Five killed in strikes on Lebanon, health ministry reports – as it happened

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Here is a summary of the day so far:

• Iran’s police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan has warned Iranians on state TV that anyone who takes to the streets “at the enemy’s request” will be “confronted as an enemy, not a protester”. Radan said security forces are stationed in the streets “day and night”.

• Lebanese health authorities said Israel’s raids on the southern town of Qana, in the Tyre district, on Wednesday have killed five people and wounded five others.

• The Israeli military said it had begun an “additional wave” of strikes on targets in Tehran. It followed the IDF saying earlier that it had struck key command centres of the Iranian armed forces in Tehran and Tabriz.

• It comes as Iran’s UN ambassador accused the US and Israel of deliberately targeting civilians – saying that almost 10,000 civilian sites have been hit in the country, including about 8,000 residential homes, and the death toll has reached more than 1,300 people. Amir Saeid Iravani said “populated residential areas” and “critical civilian infrastructure” had been hit in attacks he described as “horrific crimes”.

• Donald Trump said the US has hit and “completely destroyed” 10 inactive mine-laying vessels, warning that more would follow. US Central Command added that it “eliminated” 16 Iranian mine-laying vessels near the strait of Hormuz. The updates came shortly after the US president initially said there had been “no reports” of Iran placing mines in the strait, but warned that if it had, they must be moved “IMMEDIATELY” or Iran would face military consequences “at a level never seen before”. US officials earlier told CBS News that Iran may be preparing to deploy naval mines in the strait to further disrupt the crucial shipping lane. According to CNN, a few dozen mines have been laid in recent days.

• White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the US Navy has not escorted an oil tanker through the strait of Hormuz, after the US energy secretary Chris Wright said it had happened in a swiftly deleted X post. Leavitt also said that the US military is “drawing up additional options” to keep strait open.

• Leavitt also said that the US and Israel’s war won’t end until Iran’s “complete and unconditional surrender” and when Trump decides his objectives have been met and determines that Iran does not pose a direct threat. She told reporters that the US military is “making tremendous strides towards achieving our military objectives”, and is now moving to “dismantle Iran’s missile production infrastructure”.

• Meanwhile, the Trump administration is reportedly considering the deployment of special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which experts say could be used to make at least 10 nuclear warheads. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has told Congress that “people are going to have to go and get it”. Here’s our story.

• The United States reportedly asked Israel to halt strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure, marking the first time the US has reined in its ally since they went to war 11 days ago. It comes after an Israeli bombing of fuel storage facilities blanketed Tehran – a city home to some 10 million people – in toxic black smoke and acid rain over the weekend, raising urgent health warnings for ordinary Iranians.

• Israel is set to expand its defence budget by almost 40 billion shekels (US$13bn) to fund the war in Iran, according to a finance ministry official, who wished to remain anonymous, Bloomberg reports. The defence budget will be expanded by 28bn shekels, with an additional 10 billion put aside as reserves for possible military needs, the offical said.

• A total of seven members of the Iranian women’s football team have now been granted humanitarian visas in Australia, home affairs minister Tony Burke has confirmed. An additional two women had sought asylum before the rest of the Iranian team departed Sydney on a flight to Malaysia on Tuesday night, one player and one support member, Burke told a press conference on Wednesday morning.

• Russia denied sharing intelligence with Iran on US military assets in the Middle East, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said. It follows reports on Friday that Moscow was providing Tehran with targeting information that included locations and movements of US warships and aircraft in the region. “Yesterday on the call with the president, the Russians said that they have not been sharing,” Witkoff said when asked if Washington thought Moscow had shared intelligence about the location of US military assets with Tehran. “We can take them at their word. But they did say that. And yesterday morning, independently, Jared [Kushner] and I had a call with [Kremlin aide Yuri] Ushakov who reiterated the same.”

• Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi dismissed repeated claims from the Trump administration that Iran was planning a preemptive or preventive strike against the US or its military forces as “a sheer and utter lie”. “The sole purpose of that lie is to justify Operation Epic Mistake, a misadventure engineered by Israel and paid for by ordinary Americans,” Araghchi said in a post on X – riffing on the US’s name for the military operation, Operation Epic Fury.

• Approximately 140 US service members have been wounded since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran, according to the Pentagon, eight of them severely.

North Korea supports Iran’s choice of new leader and has condemned the US and Israel of undermining regional peace, an unnamed foreign ministry official told the official Korean Central News Agency.

We respect the rights and choice of the Iranian people to elect their supreme leader.

Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of the late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been chosen as his successor.

The official also said the US and Israel are “destroying the regional peace and security foundations and escalating instability worldwide”, and violating Iran’s political and territorial integrity.

Such actions “deserve worldwide criticism and rejection as they can never be tolerated,” they said.

Members of the squad arrived in Kuala Lumpur on a flight from Sydney early on Wednesday morning after Australia granted some of their teammates humanitarian visas.

Seven players sought asylum over safety concerns on their return home for not singing the national anthem at their opening game in Australia 10 days ago.

As the Guardian’s Ben Doherty writes:

On state-run television, the response was furious invective, and the message was clear: “I must emphasise that traitors during wartime should be dealt with more severely,” host Mohammad Reza Shahbazi said.

