By Parisa Hafezi and Alexander Cornwell
DUBAI/TEL AVIV, March 3 (Reuters) – Israeli and U.S. forces pounded targets across Iran on Tuesday, prompting Iranian retaliatory strikes around the Gulf as the conflict spread to Lebanon, rattling global markets and sending oil prices sharply higher.
Four days into the war, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters that the U.S. military had struck numerous Iranian naval and air targets, saying that “just about everything has been knocked out”.
In his most extensive public comments yet, he also sought to justify the assault on Iran, saying he had ordered his forces into action because he had “a feeling” Iran would attack after negotiations over its nuclear programme stalled.
In response to the fierce assault, Iranian drones struck the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia after previously hitting the mission in Kuwait. Washington shut both embassies, as well as its one in Lebanon, and ordered non-emergency government personnel and their families to leave much of the Middle East.
A source familiar with Israel’s war plan told Reuters that the campaign had been planned to last two weeks and was going through its target list faster than expected, with early success in killing its leaders — including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the opening salvoes on Saturday.
When asked who he would like in charge in Iran following the death of Khamenei, Trump gave a blunt assessment: “Most of the people we had in mind are dead.”
Iran’s capital Tehran was repeatedly shaken by violent explosions through the day, with Israel striking the headquarters of the state broadcaster IRIB as well as an area around the city’s Mehrabad airport.
The building housing Iran’s Assembly of Experts, tasked with choosing a leader to replace Khamenei, was also flattened by an air attack in the city of Qom south of Tehran, Iranian news agencies said.
It was not immediately clear if anyone died in the raid, but Trump said senior Iranians had perished on Tuesday, without giving details. “I guess there was another hit today on the new leadership, and it looks like that was pretty substantial also,” he said.
As Iranians have fled cities, the capital has become a ghost town.
“How long will this continue? Where are the shelters? Where is the government?” Bijan, 32, a bank employee, told Reuters by telephone from Tehran. “Every night my wife and I hide in the basement. The whole city is empty. There is smoke and blood everywhere.”
Firuzeh Seraj said she was afraid to take her 10-year-old daughter for dialysis treatment after a hospital in the capital was struck.
“World, do you see? They are killing us. Hear our voice,” she said through tears from Tehran.
STOCK MARKETS TUMBLE, ENERGY PRICES SOAR
Global stock markets slid as the disruption of Middle East energy supplies threatened to reignite post-pandemic inflation.
The price of crude oil gained nearly 8% on Tuesday to above $83 per barrel, the highest since July 2024, taking gains since Friday to more than 15%, and the European wholesale price for natural gas was up a punishing 40%.
Trump said on Tuesday that as soon as the war ended, “those prices are going to drop I believe lower than even before”.
Wall Street indexes were down nearly 2% by 1730 GMT, following European stocks’ more than 3% loss after MSCI’s Asia Pacific index closed down 3.5%. [MKTS/GLOB]
Iran has called the war an unprovoked attack.
“We have told the enemy that if you try to harm our main centres, we will hit all economic centers in the region,” Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the Revolutionary Guards commander-in-chief, said in remarks carried by Iranian media.
Iran has fired missiles and drones at neighbouring Arab states that host U.S. bases, and strangled shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas travel past its coast.
Qatar, one of the world’s main exporters of LNG, has halted production, while tankers have dropped anchor in the Gulf rather than brave the strait. [O/R]
The cost of hiring a tanker to ship oil from the Middle East to Asia has nearly quadrupled since last week to an all-time high well over $400,000 a day.
The war has also spread to Lebanon, where Iran’s Hezbollah allies fired on Israel, which responded with air strikes and reinforcements of ground positions in the south. Thick black smoke blanketed Beirut as the sound of explosions rumbled in the air. Authorities said dozens were killed there.
Iran said its death toll from the attacks had reached 787, citing the Red Crescent.
State media showed hundreds packing the streets of the southern city of Minab to mourn scores of girls killed in the bombing of a girls’ school on the war’s first day, by far the worst of several reported attacks to hit civilian targets.
The girls’ small coffins, draped with Iranian flags, were passed from a truck and borne by the crowd across a sea of upraised hands towards the grave site.
The U.N. human rights office demanded an investigation into the strike, which its spokesperson called “absolutely horrific”.
Some Iranians have openly celebrated the death of Khamenei, 86, who had ruled Iran for 37 years and led security forces that killed thousands of anti-government protesters only weeks ago.
RUBIO SAYS WASHINGTON ATTACKED KNOWING ISRAEL WOULD STRIKE
While Israeli officials explicitly say they want to oust Iran’s government, U.S. officials have said the war’s aim is to destroy Iran’s ability to project force beyond its borders.
Trump has also urged Iranians to topple the clerical leadership, which has tormented the U.S. and its allies for generations, but urged caution.
“If you’re going to go out and protest, don’t do it yet. It’s very dangerous out there,” he said on Tuesday, ahead of a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told a briefing that the duration could depend on developments, adding: “We have prepared a general scope of weeks.” Asked if Israel could deploy ground forces to Iran, Shoshani said that was unlikely.
In Israel, where Iranian missiles have killed 10 people since Saturday, air raid sirens sounded repeatedly, warning of incoming attacks and sending millions into bomb shelters as the blasts of interceptions shook buildings and shrapnel crashed through the roof of a residential building near Tel Aviv.
Global air transport has also been in chaos, with airports shut in the Middle East that serve as hubs linking Asia, Europe and Africa.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Peter Graff and Crispian Balmer; Editing by Kevin Liffey, William Maclean)
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