US and Israel threaten major escalation as airstrikes bombard Iran and Lebanon | US-Israel war on Iran
Israel and the United States have bombarded Iran and Lebanon with a new wave of airstrikes and threatened a major escalation in their joint strikes as Iran retaliates with more strikes in parts of the Middle East.
US defense secretary Pete Hegseth said US firepower was “about to increase dramatically” with the deployment of more bombers, while Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Eyal Zamir said Israel was moving into a new phase of attacks that would “further shatter the regime and its military capabilities”.
Zamir said in a statement: “We have additional surprises ahead that I do not intend to disclose.”
On Friday, in the seventh day of the spiraling conflict, Tehran launched missiles and drones at Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain; apparently targeted US bases and civilian infrastructure, including oil pipelines.
Other missiles were also launched at Israel, although fewer than in the early days of the conflict. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they fired missiles at Tel Aviv after an earlier blast wave caused a fire in a residential building in the city.
The Revolutionary Guard stated that Iranian forces also targeted a military air base and a radar site in Israel, promising new initiatives and the imminent deployment of weapons to counter Israeli and US aggression, without providing details.
Eyewitnesses stated that the latest air strikes in Iran were particularly intense and shook houses in the capital Tehran. Others reported explosions in an area where missile bases are located around the Iranian city of Kermanshah. Internet coverage in Iran hovers around 1%, according to monitoring group NetBlocks, limiting the availability of information on the impact of the war on ordinary Iranians.
In Lebanon, where the war has triggered renewed conflict between Israel and the Iranian-backed Islamist militant movement Hezbollah, hundreds of thousands of people were fleeing Israeli attacks in the south of the country, parts of Beirut and the Bekaa valley.
The Israeli army issued a warning on Thursday evening, urging the people of Dahiye, a Hezbollah stronghold and home to more than 600,000 people, to “save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately.”
Red Cross Middle East spokesman Hashem Osseiran described scenes of panic and confusion. “Many people fled, some on foot, with nothing but the clothes on their backs and no clear idea of where to go,” Osseiran said.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health said the death toll has risen to 123 since the reigniting of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, which fired missiles at Israel in the first days of the war.
The war has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran and about a dozen in Israel, according to officials in those countries. Six US soldiers were killed. Oil supplies were disrupted, tens of thousands of flights were canceled and international stock markets were shaken.
Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian said Friday that “some countries” had begun mediation efforts, without elaborating. Türkiye is thought to be making some efforts to end the conflict as soon as possible, but this seems unlikely to happen.
Donald Trump once again signaled that the target of the joint US-Israeli attack, which started with the surprise attack that resulted in the killing of Iran’s religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday, is regime change.
In brief remarks at the White House, Trump once again called on the Iranian people to “help take back the country” and promised that the United States would grant them “immunity.”
“So you’ll be completely safe with total immunity,” Trump said, without providing any details on what that means. “Or you will face absolutely guaranteed death.”
Analysts say the departure of senior officers from the military or the Revolutionary Guard indicates that the radical religious regime’s grip on Iran is weakening. But so far there is no evidence of this.
Iranian state television reported on Friday that a leadership council had begun discussing how to convene the country’s assembly of experts that will choose the new supreme leader.
Worshipers in Tehran gathered for the first Friday prayers since the start of the war. Online footage shared by Iranian media showed crowds of men and women dressed in black, some carrying Iranian flags, flocking to an open area outside the Imam Khomeini Musalla Grand Mosque in the capital.
In the background of one video, a man speaking on a loudspeaker was mourning Khamenei’s death. “We witness that he is the embodiment of piety and protection in our time,” he said, as some worshipers sitting on prayer mats cried.
In an interview with news website Axios, Trump said Iran should be involved in the process of choosing its new leader and spoke disparagingly of Khamenei’s son Mujtaba Khamenei, who will succeed his father, calling him a “lightweight.” “We want someone who will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump said.
The latest wave of Israeli attacks appears to be focused on Iran’s western border with Iraq, possibly preparing for an attack by fighters from Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in northern Iraq.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia said they foiled Iranian attacks targeting US bases in both countries. In Bahrain, officials said Iranian attacks targeted two hotels and a residential building. In Kuwait, where six US soldiers were killed on Sunday, the military said its air defenses were activated after missile and drone attacks violated its airspace.
Britain will help defend the country with warplanes, the British ambassador to Bahrain said on Friday. This came a day after British prime minister Keir Starmer said he would send four more Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets to Qatar following a request from allies for more support.
Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that “the world must urgently take steps to control and extinguish this fire” but “instead we see only more provocative, combative rhetoric, more bombings, more destruction, murder and further fueling tensions.”
