fighting that killed more than 400,000 people and displaced nearly half the country’s population. The fighting took place largely along ethnic lines between Kiir’s majority Dinka community and Machar’s Nuer, the second-largest ethnic group in the country. In 2018, Kiir and Machar signed a peace deal — ending the civil war, creating a unity government of the two parties and returning Machar to the vice-presidency. But implementation of the agreement has barely got off the ground, as the two parties constantly collide over power-sharing. Last September, Machar was charged with murder, treason and other serious crimes in connection with a deadly attack by the White Army on a government army garrison in Nasir county in the country’s north-east. Kiir then suspended him from his post. Machar is under house arrest as his trial continues. His supporters say the charges against him are politically motivated, and observers have said that Machar’s prosecution could jeopardise the peace agreement. Machar’s prosecution and removal from office have inflamed tensions and coincided with the dramatic increase in violence, particularly in the opposition stronghold of Jonglei state where opposition forces captured government outposts in December and the government has been conducting a counteroffensive since January. Fighting between government and opposition forces there has displaced an estimated 280,000 people over the past two months. Daniel Akech, a senior analyst for South Sudan at the International Crisis Group, said the government’s “targeting” of Machar has unified the opposition. Akech said that not only did the latest fighting involve rebel groups that were loyal to him but it had also roped in groups that split from him in the past because they now saw him as a “symbolic unifying figure”. “Even if he’s detained or is incommunicado or cannot issue orders, he has become very effective,” Akech said. Last Friday, the UN’s high commissioner for human rights called for urgent action to preserve the peace agreement and prevent a return to all-out civil war. “We are at a dangerous point, when rising violence is combined with deepening uncertainty over South Sudan’s political trajectory, as the peace agreement comes under severe strain,” Volker Türk told the UN human rights council. Additional reporting by the Associated Press

Middle East war could be decided by who runs out of missiles or interceptors first, analysts say

The outcome and duration of the war in the Middle East may be decided by a grim calculus based on the size of Iran’s drone and missile stocks v vital air defence munitions held by the US, Israel and Gulf states, analysts and officials say. Since Saturday, Iran and its proxies have sought to counter the intensive joint US and Israeli offensive with more than 1,000 strikes against targets across almost a dozen countries spread over 1,200 miles. With its antiquated air force unable to compete with those of Israel and the US, Tehran has relied on its arsenal of missiles and drones. The geographical extent of Iran’s retaliatory attacks have made the conflict the widest in the Middle East since the second world war. Israeli and US aircraft and missiles have struck hundreds of sites across Iran, without losing a plane to hostile fire. The US and Israel are seeking to destroy as much of Iran’s missile stockpile and infrastructure as possibly, targeting launchers, stores and personnel. Stacie Pettyjohn, the director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, said the conflict had become “a bit of a salvo competition”, a military strategic concept describing an exchange of simultaneous volleys of large numbers of precision-guided weapons between opposing forces. “The question is who has the deeper magazines of key weapons, and the big unknown is how deep Iran inventories are,” Pettyjohn said. Sirens sounded again over Jerusalem on Tuesday, with multiple explosions as interceptor missiles destroyed incoming missiles, but Iranian attacks on Israel, where 11 people have been killed and more than 100 injured since the war began, have become less frequent over the past 36 hours. Analysts suggest Iran, where the Red Crescent said more than 787 people have been killed, may be seeking to preserve its reserves of missiles, or is simply unable to fire more. “Iran has fewer weapons that can range Israel than hit the Persian Gulf, and a lot of drones heading to Israel are being intercepted,” said Petttyjohn. “There may also be an amount of disarray that the Iranians are dealing with as they are suffering decapitation strikes [killing senior commanders] and so are not operating in a coordinated way. They are just getting off what they can, when they can.” Tehran’s strategy may be to attempt to wear down its enemies by undermining the morale of citizens and raising the financial costs of the conflict. “There is no such thing as 100% defence. It’s a war of attrition … If a single missile strikes something like a university, a hospital or a power plant it can be very costly,” said Tal Inbar, an Israel-based senior research fellow at the Missile Defence Advisory Alliance. During the 12-day war with Iran last summer, when massive barrages of missiles were fired at Israel, crucial weapons in Israel