The US and Israel on Feb 28 launched what they described as a “pre-emptive” joint strike against Iranian targets, with Trump announcing start of “major combat operations”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told his Iranian counterpart that Moscow is ready to offer any assistance to help end the war against Iran and promote peace in the region, according to Fars News Agency.
The remarks were made during a phone call between the two foreign ministers.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has discussed the regional situation in the Middle East with the Foreign Minister of Kuwait, Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, the Foreign Office (FO) has said.
“Foreign Minister Sheikh Jarrah commended Pakistan’s sincere efforts aimed at fostering lasting peace and security for the Ummah as well as the wider international community,” the FO said on X.
It added that the two leaders discussed the evolving regional situation and exchanged views on its wider economic implications.
Mohamad Elmasry of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies says US-Iran talks remain in a “holding pattern” because Washington is misjudging the pain it is inflicting on the Iranian regime.
“Trump keeps talking about how everything’s just going to explode within a matter of days. My sense is that that’s not accurate, that Iran could actually hold out for some time, and they believe at least that they have time on their side,” he told Al Jazeera.
Elmasry said Iran is pushing for a short-term agreement to start with because it has a more realistic view of how difficult negotiations over its nuclear programme can be.
“The reasons why the Iranians are saying, let’s make this sort of patchwork agreement and then we’ll hold off on the nuclear file, is because I think they recognise that the nuclear negotiation is going to be very time-consuming and very complicated,” he was quoted as saying.
“The Iranians have a lot of experience in this arena, unlike the Trump administration, which is very inexperienced on the nuclear file. It’s not something that can come together in just a few hours or just a few days.”
At least two people have been killed and several others wounded in an Israeli air strike on the southern Lebanese town of Shoukin, Al Jazeera reports.
Among the injured was Shoukin’s Mayor Hussein Ali Ahmad, reported the National News Agency, adding “the attack destroyed a number of residential buildings and caused massive damage to an entire neighbourhood”.
The towns of Zoutar al-Sharqiya and Zoutar al-Gharbiya, and the river area between Zoutar and Deir Siryan were also targeted in overnight strikes, it said.
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Mayfadoun in the Nabatieh district on May 2, 2026. — AFP
Former US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has lambasted US President Donald Trump’s funding of Israeli “atrocities”, Al Jazeera reports.
“American Christians speak out!!!” said the former Trump ally, reposting criticism of Israel’s demolition of Christian sites in the Lebanese village of Yaroun.
“America can’t be silent and must stop funding Israel to do such atrocities!!!”
Bankrupt discount carrier Spirit Airlines ceased operations, the industry’s first casualty linked to the Iran war, after failing to secure creditor support for a US government bailout plan, Reuters reports.
No US carrier of Spirit’s size — it accounted for 5 per cent of US flights at one point — has liquidated in two decades. Spirit helped keep fares lower in markets where it competed against major carriers.
Iran has executed two men accused of spying for Israel, including one accused of gathering intelligence near the Natanz nuclear site in central Isfahan province, Reuters reports.
They quoted the judiciary as saying Yaghoub Karimpour and Nasser Bakarzadeh were hanged after being found guilty of intelligence cooperation with Israel and its spy agency, Mossad.
They said Karimpour passed sensitive information to a Mossad officer, while Bakarzadeh was accused of collecting details on government and religious figures and key sites, including in the Natanz area.
An Iranian military official said that a renewed conflict with the United States was “likely”, as peace talks remain stalled and President Donald Trump criticised Iran’s latest proposal in negotiations, AFP reports.
“A renewed conflict between Iran and the United States is likely, and evidence has shown that the United States is not committed to any promises or agreements,” Mohammad Jafar Asadi of the military’s central command centre, Khatam al-Anbiya, was quoted as saying by Iran’s Fars news agency.
Japan spent at least 5 trillion yen ($32 billion) in the foreign exchange market, according to multiple reports, in its first intervention to prop up the currency since 2024, AFP reports.
