Live Updates: Trump Suggests Extended War on Iran as U.S. Adds to Forces in Mideast
Iran and allied militias, including Hezbollah, attacked Israel and U.S. targets, and Israel struck in Lebanon. President Trump said the campaign could last “four to five weeks,” but “we have the capability to go far longer than that.”
Tehran
A guard looking at the Gandhi Hospital after it was targeted by U.S.-Israeli forces.
President Trump said on Monday that the United States would continue attacking Iran for as long as it takes to leave it incapable of posing a threat, indicating that an expanding war in the Middle East could continue for weeks or more.
“Whatever the time is, it’s OK, whatever it takes,” Mr. Trump said at his first public event since U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran began on Saturday. “Right from the beginning we projected four to five weeks, but we have the capability to go far longer than that. We’ll do it.”
Listing his objectives, Mr. Trump said, “We’re destroying Iran’s missile capability, and we’re doing that hourly.” He added that the strikes were “annihilating their navy,” and ensuring that “this sick and sinister regime” in Tehran “can never obtain a nuclear weapon” or continue to sponsor militant groups across the Middle East.
But his latest comments underscored the administration’s murky messaging about its ongoing military attacks. Mr. Trump, who had said on Saturday that toppling Iran’s theocratic regime was a goal, did not cite it on Monday as one of his aims. Experts inside and outside the government have said that his claims that Iran was close to having missiles that could reach the United States were false, and they also have disputed his contention that Iran would have had nuclear weapons by now if he had not abrogated a 2015 deal to restrict its nuclear program.
And hours before the president said the United States would keep striking Iran for as long as it takes, his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said at the Pentagon that the widening attacks would not become another protracted Middle East war, adding, “This is not Iraq.”
Mr. Trump took no questions at the event at the White House, a Medal of Honor ceremony.
In another sign of an expansion of attacks in the Middle East, Qatar’s ministry of defense said its air force had shot down two Su-24 bombers coming from Iran, the first report that Iran, which has fired missiles and drones at its Gulf neighbors and Israel in retaliation for the Israeli-U.S. assault, had also sent warplanes into their airspace.
As U.S. and Israeli planes pounded targets in Iran for the third day, the fighting expanded into Lebanon, where the Iran-allied militia Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel, prompting Israel to bombard the militia’s strongholds outside Beirut.
Three U.S. jets were shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses in what the U.S. military called an “apparent friendly fire incident.”
Iran’s leaders remained defiant. The country’s top security official, Ali Larijani, denied news reports that Iran’s new leaders were seeking to negotiate with Washington, denouncing Mr. Trump for “delusional fantasies” and for plunging the Middle East “into chaos.” Iran, he said in a string of fiery social media posts, “has prepared itself for a long war.”
Here’s what we’re covering:
Economic fallout: Oil and natural gas markets remained highly volatile as the fighting shut down shipping routes and damaged production facilities. Naval traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for one-fifth of the world’s oil supply, has shut down, according to shipping companies and Iranian media. And Qatar’s state-owned energy company said that it would halt production of liquefied natural gas, cutting off a large share of the world’s supply of the fuel. Read more ›
Death toll: More than 550 people have been killed in Iran since the beginning of the war, the Iranian Red Crescent emergency service said on Monday. The Lebanese health ministry said that at least 31 people had been killed in Israeli airstrikes. At least 10 people have been killed in Israel and six, including civilians, across the Gulf since Saturday, according to the authorities. Read more ›
U.S. deaths: Four U.S. service members have been killed so far, and “we expect to take additional losses,” Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news conference.
Persian Gulf: Iranian missiles and drone attacks led to explosions in Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and other countries where the U.S. has military bases. Iranian leaders have said the attacks have targeted U.S. assets, but they have also struck Dubai’s international airport, hotels and other civilian and economic infrastructure.
Cyprus: The Mediterranean island nation’s president said that an Iranian drone had crashed into a British air base there. The incident risked dragging Britain deeper into a conflict from which Prime Minister Keir Starmer has sought to maintain distance. Read more ›
Kuwait said a soldier with its Naval Forces was killed on Monday evening while performing “his duty within the framework of the national tasks.” In a social media post, the Kuwaiti army did not elaborate on the circumstances of the soldier’s death. He was identified as Sgt. Waleed Majed Suleiman.
