Israeli forces kill two people in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency is reporting that Israeli warplanes have killed two people and injured six in an attack on a residential neighbourhood in the Ras al-Ain neighbourhood of Baalbek. Rescue teams are searching for survivors with three people still missing, NNA’s correspondent reported.
By wresting control of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has turned the tables on US Submitted by Sean Mathews on Tue, 03/17/2026 - 20:08 If the US fails to push Iran out of Hormuz or washes its hands of the waterway, the repercussions will ripple across global trade and finance, experts say This frame grab, taken on 12 March 2026, shows smoke emerging from the Source Blessing cargo vessel, filmed from another vessel in the Gulf, north of Dubai (Wang Shang/Handout/UGC/AFP) Off Iran spent a decade building up a shadow fleet of tankers untouched by western finance and insurance to evade US sanctions. Now, those vessels are snaking through the Strait of Hormuz while their western-affiliated counterparts are locked out of the key chokepoint. Whereas the US used its heft as the underwriter of the world’s finance system to box out foes like Iran and Russia , the Islamic Republic is using missiles and drones to do the same.
Iran confirms security chief Ali Larijani killed Iran's security chief Ali Larijani has been killed, Iranian media confirmed on Tuesday. Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said earlier on Tuesday that he had been killed in an Israeli strike.
Strait of Hormuz 'won’t return to its pre-war status', Iranian official says Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, wrote that “the Strait of Hormuz situation won’t return to its pre-war status”, in a post on X on Tuesday. Ghalibaf did not elaborate further. US President Donald Trump had previously encouraged other countries to send their navies to secure the waterway.
Israeli military says it struck more than 10 Basij force posts Israel's military hit ten Basij force posts across Tehran in recent hours, the military said on Tuesday. The increase in Israeli strikes on Basij security checkpoints in Iran is part of a push to undermine the Iran's ability to contain unrest, an independent monitoring group said last week.
Commander of Iran's paramilitary Basij force killed, Iranian state media says Gholamreza Soleimani, the commander of Iran's paramilitary Basij force, was killed in US-Israel attacks, Iran's state media said on Tuesday. Earlier on Tuesday, Israel had said it killed Soleimani.
Projectile hits area near Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant A projectile hit the area near Iran's Bushehr Nuclear power plant on Tuesday, Iran's Tansim news agency reported, citing the country's Atomic Energy Organisation. No damage had been reported, according to the Atomic Energy Organisation. The projectile hit the vicinity of the nuclear power plant in the port city of Bushehr at around 7 pm local time, the news agency added.
Seven drones intercepted in 'past several hours', Saudi Arabia says Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said on X that seven drones were intercepted and destroyed “in the past several hours” in the country’s oil-rich eastern region.
US counterterror chief says in resignation letter Israel 'deceived' Trump into attacking Iran A senior Trump administration official in the directorate of national intelligence has resigned over the war on Iran , saying that the US president was tricked into the conflict by an Israeli and pro-war “echo chamber”. “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Joseph Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Centre, wrote in a resignation letter shared on Tuesday.
US embassy and diplomatic facility in Baghdad targeted by rocket and drone attacks Rockets and an explosive drone targeted the US embassy in Baghdad, triggering sirens, and an explosion was heard near the compound, security sources said. The attack comes after a series of earlier strikes on the same day. At least three explosive drones also targeted a US diplomatic facility near Baghdad International Airport, activating C-RAM air defence systems, the sources added.
US counterterror chief says in resignation letter Israel 'deceived' Trump into attacking Iran Submitted by Sean Mathews on Tue, 03/17/2026 - 14:53 Joseph Kent's resignation is the highest-profile indictment against Israel by a sitting US official in history Joseph Kent, director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, testifies during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on 11 December 2025 (Saul Loeb/AFP) Off A senior Trump administration official in the directorate of national intelligence has resigned over the war on Iran , saying that the US president was tricked into the conflict by an Israeli and pro-war “echo chamber”. “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Joseph Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, wrote in a resignation letter shared on Tuesday.
UAE could join international effort to secure Strait of Hormuz, says adviser Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic adviser to the president of the UAE, said on Tuesday that his country could join an international effort led by the US to ensure the safety and security of the Strait of Hormuz. Speaking in an online event organised by American think tank the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Gargash said that the UAE does not currently have active talks with Iran. Iran moved to close the strait last week in response to Israel and US attacks on the country, blocking a passage where more than 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supply moves through.
