DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel pledged to refrain from more strikes on a key Iranian gas field after Iran intensified attacks Thursday on oil and natural gas facilities around the Gulf, raising the stakes in a war that has sent shock waves through energy markets and the global economy.
Global fuel supplies were already under pressure because of Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world’s
oil is transported.
The Islamic Republic’s retaliation for Israel's attack on its South Pars gas field sent fuel prices soaring even higher and risked drawing Iran’s Arab neighbors directly into the conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Thursday that, at the request of President Donald Trump, Israel will hold off on any further attacks the offshore gas field.
Since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28, Iran’s top leaders have been killed in airstrikes and the country’s military capabilities have been severely degraded. Netanyahu said in a televised address that Iran no longer has the ability to enrich uranium or make ballistic missiles, although he did not provide evidence.
Still, Iran — now led by the son of the supreme leader killed in the war’s opening salvo — remains capable of missile and drone attacks targeting its Gulf Arab neighbors.
Underscoring the danger to ships in the region, a vessel was set ablaze off the United Arab Emirates' coast and another was damaged off Qatar. Efforts to bypass the strait were also under pressure: An Iranian drone hit a Saudi refinery on the Red Sea, which the country had hoped to use as an alternative route.
Brent crude oil, the international standard, briefly surged above $119 a barrel, up more than 60% since the war started. The European benchmark for natural gas prices also rose sharply and has roughly doubled in the past month.
The United Nations Security Council held an urgent closed meeting Thursday during which Gulf countries stressed the need for Iran to halt attacks on them, said Bahrain’s U.N. Ambassador Jamal Alrowaiei, the Arab representative on the U.N.’s most powerful body.
But Iran has showed no signs of backing down. Saudi Arabia said its SAMREF refinery in the Red Sea port city of Yanbu was hit. Saudi Arabia had begun pumping large volumes of oil west toward the Red Sea to avoid the Strait of Hormuz.
Qatar, a key source of natural gas for world markets, said Iranian missiles that caused extensive damage to the Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas facility, reduced its exports by about 17 percent and will cost about $20 billion in lost revenue a year. The damage will take up to five years to repair, even though production at the facility had already been halted after earlier attacks.
Two oil refineries in Kuwait and gas operations in Abu Dhabi also were targeted by Iran, authorities said.
Millions of people fled to shelters in Israel as sirens warned repeatedly after a barrage of Iranian missiles in the central part of the country as well as Jerusalem and areas nearby, including the West Bank.
At Thursday's news conference, Netanyahu said: “Iran's air defenses have been rendered useless, their navy is lying at the bottom of the sea. ... Their air force is nearly destroyed.”
He said he hopes the Iranian people will rise up against the Islamic Republic that has ruled for nearly a half-century. There’s been no sign of any organized opposition since the war began, after Iranian authorities crushed mass protests in January.
The prime minister's comments to foreign journalists came amid difficult days for Trump and Netanyahu, with a top U.S. intelligence official resigning and claiming Israel pushed Trump into the war, and Israel's attacks on South Pars, which led to Iran’s retaliatory strikes on the region’s oil and gas fields.
“I misled no one,” Netanyahu said. “And I didn’t have to convince President Trump about the need to prevent Iran from developing its nuclear program.”
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that U.S. forces were attacking deeper into Iranian territory, with warplanes hunting Iranian boats in the strait and dropping 5,000-pound bombs on underground weapons-storage facilities.
Iran’s state TV, quoting a Revolutionary Guard statement, said the country’s air defense system hit an F-35 fighter jet. U.S. Central Command said an F-35 made an emergency landing after flying a combat mission over Iran. A command spokesman, Capt. Tim Hawkins, said the aircraft landed safely, the pilot was in “stable” condition and the incident was under investigation.
Iran condemned Israel's attack on South Pars, the Iranian part of the world’s largest gas field, located offshore in the Persian Gulf and owned jointly with Qatar.
With some 80% of power generated in Iran coming from natural gas, according to the International Energy Agency, the attack threatens the country’s electricity supplies.
After Trump requested Israel not attack South Pars, he also warned on social media that if Iran continued striking Qatar, the U.S. would “massively blow up the entirety” of the field.
Asked later about the possibility of U.S. ground troops being deployed to Iran, Trump responded: “No. I’m not putting troops anywhere.”
More than 1,300 people in Iran have been killed during the war. Israeli strikes against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon have displaced more than 1 million people, according to the Lebanese government, which says more than 1,000 people have been killed. Israel says it has killed more than 500 Hezbollah militants.
In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missile fire. Four people were also killed in the occupied West Bank by an Iranian missile strike overnight.
At least 13 U.S. military members have been killed.
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Melzer reported from Tzukim, Israel, Watson from San Diego. Associated Press writers David Rising in Bangkok, Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, Edith M. Lederer in New York, Lisa Mascaro in Washington, Giovanna Dell’Orto in Miami and Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed to this report.
