The United Arab Emirates said it had been subjected to more than 1.000 attacks since Iran launched retaliatory strikes in the region in response to US-Israeli attacks, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The UAE's Foreign Ministry said it had not made a decision to change its defensive stance towards the Iranian attacks, but that it reserved the right to defend itself, Reuters reported.
The Israeli military announced that it had killed the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the unit responsible for foreign operations, in an attack on Tehran.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had killed Daoud Ali Zadeh, the "interim commander" of the Lebanese Quds Force Corps and the "highest-ranking" Iranian commander responsible for Lebanon, CNN reports.
Iran has not officially commented on the IDF's allegation.
The division led by Zadeh supports the Lebanese militant movement Hezbollah and functions as a liaison between the senior leadership of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and that Lebanese unit, the IDF said.
IDF spokesman Avichai Adrei warned "all remaining representatives of the Iranian Ministry of Terrorism in Lebanon" to leave before they become targets of attacks, giving them 24 hours to do so.
"After that time, no location in Lebanon will be considered a safe haven for Iranian regime personnel," Adrei said.
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Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said that Iran's new leadership, once elected and formed, could provide a "window of opportunity" to end the war with the United States and Israel.
Fidan told state broadcaster TRT Haber that any compromise that might be needed would be better than prolonging the war, adding that he hoped Iran's new leadership would "show the will" to end the conflict.
President Donald Trump said he ordered US forces to join Israel's attack on Iran because he believed Iran was about to attack the United States, his latest explanation amid contradictory administration accounts of how the war began.
"I could have twisted their (Israel's) arm," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
"We were negotiating with these lunatics and my opinion was that they would attack first. If we hadn't done it, they would have attacked first. I had a strong feeling about that."
Trump's statements about the events leading up to the war contradicted an earlier explanation by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who told reporters that the United States launched the attack out of fear that Iran would retaliate in response to a planned Israeli action against Tehran.
"We knew there would be Israeli action, we knew it would provoke an attack on American forces, and we knew that if we didn't preemptively strike them before they launched those attacks, we would have greater losses," Rubio said.
Trump said today that he believed Iran was on the verge of launching an attack, without providing evidence to support the claim, after US-Iranian talks in Geneva last Thursday. Iran described the talks as positive, with more announced in the coming days.
"It's something that had to be done," Trump said, answering questions from reporters in public for the first time since the US strikes began. He had previously addressed the attacks in two short videos and in one-on-one interviews with select reporters over the weekend, but did not give a televised address to the nation.
Trump also said today that he could accept higher oil prices for a while because, as he said, it is more important to remove what he described as an imminent threat from Iran. Gasoline prices in the United States have jumped due to uncertainty about oil supplies, while the conflict shows no sign of ending soon.
Trump has described the war effort so far as successful against numerous Iranian naval and air targets. "Almost all of them have been disabled," he said.
Iran responded to the attack by firing missiles and drones at neighboring Arab states and by choking shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for energy trade.
However, Trump predicted that Tehran would eventually lose the ability to continue firing missiles due to continued strikes.
"They fired a lot of them, and we're disabling a lot," he said.
Qatar has carried out attacks on Iran over the past day, reports the Times of Israel.
Citing unnamed Western sources familiar with the incident, Israeli television Channels 12 reported that Qatar attacked Iran in response to Tehran's attacks across the Persian Gulf.
A senior Israeli official told the Kan public service that Israel estimates that Saudi Arabia will soon also attack Iran, due to yesterday's Iranian attacks.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid Al-Ansari told American television network CNN yesterday that Iran had fired more than 100 missiles and dozens of drones at his country.
El-Ansari said the attacks targeted civilian and commercial infrastructure.
He added that the Qatari military has taken precautionary measures to defend economic facilities on land and at sea, that the leaders of the Persian Gulf countries are working closely with each other and with the US, and that Qatar is not communicating with the Iranian authorities.
"We have no contact with the (Iranian) government at this time. We are busy defending our country," El-Ansari said.
