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Middle East crisis live: Iran will completely close strait of Hormuz if Trump acts on infrastructure threats, says IRG

An Israeli airstrike on a police vehicle on Sunday killed three people in the middle of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip hours after another person was killed in a strike on northern Gaza, Reuters reported, citing health officials. Medics and police sources said the three men killed in Nuseirat were members of the Hamas-led police force. Ten people were also wounded in the attack, medics said. Earlier on Sunday a separate airstrike killed one person, identified as a leader of one of Fatah’s armed groups, and injured an unknown number of others in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in northern Gaza. The Israeli military said it was checking on the two incidents. While Israeli attacks in Gaza declined in the days after the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28, according to residents, medics and analysts, they have since begun to rise again. Israeli fire has killed dozens of Palestinians since the outbreak of the Iran war, Gaza health officials say.

Iran war timeline: civilians bear brunt of US and Israel’s month-long campaign

It is approaching a month since the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran, arguing they were acting to remove the country’s nuclear threat, destroy its ballistic missile capability and free the Iranian people of a tyrannical theocratic regime. Yet it is Iranian civilians who are increasingly bearing the brunt of Israel and US’s campaign. Here’s what we know about the impact war is having on the Iranian public. The start of the war 28 February-7 March At least 175 people were killed, the majority of them children, by a Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian school on the first day of Israeli-US bombing. US investigators reportedly believe American forces are responsible. On the same day, 20 people, including teenage girls playing volleyball, were killed after an attack that hit a sports hall in Lamerd, on Iran’s south coast, Iranian authorities said. Gandhi hospital, in Tehran, suffered extensive damage in strikes the day after, in what the World Health Organization chief, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described as an “extremely worrying” incident. Historic sites including the Unesco world heritage site Golestan Palace and the ancient Grand Bazaar in Tehran, along with shops and cafes across the country, were also significantly damaged in the first week of bombing ordered by the US president, Donald Trump, and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Attacks on civilian sites are illegal under international law. Where they accept responsibility, Israel and the US argue that the devastation is incidental to strikes on nearby military or strategic targets. The UN’s refugee agency said 100,000 people fled the Iranian capital, Tehran, in the first 48 hours of attacks. Environmental impact 8-15 March Residents of Tehran reported black clouds and “black rain” on 8 March, describing downpours contaminated with toxic pollutants, a day after Israel said it had bombed fuel depots near the capital. The WHO warned that the environmental impacts of attacks on oil infrastructure could have severe health effects on children, older people and people with pre-existing medical conditions. Meanwhile, Iran’s ministry of culture and heritage reported that Israeli airstrikes had damaged culturally significant buildings in the city of Isfahan, which is known for its historic Islamic architecture, including Ali Qapu Palace, Chehel Sotoun and Jameh Mosque. The buildings, which the Iranian authorities said had been flying blue flags signalling their protected status, were hit hours after the third-century Shapur Khast castle, in western Iran, suffered structural damage. More than 40,000 civilian buildings, including 10,000 homes in Iran, were damaged in airstrikes in the first fortnight of the war, the Iranian Red Crescent Society, a humanitarian NGO, said on 14 March, adding that they had received 70,000 calls from people seeking “mental health support, guidance … and counselling”. Hardship, uncertainty and fear 16-21 March The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, warned on 18 March that densely populated urban areas, along with major energy facilities, were coming under attack across the Middle East, meaning many people were observing Eid in “hardship, uncertainty, and fear”. The office of the UN high commissioner for human rights said civilians faced disruptions in electricity supply, and shortages of medicine, baby formula and fuel, while housing complexes, medical facilities, shops, courthouses, Unesco world heritage sites, energy installations and about 500 schools had been hit by US-Israeli missiles in Iran. The UN understands that the Iranian regime has continued its repression against citizens, with political prisoners facing harsher conditions, critics being arrested, and internet access restricted. Inflation in Iran is said to be at its highest levels since the second world war, exacerbating the cost of living crisis that triggered the protests that preceded the war, putting basic foods out of reach for many. The Iranian government raised the minimum wage by 60% on 20 March in response. On Saturday 21 March, Iran’s state broadcaster said more than 1,500 people had been killed in Iran since the war began. Trump warning 22 March Donald Trump is threatening the destruction of Iran’s energy infrastructure if Iran refuses to reopen the strait of Hormuz. Iran warned it was restricting passage through the strait, through which 20% of the world’s oil usually passes, within hours of the US-Israeli offensive. Since then, only about five ships a day have been passing through with the permission of the Iranian authorities, who are reeling from the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior officials. Oil prices have rocketed as a result. This weekend Trump wrote on Truth Social that the US would “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants – “starting with the biggest one first” – if Tehran did not fully reopen the chokepoint within 48 hours, or 23:44 GMT on Monday, according to the time of his post. On Sunday, Iran said it would completely shut the strait if Trump proceeded with his threats, adding, in a statement: “We did not start the war and we will not start it now, but if the enemy harms our power plants, we will do everything to defend the country and the interests of our people.” On Sunday, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said more than 80,000 civilian sites had been hit in the country since the war began, including 260 medical facilities.

