Iran struck the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia’s capital with a drone early Tuesday, as it continued to target areas around the region.
Across Iran’s capital, Tehran, explosions rang out overnight as the U.S. and Israel pounded Iran with airstrikes since killing its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday. Iran and its allies have hit back against Israel, neighboring Gulf states and targets critical to the world’s oil and natural gas production.
Airstrikes by the United States and Israel have killed at least 787 people in Iran since the start of the war, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said Tuesday.
The conflict has also spread to Lebanon, where the Iranian-supported militant group Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel on Monday, prompting Israel to retaliate. On Tuesday, the Israeli military hit Beirut with more airstrikes and said it had moved additional troops into southern Lebanon and taken new positions on several strategic points close to the border.
Here is the latest:
Israeli officials pledge ‘zero tolerance’ for violating military censor after journalists arrested
A correspondent and cameraman with CNN’s Turkish-language affiliate were reporting Tuesday outside Israel’s military headquarters in Tel Aviv when police detained them on live television. Israeli police said they were held “on suspicion of documenting a security facility” and later released.
Israeli officials vowed to crack down on reporters who allegedly “expose sensitive locations” while Iran strikes the country.
Israel’s military censor requires media to submit certain security-related information for review and in 2025 expanded its authority to mandate prior approval before publishing the locations of missile strikes.
In a statement after the arrests, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi pledged to “intensify the fight against foreign media broadcasting in violation of censorship directives.”
“We will not allow broadcasts that assist the enemy,” Ben-Gvir said, warning that journalists would face a “determined and forceful police response.”
Press freedom groups, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, criticized Israel’s military censor during last year’s 12-day war with Iran, accusing it of suppressing an unfiltered view of the war.
Burhanettin Duran, the head of Turkey’s Communications Directorate, called Tuesday’s detentions “an attempt to conceal the truth.”
Trump lashes out at the UK: ‘This is not the age of Churchill’
The president revived his complaints about the U.K.’s deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, despite his administration previously supporting the move. The remote Indian Ocean archipelago is home to a strategically important American naval and bomber base.
“The U.K. has been very, very uncooperative with that stupid island that they have,” he said.
He also criticized the British for their windmills and immigration policies and said they need to open up drilling in the North Sea.
Trump claims oil prices will drop once Iran conflict ends
The president acknowledged that oil and gas prices were going to rise as the U.S. remains engaged in the ongoing Middle East conflict — yet argued that prices would drop once the war ends.
“We have a little high oil prices for a little while, but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, i believe, lower than even before,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
The average price for a gallon of gasoline jumped 11 cents overnight Tuesday to about $3.11 in the United States, according to the American Automobile Association.
Democrats question Iran war’s cost, justification and planning
Ahead of a briefing by Trump administration officials to Congress, senior House Democrats are questioning what the costs of the Iran strikes will be and what impact they will have on the U.S. stockpile of munitions.
“The American people are entitled to clear answers including why this conflict began, what objectives justify continued military engagement, and what guardrails are in place to prevent a broader or protracted regional war,” said the five Democrats, who hold top positions on committees overseeing national security, in a letter to the Trump administration.
Lawmakers will receive a briefing later Tuesday as Trump tries to win over support for his campaign.
Trump says ‘we don’t want anything to do with Spain’
Trump said he wants to “cut off all trade with Spain” over NATO spending, adding “we don’t want anything to do with Spain.” Trump cited his ability to impose an embargo on Spain, based on the recent Supreme Court decision over the president’s ability to impose tariffs.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent agreed with the president’s claim that he could end trade with Spain.
Bessent told the president, “I agree that the Supreme Court reaffirmed your ability to implement an embargo.”
Trump says the US has ‘massive amounts of ammunition’
He said his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, “gave away a lot,” but said “we have plenty.”
He added that the U.S. had an “unlimited” supply of “middle and upper ammunition, which is really what we’re using in this war.”
Merz hopes Iran war will end soon
The German chancellor says that “we are hoping that the Israeli and the American army are doing the right things to bring this to an end and to have really a new government in place.”
Trump refutes that Israel forced hand on timing of Iran strike
“If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand,” Trump told reporters at the start of the Oval Office meeting with Merz.