Israel has ‘won’ war with Iran, Israeli foreign minister says Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Tuesday the country had effectively won its war with Iran, but gave no indication of when the war might end. Speaking at a news conference, Saar said Israel was seeking to remove "existential threats", but did not say how the government would determine when those goals had been met. "One must be patient," he said, speaking on the 18th day of a war that has killed more than 2,000 civilians, most of them in Iran and Lebanon, but also in Israel, Iraq and across the Gulf.
Turkiye calls Israel’s killings of Iran leaders ‘illegal’ Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has lashed out at Israel after it claimed to have killed Iran’s powerful national security chief Ali Larijani, denouncing its targeting of Tehran’s leaders as “illegal”. “Israel’s political assassinations, especially those targeting Iranian statesmen and politicians, are truly illegal activities outside the normal laws of war,” Fidan told a news conference. Larijani’s death has not been confirmed by Iran.
Israeli press review: Confusion over army's plan in Lebanon Submitted by Nadav Rapaport on Tue, 03/17/2026 - 15:45 Meanwhile, Israel's closed gas rigs are proving costly, while interceptor production capacity is limited Smoke rises from an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon, 17 March 2026 (AFP) Off Confusion over Israeli army plan in Lebanon On Monday, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the army had launched “a ground manoeuvre in Lebanon to remove threats and protect” the residents of northern Israel . Katz said that “hundreds of thousands of Shiite residents of southern Lebanon who have fled or are fleeing their homes will not be allowed to return south of the Litani area until the security of the northern residents is ensured. ” But the Israeli media is reporting what appears to be a conflict between public statements regarding the nature of the operation and the operation’s actual intentions.
US pushes for Syria to send troops into Lebanon, Damascus hesitant: Report The US has pushed for Syria to consider sending forces into eastern Lebanon, but Damasus is reluctant to be drawn into the conflict, Reuters is reporting citing five sources briefed on the matter. According to the sources -two of whom are Syrian officials- the idea was first discussed by US and Syrian officials last year. They said the proposal was raised again by US officials around the time of the launch of US-Israeli attacks on Iran.
One killed, one wounded in Israeli attack on southern Lebanon One person has been killed and another wounded in an Israeli attack between the southern Lebanese towns of Abba and Jebchit, the country's National News Agency is reporting. According to the report, the air stike hit a car near a school. The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health reported that 912 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on the country since 2 March.
At least 912 people killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon At least 912 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since 2 March, the country's Ministry of Public Health is reporting. It added that another 2,221 have been wounded since Israel renewed its assault.
The UN investigates strike on Iranian girls' school Submitted by MEE staff on Tue, 03/17/2026 - 13:39 Initial investigations by US and independent groups point to US responsibility Coffins on the day of the funeral of victims of a reported strike on a school in Minab, Iran, 3 March 2026 (Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/WANA/Reuters) Off A UN fact-finding group has begun investigating an air strike that hit Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school in the southern city of Minab on the first day of the US-Israeli war on Iran. The attack, which killed at least 175 people, most of them children, is also being probed by US military investigators, with preliminary findings saying the US military was responsible for the attack, Reuters reported. The New York Times reported that officers at US Central Command had created the target coordinates for the strike using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, citing people briefed on the investigation.
The US-Israeli war on Iran is founded on two huge miscalculations Submitted by Meron Rapoport on Tue, 03/17/2026 - 14:23 If Trump and Netanyahu fail, it will be because they believed the Islamic Republic could be easily toppled and Hezbollah was a spent force Police stand guard on a street, with a large billboard featuring Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the background, in Tehran, 12 March 2026 (Reuters/Alaa Al-Marjani) Off More than two weeks since Israel and the US attacked Iran , inflicting "death and destruction from the sky all day long" as US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said , it seems that at the foundation of the decision to go to war were two major miscalculations. One is almost entirely an American miscalculation regarding the possibility of toppling the Iranian ruling establishment, and the other is an Israeli misreading of Hezbollah and its potential response. "If we had not acted immediately, within a few months Iran’s industries of death would have become immune to any strike," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday in his first televised speech since the war began.