Israeli fighter jets struck more than 600 targets across Iran in nearly three days of fighting, Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, the spokesman for the Israeli military, said in a televised address. Israeli strikes on Monday focused on security, intelligence, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets in Tehran. Strikes in Lebanon continued into the evening, he said.
Defense Officials Give No Timeline for War in Iran as U.S. Boosts Forces
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At a Pentagon news conference, top defense officials said that the U.S. military was sending more forces to the Middle East and expects to “take additional losses.” Earlier, President Trump said that the U.S. could continue striking Iran for the next four to five weeks.CreditCredit...Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press
“This work is just beginning and will continue,” General Caine said, adding that when additional fighter jets arrive in the coming days the United States will be “just about where we want to be in terms of total combat capacity and total combat power.” He declined to say exactly how big that overall force would be.
But even as General Caine’s words suggested an extended military campaign, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, standing beside him at a Pentagon news conference, insisted that this conflict would not spiral into one of the lengthy engagements that have characterized some of the United States’ past ventures in the region.
“This is not Iraq,” Mr. Hegseth said. “This is not endless.”
The dueling messages presented at the Pentagon news conference on Monday, the Trump administration’s first since the United States and Israel struck Iran on Saturday, highlighted the quandary facing America as it embarked on another war in the Middle East that President Trump said on Monday could last “four to five weeks” or perhaps far longer.
With no explicit objective other than forcing Tehran to abandon its nuclear program, Trump administration officials are struggling to explain their reasoning for striking Iran to the American public.
For the first Trump officials sent out to make that case, it was a difficult task, especially since they announced a fourth American death. Mr. Hegseth and General Caine also had to address the three American F-15 fighter jets mistakenly shot down by Kuwait earlier Monday.
“I am aware of the loss of three U.S. Air Force F-15Es overnight in the region,” General Caine said. “I am grateful for the safety of the crews, and we know that this was not from hostile enemy fire. As this matter’s under investigation, I’ll not comment further on this.” All six crew members were safe after the incident, the U.S. military’s Central Command said in a statement on Monday.
Administration officials have recently taken to repeating that they expect more American casualties, and Mr. Hegseth and General Caine picked up that mantra on Monday. “War is hell and always will be,” Mr. Hegseth said. “A grateful nation honors the four Americans we have lost thus far.” General Caine said he expected the United States to “take additional losses.”
Officials have also struggled to articulate the “imminent” threat from Iran that the president claimed the United States was facing in his announcement of the attack, and Mr. Hegseth did not mention one at the news conference.
Mr. Hegseth said no U.S. ground troops are in Iran, but he did not rule out the possibility. General Caine, a former F-16 fighter pilot, said the U.S. could “sustain the fight” against Iran. Military officials privately have already expressed concern about running low on munitions, raising the possibility that the Pentagon may have to dip into stockpiles reserved for other potential conflicts around the world.
For Mr. Hegseth, it was the usual combative performance. He denounced as “stupid” the rules of engagement that were supposed to govern wars and protect civilians, and said the United States was bombing Iran as “retribution against their ayatollah and his death cult.”
Referring to Mr. Trump, Mr. Hegseth said: “He reminded the world, as he has time and time again, that being an American means something unbreakable. If you kill Americans, if you threaten Americans anywhere on Earth, we will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation, and we will kill you.”
Mr. Hegseth spent much of his time chiding the news media for their questions rather than answering them. When a reporter said that “people also want to know what they’re sending their men and women to war for,” and asked whether there was a concern that the conflict could spiral into a longer war, Mr. Hegseth turned confrontational.
“Did you not hear my remarks?” he said. “We’re ensuring the mission gets accomplished, but we are very cleareyed, as the president has been, unlike other presidents, about the foolish policies in the past that recklessly pulled us into things that were not tethered to actual, clear objectives.”
European Union lawmakers, meeting today to talk about the Israeli-U.S. strikes in Iran, are focusing on the impact on energy markets. European countries are major oil and gas importers. “The Commission is closely tracking both price and supply developments,” a readout from the meeting said, adding will convene a task force on energy costs later this week.
The economic effects of the airstrikes in and around Iran reverberated through natural gas markets on Monday, after Qatar’s state-owned energy company said that it would halt production of liquefied natural gas, cutting off a large share of the world’s supply of the fuel.
