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Middle East crisis live: Trump demands say in choosing Iran’s next supreme leader; Israel tells hundreds of thousands to flee Beirut

Donald Trump has brushed off concerns over any backlash sparked by the US-Israeli military operation against Iran, saying the public is “loving” it. In an interview with Politico, the US president said: “People are loving what’s happening.” He added: “We’re taking out a threat to the United States of America, major threat… and doing it like nobody’s ever seen before.” Asked how much influence he expects to have over Iran’s future leadership, Trump replied: I’m going to have a big impact, or they’re not going to have any settlement, because we’re not going to have to go do this again. He suggested that Iran’s future leadership would be able to “nicely build Iran but without nuclear weapons”.

EU agrees to chop meaty names from vegetarian and vegan food products

EU lawmakers have agreed to ban meaty names such as steak and bacon for vegetarian and vegan foods, but “veggie burgers” and “meat-free sausages” will remain on the table. Negotiators from the European parliament and EU council of ministers found a recipe for compromise on rules for food names on Thursday, although critics said they were creating needless complexity. The lawmakers agreed to ban the use of 31 meat-related names to describe vegetarian and vegan products, including bacon, beef, chicken, drumstick, loin, ribs, steak, T-bone and wing, according to a statement published on the EU council website. But an earlier proposal to prohibit names such as burger and sausage was abandoned. The naming rules are part of a broader regulation aimed at strengthening the position of farmers in food supply markets. The agreement has to clear further procedural hurdles, which are usually formalities, although leave open the possibility of last-minute haggles. Céline Imart, a French centre-right MEP, who devised the amendment to ban meaty names, hailed the outcome as “an undeniable success for our livestock farmers”. Imart, also a cereal farmer, said the agreement reached on Thursday “recognises the value of livestock farmers’ work and protects their products, fruits of unique know-how, against a form of unfair competition”. Anna Strolenberg, a Dutch Green MEP who negotiated on the issue, said farmers would lose out and said the law should have done more to strengthen their bargaining power. She also said: “Fortunately, the conservative word police has failed to ban the veggie burger. Unfortunately, a number of other words still end up on the blacklist. That’s a shame; Europe should be backing innovative entrepreneurs, not putting new obstacles in their way.” The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) described the banning of some names as regrettable. “Consumers want to eat healthier and need convenient and affordable options,” said Agustín Reyna, the BEUC director general. “These names make it easy for those who want to integrate these options in their diets, and the new rules will increase confusion and are simply not necessary.” Maria Panayiotou, the minister for agriculture of Cyprus, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said: “By improving support for farmers and enhancing the role of producer organisations, we are giving farmers additional tools to secure a more predictable and sustainable future.”

Portugal fined £8.7m by EU court for failing to protect biodiversity

Portugal has been fined €10m (£8.7m) by the EU’s court of justice for failing to comply with environmental laws that require it to protect biodiversity. It has also been ordered to pay €41,250 a day until it complies with a previous court order made in 2019. The court said it was imposing the maximum fine possible to “encourage” Portugal to bring the infringement to an end. The daily fine corresponds to a penalty of €750 for each of the 55 sites that the court said had “still not been protected” despite Lisbon having been ordered seven years ago to comply with EU laws. The fine will be reduced by €750 a day per site that is brought into compliance. The court said in a statement: “The court considers that these are particularly serious infringements of EU environmental law, in which Portugal has persisted. “Given that Portugal’s territory hosts rich biodiversity, including 99 habitat types and 335 species covered by the habitats directive, what is at stake for the European Union’s common heritage there is especially important. “In view of this, as well as the considerable duration of the infringement and Portugal’s capacity to pay, the court sets the amount of the lump sum at €10m.” The European Commission has battled for years to try to force Portugal to conserve and protect habitats and species in areas that should have been designated for conservation under the EU habitats directive. Under EU law, sites of “community importance for the Atlantic biogeographic region” include Peneda-Gerês, Portugal’s only national park, the natural park Litoral Norte and the Minho and Lima rivers. Also included are Valongo, home to rare fern species and an important site for the golden-striped salamander, the Serra D’Arga mountain range and Corno do Bico, a protected landscape, records show. Lisbon was ordered by the court to comply with the EU habitats directive in a case brought by the European Commission in 2019 after allegations it had failed to designate sites of community importance as special areas of conservation (SAC). Under the directive, countries had to designate SAC sites that needed protection within six years, with accompanying measures to protect rare habitats and species. In 2019 the court found that Portugal had failed to fulfil its obligations to designate 61 areas under the Atlantic and Mediterranean biogeographical biodiversity classification. A spokesperson for the Portuguese government said that the litigation went back 30 years and spanned 12 governments, but that last April the government launched “an intensive legislative process that allowed rapid progress in the designation of SACs and the approval of management plans”. “Very little remains to be done for the work to be completed and for Portugal to fully comply with the obligations arising from the habitats directive.”