Netanyahu hopes destroying Iranian ‘axis of evil’ will rehabilitate his image

Over three weeks of war, Iranian missiles have killed at least 15 people inside Israel, and injured many more, including about 200 in overnight strikes near a nuclear facility in the country’s south, but they have not touched public support for the war. An overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis back the decision to start a new conflict, with the Israel Democracy Institute putting support at more than 90% in two wartime polls. Undaunted by the regular wail of air raid sirens, shuttered schools, cancelled flights or warnings the campaign could last weeks, more than half also wanted the US and Israel to keep bombing Iran until its government falls. Opposition politicians set aside campaigning for parliamentary elections due this autumn, backing the decision to attack Iran in an almost unanimous display of national unity. Enthusiasm for the war sparked speculation inside Israel that the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, might dissolve parliament early to capitalise on securing US backing for the conflict, and the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This year’s vote will be the first chance for Israelis to have a direct say on their government since the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023. Netanyahu astonished political enemies and allies alike by hanging on to power after the bloodiest day in Israel’s history. He resisted taking personal responsibility for security failures that day, even as almost every other senior political, military and intelligence figure in office on that day apologised and stepped down. But even as he held a fractious coalition together, opinion polls showed that for most of the past two years, support stuck stubbornly below levels that would return him to power. Many Israelis believe that he saw toppling the Iranian regime, or pummelling its military capacities, as his best chance of persuading voters to reconsider his legacy – even though last year’s 12-day war on Iran had only a negligible impact on support. “As far as Netanyahu is concerned, the road to the polling stations runs through Washington and Tehran,” a minister close to Netanyahu told the Haaretz newspaper soon before the war began. “Destroying the Iranian axis of evil is the move that Netanyahu assumed, after 7 October, would rehabilitate his image.” That consensus prompted questions about Netanyahu’s intentions soon after the first bombs fell on Tehran. In Yedioth Ahronoth, the newspaper commentator Sima Kadmon asked if the war responded to “a security need or a coalition need”. Her scepticism was not shared by most Israelis, however. When Netanyahu told the country he had attacked Iran to remove an “existential threat”, most people believed him, even if they didn’t change their voting plans, said Dahlia Scheindlin, a Tel Aviv-based public opinion researcher. “One of the most important data points for me is that in June 2025, close to two-thirds of Israelis believed he had taken action for genuine security reasons,” she said. “That makes a difference, given that for two years in the wake of the 7 October attacks, people thought he was taking major strategic decisions regarding the Gaza war for political reasons.” Political challenges to the war inside Israel have mostly come from Palestinian citizens of the country or outsiders such as Jonathan Shimriz, a first-time candidate. Shimriz’s brother was taken hostage on 7 October 2023, and later shot by Israeli forces in Gaza. He decided to enter politics after founding a grassroots movement for families bereaved in the Hamas-led attacks. “Bottom line, there isn’t an opposition,” he said in a social media post. “Does anyone know when the war will end? Does anyone know why we went into it in the first place? Does anyone ask questions?” Israeli triumphalism provides a stark contrast with the view of the war from outside the country, where news reports are dominated by fears of regional escalation, spiralling energy prices and the paralysis of sections of the Gulf regional economy built around tourism and safety. In a week that brought an intense focus on the bombing of a girls’ school in Iran, likely by US forces, that killed at least 175 people, the front page of the Jerusalem Post depicted a female Israeli fighter pilot hand-in-hand with an anonymous Iranian woman. “Women, Life, Freedom. The Israeli way”, the print read, co-opting the slogan of anti-regime protests that began in 2022. For many in the US, presenting airstrikes as a campaign for women’s rights carries echoes of the invasion of Afghanistan. Trump campaigned against foreign interventions, including that war, and his change of heart has not been echoed by all his voters. A majority of Americans, including Democrats and a significant number of Republicans, oppose what they see as a war of choice, polls suggest. Trump is now mixing threats of a boots-on-the ground mission with suggestions he wants to “wrap up” the conflict rapidly. Iran would argue that decision is not one Washington can make alone, and if the conflict drags on there may be a search for political scapegoats before US midterms in November. The war’s most high-profile critic yet from inside the Trump administration, the far-right former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, took direct aim at Israel when he resigned last week. