The war in the Middle East spiraled further Monday as Israel and the U.S. pounded Iran. Tehran and its allies 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, the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the lack of any apparent exit plan indicated the conflict would not end anytime soon.
Iran has long threatened to drag the region into total war, including targeting Israel, the Gulf Arab states and the flow of crude oil crucial for global energy markets. All of these came under attack on Monday.
At least 555 people have been killed in Iran so far by the U.S.-Israeli campaign, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said, and more than 130 cities across the country have come under attack. In Israel, 11 people have been killed, with 31 in Lebanon, according to authorities.
Here is the latest:
Iran’s deadly strikes in the Gulf highlight vulnerability of migrant workers
The five reported casualties from Iranian strikes in Gulf nations have been foreign nationals. The countries hit — including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait — rely heavily on labor from South and Southeast Asia.
Migrant workers in Gulf states are often housed in employer‑provided accommodations on the outskirts of cities or near industrial zones.
The Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs on Monday upgraded its travel advisory for the United Arab Emirates, placing it along with Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia at a level that automatically triggers a deployment ban on newly hired workers.
The Emirates reported three deaths, one each from Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Kuwait’s Health Ministry said a strike killed one person and wounded 32 others, all foreign nationals. Bahrain’s Interior Ministry said a post-strike fire killed an Asian worker and wounded two others.
The International Labor Organization estimates more than 24 million foreign workers were employed across the Gulf states in 2024, forming a backbone of the region’s economy while often remaining among its most vulnerable.
Medal of Honor Ceremony begins at White House
Trump is attending with top members of his administration. The event began with a prayer.
Israeli military says airstrike in Beirut targeted senior Hezbollah official
An Israeli airstrike in the Lebanese capital heavily damaged a building as the Israeli military said it targeted a senior Hezbollah official.
The strike occurred near the old compound of the Iranian embassy in Beirut’s Beir Hassan neighborhood.
Qatar says its air force shot down 2 Iranian warplanes
The Gulf state of Qatar, home to a key U.S. military base, said its air force had shot down two Iranian Sukhoi Su-24 bombers.
Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates said it intercepted nine ballistic and six cruise missiles and 148 drones on Monday. The Defense Ministry said it has repelled hundreds of Iranian drones and missiles since the attacks began on Saturday, in response to U.S.-Israeli bombardment.
No fatalities were reported Monday in the UAE. Three people were killed in Iranian attacks on Sunday.
Trump says he doesn’t ‘have the yips’ about sending US ground troops into Iran
In a brief phone interview with the New York Post, the president said he wasn’t ruling out U.S. forces in Iran if “they were necessary.”
“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground. Like, every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump told the newspaper. “I say, ‘Probably don’t need them,’ (or) ‘if they were necessary.’”
Trump has said since the start of U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran that American military casualties were likely, as they are in any war, but he hasn’t committed to having U.S. forces on the ground long term. Before the strikes began, Vice President JD Vance told The Washington Post that there was “no chance” the U.S. would be pulled into a drawn out war in the Middle East.
Israel launches a new wave of strikes on Lebanon
The Israeli army said it had completed “a broad wave of strikes” on dozens of targets in southern Lebanon, including weapons storage facilities and missile launchers that it said belong to the militant group Hezbollah.
At least 31 people were killed in overnight Israeli strikes in Lebanon after Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel for the first time in more than a year.
British prime minister defends letting the US use bases in the country
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday defended his decision to allow the U.S. to use British bases to launch defensive strikes against Iran, saying the country had to support its allies in the region and British citizens who were at risk due to indiscriminate attacks by Iran.
Speaking to the House of Commons, Starmer said that the government was focused on looking ‘’at all options to support our people.’’
“We want to ensure that they can return home as swiftly and safely as possible, for their lives are on the line.’’
Starmer also defended his decision not to join U.S and Israeli offensive actions against Iran, saying the U.K. had learned the lessons of the Iraq War and that any military action must be legally justified. Britain can legally take part in defensive action to protects its own citizens and allies, but it will not participate in offensive actions aimed at regime change, he said.
Pakistan's president urges restraint
Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday condemned what he described as a “war being waged on Iran while negotiations were underway” and called for restraint.