Gulf countries have not yet officially announced that they have taken offensive measures during the US-Israeli bombing campaign, although some have intercepted Iranian attacks, the Times of Israel reports.
A Vijesti reader submitted footage of an explosion near a large oil depot and a US military base, not far from Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates.
The United Nations human rights office on Tuesday called on what it said were the forces behind a deadly attack on a girls' school in Iran to investigate and share findings about the incident, without specifying who it held responsible, Reuters reports.
"The High Commissioner (Volker Turk) calls for a prompt, impartial and thorough investigation into the circumstances of the attack. The onus is on the forces that carried out the attack to investigate it," UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said at a briefing in Geneva.
"This is absolutely horrific," Shamdasani said, adding that the footage circulating on social media captured "the essence of the devastation, despair, senselessness and cruelty of this conflict."
Turk also called on all parties to exercise restraint and return to the negotiating table, she said.
A school in southern Iran was hit on Saturday, the first day of US and Israeli attacks on the country.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that US forces "would not intentionally target a school." Israel said it was investigating the incident.
Iran's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, had previously informed Turk of the matter in a letter dated March 1, calling the attack "unjustified" and "criminal".
He stated that 150 schoolgirls were killed in the attack.
Turk's office does not have enough information to determine whether the attack constitutes a war crime, Shamdasani said.
The Iranian government announced today that it is banning the export of food and agricultural products due to the ongoing conflict with Israel and the United States.
"The export of all food and agricultural products is prohibited until further notice," the Tasnim news agency reported, citing a government statement.
The government prioritizes supplying the population with basic goods.
Iran activated its emergency plan on Saturday, following the start of an offensive launched by the United States and Israel.
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The United States Embassy in Oman today ordered its staff to take shelter.
"Due to ongoing events, the U.S. Embassy in Oman has instructed staff to shelter in place and remain there. We encourage all Americans in Oman to do the same until further notice," the embassy announced on its official social media account, X.
According to instructions in the embassy announcement, staff should stock up on food, water, medicine and other necessary items, find a safe place in their home or another safe location, and remain there.
The embassy stated that staff should monitor the media, inform family and friends of their status, and be prepared to adapt to the situation.
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The Israeli military announced that its air force had struck a compound housing the Iranian regime's leadership, the BBC reported.
In a post on Telegram, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that "multiple rounds of ammunition" were thrown at the Presidential Office and the Supreme National Security Council.
It added that a military training facility was also hit, as well as "additional key regime infrastructure."
According to the IDF, the compound was used by the late Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei was killed in a US-Israeli strike on his compound over the weekend.
As the United States (US) and Israel wage war against Iran, Tehran is expanding the area of conflict and increasing costs for Washington in an effort to secure an eventual ceasefire, experts say, Radio Free Europe (RFE) writes today.
The targeted assassination of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was partly enabled by a series of long-term cyberattacks, the British newspaper The Financial Times (FT) reported, citing several anonymous sources within Israeli intelligence.
The newspaper states that Israel has been able to hack Iran's traffic surveillance camera system for years.
More than 50 ships flying the French flag or belonging to French companies are still stranded in the Gulf due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the French Shipowners' Association said.
There are about a dozen fewer than on Sunday because the ships were upstream of the strait and could have returned, the association added.
Ships still stuck behind the Strait of Hormuz, a key point for global trade, are anchored in the least risky parts of the sector, the statement said, adding that they are mainly container ships, service vessels and ships servicing oil platforms.
The Strait of Hormuz, barely 50 kilometers wide, borders the coasts of Iran and Oman.
In response to the US airstrikes, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps closed the strait, which is important for maritime oil transport because about 20 percent of the world's crude oil production passes through it each year.
The Revolutionary Guards threatened on Monday to "burn any ship" that tries to cross the Strait of Hormuz and to block all oil exports from the Gulf, French media reported.
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US forces have destroyed command and control facilities of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during ongoing operations, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) responsible for the Middle East announced today.
It added that Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, as well as military airfields were destroyed.