The Trump administration’s shifting rationale for launching joint strikes with Israel against Iran is spurring criticism, including some from Trump’s MAGA base, that the White House was dragged into the conflict by Israel.
Some prominent allies of Trump stepped up their criticism that the U.S. was following Israel’s lead after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that the U.S. decided to strike because, “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.”
“And we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio added.
Merz says he’s very happy to speak with Trump during these challenging times
“We are, on the same page in terms of getting this terrible regime in Tehran away,” Merz said
during a visit at the White House on Tuesday.
The German chancellor said he also wants to talk with Trump about “our trade agreement, which I would like to be in place as soon as possible,” and the Ukraine war.
“There are too many bad guys in this world, actually,” Merz added.
Dispute over Iran disrupts US presidency of UN Security Council, diplomats say
Russia and China have blocked approval of the Trump administration’s program of work as it took over the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council for March because it included a meeting on Iran, three diplomats familiar with the negotiations said Tuesday.
Traditionally, ambassadors from the 15 council nations meet on the first day of the presidency to approve work planned for the month and the president then holds a press conference to present it. That hasn’t happened.
The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private council negotiations.
The dispute was over a U.S.-proposed meeting on sanctions on Iran, which Russia and China claim were illegally reimposed last year, one diplomat said.
As the U.S. and Israel struck Iran, U.S. first lady Melania Trump presided over an approved Security Council meeting Monday on children in conflict.
Trump says the US has ‘knocked out’ some of Iran’s forces and systems
The president made the comment at the White House while meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
“They have no navy. It’s been knocked out. They have no air force. It’s been knocked out,” Trump said.
He added about Iran: “They have no air detection, that’s been knocked out. Their radar has been knocked out. And, just about everything has been knocked out.”
‘Someone from within’ Iranian regime might be best choice to take power, Trump says
The U.S. president told reporters that ‘someone from within’ Iranian regime might be best choice to take power once the U.S.-Israel military campaign is completed.
In an exchange in the Oval Office Tuesday, Trump said Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince of Iran’s last shah, is not someone that his administration has considered in depth to take over leadership in Iran.
“He looks like a very nice person, but it would seem to me that somebody that’s there that’s currently popular, if there’s such a person ... we have people like that,” Trump said.
Trump noted that “some people like” Pahlavi but that he was not someone the administration had thought about too much as Iran’s next ruler.
Trump says ‘the big scale hitting goes now’ in Iran
Trump said the U.S. would continue its campaign in Iran during his Oval Office meeting with Merz. “The big scale hitting goes now.”
“They’re going to be in for a lot of hurt,” Trump said, “first we have to finish off the military.”
Trump says when it comes to new leaders for Iran, ‘the people we had in mind are dead’
The president told reporters at the White House that in addition to that group of people that he says the U.S. had been eying for leadership, “We have another group. They may be dead also.”
Trump said there is a “third wave” coming in but “we don’t know those people.”
The president said: “I guess the worst case would be do this, and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don’t want that to happen.”
Governments worldwide scramble to get their citizens home
From Romanian religious pilgrims to tourists and diplomats’ families, tens of thousands remain stranded across the Middle East as the war spreads and continues to disrupt air travel.
Gulf airspace is largely closed, cruise ships can’t pass through the Strait of Hormuz and major airlines have canceled flights.
The U.S. State Department says it has evacuated nonemergency personnel and families in six nations, adding the United Arab Emirates to its list on Tuesday, while governments from Russia to Germany and France also scrambled to run repatriation flights.
Some evacuees described fear and relief.
“We called our children at 3 a.m. to ask forgiveness because we might die,” Romanian pilgrim Mariana Muicaru said.
In Germany, after landing Tuesday in Frankfurt following a flight from Dubai, Wassim Mahlas said he was happy to be home: “I’m breathing German air again.”
US Embassy in Lebanon closes ‘until further notice’
The embassy says it is closed to the public “due to ongoing regional tensions.”
The U.S. State Department has advised Americans to leave Lebanon and avoid travel to the tiny Mediterranean nation on Israel’s northern border.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group fired rockets into Israel late Saturday in solidarity with Iran, sparking ongoing retaliatory strikes across the Lebanon.