ran low, some reports have suggested. “In previous wars and clashes, the duration has been determined in part by the amount of [air defence missiles] that we had … You can never have enough interceptors,” Inbar said. All involved in the current conflict recognise the significance of the bitterly contested aerial battle and are making strenuous efforts to reassure anxious citizens. The United Arab Emirates issued a lengthy statement on Tuesday rebutting reports that it was running out of crucial interceptor missiles. “The UAE … maintains a robust strategic stockpile of munitions, ensuring sustained interception and response capabilities over extended periods,” it said. On Monday, the UAE said it had so far destroyed 161 out of 174 ballistic missiles launched toward the country, while the rest had fallen into the sea. Of a total 689 Iranian drones, 645 were intercepted and eight cruise missiles destroyed, “causing some collateral damage”. Iranian strikes have also been launched at US military and civilian infrastructure sites in Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain and Oman. International hotels in Dubai have been hit and set alight. Oil infrastructure has been damaged in Saudi Arabia, and drones targeted a British military base in Cyprus. Qatar, too, issued a statement, describing the “detection of multiple aerial and missile targets and the successful interception of the majority”. The defence ministry said it had shot down two Iranian fighter jets, three cruise missiles, 98 out of 101 ballistic missiles, and 24 out of 39 drones. “It is very hard to know the level of inventories [of these weapons] in the Gulf but they are burning through a lot of them and soon there will be some difficult decisions to make about what to protect”, Kelly Grieco, a strategic and military analyst at the Stimson Center in Washington, said. “The Iranians know this, and that is why their salvoes are not so large. They are aiming to keep the campaign running. It’s death by a thousand cuts, and so much the preferable strategy for the weaker [combatant] in the fight.” Pettyjohn said that if air defences stockpiles ran out, that might push Israel and the US to stop offensive operations and try to reach some kind of negotiated settlement. “The US could withdraw its forces, Israel clearly cannot, but it’s the Gulf states who are now bearing the brunt and they might continue to be pummelled …. If Iran runs out of missiles … they may just have to sue for peace and try to survive and eventually rebuild their capabilities over time.” Pettyjohn said. The sheer expense of the weapons involved, and their limited availability, is also pertinent. Grieco estimates intercepting a drone costs five times more than producing one, while stockpiles of the most advanced US-made weapons are very limited and can only be replenished slowly. Such munitions are in great demand elsewhere, such as in Ukraine or Taiwan.

Iran continues to hit back at US-Israeli strikes as Trump says it is too late to talk

Iran continued its bombardment the Gulf and Israel on Tuesday in retaliation for further Israeli-US airstrikes, as Donald Trump said it was too late for dialogue with Tehran. “Their air defense, Air Force, Navy and Leadership is gone. They want to talk. I said ‘Too Late!’,” the US president wrote on his Truth Social platform, rejecting what he claimed was an attempt by Tehran to restart negotiations. He said the US was prepared “to go far longer” than a four to five-week war against Iran. Trump’s comment came hours after Iranian drones hit the US embassy in Riyadh, causing a minor fire and prompting the diplomatic mission to tell Americans to distance themselves from the compound. The attack followed strike on the US embassy in Kuwait as Iran continued to target US bases, facilities and personnel in Arab Gulf states. Israel announced an “extensive” wave of airstrikes in Tehran and issued evacuation orders to Iranians located around an airport in Karaj, which it said it would soon strike. The conflict continued to widen across the Middle East, with hundreds of people killed across the region, the vast majority in Iran. Israel said ground troops had entered in southern Lebanon as part of what it said was a cautionary move to protect residents of northern Israel. In response, the deputy head of Hezbollah’s political council, Mahmoud Qamati, declared an “open war” with Israel. The pro-Iran group continued to target Israel, saying it had launched two missile salvoes overnight towards military bases in northern Israel, and shelled a military base on Tuesday morning. Israel caried out strikes and issued evacuation orders for villages in southern Lebanon, virtually emptying out the country south of the Litani River and turning the southern suburbs of Beirut into a ghost town. On Tuesday morning, the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said he had instructed Israeli soldiers to “hold and advance” into areas of south Lebanon to prevent further Hezbollah fire on northern Israel. It was the first acknowledgment that Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah would not just be aerial but would involve boots on the ground. Meanwhile, US and Israel continued their strikes against Iran, with the US claiming