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Joe Kent wrote in a letter posted to X. If that sentiment gains broader traction – at a time when bipartisan backing for Israel is already in decline – it could do severe damage to the country’s most important diplomatic relationship, said one senior former senior Israeli intelligence official. “I think the biggest risk in this war is losing the American people,” he said, highlighting prewar polls that already showed sliding support for Israel among Republicans and Democrats. “If there are many Americans killed, soaring fuel prices, and it doesn’t seem like a victory then it would just enhance those negative trends toward Israel that we are already seeing in the US.” While the US-Israeli relationship threatens to become a liability for Trump and his party, it is an electoral asset for Netanyahu, who has often campaigned on his standing as an international statesman. Trump is scheduled to visit Israel in May to collect the Israel prize, one of the country’s highest honours. If the war is over, the ceremony would be a valuable chance to showcase close personal ties with Trump before voters make their decision in an election with particularly high stakes for Netanyahu. With the country locked in a struggle over the nature of the national commission to investigate the 7 October attacks, Netanyahu’s political career, his legacy, and potentially also his personal freedom may all be on the line. The prime minister is fighting a long-running corruption case in court, after he was indicted on criminal charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. If he loses power, he will take the stand as a private citizen, or at most an opposition MP. Netanyahu has been pursuing a pre-emptive pardon with Trump’s enthusiastic backing, and raised the issue at his first news conference of the war. Israel’s justice ministry has advised against dropping the charges. Israeli politicians who support the war say they nonetheless fear Netanyahu will try to extract personal advantage from a national sacrifice. Naama Lazimi a legislator for the centre-left Democrats party, said: “Since Netanyahu became a criminal defendant, his political conduct has increasingly been driven by his personal survival. That is why there are legitimate concerns that, at times, his political considerations may outweigh Israel’s national security interests. “There is no doubt that the Iranian threat is existential and must be addressed with full gravity. However, Benjamin Netanyahu cannot be trusted not to exploit the war and the achievements of the IDF for his own political survival.” But if Netanyahu launched the war with at least one eye on his prospects at the ballot box, the bombing campaign has not translated into the hoped-for boost. Scheindlin said: “There has been no significant rally for trust in the government, just a few points which quickly declined back to prewar levels. This [war] is potentially reorgansing the whole Middle East – and the Israeli public is barely raising an eyebrow.” Meanwhile, the campaign against Tehran has muted coverage of the humanitarian catastrophe and ongoing attacks in Gaza, and spiralling Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank. Yet if the polls are correct, and Israeli voters return a hung parliament, it may bring that conflict sharply back into focus. Parties that represent Palestinian citizens of Israel are likely to offer the only path for the opposition parties to form a government. The main Jewish opposition parties have vowed not to partner with them, and do not offer a substantially different agenda on foreign or domestic security from Netanyahu. Prominent challengers include the former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who headed the council for illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine. All oppose a Palestinian state, despite strengthened international support and recognition. As global criticism has mounted of Israel’s war in Gaza – which scholars, rights groups and a UN commission say meets the definition of genocide – the US has proved a crucial diplomatic and military ally for an increasingly isolated nation. If the war with Iran causes lasting damage to that relationship, any military triumph could prove short-lived. “What if the day after we find ourselves alone?” Eli Leon wrote in Maariv. “If the price of bringing down the Iranian regime is breaking up the alliance with the United States … that will be a victory that ultimately costs us our ability to survive in this region in the long term.” Quique Kierszenbaum contributed reporting

