Middle East crisis live: Israel launches new attacks on Tehran and Beirut as Trump lays out objectives

Earlier, UK prime minister Keir Starmer said that his government does not “believe in regime change from the skies” as he set out to parliament why Britain will not join its closest military partner in offensive action against Iran – suggesting that to do so would be unlawful.

He told the House of Commons:

This government does not believe in regime change from the skies. The lessons of history have taught us that it is important when we make decisions like this, that we establish there is a lawful basis for what the United Kingdom is doing.

Last night, Starmer announced that the UK had agreed to a US request to use British military bases for “defensive” strikes on Iranian missile sites.

Per my colleague Andrew Sparrow, the UK PM has been under pressure from the left and the right for first saying the UK would not get involved in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran and then allowing the US to use UK bases in their operations after criticism from Donald Trump.

Addressing that criticism before parliament on Monday afternoon, he said that Iran’s “outrageous actions” could not be ignored and that the UK would continue engaging in defensive actions while still not joining in on the strikes.

“I am not prepared to commit our military service people to action unless I am sure that what they’re doing is lawful,” Starmer added.

US Central Command said in a post on X that last night, U.S. B-1 bombers “struck deep inside Iran to degrade Iranian ballistic missile capabilities”.

As the President stated, ‘we’re going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground’.

A fire ignited at a fuel storage station in Abu Dhabi after it was targeted by a drone was “promptly contained” today, the Abu Dhabi Media Office said.

“No injuries were reported and there was no impact on operations” after the fire at the Musaffah fuel tank terminal, according to the agency.

Here’s a brief recap of the developments so far, on the third day of US and Israel attacks on Iran, and of Tehran continuing retaliatory strikes against US allies across the Gulf after the killing of its supreme leader on Saturday.

At least 555 people have been killed in Iran by the Israel-US attacks across 131 cities since Saturday, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. US Central Command also said a fourth US service member has been killed.

• Speaking at the White House for the first time since attacking Iran, Donald Trump said the US military is continuing to carry out large-scale operations in Iran and said the campaign could continue for four to five weeks or more. The US president claimed his objectives in Iran are “clear”. They include “destroying Iran’s missile capabilities” and “annihilating their navy”, as well as preventing them from ever having nuclear weapons; he said that Tehran “cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside their borders”. He also cited the apparent lack of progress in diplomatic negotiations as further justification for the strikes.

• The US president earlier did not rule out the possibility of boots on the ground in Iran if necessary, in an interview with the New York Post. “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground – like every president says ‘there will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump said. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’” His defense secretary Pete Hegseth had earlier said there weren’t plans to have service members on the ground in Iran, but had also been reluctant to say whether this was the administration’s lasting stance. “We’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do,” he told a Pentagon press conference earlier.

• Trump also told CNN that the “big wave” of strikes against Iran is yet to come. “We haven’t even started hitting them hard,” the US president said. “We’re knocking the crap out of them.”

• Hegseth said earlier that the US “didn’t start this war but we’re finishing it”, while also claiming that the US’s goal was not regime change in Iran (even though Trump has pushed for this and Hegesth himself then urged Iranians to “take advantage” of this opportunity for just that). Hegseth also indicated that the US did not plan to effect a democratic transition in Iran – and refused to establish a clear timeline for how long the US operation will continue. We have a story on that here.

• Israeli strikes have killed at least 152 people in Lebanon, the Lebanese health ministry said, and wounded more than 150. Israel argued that its strikes were necessary after Tehran’s ally Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel (which Israel intercepted) in response to the Israeli killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday.

Lebanon’s health ministry has said more people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.

It said the death toll is now at 52, with 154 wounded.

The Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah, one of Tehran’s principal allies in the Middle East, had earlier launched rockets towards Israel.

Israel then responded with sweeping airstrikes, which it said targeted the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut and struck senior militants.

The Lebanese state news agency NNA earlier had an initial tally of 31 people killed and 149 injured.

Joseph Aoun, the Lebanese president, condemned both attacks launched from Lebanon and Israel’s counterstrikes.

