TEHRAN: The war involving Iran, the United States, and Israel entered its 17th day on Tuesday, with missile and drone attacks spreading across the Gulf and raising fears of a wider regional conflict.
Israel’s military said it launched a “wide-scale wave of strikes” in the Iranian capital, Tehran, while also targeting positions linked to Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
The conflict has also intensified in Lebanon, where Israeli strikes in southern towns killed several people, including medics, according to local reports. Hezbollah said it responded by launching rocket attacks against Israeli troops near border towns.
In Baghdad, a drone and rocket attack targeted the US Embassy in Baghdad early Tuesday, a security official said. The official reported that three drones and four rockets were used in the attack, with at least one drone crashing inside the embassy compound.
A separate missile strike on a house in Baghdad killed four people, including two believed to be Iranian advisers linked to Tehran-backed groups, a security official told AFP. Iraq has increasingly been drawn into the conflict after long serving as a proxy battleground between Washington and Tehran.
US President Donald Trump meanwhile urged allies to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway through which roughly a fifth of global crude oil shipments normally pass.
Trump criticised what he called a weak response from partners after Iran effectively shut the route in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes, demanding countries “get involved quickly and with great enthusiasm”.
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog called on European nations to support Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah as Israeli forces continued ground operations in Lebanon.
Lebanon has been deeply affected by the war since Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel on March 2 following the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also addressed the Iranian people ahead of the local New Year holiday of Nowruz, wishing them “a year of freedom”.
Meanwhile, attacks continued across the region. A drone strike caused a fire at the Shah oil field near Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, while two drones targeted Iraq’s Majnoon oil field in the south of the country.
The UAE’s state-owned energy company ADNOC also halted oil loading at its Fujairah storage facility after repeated strikes near the strategic port.
Hezbollah said it launched rockets toward the northern Israeli city of Nahariya, where Israeli authorities reported one person wounded.
The war has also created a growing humanitarian crisis. Lebanese authorities say more than one million people have been displaced since hostilities began earlier this month.
In Jerusalem, Israeli police reported missile and interceptor fragments falling near sites in the Old City, including areas close to Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that Israel’s ground offensive in Lebanon was an “error” that could further worsen the already tense humanitarian situation in the country.