Before leaving the Gold Coast on Tuesday, all members of the Iranian playing squad were interviewed by federal police and offered the opportunity to stay in Australia on humanitarian visas.

Most chose to return home, citing a desire to see their families amid the deepening, calamitous conflict in their homeland.

Lebanese health authorities said Israel’s raids on the southern town of Qana, in the Tyre district, on Wednesday have killed five people and wounded five others.

Three others were reported killed in strikes a night earlier in Hennawiyeh, including a rescuer who went to assist the two victims prior to them being killed, while another strike on Zalaya killed one person, the health ministry said.

As of Tuesday, 759,300 people had been registered as displaced, officials said.

The Israeli military said it had begun a wave of new strikes “against Hezbollah infrastructure” in the area.

Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday it had intercepted seven ballistic missiles in separate attacks targeting an air base and its eastern region.

“Six ballistic missiles launched towards Prince Sultan Air Base intercepted and destroyed,” the Saudi defence ministry posted on X, adding in a separate post that it had intercepted another ballistic missile launched “towards the eastern region”.

Iran’s police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan has warned Iranians on state TV that anyone who takes to the streets “at the enemy’s request” will be “confronted as an enemy, not a protester”.

We will do to them what we do to enemies. We will treat them the way we treat enemies.

All of our men have their fingers on the trigger and are ready to defend their revolution, to support their people and their homeland.

Radan said security forces are stationed in the streets “day and night”.

Both Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have called on Iranians to take to the streets and overthrow their regime in recent weeks.

Iran has brutally cracked down on protesters involved in a wave of anti-establishment demonstrations since late December. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said it had confirmed the killing of at least 7,000 people, including children and people not involved in the protests, during that period.

A total of seven members of the Iranian women’s football team have now been granted humanitarian visas in Australia, home affairs minister Tony Burke has confirmed.

An additional two women had sought asylum before the rest of the Iranian team departed Sydney on a flight to Malaysia on Tuesday night, one player and one support member, Burke told a press conference on Wednesday morning.

He said the pair were offered humanitarian visas, and both took up the offer. The visas were processed overnight.

I made them the same offer that I had made the five players the night before, and that was that if they wanted to receive a humanitarian visa for Australia, which would have a pathway to a permanent visa.

I had the paperwork ready to execute that immediately. They both said that they did. I signed off on that.

The pair join five teammates whose humanitarian visas were confirmed by the Albanese government on Tuesday morning.

Read more here:

Democratic US senators are worried Trump could put ‘boots on the ground’ in Iran, which they believe could put the US at risk.

Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, Democratic senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire said a series of closed-door briefings from Trump aides have left them with more questions than answers, especially about the cost and expected duration of the war, and whether US forces would be sent into Tehran.

We know that Russia is already helping with intel, providing that to Iran, and that there’s an axis with Russia and China, Iran and North Korea that puts at greater risk the United States and our national security.

Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut told reporters after a classified briefing from administration officials to the Senate Armed Services Committee the US “seemed to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground in Iran to accomplish any of the potential objectives here”.

The American people deserve to know much more than this administration has told them about the cost of the war, the danger to our sons and daughters in uniform and the potential for further escalation and widening of this war.

The Trump administration is reportedly considering the deployment of special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which experts say could be used to make at least 10 nuclear warheads.

Read more here:

Israel is set to expand its defence budget by almost 40 billion shekels (US$13b) to fund the war in Iran, according to a finance ministry official, who wished to remain anonymous, Bloomberg reports.

The defence budget will be expanded by 28 billion shekels, with an additional 10 billion put aside as reserves for possible military needs, the offical said.

The budget represents about 2% of its gross domestic product and is part of a revised 2026 budget that will be debated and possibly voted on late Tuesday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.

It will then need a sign-off from parliament by the end of the month.

In a recorded video statement late Tuesday, Netanyahu said the war was “costing lots of money”.

Therefore, we are in need of a special budget including tens of billions of shekels to boost defence expenditure.

Multiple outlets are reporting that the US military used $5.6bn in munitions during the first two days of strikes against Iran, according to an assessment the Pentagon provided to congressional committees on Monday.

Members of Congress, who may soon have to approve additional funding for the war, have expressed concern about how quickly the conflict is burning through US military stocks – including long-range precision guided munitions that were used heavily in the first few days of the war – at a time when the defense industry was already struggling to keep up with demand.

There are also concerns that the US and its allies are expending a significant number of air defense munitions to shoot down incoming Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, of which Tehran has a large arsenal.

Indeed Donald Trump met with leading US weapons manufacturers at the White House on Friday – and said they had agreed to “quadruple Production of ‘Exquisite Class’ Weaponry” – as the Pentagon worked to replenish supplies.

His administration has not provided a public assessment of the cost of the conflict it launched on 28 February alongside Israel.

Lawmakers have clamored for more information, including public testimony from officials about issues including how the conflict might affect the US military’s readiness to defend the country.

Arizona Democratic senator Mark Kelly told CNN that senators would continue to ask briefers behind closed doors today about the per-day cost of the conflict to the US.

Several congressional aides have told Reuters and CNN that they expect the White House to soon submit a request to Congress for additional funding to produce more munitions for the war. Per Reuters, some officials have said the request could be for $50bn, but others have said that estimate seems low.