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:
Merz has expressed understanding for the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran but has not explicitly supported it.
Speaking on Sunday in reaction to the widening conflict, Merz said that Germany “shares the relief of many Iranians that this mullah regime is now coming to an end.”
The chancellor added “together with the United States and Israel, we share the interest in ending this regime’s terror and stopping its dangerous nuclear and ballistic armament.” At the same time he warned that the military action “is not without risk.”
Merz also pointed out that it was not clear what kind of escalation the attacks and counter-attacks could lead to in the region and whether military strikes from outside Iran could bring about political change from within. The chancellor referred to the U.S. interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, which did not lead to the desired outcome.
The U.S. president is hosting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House later Tuesday.
The topics of discussion is sure to include Iran, although Merz’s visit was confirmed by the German government before Trump made the decision to strike.
The two leaders will meet in the Oval Office in front of a pool of journalists, and then have lunch. It’s Merz’s third trip to Washington since he took office 10 months ago.
The average price for a gallon of gasoline jumped 11 cents overnight to about $3.11 in the U.S., according to motor club AAA.
Gas prices were already rising before the U.S. launched strikes on Iran as refiners switch over to summer blends of fuel, but crude futures have risen sharply this week because of the war.
On Tuesday, oil futures soared to levels not seen in more than a year as Iran launched a series of retaliatory attacks, including a drone strike on the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia.
Benchmark U.S. crude jumped 8.6% to $77.36 a barrel.
South Korean officials say they evacuated 23 South Korean nationals from Iran to Turkmenistan by bus.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that they were being transported to the capital, Ashgabat, and were expected to fly back to South Korea or to third countries on Wednesday.
The head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation has said that the Russian-built nuclear power plant in Iran faces growing threats amid the war.
Rosatom head Alexei Likhachev said the plant in Iran’s southern port of Bushehr hasn’t come under attack yet, but explosions have taken place just a few kilometers (miles) away from the site as nearby military facilities were targeted by strikes.
Likhachev warned that a hit on the plant’s reactor or reservoirs holding spent fuel could release dangerous radioactivity and contaminate wide areas, causing a “catastrophe on a regional scale.”
Likhachev said that 639 Russian nuclear workers are now in Iran. Some of them, who are now in Tehran, are leaving the country, and some of the personnel in Bushehr will be evacuated later.
Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger announced that a repatriation flight carrying Austrians would depart on Wednesday from the Omani capital Muscat. The minister said a first evacuation flight carrying “particularly vulnerable individuals” already took off Sunday.
Nearly 18,000 Austrian citizens are registered in the region, authorities said.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene also said her country will commence the evacuation of “the most vulnerable groups of Lithuanian citizens” from the United Arab Emirates and other surrounding states.
The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia has warned of an “imminent” missile and drone attack on the oil-rich eastern Saudi city of Dhahran.
“Do not come to the U.S. Consulate” in Dhahrab, the embassy advised. “Take cover immediately in your residence on the lowest available floor and away from windows.” It did not provide further details.
Nearly 1,900 out of more than 5,450 flights scheduled to the Middle East were canceled on Tuesday, aviation analytics company Cirium said.
The United Arab Emirates said that it possesses all defense capabilities and ammunition stockpiles to protect itself “regardless of the time frame and the length of the escalation period in the region”.
The country’s defense ministry said in a briefing Tuesday that it has so far repelled hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones fired into the country.
It said a total of 186 missiles and 812 drones were fired toward the country since the weekend.
Ministry spokesperson Abdel Nassir al-Hameedi said injuries that resulted from the Iranian attacks and what he called “minor damages” were the result of shrapnel from interception efforts, not a result of successful attacks against the country.
The U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, says its peacekeepers saw Israeli forces crossing into Lebanon in several areas Tuesday morning “before returning south of the Blue Line,” referring to the border between the two countries.
It said Israeli forces were seen crossing in areas near the villages of Markaba, Odaisseh, Kfar Kila and Ramia.
“Over the past two days, as well as dozens of rockets and missiles fired into Israel claimed by Hizbullah, UNIFIL has recorded several airstrikes and hundreds of incidents of firing across the Blue Line and 84 air violations,” the statement said.
The Israeli military said earlier that its troops were positioned at several points near the border as it continues strikes against Hezbollah.
A drone struck Oman’s largest port of Salalah on Tuesday, authorities said.
The government media office also said two drones were shot down in the southwestern province of Dhofar.
The attacks left no casualties or damage in both Salalah and Dhofar, it said.
Thousands of Syrians have crossed from Lebanon into Syria to flee Israeli strikes over the past two days as Israel and the Iran-allied Lebanese militant group Hezbollah escalated their attacks against each other.
The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said in a statement that around 3,900 to 4,400 people would typically cross from Lebanon into Syria during Ramadan. On Monday, after Hezbollah launched missiles toward Israel and Israel retaliated with bombarding Lebanon, a total of 10,629 people crossed, the vast majority of them Syrian.
Azzam Sweiri, a Syrian farm worker who had been working in southern Lebanon, crossed back into Syria Tuesday.
“The streets were packed with cars and people” as he fled, he said. “It took us 10 or 12 hours just to make it 30 or 40 kilometers.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that he has offered to help the United Arab Emirates protect itself against Iranian aerial attacks.
Ukraine has built significant expertise in countering Iranian-designed Shahed drones that Russia has launched almost daily at Ukrainian targets since Moscow’s invasion more than four years ago.
Zelenskyy said on X that he spoke by phone with the United Arab Emirates president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and “discussed how we can help” protect lives in the UAE.
