Paris (France) (AFP) – New strikes were reported Tuesday across the Middle East, including Israeli bombardment on Lebanon and a drone attack on the US embassy in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh. The conflict started with US and Israeli strikes on Iran over the weekend, which sparked retaliatory Iranian attacks across the region, and showed no sign of abating as it entered its fourth day.
Here are the latest developments:
– **Blasts in Jerusalem** – A series of overhead explosions were heard from Jerusalem on Tuesday, AFP journalists reported, after the Israeli military said it had detected fresh missiles launched from Iran and was “operating to intercept the threat”.
– **Explosions in Tehran** – Loud explosions rocked Iran’s capital as the war entered its fourth day. The blasts were heard in northern Tehran, but it was not immediately clear what was hit, AFP journalists said. Iranian media also reported explosions in Karaj city, outside of Tehran, as well as the central city of Isfahan. The Israeli military said it had carried out air strikes on Iran’s presidential office and the National Security Council building in Tehran.
– **Iran Red Crescent says 787 killed** – The Iranian Red Crescent said that more than 780 people have been killed nationwide since the US and Israeli strikes began. AFP was not in a position to verify the figure.
– **New gas-price surge** – European gas prices jumped another 30 percent Tuesday morning, after surging on Monday over supply disruptions. The Brent crude price was meanwhile up 4.41 percent at $81.17 per barrel in afternoon trade in Asia. Stocks extended their losses.
– **Drones hit Amazon data centres** – Tech giant Amazon said two of its data centers in the United Arab Emirates had been “directly struck” by drones, disrupting cloud services in parts of the Middle East. A facility in Bahrain was also damaged by “a drone strike in close proximity”, the provider said.
– **Trump says US-UK ties damaged** – President Donald Trump said the US-UK relationship was “not like it used to be”, amid a major transatlantic fallout over Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s initial refusal to let the United States use British military bases. “This was the most solid relationship of all,” Trump said in an interview with Britain’s The Sun. Trump said Starmer “has not been helpful”, adding: “It’s very sad to see that the relationship is obviously not what it was.”
– **France deploys jets over UAE** – France has deployed Rafale fighter jets over the United Arab Emirates to protect its naval and air bases against Iranian attacks, said Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot.
– **China urges Hormuz safety** – China called on all sides involved in the Middle East war to maintain safety in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route for oil and gas, urging “all parties to immediately cease military operations”.
– **Drones in UAE, Oman, Iraq** – Debris from a drone interception caused a fire at an oil industry zone in the city of Fujairah on Tuesday in the United Arab Emirates, authorities said, adding operations had resumed once the fire was contained. Drones also targeted an Omani port, hitting a fuel tank, state media reported, saying the damage had been contained “without any human casualties”. Also on Tuesday, drone strikes blamed on Iran hit a camp hosting Iranian Kurdish fighters and family members in northern Iraq, a local official and an exiled opposition group said.
– **US embassy in Kuwait closed indefinitely** – The US embassy in Kuwait said it was closed until further notice, a day after an AFP correspondent saw smoke rising from the mission following Iranian attacks on the country.
– **Israeli deployment in Lebanon** – The Israeli military said it had deployed troops to several locations in southern Lebanon, in what it described as a “forward defence” measure along the border. Lebanon also redeployed soldiers from several recently established border positions after Israel’s “escalation”, a military source told AFP, after Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said he had authorised his military to “take control of additional strategic positions in Lebanon”. Israel’s military earlier said it had launched new strikes on Hezbollah targets, including “command centres and weapons storage facilities” in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, after warning it would press ahead with its campaign against the Iran-backed militant group. Hezbollah said it had targeted three Israeli military bases in response to the assaults on its strongholds, calling its rocket and drone attacks a “defensive act” after more than a year of Israeli strikes carried out despite a ceasefire.
– **Israel responds to latest strikes** – Just after midnight local time Tuesday (2200 GMT Monday), Israel’s military said it was working to intercept a large wave of missiles launched from Iran targeting multiple locations, including Jerusalem. It later said it was carrying out simultaneous strikes on Tehran and Beirut.
– **US embassy in Riyadh hit** – Explosions were heard and clouds of smoke seen in Riyadh’s diplomatic quarter, home to foreign embassies and diplomats’ residences, four witnesses told AFP early Tuesday. Two drones hit the US embassy in the Saudi Arabian capital and sparked a fire, a Saudi defence ministry spokesman said. The embassy confirmed an attack and urged people to stay away, saying it would be closed on Tuesday. In Qatar, the military intercepted two ballistic missiles early Tuesday, the country’s defence ministry said.
– **Trump: US to retaliate ‘soon’** – President Donald Trump suggested Monday that the United States would retaliate “soon” after its embassy in the Saudi capital was struck by two suspected Iranian drones. Speaking to the NewsNation network, Trump said “you’ll find out soon” how the United States would respond, without providing further detail.
– **US warns citizens in Middle East to ‘depart now’** – The US State Department urged Americans to leave much of the Middle East, including Egypt and the Gulf states, due to the US-Israeli war on Iran. The State Department “urges Americans to DEPART NOW from the countries below using available commercial transportation, due to serious safety risks,” wrote Mora Namdar, the assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, in a social media post. The countries or territories included in the warning were Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
© 2024 AFP
