DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates says Iran has launched 16 ballistic missiles and over 117 drones in new barrages Sunday.
The UAE’s Defense Ministry says it intercepted all 16 missiles, while a 17th fell into the sea. It says it intercepted most of the drones, but four fell in UAE territory. The ministry said it is ready to “firmly confront” the threats.
Iran’s president earlier Sunday threatened to increase attacks on U.S.
targets across the region in the face of ongoing Israeli and U.S. strikes.
The Emirati statement did not specify the locations of Sunday’s attacks.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Bahrain accused Iran of striking a desalination plant on Sunday, raising fears that civilian infrastructure may become fair game in the war, as Iran’s president vowed to expand the country's attacks on American targets across the region in the face of intense U.S. and Israeli airstrikes.
A late-night Israeli strike on an oil facility engulfed parts of Iran’s capital, Tehran, in smoke on Sunday, while Israel renewed attacks in Lebanon. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with the nine-day-old campaign, which has rippled across the region and appears to have no end in sight.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian threatened on Sunday to step up attacks on American targets across the Middle East. He appeared to backtrack from conciliatory comments toward his Gulf neighbors on Saturday. Those comments, in which he apologized for attacks on their soil, were quickly contradicted by Iranian hard-liners.
In Lebanon, Israeli strikes pushed the death toll to above 300 after Israel ordered tens of thousands to evacuate ahead of an offensive aimed at stamping out the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
The war, which Israel and the United States launched with airstrikes on Feb. 28, has so far killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 300 in Lebanon and about a dozen in Israel, according to officials. Six U.S. troops have also been killed.
The conflict has rattled global markets, disrupted air travel and left Iran’s leadership weakened by hundreds of Israeli and American airstrikes.
Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, said on Sunday that the war’s effect on the oil industry would continue to spiral, warning it could soon become harder to both produce and sell oil.
Some regional producers, including in Iraq, have already curbed output amid dangers in the Strait of Hormuz.
“When we are attacked, we have no choice but to respond. The more pressure they impose on us, the stronger our response will naturally be,” Pezeshkian said in video comments Sunday. “Our Iran, our country, will not bow easily in the face of bullying, oppression or aggression — and it never has.”
The remarks, starkly different in tone, came a day after Pezeshkian said Iran regretted regional concerns caused by Iranian strikes and urged neighboring states not to take part in U.S. and Israeli attacks against Iran.
While multiple Gulf states reported intercepting more incoming missiles and drones from Iran, Pezeshkian said the country wasn't looking to battle them and accused the U.S. of trying to pit countries against one another.
Iranian hard-liners quickly contradicted those remarks. Judiciary chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei wrote on X: “The geography of some countries in the region — both overtly and covertly — is in the hands of the enemy, and those points are used against our country in acts of aggression. Intense attacks on these targets will continue."
Mohseni-Ejei and Pezeshkian are part of a three-member leadership council that has overseen Iran since an earlier strike killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Pezeshkian’s remarks Sunday reinforced pledges that Iran would not surrender despite U.S. and Israeli threats, with U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying their aim remains the replacement of Iran’s leaders.
“We’re not looking to settle,” Trump told reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One. “They’d like to settle. We’re not looking to settle.”
Iran and its Persian Gulf neighbor Bahrain said Sunday strikes hit civilian infrastructure.
Bahrain accused Iran of indiscriminately attacking civilian targets and damaging one of its desalination plants, though it didn't say supplies have gone offline. The island nation, home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, has been among the countries targeted by Iranian drones and missiles. Attacks have hit hotels, ports and residential towers and killed at least one person.
The desalination plant strike came after Iran said a U.S. airstrike damaged an Iranian desalination plant. Abbas Araghchi, the country's foreign minister, said the strike on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz had cut into the water supply for 30 villages. He warned that in doing so “the U.S. set this precedent, not Iran.”
Neither U.S. Central Command and Israel's military had immediate comment on the plant.
Iran also said on Sunday that overnight strikes from Israel hit four oil storage tankers and a petroleum transfer terminal, killing four people. Witnesses in Tehran said the smoke was so thick from the that fire that engulfed the north Tehran oil depot that it felt as though the sun had not risen.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said on Sunday that about 10,000 civilian structures across the country had been damaged, including homes, schools and medical facilities. It warned Tehran residents to take precautions against toxic air pollution and the risk of acid rain after Israeli strikes set fires at oil depots in the area.
Iran maintains sufficient fuel, Veys Karami, Managing Director of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company, told Iran’s state-run news agency. Israel's military said on Saturday that the targeted oil depots were being used by Iran’s military.
Israel renewed its assault early Sunday on parts of Lebanon, where health officials reported 12 more people killed, pushing the death toll there above 300.
The Israeli military has ordered tens of thousands of people in large swaths of the country, including parts of the Beirut area, to evacuate during an offensive that its military said was aimed at stamping out Iran-supported forces there. It warned residents of southern Lebanon to move north on Sunday morning.
Israel’s renewed offensive began last week after Hezbollah launched rockets toward northern Israel during the opening days of the war. The subsequent strikes have been the most intense since a November 2024 ceasefire.
Israel withdrew from most of southern Lebanon at that time but continued near-daily strikes, primarily in southern Lebanon, saying that Hezbollah had been trying to rebuild its positions there. Hezbollah said last week that after more than a year of abiding by a ceasefire as Israel’s strikes continued on Lebanon, its patience has ended, leaving it with no option but to fight.
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Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank, and Magdy from Cairo, Egypt. Associated Press journalists Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Aamer Madhani in Doral, Florida, contributed reporting.
