Israeli forces said on Tuesday they were striking Hezbollah commanders in Beirut as part of a widening campaign that has seen clashes across the Middle East since the weekend. The Israeli military posted on X that it was carrying out targeted strikes against military targets in both Tehran and Beirut.
The moves follow a series of dramatic escalations after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran over the weekend that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Tehran and allied groups have responded with strikes on Israeli territory, attacks on neighbouring Gulf states, and assaults on energy and infrastructure targets that are important to global oil and gas supplies.
Explosions echoed across Tehran into the early hours of Tuesday as US and Israeli forces continued to hit Iranian targets. Israeli air strikes have also extended into Lebanon, prompting the United Nations refugee agency to say at least 30,000 displaced people have sought shelter there since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah intensified. More people were expected to flee to shelters as the fighting continued.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the decision to go to war in a television interview, saying Iran was rebuilding sites that could make its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes harder to counter, though he did not present evidence. US President Donald Trump said the United States has the capability to sustain operations for longer than an initially projected four-to-five-week timeframe.
Analysts examining satellite imagery reported limited activity at two Iranian nuclear sites before the recent strikes, suggesting Tehran may have been assessing and trying to salvage facilities damaged in earlier US attacks. The intensity of the strikes, the regional spread of retaliatory attacks, and the absence of a clear exit strategy have raised concerns about a prolonged conflict with broad geopolitical and economic impacts.
Across the region, the fighting has disrupted civilian life and commerce. Major energy producers have seen outages and halted production in some cases; Qatar paused liquefied natural gas production, and some Israeli gas fields were taken offline. Attacks and drone strikes have damaged facilities in the UAE, Bahrain and Oman, and there have been incidents involving commercial shipping and seafarers in nearby waters.
Governments and international organisations have scrambled to respond. The US State Department ordered the evacuation of non-emergency personnel and families from Bahrain and Jordan and urged citizens across parts of the Middle East to depart via commercial means. Several countries arranged special flights to repatriate stranded nationals. India postponed some board exams for students in the Middle East region and organised flights to bring back citizens. In Kashmir and other areas, authorities imposed security restrictions amid protests over Khamenei’s killing.
Diplomatic tensions have also surfaced among allies. Trump criticised UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer over Britain’s initial reluctance to join strikes on Iran, calling the changing tone in relations “sad.” The UK later permitted limited defensive use of its bases for US operations. International firms reported damage to infrastructure: Amazon said some data centres in the UAE and Bahrain were hit, disrupting cloud services.
On the ground along the Israel-Lebanon border, witnesses and officials reported incursions and shifting frontlines; the Lebanese army pulled back from several forward positions. The humanitarian toll is rising alongside the military actions, with casualties among civilians and seafarers reported amid strikes across the Gulf and surrounding seas.
As the conflict evolves, leaders on all sides have given differing accounts of objectives and exit plans. The lack of a clear endgame and the spreading nature of the attacks have heightened fears of a wider, longer confrontation that could further destabilise the region and impact global energy markets.