Trump lauds Viktor Orbán as Europe’s far-right leaders gather in Budapest

Donald Trump has endorsed Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who faces his toughest electoral challenge next month since taking power 16 years ago, as Europe’s far-right leaders gather for a “grand assembly” in Budapest. In a video message, the US president told the national-conservative Cpac Hungary conference in the capital on Saturday that Orbàn, who has been trailing in the polls behind a centre-right rival for more than a year, was a “fantastic guy”. Trump, who also backed Orbán on social media last month, said he had been a strong leader who had “shown the entire world what’s possible when you defend your borders, your culture, your heritage, your sovereignty and your values”. “I hope he wins, and I hope he wins big,” he said. Orbán responded that the west had become a better place since Trump returned to power, with progressive policies being rolled back and traditional family and Christian values restored. Polling averages suggest Orbán’s challenger, Péter Magyar and his Tisza – or Respect and Freedom – party could outscore him by between nine and 11 percentage points on 12 April, in what is likely to be Europe’s most consequential parliamentary election of the year. Several leading European far-right figures, including Santiago Abascal of Spain’s Vox, André Ventura of Portugal’s Chega, Martin Helme of Estonia’s Ekre and Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland’s Law and Justice party, attended the weekend event. They will be joined on Monday by Marine Le Pen of France’s National Rally, Matteo Salvini of Italy’s League and Geert Wilders of the Dutch Freedom party for a “Patriots’ Grand Assembly”, named after their group in the European parliament. Orbán has long been at loggerheads with the EU over a range of issues. In defiance of Brussels, he has maintained cordial ties with Moscow, refuses to send weapons to Ukraine, and says Kyiv can never join the EU. Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on Sunday that he was not surprised by a Washington Post report last week that alleged Russia’s foreign intelligence service had proposed staging an assassination attempt against Orbán to boost his chances. The report also said Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, had called his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, during EU summits to brief him. Tusk said it should not come as a surprise that Hungary leaked “every detail” of EU summits to Moscow. Szijjártó described the allegations as “mad conspiracy theories” that were part of an international smear campaign intended to influence next month’s election. Many of the far-right leaders scheduled to attend Monday’s gathering were among nearly a dozen who endorsed Orbán in a campaign video released in January. In it, Alice Weidel of Alternative für Deutschland said: “Europe needs Viktor Orbán.” Media reports had previously suggested that the US vice-president, JD Vance, would attend the Budapest gathering, but Szijjártó said last week that the visit would take place in early April instead.