Stock market falls resume as US-Israel war with Iran drives up oil and gas prices

A market sell-off resumed on both sides of the Atlantic on Thursday as fears mounted that there would be no quick resolution to the conflict in the Middle East. Early gains in European markets, which had followed a rebound in Asia, were wiped out in later trading and Wall Street was also trading sharply lower by early afternoon in New York. The US-Israel war with Iran has driven up the price of oil and gas, triggering fears of a renewed inflation shock and dampening hopes of interest rate cuts. In London the FTSE 100 closed down 1.5% or 154 points at 10,414; while Germany’s DAX and Italy’s FTSE MIB both fell 1.6%. France’s CAC closed down 1.5% and Spain’s IBEX was down 1.4%. In the US the Dow Jones was down 2%, the S&P 500 was down 1.3% and the Nasdaq was off about 1%. Meanwhile oil prices continued to rise, with a barrel of Brent crude up 4% on Thursday at nearly $85 (£63.80). European gas prices were up more than 3%. Brent crude has jumped 15% in the past five days. “The optimism which helped lift Asian and European markets early in the day evaporated like water droplets on a smouldering stove top,” said Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell. “It’s becoming harder to see a quick resolution to the conflict in the Middle East and that in turn is forcing markets to look again at their interest rate expectations for the coming months.” In the UK, the more domestic-focused FTSE 250 closed down 0.9%, at 22,700.20. Among the biggest fallers was Wizz Air, which has cancelled flights to and from Israel, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Amman until 15 March, as the airline warned of a €50m (£43m) hit to annual profits, also reflecting the impact of higher jet fuel costs. Its shares fell 11.3%. FTSE 100 airlines were also affected, with easyJet shares dropping 5% on Thursday and British Airways’ owner IAG down 2%. Treasury yields in the US were on track to rise for a fourth consecutive day, as higher oil prices began to cast doubt on immediate interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. Markets are likely to improve if tankers can start moving through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been in effect closed by Iran since the weekend. About a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies run through the Strait, located off Iran’s southern coast.

Who are the Kurds and why does Trump want them to join the war on Iran?

The Kurds are one of the biggest ethnic groups in the world without their own nation. Numbering between 30 and 40 million worldwide, most live amid the peaks and valleys straddling the borders of Armenia, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. Though they link their history to that of the Medes, an ancient Middle Eastern people, the Kurds were left stateless a century ago when the borders of the modern Middle East emerged from the collapsing Ottoman empire. Repeatedly caught in the bloody political competition of a volatile region and often forced to rely on their homegrown militia, the peshmerga, for defence, the Kurds say their tough and often bloody history has taught them that they have “no friends but the mountains”. Despite significant diversity, the Kurds have their own distinct culture, with a language related to Persian that has many dialects, traditional dress, music, cuisine and identity. Their nationalism has its roots in the late 19th century but dreams of a homeland have been repeatedly dashed, and promises made across a century or more by imperial powers such as Britain and then the US to support their national ambitions have gone unfulfilled. Most are Sunni Muslim but there are significant religious minorities. Since the second world war, a series of authoritarian regimes, rulers and governments in the region have brutally repressed Kurds, displacing and killing entire communities. Outside powers have sought to exploit the Kurds to gain leverage, sowing damaging dissension and rivalry. Such interventions frequently brought disastrous results for Kurdish communities. In Turkey, a long conflict between security forces and the PKK, a leftist group that first fought for an independent Kurdish state and then autonomy, has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced many more in the country’s south-east. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Kurds in the north, though after the Gulf war of 1991 they were able to carve out a semi-autonomous zone which they have governed ever since. Iran’s Kurdish regions have a historic record of resistance to central authority that goes back to the revolution of 1979. More recently they were a major flashpoint during a large wave of domestic unrest in 2022, when nationwide protests were triggered by the death in custody of an Iranian-Kurdish woman, and again following anti-government protests that began in late December 2025 and led to thousands of people being killed in January 2026. In Syria, efforts during the last decade’s civil strife to build an enclave there ultimately failed, despite the Kurds’ key role as ground fighters in the successful campaign waged by the US-led coalition to defeat Islamic State there and also in Iraq. That effort, which cost many Kurdish lives, consolidated the reputation of the peshmerga – the name means those who seek death – as effective fighters whose knowledge of terrain, mobility and motivation compensate for their light weaponry even against tough enemies. It also built connections with US officials and military personnel, and refined tactics that could be deployed in coming weeks if, as reported, the Trump administration seeks to use fighters from Iranian Kurdish opposition groups to undermine current rulers in Tehran. With air support and US military advisers on the ground, the peshmerga could seize and hold territory in Kurdish-dominated areas in Iran but any suggestion they could advance much past the frontier is unrealistic, analysts say. Instead the aim would be to force Iranian military commanders to divert precious troops and resources to marginal border battlefields while possibly inspiring other ethnic communities within Iran to launch their own campaigns – also potentially with US assistance. But there are multiple potential pitfalls – as their leaders know well. For the moment, mainstream Iraqi-Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq are insisting they will stay neutral. This is understandable. When wars come the Kurds have often been caught in the crossfire, underlining once again their only true protectors are the peaks around them.