"We will continue to take decisive action against the imminent threats posed by the Iranian regime," CENTCOM said on the social media platform X.
The US and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday, to which Tehran responded by firing missiles at Israel, Kuwait, Bahrain and other Middle Eastern countries.
The US State Department today expanded its call for the evacuation of non-essential personnel and family members from diplomatic missions in six countries in the Middle East region, including the United Arab Emirates, due to the war with Iran and its counter-strikes.
Other countries from which evacuations have been ordered include Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar.
The State Department has urged Americans across the Middle East to leave the region due to the war with Iran.
The United Arab Emirates, home to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, has long been considered a safe part of the Middle East, but has been drawn into the Iran war with interceptions and attacks, writes the AP.
The US Embassy in Abu Dhabi also warned that there could be militant attacks on the United Arab Emirates.
"Terrorists can attack with little or no warning and may target tourist locations, transportation hubs, shopping malls, government buildings, religious sites, and especially locations associated with Jewish and Israeli communities," the embassy said.
The US Embassy in Kuwait announced on social media today that it is closing until further notice due to the war.
Explosions echoed across Tehran overnight and early this morning as the US and Israel continued their strikes on Iran, which began in a US-Israeli military operation on Saturday. Tehran and its allies retaliated with strikes against Israel and neighboring states in the Persian Gulf, as well as targets important to global oil and gas production.
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told Americans that the best way to get out of the country was through Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
Ambassador Huckabee said in a social media post early this morning that the embassy is receiving many evacuation requests, while embassy staff remain where they are and in a safe location.
"There are very limited options. I am not sure when Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv will reopen," the ambassador wrote.
He advised Americans who wanted to leave the country to take buses to the Egyptian resorts of Sharm el-Sheikh and Taba in southern Sinai, adding that this was the "best" route.
Iran has begun the process of returning Iranian pilgrims from the Saudi holy cities of Mecca and Medina, state media reported today.
Iran's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, where the cities are located, Alireza Enayati said that the process of returning 9.000 Iranians currently in Mecca and Medina began yesterday.
In a report carried by Iran's judiciary news agency Mizan, the ambassador said the departures are being organized in the same way as during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran last June. Iranian pilgrims will leave Saudi Arabia via the Saudi-Iraqi border crossing and return to Iran from Iraq.
This was announced during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the expansion of Iranian activity in the region, when locations in Saudi Arabia were also hit.
The Iranian Red Crescent has updated the total death toll in the US-Israeli war against Iran to 787, an increase of more than 40 percent compared to the humanitarian organization's previous figures, the British newspaper The Guardian reports today.
However, in its latest report, the Norwegian human rights organization Hengav said the death toll had reached at least 1.500 on the third day, including 200 civilians and 1.300 members of Iranian forces.
According to the Iranian Red Crescent, at least 1.039 attacks were recorded in 504 locations.
The United Nations (UN) nuclear agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), announced today that there has been some recent damage to the entrance facilities at Iran's underground Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP), adding that it does not expect any radiological consequences nor has any additional impact been observed at the FEP itself.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that Moscow had still not seen any evidence that Iran was developing nuclear weapons, amid what he called "essentially a war" underway in the Middle East, Reuters reported.
Israeli troops have been carrying out incursions along parts of the Lebanese border, a Lebanese official told Reuters today.
Witnesses said the Lebanese army had withdrawn from at least seven outposts along the border.
The nuclear site in Natanz in central Iran has been bombed, satellite images released by the American company Vantor show.
Footage, published by the Parisian newspaper Le Monde on its website, shows that three buildings were destroyed in the bombing on the night of March 1st and 2nd.
The United States and Israel "targeted the nuclear facility in Natanz on Sunday afternoon," said Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, according to the IRNA news agency late last night.
The Natanz site was already the target of bombing in June during the 12-day war launched by Israel.
The bombing of Natanz shows that the United States and Israel are no longer targeting only Iranian political and military facilities, as was the case at the beginning of the attack on Iran on February 28, adds Le Monde, which does not state whether there were any casualties or material damage.
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