Israeli settlers carry out series of West Bank attacks as security forces stand by

Israeli settlers have carried out a series of attacks across the occupied West Bank, setting homes and vehicles on fire and wounding several Palestinians in what witnesses described as coordinated raids on communities. The violence, reported across at least half a dozen locations overnight from Saturday into Sunday, comes amid a wider surge in tensions in the territory. The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, cited local sources as saying settlers had entered al-Fandaqumiya and the nearby town of Seilat al-Dahr, south of Jenin, late on Saturday. In al-Fandaqumiya, settlers set fire to houses and cars and smashed windows of other homes as residents “attempted to confront them and put out the fires”, according to Wafa. In Seilat al-Dahr, several homes were targeted and a resident was beaten, leaving him injured. Further attacks were reported in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, where two Palestinians were wounded and three arrested after settlers entered the area under the protection of Israeli forces, Wafa said. In the villages of Qaryout and Jaloud, south of Nablus, vehicles were burned and residents injured during similar raids. In Jalud, images showed a four-wheel-drive vehicle reduced to a charred shell. Elsewhere, settlers gathered along roads near Haris, west of Salfit, and near Rawabi in the Ramallah area, throwing stones at passing Palestinian vehicles. Comparable incidents were reported in Tuqou, south-east of Bethlehem. In Qaryout and Jaloud, about 100 masked settlers carried out successive waves of raids. Witnesses described scenes of chaos as vehicles were set ablaze and homes attacked. At least five cars were burned, while others – including a fire engine – were vandalised. Israeli troops and police were present on the outskirts of the villages by 2am, but did not stop the attacks, which continued into the night, or prevent settlers moving between villages, witnesses told the Guardian. Footage from a CCTV camera showed a large group of hooded settlers dressed in black withdrawing from Jaloud. The attacks unfolded during Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, and form part of a broader escalation in settler violence that has intensified since the start of the war in Gaza. Israeli forces and settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 2023, according to the UN. Human rights organisations say such attacks often occur with little accountability. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has accused the government of enabling settler violence “as part of a strategy to cement the takeover of Palestinian land”. The UN has said Israeli policies in the West Bank risk forcibly displacing Palestinian communities. The Israeli military said it had responded to incidents involving Israeli civilians carrying out “arson against structures and property” and disturbances in the area, but did not report any arrests. Israeli forces also shot and wounded two Palestinians late on Saturday at the Jabara checkpoint, south of Tulkarem, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. The leader of Israel’s centre-left Democrats, Yair Golan, condemned the violence on Sunday and accused the government of enabling lawlessness in the occupied West Bank. He wrote on X: “While we are fighting in Iran and on the northern border, under missile attacks and with many seriously wounded, this government is encouraging total anarchy. “Jewish terrorism is spreading, exploiting the war, with the backing of extremist ministers and dangerous encouragement from the prime minister and the defence minister. This is a failure of responsibility for Israel’s security.” B’Tselem reported on 15 March that Israeli troops operating in Tamoun in the northern Jordan Valley had opened fire on a vehicle driving in the village, killing a Palestinian couple and two of their children. They were named as Ali Bani Odeh, 38; his wife, Waad Bani Odeh, 36; and their sons Othman, six, and Mohammad, five. “Soldiers removed two other children from the vehicle: Khaled, 11, and Mustafa, eight. Both sustained light injuries from shrapnel,” the group said in a statement. “They then violently interrogated Khaled at the scene. Initially, the military prevented ambulances from reaching the area, and only after some time were medical teams allowed to approach. The military confiscated the family’s vehicle, which was riddled with bullets.” In another attack in March, Israeli settlers sexually assaulted a Palestinian man, tying his genitalia with zip ties and parading him naked in front of his family, according to the victim and witnesses. Israel has killed at least 26 Palestinians in the West Bank since the beginning of the year, of whom at least 18 were shot by the military.