Israel orders more than 500,000 people to evacuate Beirut’s southern suburbs

The Israeli military has ordered the entire population of Beirut’s southern suburbs to evacuate, as it continued to bomb Lebanon and Iran, while Tehran launched retaliatory strikes against Israel and US bases across the region. An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson told all residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs – more than 500,000 people – to “save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately”, before Israel launched airstrikes on what he described as Hezbollah targets. The area covered by the order included several hospitals and government ministries. Meanwhile, Donald Trump claimed that he should be involved in choosing Iran’s next supreme leader to replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a US-Israeli airstrike on the first day of the war. Trump said Mojtaba Khamenei, the 56-year-old son of the late supreme leader – the country’s head of state and commander-in-chief – would be an “unacceptable” choice. “We want to be involved in the process of choosing the person who is going to lead Iran into the future,” Trump told Reuters. “We don’t have to go back every five years and do this again and again … somebody that’s going to be great for the people, great for the country.” Iran expanded its campaign of strikes, firing more ballistic missiles towards Israel, striking an airport in Azerbaijan, and raising fears that the conflict – now affecting 14 countries across the Middle East and beyond – could spread further. Israeli defense minister Israel Katz said on Thursday that the decision to assassinate the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was taken in November, far predating the breakdown in the nuclear programme negotiations that Donald Trump claimed led to the US launching a preemptive strike on Iran. In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, Katz said that Netanyahu and his top ministers had made the decision to kill Khamenei because they believed that as long as he led Iran he would seek the destruction of Israel. The original timeline was for Israel to target Khamenei in the middle of 2026, but Netanyahu moved it up the schedule after riots broke out in Iran, Katz said. Khamenei was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Saturday, the first day of the war. The claim could bolster critics of Trump, who say that Israel had dragged the US into a large war in the Middle East with Iran. Secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said earlier that the US launched the strike on Iran because it expected to be targeted after the Israeli attack. Katz has also said that Khamenei’s successors will be “unequivocal targets for elimination”. Thursday’s sweeping evacuation order for southern Beirut was unprecedented in its scale: even during the 13-month war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2024, no evacuation order so broad was issued. The order provoked panic in Beirut as people tried to flee the affected areas. Traffic was at a standstill throughout the city and thousands of people resorted to walking, with women pushing strollers holding infants through bumper-to-bumper traffic. Families made appeals for rescue services to help extract elderly people who could not leave their homes on their own. The Israeli military spokesperson provided pre-approved routes north and east which it said people should use to flee – a tactic reminiscent of evacuation orders Israel issued in Gaza. The Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, threatened in a post on X that “the southern suburbs of Beirut will become like Khan Younis”, a section of southern Gaza that has been almost entirely destroyed by Israeli bombs. Rights groups have condemned such sweeping evacuation orders in the past, saying they amount to forced displacement – a war crime – and warning that non-able-bodied residents may not be able to comply. At least 102 people have been killed and 638 injured in Lebanon by Israeli airstrikes, Lebanon’s ministry of health reported. The war, now in its sixth day, has also killed at least 1,230 people in Iran and about a dozen people in Israel. Six US soldiers have been killed. The evacuation order was issued just a day after the Israeli military ordered all residents to flee the area south of the Litani River, which compromises about 10% of the country. Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters were fighting in south Lebanon, according to UN peacekeepers in the area, as Israel continued its retaliatory campaign against the pro-Iran force that launched missiles into Israel on Monday. Despite the escalating nature of the conflict, the US gave an optimistic assessment of its campaign so far, with various officials giving differing goalposts and timelines for the war in Iran. The US and Israel continued their bombardment of Iran, hitting key ballistic missile launchers, weapons caches and security installations on Thursday. Israel’s military also warned residents in eastern parts of Tehran to evacuate, while Iranian media reported blasts across the capital. “Today is worse than yesterday,” one resident of the city told Reuters. “We have nowhere to go. It is like a war zone. Help us.” Sri Lanka said its navy had recovered at least 87 bodies after a US submarine sank an Iranian warship, IRIS Dena, on Wednesday. Thirty-two sailors were rescued out of a total crew of almost 130. The country reported that another Iranian ship had arrived in its waters, without reporting further details. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, reacted with fury to the US’s sinking of Dena, accusing it of carrying out an “atrocity of sea”. “Mark my words: The US will come to bitterly regret [the] precedent it has set,” Araghchi said in a post on X, while a senior Iranian cleric called for the exacting of “Trump’s blood” on state TV. Iran’s retaliatory campaign of strikes has hit targets as far afield as Cyprus and created the world’s largest travel disruption since Covid as countries shut down their airspaces, and caused oil prices to spike. Gulf countries reported more incoming Iranian projectiles throughout the day, which Iran said were targeted at US bases and personnel stationed there. A drone was shot down near Al Dhafra airbase in the United Arab Emirates, wounding six people when shrapnel fell. Qatar said there was a missile attack on the capital, Doha, and Saudi Arabia announced it had destroyed a drone. A tanker was attacked off the coast of Kuwait but it was unclear if the ship was damaged. In Azerbaijan, a drone strike wounded four people near an airport in Nakhchivan, in an area bordering Iran, while another drone fell close to a school. Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, said Iran had committed a “groundless act of terror and aggression” and said the military was prepared to retaliate. Tehran denied the claims, with the general staff of the Iranian armed forces denouncing the allegations as baseless. Iran also targeted the headquarters of Iranian Kurdish forces northern Iraq as it increased its strikes on Kurdish forces in Iran and Iraq. The attacks came as the US and Israel pressed forward with an apparent plan to help thousands of Kurdish fighters to push into Iran as part of a ground operation.

