The Latest: US hits Iran with intense strikes as Iranian air campaign drives oil prices higher

As American and Israeli strikes pound the Islamic Republic and Iran attacks Persian Gulf shipping and energy infrastructure with no sign of an end to the war, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a new threat to Iran's leaders on his Truth Social website.

“They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them,” Trump wrote. “What a great honor it is to do so!”

Intense strikes hit Tehran and areas surrounding Iran's capital, as Iran continued striking at neighboring Arab Gulf States, helping to drive oil prices back above $100 a barrel.

The first week of war cost the United States $11.3 billion, according to the Pentagon. The U.N. refugee agency says up to 3.2 million people in Iran have been displaced, and authorities in Lebanon say 800,000 have been forced from their homes as Israel’s military destroys buildings linked to Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.

More than 600 have been killed in Lebanon, as well as more than 1,300 in Iran and a dozen in Israel. At least seven U.S. soldiers have died during the fighting.

Here is the latest:

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Friday criticized the U.S. decision to ease sanctions on Russian oil.

“Six members of the G7 expressed a very clear view that this is not the right signal to send,” Merz said during a press conference with his Norwegian counterpart in Andenes, Norway.

“We learned this morning that the U.S. government has apparently decided otherwise. Once again, we believe this is the wrong decision,” Merz said.

Merz said there was “a price problem, but not a supply problem,” adding that he wished to know what additional motives led to the U.S. decision.

The hard-liner who leads Iran’s judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi, was giving an interview to a state television reporter at a demonstration when a strike hit in the area of Tehran’s Ferdowsi Square.

His bodyguards encircled him, but he raised his fist and said Iran “under this rain and missiles will never withdraw.”

The secretary-general of the United Nations began a visit to Beirut on Friday during the Israel-Hezbollah war.

António Guterres posted on X that his visit is in solidarity with “the people of Lebanon.”

Speaking about the latest round of fighting that broke out March 2 when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israeli, Guterres wrote that the Lebanese people “did not choose this war. They were dragged into it.”

The U.N. chief added that he will spare no effort in striving for the peaceful future that Lebanon and this region “so richly deserve.”

Britain is accusing Russia and Iran of working together to inflict military and economic pain on the West.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said Friday during a trip to Saudi Arabia that Moscow and Tehran are trying “to support each other and try to benefit together from attempting to hijack the global economy.”

The U.S. has eased Russian oil sanctions as oil prices climb following Iran’s attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, saying it will temporarily allow countries to buy Russian oil already loaded on vessels at sea.

Britain says it won’t follow suit but has declined to criticize the American decision.

U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey has said Moscow and Tehran are collaborating on drone technology and tactics.

The British military is investigating whether a drone that struck a U.K. air base on Cyprus at the start of the conflict contained Russian components.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says the U.S. decision to allow purchases of Russian oil currently stranded at sea will help stabilize global energy markets.

Peskov told reporters Friday that the world was facing a growing energy crisis.

“It’s impossible to stabilize the market without significant volumes of the Russian oil,” he said.

NATO defenses on Friday intercepted a ballistic missile fired from Iran over Turkey, the third such incident since the start of the war.

Turkey’s Defense Ministry said the missile was destroyed by NATO air defenses deployed in the eastern Mediterranean.

Residents in the southern city of Adana reported hearing a loud explosion and sirens sounding at Incirlik Air Base, which is used by U.S. forces, in the early hours of Friday.

No casualties were reported.

NATO deployed an additional Patriot air defense system this week in the southeastern province of Malatya, where the Kurecik radar station is based.

The Defense Ministry stressed Thursday that Incirlik is a Turkish base and that a foreign troop presence does not alter the base’s status.

The statement was an apparent response to warnings from Tehran to regional countries not to host U.S. military bases.

Iranian security official Ali Larijani called the suspected Israeli attack in the area of Tehran’s Ferdowsi Square on Friday a “sign of its desperation.”

“The problem with Trump is that he is not smart enough to see that the Iranian nation is a mature, strong and determined nation,” Larijani told Iranian media. “The more pressure he puts on the people, the greater their willpower becomes.”

Four of six crew members aboard a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft that crashed in Iraq have been confirmed dead, the U.S. military said.

France says a drone attack Thursday killed one of its soldiers and wounded six others.

The attack targeted a Kurdish military base where French soldiers were training Iraqi units.

