War returns to Iran with Israel, US strikes

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a phone call with his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, according to a post on X by the foreign ministry’s spokesperson.

“The spreading and escalating conflict in the Middle East, affecting Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, is not what China wishes to see.”

It added that China “strongly urges all parties to cease military operations”.

Iran’s semi-official news agency Tasnim announced the start of the 19th wave of attacks on Israeli and US targets.

A tanker was hit by a “large explosion” in waters off Kuwait, causing an oil spill, the British maritime security agency UKMTO said, reports AFP.

“There is oil in the water coming from a cargo tank which could have some environmental impact,” said the maritime agency.

Qatar’s Ministry of Interior stated that authorities are “vacuating residents in the vicinity of the US Embassy as a temporary precautionary measure”.

“Alternative accommodation has been provided for them, as part of taking the necessary preventive measures.”

Explosions have been heard in Jerusalem today after warnings of incoming Iranian missile fire, AFP journalists report, with Israel’s emergency services reporting no casualties.

Israel’s military has issued three separate alerts warning of Iranian missile launches in under two hours. There were no reports of significant impact and residents have been cleared to leave their shelters.

Saudi Arabia’s ministry of defence has said that three cruise missiles have been intercepted and destroyed outside Al-Kharj city, Al Jazeera reports.

More than 2,000 Canadians have requested assistance from the Canadian government to leave the Middle East amid the intensifying US and Israeli conflict with Iran, a Canadian official said, according to Reuters.

Half of those inquiries came from Canadians in the United Arab Emirates, 200 from Qatar and 160 from Lebanon, the official said.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency said its reporters in three border provinces denied reports of armed Kurdish militants crossing into Iran from Iraq, Reuters reports.

Israel’s military issued new evacuation orders for a Beirut suburb, warning residents it was about to strike targets it said were linked to Hezbollah, AFP reports.

Three people were killed in a pair of Israeli strikes on vehicles near Beirut, Lebanon’s health ministry said, after a third day of Israeli bombardments in response to renewed Hezbollah attacks, AFP reports.

“Two Israeli air strikes on the airport highway killed three people and wounded six,” the ministry said.

Israel’s military said it had targeted two people in the Beirut area, without immediately offering further details.

Iran will target the Israeli nuclear site of Dimona if Israel and the US seek regime change in the Islamic Republic, semi-official ISNA news agency reported, citing an Iranian military official, according to Reuters.

A majority of the US Senate has backed President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran, voting to block a bipartisan resolution aiming to stop the air war and require that any hostilities against Iran be authorised by Congress, Reuters reports.

As voting continued, the tally in the 100-member chamber was 52-47 not to advance the war powers resolution.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he discussed the Middle East conflict with the king of Bahrain and the crown prince of Kuwait, Reuters reports.

Zelenskiy also said that his administration was in daily contact with the US and once the security situation around Iran permitted it, trilateral talks with Moscow and Washington on a settlement of the war with Moscow would resume.

The Israeli military said it struck several Hezbollah targets across Lebanon, including rocket and missile launch sites south of the Litani river, AFP reports.

“Among the targets struck were numerous Hezbollah rocket and missile launch sites south of the Litani River… including a drone production facility,” the military said, hours after issuing an evacuation order for residents living in the targeted area.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and discussed the threats from Iran to regional stability and other developments in the region, the US State Department said, according to Reuters.

“The secretary expressed gratitude to the foreign minister for Saudi Arabia’s response to the attack on US Embassy Riyadh,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement.

“They also discussed the continued threats the Iranian regime poses to regional stability, as well as other developments in the region,” Pigott added.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt has outlined what she says were the offers made by Trump’s negotiators to Iran, before the US decided to attack the country, Al Jazeera reports.

She claims that Washington had engaged in “good faith negotiations” with Iran and that Tehran had not.

According to Leavitt, Iran rejected all of the US proposals. US negotiators offered to lift crippling sanctions on Iran, provide nuclear fuel to Iran for peaceful purposes and a joint civil nuclear programme with American investment.

In return, Iran would need to permanently dismantle its enrichment infrastructure.

“They refused to say yes to peace,” Leavitt has said. “And now they are reaping the consequences of that.”

Iran’s Tasnim news agency reports that areas of the capital Tehran have been hit by airstrikes carried out by the “aggressor enemy’s fighter jets”.

The outlet adds that the Mehrabad Airport grounds, several points west of Azadi Square, Tehranpars and Chitgar were among the affected areas.

US President Donald Trump says the United States and Israel are in a strong position in their war with Iran, AFP reports.

“We’re in a very strong position now, and their leadership is just rapidly going. Everybody that seems to want to be a leader, they end up dead,” Trump has told a gathering of tech bosses at the White House.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has spoken with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and pledged Washington’s full support following missile attacks from Iran, Reuters reports quoting a statement from the US State Department.

Rubio told Fidan, “The attacks on Turkiye’s sovereign territory were unacceptable and pledged full support from the United States,” the statement reads.