In a televised address to lawmakers in parliament, Zardari said he joins “all Pakistanis in condoling the martyrdom of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.” He also condemned what he called “subsequent attacks launched on our brotherly countries in the Gulf region.”
Demonstrators in Pakistan supportive of the Iranian government attempted to storm a U.S. Consulate on Sunday, authorities said, leading to violent clashes with security forces that killed at least 22 people and injured more than 120 others.
Israeli strike in Lebanon kills a senior Islamic Jihad militant
The top commander in Lebanon of the Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, was killed at dawn Monday by an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of Beirut.
The group gave no further details about Adham Adnan al-Othman but said he had a long history of fighting Israeli forces.
Like the larger and stronger Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad was formed in the 1980s as a radical Islamist movement to resisting Israel.
Israel extends nationwide restrictions on public activities
The Israeli military’s Home Front Command said all schools across the country will remain closed and the ban on attending workplaces will continue at least until Saturday evening. Gatherings are prohibited and all beaches will remain closed to the public.
The nationwide restrictions were first imposed after Israel and the US launched a war against Iran on Saturday.
Netanyahu visits site of Iranian missile attack
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has visited the site of a deadly Iranian missile attack in central Israel.
Nine people were killed Sunday when a missile slammed into a shelter located in a synagogue in Beit Shemesh.
Netanyahu accused Iran of intentionally targeting civilians and said the country poses a threat to the entire world. He said the world would benefit from the joint Israel-U.S. war against Iran.
“We set out to protect ourselves, but in doing so we protect many others,” Netanyahu said.
Hegseth says Iran operation could be shorter or longer than 4 weeks
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the U.S. military operation in Iran could be shorter or longer than the four to five weeks that Trump has recently suggested.
“Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take,” Hegseth said at Monday’s news briefing. “Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up. It could move back.”
Trump, in an interview Sunday with The New York Times, said the assault could last “four to five weeks.”
US Embassy in Beirut urging Americans to leave Lebanon
The U.S. Embassy in Beirut is urging Americans to depart Lebanon immediately while commercial flights remain available, saying that the security situation in the country “is volatile and unpredictable.”
The statement came as Israel carried a new wave of airstrikes on Lebanon that were clearly heard in the capital Beirut and the southern port city of Tyre.
Israel’s military also said that it killed Hezbollah’s intelligence official Hussein Mokalleh in a strike near Beirut earlier Monday.
The embassy urged U.S. citizens not to travel to Lebanon. It said all consular services are suspended until further notice, and that the U.S. embassy currently has no ability to provide any assistance to U.S. citizens in Lebanon.
Trump ‘disappointed’ in Starmer over UK bases
President Donald Trump says he is “very disappointed” in Prime Minister Keir Starmer for initially refusing to allow British bases to be used for U.S. strikes on Iran.
Trump told Britain’s Daily Telegraph that “we were very disappointed in Keir.”
In a change of position, Starmer announced Sunday that the U.S. can use bases in England and on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to strike Iran’s ballistic missiles and their launch and storage sites, but not to hit other targets.
Trump said the change in position is “useful” but “took far too much time.”
“It sounds like he was worried about the legality,” Trump said.
Iran media reporting that wife of Khamenei died
Iranian media said Mansoureh Khojasteh, wife of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, died on Monday. She had been in a coma since Saturday’s strikes on her husband’s office.
Khojasteh, 78, was the only wife of Ali Khamenei. They married in 1964.
Separately, an Iranian human rights activists’ group cited an education ministry spokesperson as saying that 171 students were killed across Iran in the past 48 hours.
According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, the ministry spokesperson said the deadliest strike hit the Shajareh Tayebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, where 168 students died and 95 were injured. Additional casualties included two students in Tehran and a 9‑year‑old child in Abyek, Qazvin, while three others were injured in separate incidents in two districts of Tehran.
Caine says cyberattacks were used to 'disorient’ Iran
Cyberattacks knocked out Iran’s key systems ahead of U.S and Israeli strikes, according to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Air Force Gen. Dan Caine.
U.S. cyber operations were used to “disrupt, disorient and confuse” Iranian forces at the start of the operation, Caine said.
Disruptions to its communications systems reduced Iran’s ability to assess the attack and to coordinate its response, Caine told reporters at a Monday briefing.
Energy prices surge
European natural gas futures are spiking 42% in the wake of the shutdown of a major supplier of ship-born gas due to the fighting in the Middle East.