France’s ministry of armed forces said in a statement Friday that a drone struck the center of the Mala Qara base in the Irbil region.

The ministry says Chief Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion was treated by medical teams on site and later died of his wounds at a hospital. Frion had been deployed to Iraq since Jan. 24 as a member of the 7th Alpine Chasseurs Battalion.

The other six soldiers remain in a hospital and arrangements are being made for their repatriation to France, the ministry says.

A large explosion struck Iran’s capital Tehran on Friday at a square filled with demonstrators, Iranian state television reported.

The explosion hit Ferdowsi Square, just down Enghelab Street from Tehran University, the epicenter of ongoing Quds, or Jerusalem, Day demonstrations. The area is home to many government buildings.

Video published by the semiofficial Tasnim news agency showed a plume of gray smoke rising as demonstrators screamed “Death to Israel!” and “Death to America!”

Footage from Ferdowsi Square showed people shouting “God is the greatest!” as smoke rose.

The strike came as Iranian media published videos showing top members of the country’s theocracy at the demonstration in Tehran, including security official Ali Larijani and Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi, the hard-line cleric who heads the country’s judiciary.

The cause of the blast was not immediately known. The Israeli military declined to immediately discuss the strike when reached for comment. Israel had warned it could strike in the area just before the blast.

Authorities in Tehran offered no immediate details about what happened. However, the site of the blast appeared near where Israel said it would strike.

Just before the Tehran strike, an explosion shook the city of Qazvin, which Israel also had warned it would target.

People reported other strikes in Tehran around the same time, though there was no immediate information on what may have been struck.

Residents in the northern Israeli village of Zarzir heard loud explosions as they ran into a shelter early Friday morning and emerged to find much of the area in ruins.

Authorities say nearly 60 people were injured in the missile strike on the Arab-Israeli village near the Lebanese border.

Hezbollah said early Friday that it fired several rockets toward northern Israel and Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.

Residents said missiles from Hezbollah destroyed houses and left people scrambling to help relatives between the rubble.

“It’s terrifying,” resident Khalid Ghrifat said. “This scene I witnessed is unforgettable.”

Israel issued a strike warning Friday for an area near Tehran University that was hosting the annual Quds Day demonstrations.

The warning showed a strike being possible along Enghelab Street near the university. The area is filled with demonstrators at the moment.

Tehran University is the site of Friday prayers in the city, where demonstrators will gather later at noon.

The warning in Farsi said the Israeli military “will conduct operations in this area in the coming hours.”

“We kindly urge you to immediately evacuate the designated area indicated on the map,” the message said. “Your presence in these areas puts your life at risk.”

Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry says the remains of 84 Iranian sailors killed in a U.S submarine attack on March 4 have been handed over to Iranian representatives to be repatriated.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Thushara Rodrigo said the ministry completed the procedure for repatriating the remains of foreigners and handed over the bodies of the crew members from Iranian warship IRIS Dena.

They will be flown to Iran from Hambantota airport in southern Sri Lanka on Friday, he said.

Another 32 sailors from IRIS Dena were rescued by Sri Lanka’s navy.

More than 200 Iranian sailors also were brought ashore by Sri Lanka’s navy from a second Iranian warship. The vessels were returning from a naval exercise in India.

Iranian state television aired footage Friday showing thousands of people across the Islamic Republic taking part in the annual Quds Day.

Quds is the Arabic name of Jerusalem.

Demonstrators chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” while carrying Iranian flags in support of the military forces fighting against the U.S. and Israel.

People joined the rallies in Tehran despite ongoing American-Israeli strikes taking place during the commemoration.

Iran has been marking Quds Day on the last Friday of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan since its 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Israel’s military said Friday it began a wave of strikes targeting infrastructure across Iran.

An Israeli strike in eastern Lebanon that was targeting an Islamic Group official killed two people.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the early Friday strike on an apartment in the eastern village of Bar Elias wounded Youssef Dahouk, a local official with al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, and two others.

The agency said Dahouk’s two sons were killed in the strike.

Over the past two years, Israel has targeted officials with the Islamic Group which is the Lebanon branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

A building at the Dubai International Financial Center sustained damage Friday after what authorities described as a “successful interception.”

The building, known as the DIFC Innovation Hub, bore fire damage Friday morning, with pieces of its facade torn away.

The Dubai Media Office earlier described the incident as “a successful interception.” It did not elaborate on what had been intercepted, nor did it acknowledge the damage done to DIFC.