it had destroyed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities. What started as a war between Iran on one side and the US and Israel on the other has turned into a regional conflict with dizzying speed, with new fronts being opened on each day. The US and Israeli air war against Iran began on Saturday with attacks against Tehran, killing the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and prompting Iranian retaliation against Israel and missile attacks at Arab nations with US bases across the region. The fighting expanded rapidly to include at least nine countries and various pro-Iran groups. On Tuesday, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the war against Iran could take “some time”, saying that while it would not “take years”, it could drag on. “It’s not an endless war,” he told Fox News. Trump, who has issued a series of contradicting statements regarding the length of the war, said on Monday that it could take “far longer” than the initially planned month. US officials including the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, also flirted publicly with the idea of US boots on the ground in Iran, an anathema to analysts, who pointed to the country’s vast, mountainous geography as an obstacle to any troop presence. The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the “hardest hits are yet to come”, as administration officials said their plan for the Iran campaign had so far gone better than expected. US officials offered varying justifications for why they launched the war in Iran, with Rubio claiming the US’s hand was forced by Israel. “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” he said. Trump, for his part, has at times said the goal was regime change in Iran, and at other times said he was solely trying to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and curb its ballistic missile programme. Iran has consistently denied it is developing nuclear weapons. Netanyahu was more plain in his objectives, saying the US and Israel were “creating the conditions” for the Iranian people to topple their government. Israeli analysts suggested the Iran campaign came at a good time for Netanyahu and would boost flagging poll numbers before legislative elections. In Iran, explosions were heard overnight across the country and particularly in the capital as the US-Israeli campaign continued. Estimates of people killed in the strikes ranged from 787 people to 1,500, including 165 people in a strike on a girls’ elementary school in southern Iran. Iran continued to shoot bursts of ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted. A few missiles broke through the country’s sophisticated missile defence system, killing 11 people in Israel. Israeli authorities said 12 people had been injured in three Iranian missile attacks on southern Israel, some of which contained cluster munitions – a weapon banned by most countries around the world. The US acknowledged the deaths of six soldiers, seemingly killed while stationed in Kuwait. Iran’s strikes against energy infrastructure in the Gulf have paralysed the oil-rich Gulf states, with Qatar announcing a halt to its largest liquid natural gas production facility, while Saudi Arabia ceased operations at its Ras Tanura oil refinery. Global energy prices jumped further after Iran closed the strait of Hormuz, a global chokepoint for hydrocarbons, hitting several ships who attempted to cross. “The strait of Hormuz is closed,” said Brig Gen Ebrahim Jabbari, an adviser to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guards, threatening to bomb ships that tried to cross. “Don’t come to this region.” In Lebanon, Israel signalled that its campaign against Hezbollah could also be a long one. Similar to the war in Lebanon 18 months before, Israel steadily emptied out the south of the country through evacuation warnings, then filled in the areas close to the border with Israeli troops. It was unclear, however, what resistance Hezbollah could offer this time, as Israel has severely degraded the group’s capabilities through two years of daily airstrikes. Over the last two days, Israel has announced the killing of senior leaders in the group, including Hussein Makled, Hezbollah’s intelligence chief. It also targeted the logistical parts of the Lebanese armed group, including the Hezbollah-run bank al-Qard al-Hassan, members of its political bureau, and struck a building belonging to its media channel al-Manar on Tuesday morning. Rights groups have said that it is illegal to attack non-military targets, even if they are affiliated with the group. So far Israeli airstrikes have killed 52 people and displaced at least 29,000 in Lebanon. Hezbollah has continued to attack Israel, announcing that it struck the Ramat David and Meron airbases in northern Israel with one-way drones, and that it had targeted a base in the Golan Heights with rockets. Domestically, Hezbollah has come under fire for pulling Lebanon into a war with Israel, in violation of the government’s stated neutrality. On Monday, Lebanon’s government took the unprecedented step of banning Hezbollah’s military and security activity. The government instructed the judiciary to arrest the individuals responsible for firing rockets at Israel.