The futures contract for April delivery shot up to 45.46 euros ($53.26) on the ICE commodities exchange. The jump came after QatarEnergy said it would stop its production of liquefied natural gas as the Mideast war rages. The state-owned firm blamed the war for the decision.
More US forces being deployed and positioned, Joint Chiefs chairman says
Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that more forces are being deployed.
The deployment already includes thousands of service members from all branches, including Reserve and National Guard forces; hundreds of advanced fighters; dozens of refueling tankers; the Lincoln and Ford Carrier Strike Group and their embarked air wings.
“The Joint Force has launched hundreds of missions over land and sea,” Cooper said.
Caine noted especially the Wisconsin Army National Guard units that are operating in Kuwait and Iraq, and Air National Guard units from a variety of states to include Vermont and Virginia.
‘This is not Iraq. This is not endless’ — Hegseth
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the military operations in Iran are the “most precise aerial operation in history.”
Decrying Tehran’s “expansionist and Islamist regime,” Hegseth referenced violence in places across Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon as proxies in more than four decades he said were part of “a savage, one-sided war against America.”
“Their war on Americans has become our retribution against their ayatollah and his death cult,” Hegseth told a news conference at the Pentagon.
Hegseth said the U.S. is not engaged in a nation building effort in Iran and that ongoing strikes on Iran have a clear mission and won’t be the prelude to a long sustained conflict.
“This is not Iraq. This is not endless,” he said. “This is not a so-called ‘regime change war’ but the regime sure did change and the world is better off for it."
Cyprus to protest use of UK military bases
The government of Cyprus says it will lodge a protest with the U.K. government to express its displeasure that Britain did not make clear that its military bases in Cyprus will be used only for humanitarian purposes.
Government spokesman Constantinos Letymbiotis said Monday that Cypriot authorities had assurances from UK officials “at all levels” that the bases would only be used “strictly in a humanitarian capacity.”
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer didn’t spell out how Royal Air Force bases in Cyprus would be used when he stated Sunday that he would allow the U.S. to use British bases for attacks on Iran’s missiles and their launch sites.
RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus was struck by an Iranian-made drone Sunday and Monday.
Global markets rattled
Military strikes on Iran rattled global markets on Monday with U.S. futures following markets in Europe and Asia lower. Energy prices rose sharply.
Futures for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average each sank about 1%.
Travel sectors, from airlines and cruise operators to global hotel chains, tumbled. Natural gas futures rose early 6% and futures for fuel used for transportation as well as industrial purposes, spiked more than 14%.
Germany’s DAX dropped 1.9% to 24,817.42, while in Paris the CAC 40 lost 1.7% to 8,435.80. Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped 1% to 10,808.53.
Shares fell in most Asian markets but they rose in Shanghai, where higher oil prices lifted some oil company stocks such as CNOOC, China Petroleum & Chemical and PetroChina to the 10% limit. The Shanghai Composite index climbed 0.5% to 4,182.59, while in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng lost 2.1% to 26,059.85. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index initially fell more than 2%.
Gold, a safe haven for investment in times of uncertainty, rose 3.1% to about $5,408.10 per ounce.
Cyprus says 2 drones targeting air base have been intercepted
Cyprus says two drones moving in the direction of a British air base on the island have been intercepted.
Cyprus government spokesman Constantinos Letymbiotis posted on X that the two drones were heading toward RAF Aktotiri Air Base.
Sirens sounded at around 1000 GMT at the key base, minutes before two Typhoon fighter jets and a pair of F-35s took off, ostensibly to intercept the drones. The sirens stopped an hour later with the aircraft landing shortly after.
Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides said earlier that a Shaheed-type drone had cause minor damage when it struck inside the base just after midnight.
Fourth US soldier dies — Central Command
A U.S. soldier has died during the war with Iran, the U.S. Central Command announced on Monday, bringing the official tota l to four.
The soldier was wounded during the initial stage of Operation Epic Fury and died on Monday, it said.
A total of four U.S. soldiers have been killed since Israel and the U.S. launched strikes against Iran on Saturday.
U.S. President Donald Trump said in a video posted to his Truth Social platform on Sunday that “sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is. Likely be more, but we’ll do everything possible where that won’t be the case.”
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