Iran says it will ‘irreversibly destroy’ Middle East infrastructure if US attacks energy sites

Tehran has said it will “irreversibly destroy” essential infrastructure across the Middle East, including vital water systems, if the US follows through on Donald Trump’s threat to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants unless the strait of Hormuz is fully opened within two days. As Iranian missiles struck two southern Israeli cities overnight, injuring dozens of people, and Tehran deployed long-range missiles for the first time, the developments signalled a dangerous potential escalation of the war, now in its fourth week, with both sides threatening facilities relied on by millions of people. The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on Sunday that vital infrastructure in the region – including energy and desalination facilities – would be considered a legitimate target and would be “irreversibly destroyed” as soon as his country’s own infrastructure was attacked. Amnesty International said this month there was a “substantial risk” that attacks on systems providing essential services such as electricity, heating and running water would violate international law and “in some cases could amount to war crimes” because of the potential for “vast, predictable, and devastating civilian harm”. The Iranian military’s operational command headquarters, Khatam al-Anbiya, said Iran would strike “all energy, information technology and desalination infrastructure belonging to the US and [Israel] in the region”. The statement added that that if Trump’s threat was carried out, the strait of Hormuz would be “completely closed, and will not be reopened until our destroyed power plants are rebuilt”. Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said “threats and terror” were “only strengthening Iranian unity”, while the “illusion of erasing Iran from the map” showed “desperation against the will of a history-making nation”. On Saturday, the US president gave Iran 48 hours – until shortly before midnight GMT on Monday – to open the strait of Hormuz, a vital pathway for the world’s oil flows, or the US would “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants “starting with the biggest one first”. Ali Mousavi, Iran’s representative to the International Maritime Organisation, said on Sunday the strait was open to all shipping except vessels linked to “Iran’s enemies”, with passage possible by coordinating security arrangements with Tehran. Iranian attacks have in effect closed the narrow strait, which carries about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, causing the world’s worst oil crisis since the 1970s and sending European gas prices surging as much as 35% last week. Only a relatively small number of vessels, estimated at about 5% of the pre-war volume, from countries that Tehran considers friendly – including China, India and Pakistan – have been allowed to pass. More than 2,000 people have been killed since 28 February when the US and Israel began their attacks on Iran, with Tehran in turn striking targets in Israel and the Gulf states. Lebanon was drawn in after Iran-backed Hezbollah attacked Israel. Air raid sirens sounded across Israel from the early hours of Sunday morning, warning of incoming missiles from Iran, after scores of people were injured overnight in two separate attacks on the southern Israeli towns of Arad and Dimona. The Israeli army said on Sunday morning that it would strike Tehran in retaliation. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said during a visit to Arad that senior commanders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards would be “personally” pursued. “We’re going after the regime. We’re going after the IRGC, this criminal gang,” Netanyahu said. “We’re going after them personally, their leaders, their installations, their economic assets.” Israel’s military said it had not been able to intercept the missiles that hit Dimona and Arad, the nearest large cities to the country’s Negev Desert nuclear centre, which houses what is widely believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal. Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons, insisting that the site is for research. The strikes marked the the first time that Iranian missiles had penetrated Israel’s air defence systems in the area. The strikes wounded about 200 people, including a 12-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl, both reported to be in a serious condition. The Israeli broadcaster Channel 13 reported early indications of possible deaths but there was no official confirmation. Iran said the attacks had been launched in response to a strike on its main nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz on Saturday. Israel denied responsibility for that attack; and in Washington, the Pentagon declined to comment. In Tel Aviv, 15 more people were injured on Sunday morning in a separate attack involving a cluster bomb. The attacks are adding to mounting pressure on Israel’s air defence systems, with Iranian strikes increasingly testing their limits. The World Health Organization said that the war was at a “perilous stage” and called for restraint. “Attacks targeting nuclear sites create an escalating threat to public health and environmental safety,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, said. Tehran also fired long-range missiles for the first time on Saturday, the Israeli military chief, Eyal Zamir, said. Two ballistic missiles with a range of 4,000km (2,500 miles) were fired at the US-British Indian Ocean military base at Diego Garcia, Zamir said. The British cabinet minister Steve Reed said one missile “fell short” while another missile was intercepted”, saying there was no assessment backing claims that Iran was planning to strike Europe. The Israel Defense Forces had said Iran had missiles “that can reach London, Paris or Berlin”. But Reed said he was not aware of any assessment at all that Iran was even trying to target Europe, “let alone that they could if they tried”. He added in a separate interviewthat Trump was “speaking for himself” when he threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants. Analysts said Trump’s threat had placed “a 48-hour ticking time bomb of elevated uncertainty” over energy and financial markets, with a “black Monday” of plunging stock markets and surging energy prices looming unless it was rowed back. At least six overnight attacks targeted a US diplomatic and logistics centre at Baghdad airport, Iraqi officials said, while Saudi Arabia said three missiles had been detected over Riyadh. The UAE said it had responded to Iranian missile and drone attacks. In southern Lebanon, Israel said its military raided Hezbollah sites on Sunday and killed 10 of the group’s fighters. Hezbollah said it attacked several border areas in northern Israel. One person was killed in an Israeli kibbutz, emergency services said. Three Turkish nationals, including a soldier, and three Qatari service personnel were killed after a helicopter crashed in Qatar’s territorial waters, the Gulf country’s defence ministry said on Sunday. According to an academic analysis seen by Reuters, an interceptor missile that injured dozens of civilians in Bahrain 10 days into the war was probably fired by a US-operated Patriot air defence battery. Manama and Washington have blamed an Iranian drone attack for the explosion on 9 March, which Bahrain has said injured 32 people including children, some of them seriously.

