Israel hits Tehran with airstrikes on Persian New Year as war jolts energy markets
Activists reported strikes heard around Iran’s capital. The attacks came a day after Israel vowed to refrain from further attacks on a key Iranian gas field and intensified attacks on Iranian oil and gas facilities around the Gulf.
Also Read | Iran-Israel War: Europe and Japan issued a declaration to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz
Heavy explosions rocked Dubai in the early hours of Friday as air defenses stopped fire on the city where people celebrated Eid al-Fitr and mosques made the first call to prayer of the day.
Iran continued the wave of attacks it launched against Israel, sending millions of people to shelters, with sirens blaring in the north, from Haifa to Galilee and the Lebanese border. This incident comes after a busy day on Thursday alone, when more than a dozen missiles were launched, according to the Israeli military.
Global fuel supplies are under intense pressure due to Iran’s dominance in the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s oil is transported.
Israel will postpone any attack on Iran’s offshore South Pars gas field at the request of President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Thursday. Iran’s retaliatory strikes have sent already high global energy prices soaring further and prompted Gulf allies to call for Trump to rein in Netanyahu.Also Read | Iran-Israel War: Europe and Japan issued a declaration to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz
Since the United States and Israel launched the war on February 28, Iran’s top leaders have been killed and the country’s military capabilities have been severely weakened. Netanyahu said in a televised speech that Iran no longer had the ability to enrich uranium or build ballistic missiles but did not provide evidence.
Yet Iran, led by the son of the religious leader killed in the opening salvo of the war, still has the capability to launch missile and drone strikes.
Brent crude, the international standard, has risen more than 60% since the start of the war to over $119 a barrel. Standard natural gas prices in Europe have also risen sharply, roughly doubling in the past month.
UN Security Council convened due to Iran’s attacks on Gulf countries
Bahrain’s UN Ambassador Jamal Alrowaiei, the Arab representative in the most powerful body of the UN, said that the United Nations Security Council held an emergency closed meeting on Thursday and emphasized that the Gulf countries must stop Iran’s attacks against them.
But Iran showed no signs of backing down. Saudi Arabia said the SAMREF refinery in the Red Sea port city of Yanbu was hit. Saudi Arabia had begun pumping large amounts of oil westwards towards the Red Sea to avoid the Strait of Hormuz.
Qatar, an important source of natural gas for world markets, said that Iranian missiles caused great damage to the Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas facility, reducing its exports by approximately 17 percent and causing a loss of approximately 20 billion dollars of income annually. Although production at the facility was halted after previous attacks, the damage will take up to five years to repair.
Officials said two oil refineries in Kuwait and gas operations in Abu Dhabi were also targeted by Iran.
Underlining the danger to ships in the region, on Thursday a ship was set on fire off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and another was damaged off the coast of Qatar. Efforts to bypass the strait were also under pressure: An Iranian drone hit a Saudi refinery on the Red Sea, which the country had hoped to use as an alternative route.
Meanwhile, the UAE said on Friday it had disrupted what it called “Lebanese Hezbollah and a terrorist network financed and operated by Iran” and arrested its operatives. He accused these individuals of laundering money by “operating within the country under a fictitious commercial cover” trying to carry out schemes that would threaten the country’s financial stability.
Images of five prisoners were published on the state-run WAM news agency, without identifying the individuals.
Netanyahu said the Iranian army was hit hard
At Thursday’s press conference, Netanyahu said: “Iran’s air defenses have become unusable, its navy lies at the bottom of the sea. … Its air force has been virtually destroyed.”
He said he hoped the Iranian people would rise up against the Islamic Republic, which has ruled for nearly half a century. There have been no signs of organized opposition since the war began after Iranian authorities suppressed mass protests in January.
The prime minister’s comments towards foreign journalists come at difficult times for Trump and Netanyahu, as a senior US intelligence official resigned and claimed Israel pushed Trump into war, and Israeli strikes on South Pars led to retaliatory attacks by Iran on oil and gas fields in the region.
“I did not mislead anyone,” Netanyahu said. “And I didn’t have to convince President Trump that Iran should be prevented from developing its nuclear program.”
Chief of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said US forces were attacking deeper into Iranian territory, warplanes were hunting Iranian boats in the strait and dropping 5,000-pound bombs on underground weapons storage facilities.
Trump announces he will not send troops to Iran
Iran condemned Israel’s attack on South Pars, the Iranian part of the world’s largest gas field located off the Persian Gulf and jointly owned with Qatar.
About 80% of the electricity produced in Iran comes from natural gas, according to the International Energy Agency, and the attack threatens the country’s electricity supply.
After asking Israel not to attack South Pars, Trump warned on social media that if Iran continued to strike Qatar, the United States would “massively blow up” the entire field.
Later, when asked about the possibility of US ground troops being deployed to Iran, Trump replied: “No. I’m not sending troops anywhere.”
The death toll increased in the third week of the war
More than 1,300 people were killed in Iran during the war. Israeli attacks on the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon have displaced more than 1 million people, according to the Lebanese government, which says more than 1,000 have been killed. Israel says it has killed more than 500 Hezbollah militants.
15 people lost their lives in an Iranian missile attack in Israel. Four people died in the occupied West Bank in the missile attack carried out by Iran overnight.
At least 13 US soldiers were killed.