Three men deported by US file legal case against Eswatini over detention

Three men deported by the US to Eswatini – rather than their home countries – have filed a case against Eswatini’s government with the African Union’s human rights body, claiming their detention was an unlawful violation of their rights. Two of the claimants, from Cuba and Yemen, have been in prison in Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, for eight months. The third, Orville Etoria, was repatriated to his home country, Jamaica, in September. They were among a group of five men deported by the US in July, with another 10 sent in October. Other than Etoria, all remained in prison in Eswatini, their lawyers said. The US has labelled the men dangerous criminals but their lawyers said they have already served their sentences for any crimes committed in the US. The men’s complaint was filed with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), an African Union body that monitors member states’ compliance with regional human rights agreements. The commission can demand that states uphold rights and refer cases to the African court on human and peoples’ rights, but neither body has enforcement powers. Beatrice Njeri, a lawyer with the Global Strategic Litigation Council, one of the organisations that brought the case on the deportees’ behalf, said: “The people in detention have committed no crime [in Eswatini] and continue to undergo various human rights violations … they are being held indefinitely.” Njeri said the men had still not been allowed to see their lawyers in person. She said one detainee had gone on a 30-day hunger strike late last year, resulting in signs of organ failure. “They’re totally frustrated with the situation,” she said. “They just want to go back – some of them home, some of them to the US.” Thabile Mdluli, a spokesperson for Eswatini’s government, said: “The Kingdom of Eswatini reiterates its longstanding commitment to upholding human rights and its obligations under regional and international frameworks. “The government continues to ensure that the rights and dignity of the third-country nationals currently in the country are respected for the duration of their stay. “It is also important to clarify that these individuals are not detained or imprisoned. They are being accommodated in a secure environment while the necessary administrative and diplomatic processes relating to their repatriation are under way.” She added that “it would be premature to indicate precisely when each individual will return to their respective countries of origin”. The US has deported dozens of immigrants to third countries, as Donald Trump’s administration attempts to carry out mass deportations. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has detained more than 68,000 people in the US. Other African countries that have accepted third-country deportees from the US include Ghana, Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda. The US agreed to pay Eswatini $5.1m (£3.8m) to take up to 160 third-country nationals, according to Reuters. In February, Eswatini’s high court threw out a case from local NGOs that had argued the government’s imprisonment of the deportees was unconstitutional. The court ruled that the applicants had no right to bring the legal challenge, as they did not have a direct interest in the matter.