On Sunday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that Ukrainian and British experts will work together to help Middle East countries shoot down Iranian drones.
The U.N. human rights chief is calling for a “prompt, impartial and thorough investigation” into what Iran says was an airstrike that hit a girls’ school in the southern city of Minab.
Volker Türk said he is “deeply shocked” by the fallout of the hostilities on civilians and civilian infrastructure in the conflict.
Alluding to the reported strike on the girls school, rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said “the onus is on the forces that carried out the attack to investigate it.”
She called for those forces to make the findings public and ensure accountability and redress for victims. The rights office said it was making no assessment who might be responsible.
An Israeli military spokesperson said Sunday he is not aware of any Israeli or American strikes in the area.
A Qatari official says Iranian attacks in the gas-rich country “will not go unanswered” as the Iran war expands in the Middle East.
Majed Al Ansari, a spokesman of the Qatari foreign ministry, said the Iranian attacks not only targeted military facilities but struck across all of Qatar’s territory.
“Such attacks will not go unanswered,” he said in a briefing.
He said there were attempted attacks on the Hamad International airport, adding that more than 8,000 people have been stranded as the country’s airspace remains closed.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan renewed his call for an end to escalating violence and a return to diplomacy.
“Our fundamental request and demand is clear: the mutual attacks must stop immediately and diplomacy must resume,” Fidan said, according to a transcript of his remarks to journalists late Monday.
The minister said Turkey consistently emphasizes this message during talks with other leaders.
Commenting on Iran’s attacks on Gulf states’ facilities, Fidan said Iran hopes these countries will pressure the United States to stop the war, while adding he believes that outcome “is not likely.”
The Italian government says it is working “non-stop” to assist Italian citizens stranded in the Middle East.
Italy scheduled two flights including one from Muscat, Oman, to Rome’s Fiumicino airport Tuesday to carry around 300 people and another from Abu Dhabi to Milan to carry about 200 people, mostly young students.
Another two flights are set to depart from Abu Dhabi to Milan and Rome Tuesday. An additional flight from Muscat has been scheduled for Wednesday.
Romanian tourists arrived in Bucharest early Tuesday after traveling from Israel to Cairo to escape the conflict.
Hundreds of Romanian Orthodox Church pilgrims were stranded in Israel while visiting Bethlehem on a trip led by Romanian priests when the war broke out. The group was forced to cut their trip short to return to Romania.
Romanian pilgrim Mariana Muicaru said she was terrified as rockets flew across the sky in Israel.
“We called our children at 3 a.m. to ask forgiveness because we might die and to tell them we love them and to let them know that it’s over for us,” she told The Associated Press.
The Kremlin said Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin will convey the Gulf leaders’ concern over the Iranian strikes on their territory to Iran.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Putin will “make every effort to facilitate at least minor easing of tension.”
He noted that after Monday’s calls with the leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Putin will convey their “deep concern about the strikes on their infrastructure” to Tehran.
A senior Hezbollah official says that after more than a year of abiding by the ceasefire as Israel’s strikes continued on Lebanon, the group’s patience has ended, leaving it with no option “but to return to resistance” and fight an open war with Israel.
Mohamoud Komati said Tuesday that Hezbollah exercised patience since a ceasefire ended the Israel-Hezbollah war in November 2024, hoping the government’s diplomatic efforts would yield positive results in ending Israeli strikes.
Komati blasted the Lebanese government for calling Hezbollah’s actions illegal and demanded it hand over its weapons, saying it did not act to stop Israel’s airstrikes that continued on almost daily basis for nearly 15 months.
“The Zionist enemy wanted an open war, which it has not stopped since the ceasefire agreement,” Komati said. “So let it be an open war.”
Saudi Arabia has condemned in the strongest terms Iran’s drone strike that hit the U.S. embassy in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
“The brutal Iranian behavior … will push the region into further escalation,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement, which reiterated the nation’s right to protect Saudi territories and interests, including “the option of responding to the aggression.”
The Saudi Defense Ministry said the U.S. embassy came under attack from two drones early Tuesday.
Footage aired by the Saudi-owned satellite news channel Al Arabiya showed fire damage on one part of the roof of U.S. Embassy in Riyadh after the drone attack.
Sirens sounded in Bahrain on Tuesday afternoon as a new Iranian attack was expected.
China, a major importer of oil and natural gas from the Mideast, has called on all sides to stop the fighting and ensure ships can pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has attacked several ships in the narrow strait through which a fifth of all oil traded passes, sending oil and gas prices soaring.
“China urges all parties to immediately cease military operations, avoid escalating tensions, safeguard the safety of shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz and prevent greater impacts on the global economy,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in Beijing.
The Israeli military said Tuesday it has struck Iran’s presidential office and the building of the country’s Supreme National Security Council.
It said the airstrikes happened overnight.
“In addition, the gathering site of the regime’s most senior forum responsible for security decision-making was targeted, as well as the institution for training Iranian military officers and additional key regime infrastructure,” it added.
Iran did not immediately acknowledge the strikes.
The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said Tuesday that Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment site sustained “some recent damage” during a U.S.-Israeli airstrike campaign, though it said there was “no radiological consequence expected” from it.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the damage was focused on “entrance buildings” to the underground portion of the atomic site.
Natanz earlier came under attack by the U.S. in the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June.
The IAEA said it saw “no additional impact” detected at Natanz’s fuel enrichment plant, which is buried underground.
Nuclear material is still believed to be buried at the plant alongside damaged and destroyed centrifuges. However, the IAEA has not been allowed to visit any of the attacked sites by Iran since that war.
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 organization offered the toll in a message on X.