The yen, trading just shy of 160 yen to the dollar, is close to its level from the summer of 2024, when Japanese authorities spent billions of dollars to boost its value.
Officials had hinted in recent days at potential intervention for the currency, which has weakened against the dollar in recent months amid the Iran war and rising oil prices, as well as the gap between US and Japanese interest rates.
Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reports more dawn attacks on southern Lebanon.
The Israeli army “opened fire with heavy machine guns” on the towns of Ramya and Qouzah. Earlier, the town of Froun was “subjected to hostile artillery shelling”, it said.
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei’s message on Persian Gulf Day stated that the Iranian nation will defend its achievements — from nanotechnology and biotechnology to its peaceful nuclear and missile industries — just as it defends its borders, IRIB reports.
Israel’s military has urged residents of several towns and villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate, continuing forced displacement in the area despite a ceasefire, reports Al Jazeera.
In a post on X, the army said the latest order applies to Qaaqaait al-Jisr, Adchit al-Shaqif, Jebchit, Ebba, Kfar Jouz, Harouf, al-Duwayr, Deir ez-Zahrani and Habboush.
China’s envoy to the United Nations has told reporters that there is no real ceasefire in place between Israel and Lebanon, only a “lesser fire”, Al Jazeera reports.
“It is incumbent on Israel to stop this bombardment of Lebanon,” Fu Cong told reporters at the UN’s headquarters in New York, as China assumed the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council for May.
The US State Department has announced new sanctions on ‘Iran-China oil trade’, Al Jazeera reports.
In a statement, it said that the sanctions applied to “several entities, an individual, and a vessel involved in the trade of Iranian petroleum, petroleum products, and petrochemical products”.
The sanctions target Qingdao Haiye Oil Terminal Co, Ltd, a China-based petroleum terminal operator that the State Department said “has imported tens of millions of barrels” of crude oil under unilateral US sanctions.
“Haiye has enabled the flow of billions of dollars to Tehran that has relied on sophisticated evasion schemes, accepting cargo from vessels conducting illicit ship-to-ship transfers with sanctioned vessels,” the State Department said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has told his Iranian counterpart that Russia is ready to provide any assistance to end the war against Iran and establish peace in the region, Fars News Agency reports according to Al Jazeera.
The statement was made during a telephone conversation between the two foreign ministers.
The Israeli military claims its air force “intercepted two additional suspicious aerial targets” before they crossed into Israeli territory after sirens sounded in northern Israel, warning of the “infiltration of a hostile aircraft”, according to Al Jazeera.
Israeli forces also “launched interceptors” following alerts of “rocket fire in the Kiryat Shmona area”, the military said on X.
“The interception results are being examined, and the incident is under investigation.”
President Donald Trump says the US Navy is acting “like pirates” in carrying out Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports during the US and Israel’s war against Iran, Reuters reports.
Trump made the comments while describing the seizure by US forces of a ship a few days ago.
“We took over the ship, we took over the cargo, we took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business,” Trump said in remarks on Friday evening. “We’re like pirates. We’re sort of like pirates but we are not playing games.”
US President Donald Trump attends an event at the Raymond F. Kravis Centre for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida, US on May 1, 2026. — Reuters
Lebanon’s health ministry says 13 people were killed on Friday in Israeli strikes in the south, including in a town where Israel’s army had issued an evacuation order despite a ceasefire, AFP reports.
The strikes in Habboush killed eight people, including a child and two women, and wounded 21 others, the ministry said, raising an earlier toll.
Other strikes in Zrariyeh killed four people, two of them women, and wounded four more, it said.
The ministry also reported a strike in Ain Baal near the coastal city of Tyre killed one person and wounded seven others.
In Habboush, where the Israeli evacuation warning was issued, an AFP photographer saw clouds of smoke rising after the raids.
The US State Department says it is approving military sales worth a total of over $8.6 billion to Middle Eastern allies Israel, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, Reuters reports.
The announcement comes as the US and Israel’s war against Iran marked nine weeks since its start and more than three weeks since a fragile ceasefire came into effect.