Elsewhere in the Mideast, U.S. bases and diplomatic missions have been targeted in attacks by Iran and its proxies in Iraq.
U.S. embassies and consulates in conflict zones often close to the public for consular services like visa and passport applications and renewals, but they remain operational even after non-essential staffers are ordered to leave for security reasons or remaining personnel work remotely.
Since the onset of the war with Iran, only the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, has completely suspended operations.
Britain is sending a warship and helicopters to Cyprus after a drone hit a UK base there
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Tuesday that Britain is sending a warship and helicopters to Cyprus after a drone hit a U.K. base on the eastern Mediterranean island.
Starmer said he told the president of Cyprus that the U.K. is deploying helicopters with counter-drone capabilities and the air-defense destroyer HMS Dragon to the region.
It comes after an Iran-made drone hit RAF Akrotiri base over the weekend, causing minor damage and no injuries.
Trump has lambasted the British prime minister over his reluctance to join the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Iranian drone damaged part of the US Embassy’s roof in Saudi Arabia
According to an internal State Department memo, the strike on the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh caused part of its roof to collapse, although there were no reported deaths or injuries to staff.
In Kuwait City, there were also no deaths or injuries after the vicinity of the embassy was hit by two drone strikes that caused no damage to the facility, it said.
US senators are grilling a top defense official over Iran war plans
Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, said it’s “very disturbing” that Trump took the U.S. to war because Israel wanted to bomb Iran.
Netanyahu has been “egging for an invasion of Iran for 20 years,” the senator said, and past U.S. presidents “have consistently said no.”
Senators grilled Defense official Elbridge Colby during an Armed Services committee hearing on the administration’s shifting rationale for the attack and warned against sending U.S. boots on the ground.
Colby told senators the president has directed the military campaign to destroy the missile threat from Iran and deny the country a nuclear weapon.
“The president made the decision,” Colby said.
Satellite images show damage to Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility
The satellite images taken on Monday show several damaged buildings at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, compared with imagery from the previous day, along with additional damage across the complex.
Vantor, an imaging company based in Colorado formerly known as Maxar Technologies, released the images showing the damage that it said affected buildings that house the personnel and vehicle entrances to the underground fuel enrichment complex.
Earlier Tuesday, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said that Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment site sustained “some recent damage” amid a U.S.-Israeli airstrike campaign.
It said “no radiological consequence expected,” from it.
The nuclear facility at Natanz is located nearly 220 kilometers (135 miles) southeast of Tehran, and is Iran’s main enrichment site. It had been targeted by airstrikes in the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June.
Netanyahu threatens further strikes against Iran and Hezbollah
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his military plans to respond with even more force against projectiles from Iran and Lebanon on Tuesday during a visit to an Israeli air force base.
“Our pilots are over the skies of Iran and Tehran, and over the skies of Lebanon. Hezbollah made a very big mistake when it attacked us,” he said.
He added that the Lebanese government and Lebanese people should understand that Iran-backed Hezbollah is “dragging them into a war that is not theirs, just because of the death of that mass murderer that they have nothing to do with.”
A senior Hezbollah official has said that after more than a year of abiding by a ceasefire while Israel launched near-daily strikes in Lebanon, the group’s patience has ended.
US Embassy in Israel tells Americans they must find their own way home
If you’re an American in Israel looking for a way to leave the country, get a bus to Egypt or if you must, to Jordan. But don’t expect the U.S. Embassy to help.
That’s according to Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel. In a lengthy post on X Tuesday, Huckabee said the U.S. embassy is directing all U.S. government employees and their family members in Israel to shelter in place “until further notice” as Iran fires missiles into the country.
“The U.S. Embassy is not in a position at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel,” he wrote, adding information about bus service as a courtesy “as you make your own security plans.”
The Israeli Ministry of Tourism, he said, began running shuttles to the Taba Border Crossing with Egypt and requires prospective passengers to register via the ministry’s evacuation form.
Passengers who wish to cross to Jordan, he said, shuttle to Eilat in southern Israel and continue by taxi to the Yitzhak Rabin Border Crossing. Flights out of Jordan are harder to get than those out of Cairo, Huckabee wrote.