Tehran endures ‘worst night of strikes’ amid mixed US messages about more to come | US-Israel war on Iran

Residents of Tehran say the Iranian capital has endured what they describe as its worst night of aerial bombardment, as US defense secretary Pete Hegseth followed up on Monday with Donald Trump’s suggestion that the war could end soon and warned of more attacks.

“We are under heavy bombardment and I can hear explosions one after the other. The place they hit caught fire. It is not clear where it exploded, but buildings are shaking,” Nilufer, who lives in eastern Tehran, said early Tuesday, speaking under a pseudonym for security reasons. They said there were low-flying jets above and added, “They are destroying Iran.”

Israel, which launched an air operation against Iran together with the USA on February 28, announced on Tuesday that it also hit a weapons development facility among the wave of attacks.

Other residents told the Guardian there were constant outages and most of Iran’s communications were cut off.

The World Health Organization called on Iranians to stay at home, saying the “black rain” falling after attacks on oil facilities could cause respiratory problems.

A Tehran resident described the city as “the last stop before hell.”

At least 1,245 civilians, including 194 children, have been killed in the US-Israeli war against Iran, according to the US-based group Human Rights Activists in Iran.

While at least 486 people died in the Israeli bombardment in Lebanon, 11 people died in Israel. Seven US soldiers are confirmed dead.

As jets bombed Tehran, US officials issued conflicting messages about how long the war would last.

Donald Trump told CBS News in a phone call on Monday that “the war is now over.” Hours later, defense secretary Pete Hegseth promised the most intense strikes yet on Iran on Tuesday, saying the war would end “on our timeline” and that the United States would not stop “until the enemy is completely and decisively defeated.”

“Whether it is the beginning, the middle, or the end is not for me to guess; [Trump’s decision] and will continue to tell about it,” Hegseth said.

U.S. forces have struck more than 5,000 sites in Iran in a campaign aimed at destroying Iran’s ballistic missile and drone capabilities, weakening its navy to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and striking “deeper into Iran’s military and industrial base,” U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said.

Iranian officials, on the other hand, said that they would not accept the end of the war without paying a painful price to the USA and Israel. Iranian National Security Council Chairman Ali Larijani said in his social media post, “The Iranian nation is not afraid of your empty threats,” implying that Iran could target Trump himself.

“Even those greater than you cannot eliminate the Iranian nation. Be careful not to be eliminated yourself,” he wrote in response to the US president’s threat that Iran could be hit “20 times harder” if it blocks the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump’s remarks come as U.S. consumers begin to feel the pain at the pumps and investors around the world are stunned by skyrocketing fuel prices. Economists said the continued disruption of oil production in the Gulf and shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a transit point for a fifth of the world’s oil transit, could plunge the world into an energy crisis not seen since the 1970s.

Iran continued to strike Gulf states and Israel on Tuesday as part of its strategy to inflict as much damage as possible on the United States’ influential Gulf allies and the world economy in order to increase the cost of the war.

In Bahrain, a woman was killed and eight more people were injured in an Iranian attack on a residential building in Manama. Firefighters in the UAE attempted to extinguish a fire near petrochemical plants following an Iranian drone attack. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait announced that they seized unmanned aerial vehicles over their territory.

Citizens in Dubai, the flamboyant city of the Gulf, said that life continued largely normally despite the bombardment. Although many tourists had fled, people still flocked to beaches, shopping malls and rooftop bars. Commercial flights have also resumed, with the country’s airspace temporarily reopened, although UAE leaders condemned ongoing “blatant Iranian aggression”.

So far, four people, all migrant workers, have lost their lives due to falling missile debris in the UAE.

Nader Farid, 30, who moved to Dubai from Egypt five months ago to work as a real estate agent, said in an interview on the beach: “They say it’s a war but it hasn’t caused any problems for us, in fact we don’t see it at all.

“The first day it was scary when they warned that the missiles were coming. But now more than a week has passed and life goes on here, only things are a little slower. I’m Egyptian, I know that no place is safe from war, but this time it doesn’t feel bad. We are very protected here.”

In Tehran, US and Israeli jets operated almost unopposed. A person living in central Tehran said: “The weather was clearing up a little yesterday, but last night’s attacks, which I can say were the most intense in the last 10 days, were so frightening that our buildings were shaking. Even though the explosions were not on my street, the windows were also shattered.

“Even in the last hour, I have heard many explosions and those who plan to escape today are forced to stay at home. The sky is gray now and so dirty… there is the smell of burnt gunpowder in the air,” he added.

The skies over Tehran have turned gray for the past two days as smoke rises from Tehran’s oil facilities and the nearby Alborz province, which Israel targeted on Saturday. Neighborhood residents reported “black rain” falling from the sky.

“Black rain and the acidic rain that comes with it pose a real danger to the public, especially respiratory,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said in Geneva. WHO backed Iranian officials’ advice that people stay indoors while air quality remains poor.

Many people fled Tehran in search of safety in rural areas, but older and less healthy residents were unable to leave.

In Lebanon, Israel continued its attacks on what it described as Hezbollah targets, striking the southern suburbs of Beirut and the south of the country on Tuesday. Hezbollah continued to target Israeli troops in the south of the country and launch rocket salvoes and drones into Israel’s north; this led Israel to consider expanding the offensive against the group.

The Lebanese Red Cross condemned an Israeli attack on one of its ambulances in the Tire region of southern Lebanon on Monday night, injuring two emergency workers.