He warned that “persisting in using Lebanon once again as a platform for wars we have no part in will expose the country to new risks.”

The spiralling war in the Middle East is putting civilians in “grave danger”, the head of the Red Cross warned Monday, saying a large-scale conflict would outstrip any ability to help.

The war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran has spread across the Middle East and beyond, with Lebanon’s Hezbollah entering the fray and a British military base in European Union member Cyprus coming under attack.

“Widening hostilities across the Middle East are putting civilian lives in grave danger,” said Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

“The scale of major military operations flaring across the Middle East risks embroiling the region – and beyond – into another large-scale armed conflict that will overwhelm any humanitarian response.”

Britons are now being advised against “all but essential travel to Jordan”, as the situation in the Middle East continues to escalate.

The Foreign Office updated its travel advice for the country on Monday.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) website now reads:

FCDO now advises against all but essential travel to Jordan.

FCDO continues to advise against all travel to within 3km of the border with Syria.

Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte on Monday praised US and Israeli military action against Iran, saying it was degrading Tehran’s ability to get its hands on nuclear and ballistic missile capability, but he said Nato itself would not be involved.

“It’s really important what the US is doing here, together with Israel, because it is taking out, degrading the capacity of Iran to get its hands on nuclear capability, the ballistic missile capability,” he told Germany’s ARD television in Brussels.

“There are absolutely no plans whatever for Nato to get dragged into this or being part of it, other than individual allies doing what they can to enable what the Americans are doing together with Israel,” he added.

Two people have been killed attacks on five ships in the Gulf of Oman, the UK maritime trade operations centre has said in a situation report on the critical security situation in the last 24 hours.

An Indian national, who was in the engine room at the time, was confirmed dead after an attack on the crude oil tanker, the MKD VYOM. A fire on board is now under control with plans to tow it to safety.

A second person was killed on the US flagged tanker Stena Imperative berthed in the Port of Bahrain after it was struck in a drone attack just before 3am GMT on Monday.

Three others carriers came under attack, UKMTO said. It reported three attacks on oil infrastructure in the last 24 hours, including an attack on the Jabal Ali port in Dubai and the Tanura refinery in Saudi Arabia following a drone attack.

And it reported traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical pinch point for oil cargo, had dropped 80% in the last 24 hours.

“While no official legal closure has been confirmed … multiple reports indicate Iranian forces are issuing VHF hails claiming the waterway is restricted. Mariners are reporting severe GNSS/GPS interference and disruptions to AIS and communication systems,” it said in its situation report.

US president Donald Trump goes on:

An Iranian regime armed with long range missiles and nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat to the Middle East, but also to the American people.

Our country itself would be under threat, and it was very nearly under threat.

He says the US is already “substantially ahead” of its time projections.

They projected four-five weeks at the beginning, but adds they have “capability to go far longer”, Trump says.

He adds that the US had predicted four weeks to terminate Iran’s military leadership, “and … that was done in about an hour, so we’re ahead of schedule there, by a lot.”

Further, Trump claims the objectives of the operation in Iran are “clear”.

They include “destroying Iran’s missile capabilities” and “annihilating their navy”, as well as preventing them from ever having nuclear weapons.

He adds that the country “cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside their borders”.

Trump then goes on to cite the apparent lack of progress in diplomatic negotiations as further justification for the strikes.

And we thought we had a deal. But then they backed out and they came back and we thought we had a deal and they backed out. I said, you can’t deal with these people. You got to do it the right way.

Switzerland said on Monday that its diplomatic channel between the United States and Iran has remained active since the US-Israeli air war against Iran began on 28 February.

“It is available to both parties and operates in both directions,” the Swiss foreign ministry said in an email to Reuters, without providing details.

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution when Washington and Tehran cut ties, Switzerland has had a mandate of a neutral “protecting power” representing US diplomatic interests in Iran.

The foreign ministry said that all its embassies in the region remained operational and that it is offering support to its nationals there seeking assistance.