Iran not believed to have capability or intent to bomb Britain, says UK minister

Iran is not believed to have the capability or intent to hit the UK with its missiles, a cabinet minister has said, after Tehran aimed two at the UK-US airbase on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. One missile failed to reach the island, while another was shot down by a US warship, according to reports. It was the longest-range attack yet by Iran since the country was attacked by the US and Israel. Asked about Israeli warnings that the UK and other parts of Europe could be targeted by Iranian missiles, Steve Reed, the communities secretary, told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “There is no specific assessment that the Iranians are targeting the UK or [that they] even could if they wanted to.” On why Israel had issued such a warning, he said: “You would need to speak to the Israelis.” Reed added: “Whatever people might say, the UK is not going to be dragged into this war, but we will take appropriate collective defensive action to keep our nationals and our interests safe. “I’m not aware of any assessment at all that they are even trying to target Europe, let alone that they could if they tried. But even if they did, we have the necessary military capability to defend this country.” Asked about the attack on Diego Garcia, which is part of the Chagos Islands archipelago, more than 2,000 miles (3,200km) from Iran, Reed said one missile was intercepted and the other “fell short”, refusing to say how close to the base it had travelled. Keir Starmer’s government refused US requests to use UK airbases for the initial attack on Iran in late February, in part because ministers were warned it was likely to be in breach of international law. It has, however, since allowed the use of British bases for strikes on Iranian sites targeting British allies and interests in Gulf states. On Saturday, this scope was expanded to allow attacks on missile launchers that were targeting commercial shipping in the strait of Hormuz. Reed said the UK was seeking de-escalation and would not be pulled further into the conflict. “If you take the decision, as any British government should, that we will defend British people and British assets across the region, and the Iranians start targeting different assets, then of course, we have to respond to that and defend them as well. That doesn’t take away one iota from our interest and focus on de-escalation,” he told Sky News. Reed refused to comment on Donald Trump’s threat that Tehran had 48 hours to reopen the strait of Hormuz to shipping or face the destruction of Iran’s energy infrastructure. “The US president is perfectly capable of speaking for himself and defending what it is that he saying. Our position in the UK is absolutely clear as well. We’re not going to be dragged into this war,” Reed told Sky. Pressed on Trump’s comments, he added: “You need to ask President Trump about the things that President Trump is talking about doing.”