DIFC is an economic free zone for banks, capital traders and wealth managers, home to exclusive restaurants and nightclubs for the city-state’s elite.

Iran’s joint military command on Wednesday said banks and financial institutions were now a target in the Middle East after an airstrike hit a bank in Tehran.

The Israeli military says it has destroyed a bridge on the Litani River in south Lebanon.

The military’s Arabic spokesman posted on X that the bridge destroyed in the village of Zrariyeh was used by Hezbollah fighters to move between the areas south and north of the river.

The military added that Hezbollah forces near the bridge fired rockets into Israel during the current Israel-Hezbollah war.

Heavy airstrikes hit Iran’s capital, Tehran, Friday morning just before rallies were to begin for the annual Quds, or Jerusalem, Day.

Israel’s air force struck more than 200 targets in western and central Iran in the past day, the army said.

Fighter jets struck ballistic missile launchers, defense systems and weapon production sites.

The Oman News Agency said a drone crashed Friday in an industrial area in the region of Sohar, killing two foreigners and wounding other people.

They were the first deaths reported on land in the sultanate during the Iran war. There was one previous death reported at sea off Oman’s coast.

Another drone crashed in an open area in the same region without causing any casualties.

Israel’s military issued a warning Friday morning that Iranian missiles were inbound to the country, with air defenses actively targeting the fire.

U.S. President Donald Trump issued a new threat online to Iran, writing: “Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today.”

Trump made the post Friday on his Truth Social website, saying that “Iran’s Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth.”

“They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them,” Trump wrote. “What a great honor it is to do so!”

A missile alert sounded on mobile phones in Dubai on Friday morning as authorities said air defenses were targeting incoming Iranian fire.

Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry said early Friday that its air defenses downed 10 more drones headed toward the kingdom’s Eastern and Central Provinces, bringing the total to nearly 50 drones entering Saudi airspace over the span of a few hours.

The barrage represents a higher-than-usual number of aerial threats for the kingdom, which has seen sites including the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, oil infrastructure, and a military base hosting U.S. troops targeted as the war involving Iran has intensified.

Thick black smoke rose over Dubai’s skyline early Friday after what authorities described as a fire in an industrial area of the city-state.

An Associated Press journalist saw the fire in Dubai’s Al Quoz neighborhood. Bystanders gathered to watch the smoke from the blaze.

Police stopped an AP journalist from going closer to the site of the blaze, which was in a cul de sac.

The Dubai Media Office, which issues statements for its government, said “debris from a successful interception caused a minor incident on the façade of a building in central Dubai.” It said there had been no injuries, though the black smoke curled over the skyline as far as the sail-shaped Burj al-Arab luxury hotel.

An Israeli strike early Friday hit a car in Jnah, a coastal neighborhood in southwestern Beirut, and killed one person, the Lebanese health ministry said.

Separately, an Israeli strike hit an apartment in the Nabaa neighborhood, leaving it engulfed in flames, local media reported. Nabaa, on Beirut’s northern outskirts within the densely populated Burj Hammoud district, is home to a sizable Armenian community. No casualties were immediately reported.

It was the first time such an area has been struck in this conflict or during the 2024 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Following the strikes, the Israeli army said it had targeted a Hezbollah member in Beirut. Both neighborhoods are far from the southern suburbs of Beirut, which the Israeli military has declared unsafe and issued evacuation notices for.

Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service said some 58 people were hurt in a missile attack on Zarzir, a city around 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Jerusalem near the border with Lebanon. The service said one person was in moderate condition and 57 sustained very minor injuries from glass shards.

Footage shared by the ambulance service from the impact site showed damaged cars and scattered debris.

The Israeli military said it was operating with emergency services at the scene to clear debris.

Hezbollah said early Friday that it had fired several rocket salvos toward northern Israel and Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.

The attack targeted Irbil in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, President Emmanuel Macron said Friday on the social platform X.

Macron identified the soldier as Chief Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion of the 7th Battalion of Chasseurs Alpins from Varces.

“To his family, to his brothers in arms, I want to express all the affection and solidarity of the nation,” Macron said. “Several of our soldiers have been wounded. France stands by their side and with their loved ones.”

France said earlier that six soldiers were hurt in a drone attack in Irbil. French troops are in Iraq as part of a multinational counterterrorism mission supporting local forces in their fight against Islamic State militants.