Donald Trump is speaking now, he begins with a brief update on the US’s attacks on Iran.

Today, the US military continues to carry out large-scale combat operations on Iran, he says, “to eliminate the grave threat posted to America by this terrible terrorist regime”.

Trump claims that Iran ignored US warnings and “refused to cease their pursuit of nuclear weapons”, even after the US’s “obliteration” of its nuclear program last year, he says.

He goes on to claim that Iran posted an immediate threat to American forces in the region and the US.

The regime’s conventional ballistic missile program was growing rapidly and dramatically, and this posed a very clear, colossal threat to America and our forces stationed overseas.

The regime already had missiles capable of hitting Europe and our bases, both local and overseas, and would soon have had missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America.

UK businesses with a presence in the Middle East have been urged to step up vigilance against cyber threats from Iran following US-Israeli attacks.

The National Cyber Security Centre said there was “almost certainly” a heightened risk of an indirect cyber threat for organisations who have offices, or supply chains, in the Middle East.

The UK’s cybersecurity agency said Iran remained a threat despite an extensive bombing campaign that has devastated the country’s political and military leadership, including the death of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“Iranian state and Iran-linked cyber actors almost certainly currently maintain at least some capability to conduct cyber activity,” said the NCSC.

The agency said there is “likely” no significant change in the direct cyber threat from Iran to the UK, but organisations should prepare for the risk of collateral damage from Iran-linked hacktivists. It said organisations with a presence in the region should consider boosting monitoring of their IT systems and follow NCSC guidelines for dealing with a heightened threat of cyber attacks.

Jonathon Ellison, NCSC’s director for national resilience, said UK organisations and key infrastructure providers – such as airports and power stations – needed to “act now” in protecting themselves from potential attacks.

“In light of rapidly evolving events in the Middle East, it is critical that all UK organisations remain alert to the potential risk of cyber compromise, particularly those with assets or supply chains that are in areas of regional tensions,” he said.

Israel’s military said it was extending the closure of educational establishments and workplaces until 8pm (6pm GMT) on Saturday, as the US and Israel continued striking targets in Iran for the third consecutive day.

“The Home Front Command has updated the defensive guidelines until Saturday, March 7, 2026, at 20:00,” the military said, extending an earlier advisory.

“The IDF emphasises that, in accordance with these guidelines, gatherings, educational activities, and workplace operations are prohibited, with the exception of essential sectors.”

In an interview with the New York Post, the US president noted that the possibility of American troops in Iran is not entirely off the table.

“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground – like every president says ‘there will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Donald Trump told the Post. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”

This comes after Pete Hegseth initially said that there weren’t plans to have service members on the ground in Iran, but also was reluctant to say whether this was the administration’s lasting stance. “We’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do,” he said at a Pentagon press conference earlier.

A drone boat has struck a ship 50 miles north of Muscat, Oman, the UK maritime trade operations centre has said.

The UKMTO, which coordinates intelligence and verifies security threats, for commercial shippers, said in an alert this afternoon that the ship had been struck yesterday and crew had been evacuated to shore.

But it confirmed in an alert on Monday afternoon it was a strike by “an uncrewed surface vehicle”.

The alert comes as the Indian Embassy in Muscat confirms an Indian national was killed in a drone attack on an oil tanker.

It said in a statement on X:

The Embassy of India expresses its deepest condolences on the tragic demise of an Indian national on board MKD Vyom.

The Embassy is in close coordination with the local authorities in Oman to facilitate the safe and early repatriation of our nationals on board the vessel.

We remain committed to extending all possible assistance in this matter.

The Israeli military said on Monday it hit more than 70 Hezbollah targets including missile launchers in a wave of strikes against the Iran-backed armed group in southern Lebanon.

“A short while ago, the (Israeli military) completed a broad wave of strikes on Hezbollah terrorist organisation targets in southern Lebanon. As part of the strikes, more than 70 weapons storage facilities, launch sites, and missile launchers belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation were struck in a number of locations,” a military statement said.