Sri Lanka evacuates crew from Iranian navy vessel days after warship was destroyed by US

Sri Lanka has evacuated 208 crew members from an Iranian navy vessel that made an emergency request to dock, a day after a US submarine strike sank another Iranian frigate, killing more than 80 people on board. Sri Lanka’s president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, on Thursday confirmed that the country’s navy would take over Iranian military support ship IRIS Bushehr and allow it to dock at the north-eastern port of Trincomalee. The Iranian military vessel had requested permission from the Sri Lankan navy to come into port, citing engine issues. The call came a day after a US torpedo destroyed IRIS Dena, an Iranian warship, on Tuesday night as it headed back home after taking part in a military training exercise in India. The attack quickly sank the vessel and killed at least 84 sailors. The Sri Lankan government had spent hours deliberating the request made by the second Iran military ship amid fears it could be the target of another attack. Dissanayake said his government had discussed the docking of the second ship directly with Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi. “We are not taking sides in this conflict, but while maintaining our neutrality we are taking action to save lives,” Dissanayake said in a televised statement on Thursday. “No person should die in a war like this. Every life is equally precious.” The Iranian sailors and cadets on board the Bushehr were brought ashore and transferred to a naval base near the capital of Colombo. In a lengthy written statement, Dissanayake confirmed that Iran had sought permission last week for three of its vessels to enter Sri Lankan ports from the 9 March for a four-day period. However, deliberations of the request had still been ongoing when the US struck Dena. Dissanayake emphasised that the actions taken by Sri Lanka were not taken “in a biased manner towards any state, nor do we submit to any state”. The targeting of Dena marked an escalation of the US-Israeli assault on Iran, which began over the weekend. The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, described Dena as a “prize ship”, adding: “It was sunk by a torpedo, a quiet death.” The Pentagon released black-and-white footage of the strike, showing a heavyweight torpedo blasted into the frigate from a submarine. In the first Iranian response to the ship’s sinking, Iran’s foreign minister, Araghchi, said the US would “bitterly regret” the attack. “The US has perpetrated an atrocity at sea, 2,000 miles away from Iran’s shores,” he wrote on X. “Frigate Dena, a guest of India’s navy, carrying almost 130 sailors, was struck in international waters without warning.” The Sri Lankan navy and coastguard responded to a distress call from the Dena in the early hours of Wednesday morning. But by the time they arrived, the vessel had sunk and there was only an oil slick remaining, with survivors clinging to life rafts. The navy’s rescue operation for missing sailors from the frigate continued on Thursday, with several more bodies reportedly retrieved from the sea. Military and police security remained tight at the main hospital in Galle, where 32 rescued Iranians were being treated. Most survivors were reported to have minor burns and fractures. GK Malani, 70, a lottery ticket seller in Galle, said there was a lot of fear locally after the incident. “There were so many bodies brought in,” she said. “Everyone is very scared about the attack.” KG Gunaratne, a patient at Galle hospital, said: “I was there when the injured were brought to the hospital. There was one who was completely unconscious, another with injuries to their hand.” The scale of the disaster threatens to overwhelm the morgue at Galle hospital, which has a capacity for 25 bodies. Hospital staff said the authorities were rushing to set up refrigerated shipping containers to preserve bodies until legal formalities, including inquests and autopsies, were completed. Iranian diplomatic officials refused to make any comment on the incident. The Sri Lankan government confirmed that Iran had requested assistance in repatriating the bodies of its sailors once the formalities were completed. One official, Thushara Rodrigo, said no decision had been made yet about the repatriation of the survivors. “It should be internally coordinated with the army, navy and air force, and reach the diplomatic missions,” he said.