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On Friday, Israel carried out airstrikes on Tehran as Iranians celebrated Nowruz, the Persian New Year. This conflict has sent ripples through the international economy, heightening fears that Iran’s Arab neighbors might become embroiled in the hostilities.
Reports from activists indicated that strikes were heard around the Iranian capital. These attacks followed Israel’s promise to halt further assaults on a crucial Iranian gas site, while Iran ramped up its own strikes on oil and gas facilities across the Gulf region.
In the early hours of Friday, Dubai was rocked by loud explosions as its air defenses intercepted incoming attacks. This occurred amid the Eid al-Fitr festivities, marking the conclusion of Ramadan, as the city’s mosques issued the dawn call to prayer.
Iran maintained its barrage against Israel, prompting millions to seek shelter as sirens blared from Haifa to the Galilee and near the Lebanese border. This followed a particularly intense Thursday, marked by over a dozen missile launches, as reported by the Israeli military.
The global fuel market is experiencing significant strain due to Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passageway for approximately 20% of the world’s oil supply.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late on Thursday that, at the request of US President Donald Trump, Israel will hold off any further attacks on Iran’s offshore South Pars gas field. Iranian strikes in retaliation have led to already elevated global energy prices further surging and spurred Gulf allies to call for Trump to rein in Netanyahu.
Since the US and Israel launched the war on February 28, Iran’s top leaders have been killed and the country’s military capabilities have been severely degraded. Netanyahu said in a televised address that Iran no longer has the ability to enrich uranium or make ballistic missiles, although he did not provide evidence.
Still, Iran — now led by the son of the supreme leader killed in the war’s opening salvo — remains capable of missile and drone attacks.
Brent crude oil, the international standard, briefly surged above $US119 a barrel, up more than 60 per cent since the war started. The European benchmark for natural gas prices also rose sharply and has roughly doubled in the past month.
UN Security Council meets over Iran’s attacks on Gulf states
The United Nations Security Council held an urgent closed meeting on Thursday during which Gulf countries stressed the need for Iran to halt attacks on them, said Bahrain’s UN Ambassador Jamal Alrowaiei, the Arab representative on the UN’s most powerful body.
But Iran has shown no signs of backing down. Saudi Arabia said its SAMREF refinery in the Red Sea port city of Yanbu was hit. Saudi Arabia had begun pumping large volumes of oil west toward the Red Sea to avoid the Strait of Hormuz.
Qatar, a key source of natural gas for world markets, said Iranian missiles that caused extensive damage to the Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas facility, reduced its exports by about 17 per cent and will cost about $US20 billion in lost revenue a year. The damage will take up to five years to repair, even though production at the facility had already been halted after earlier attacks.
Two oil refineries in Kuwait and gas operations in Abu Dhabi also were targeted by Iran, authorities said.
Underscoring the danger to ships in the region, a vessel was set ablaze on Thursday off the United Arab Emirates’ coast and another was damaged off 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 disrupted what it called “a terrorist network funded and operated by Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran”, arresting its operatives. It accused the men of laundering money while “operating within the country under a fictitious commercial cover” that sought to carry out schemes that would threaten the country’s financial stability.
It published images of five prisoners on its state-run WAM news agency, without identifying the men.
Netanyahu says Iran’s military has been severely hit
At Thursday’s news conference, Netanyahu said: “Iran’s air defences have been rendered useless, their navy is lying at the bottom of the sea. … Their air force is nearly destroyed.”
He said he hopes the Iranian people will rise up against the Islamic Republic that has ruled for nearly a half-century. There’s been no sign of any organised opposition since the war began, after Iranian authorities crushed mass protests in January.
The prime minister’s comments to foreign journalists came amid difficult days for Trump and Netanyahu, with a top US intelligence official resigning and claiming Israel pushed Trump into the war, and Israel’s attacks on South Pars, which led to Iran’s retaliatory strikes on the region’s oil and gas fields.
“I misled no one,” Netanyahu said. “And I didn’t have to convince President Trump about the need to prevent Iran from developing its nuclear program.”
Iran long has insisted its program was peaceful, although it was enriching uranium up to 60 per cent purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels. That stockpile of highly enriched uranium still remains in Iran.
General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that US forces were attacking deeper into Iranian territory, with warplanes hunting Iranian boats in the strait and dropping 5000-pound bombs on underground weapons-storage facilities.
Trump says he is not deploying troops to Iran
Iran condemned Israel’s attack on South Pars, the Iranian part of the world’s largest gas field, located offshore in the Persian Gulf and owned jointly with Qatar.
With some 80 per cent of power generated in Iran coming from natural gas, according to the International Energy Agency, the attack threatens the country’s electricity supplies.
After Trump requested Israel not attack South Pars, he also warned on social media that if Iran continued striking Qatar, the US would “massively blow up the entirety” of the field.
Asked later about the possibility of US ground troops being deployed to Iran, Trump responded: “No. I’m not putting troops anywhere.”
Death toll climbs in third week of war
More than 1300 people in Iran have been killed during the war. Israeli strikes against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon have displaced more than 1 million people, according to the Lebanese government, which says more than 1000 people have been killed. Israel says it has killed more than 500 Hezbollah militants.
In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missile fire. Four people were also killed in the occupied West Bank by an Iranian missile strike.
At least 13 US military members have been killed.