Natural gas prices jumped on Monday amid concerns about supplies. Qatar exports L.N.G. via the Strait of Hormuz, which is also a vital shipping channel for oil and other goods. Traffic through the strait on Iran’s southern coast has dwindled since the Iranian military warned ships not to pass through it after the airstrikes began over the weekend.
QatarEnergy said on Monday that it would stop producing L.N.G. and related products after military attacks on two of its gas sites.
The response was most immediate in Europe, where the regional benchmark price for gas surged by as much as 50 percent, to the highest in a year.
“This disruption is a significant escalation of the conflict for international energy markets,” analysts at Eurasia Group wrote in a report.
In the United States, which produces nearly all the gas it consumes, natural gas prices rose by only about 4 percent on Monday morning. Natural gas is more difficult to transport than oil because it first has to be turned into a liquid, leading to bigger differences in regional prices.
Analysts warned that prices could jump higher. If the flow of natural gas through the Hormuz Strait stopped for a month, European prices could climb 130 percent from their levels last week, analysts at Goldman Sachs said. (U.S. price increases would be limited, they wrote.)
That would push natural gas to prices last seen in 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Europe went on to experience a painful increase in inflation and sought alternatives to Russian gas. Since then, Europe gets much more of its natural gas via L.N.G. from the United States, and around 5 percent of its gas comes directly from the Middle East.
Most of the natural gas exported through the Strait of Hormuz is destined for Asia, particularly China, India and South Korea. A prolonged halt in these shipments would force Asian buyers to compete with Europe for gas from the United States, Australia and elsewhere, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
As a result, even after Qatar restarts shipments, there would probably be “fierce competition” for gas, keeping prices elevated, said analysts at ICIS, a commodities research firm.
Europe is particularly vulnerable to higher prices because its natural gas storage levels are low. In Germany, the region’s largest gas consumer, storage levels have fallen to just 21 percent of its capacity. Across the European Union, underground gas stores are likely to end this winter at their lowest levels since at least 2022, said Natasha Fielding, the head of gas and L.N.G. pricing at Argus Media.
Warmer spring weather will reduce the immediate impact, though gas storage levels have to be maintained to avoid drops in pressure that can damage infrastructure. Analysts warn that a prolonged shutdown would make it more expensive to rebuild stocks.
“A lot depends on the scale of the disruption to flows through this key choke point,” Ms. Fielding said. “A brief halt won’t affect Europe all that much, but a lengthier one would raise concerns for how Europe will secure its gas supply next winter.”
Rebecca F. Elliott contributed reporting.
Anton Troianovski and Johnatan Reiss
It’s striking we haven’t heard Trump repeat his calls on Saturday and Sunday for the Iranian people to rise up against their government. It’s another sign of the administration’s struggle to hone a clear message about what it’s trying to achieve with the war.
Earlier today, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said: “This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change.”
Netanyahu, in contrast, said earlier today that the objectives of this U.S.-Israeli operation against Iran include “forging the conditions for the brave Iranian people to remove the yoke of tyranny.” He said that when that day comes, “Israel and the United States will be there with the Iranian people.”
Earlier in this speech, Trump enumerated four objectives of the war: destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, “annihilating” its navy, preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and ensuring that “the Iranian regime” cannot continue to fund regional proxies.
There was no mention of regime change in that list, though he has described the Iranian regime as “sick” and “sinister.”
Americans alarmed by the death of four U.S. service members might have been expecting a formal presidential address from the White House. Instead, they are observing a president treating this like every other day: talking about his ballroom, attacking Democrats, bashing the news media.
In general, Trump is talking about this conflict in remarkably personal terms, hitting back at an unnamed person in “the media” who he said had suggested that he would get bored of the war in Iran. He suggests that he has seen worse.
“If I got bored I wouldn’t be standing here right now,” he said. “I guarantee you that to go through what I had to go through.”
After just a few minutes, Trump has moved on from his war in Iran to the curtains he’s picked out for the White House and his new ballroom. “I picked those drapes in my first term,” he says. “I always liked gold.” There’s light chuckling in the room.
Trump, in the middle of a Medal of Honor ceremony where he is explaining his rationale on deposing Iran’s supreme leader, starts talking about his White House ballroom project.
Trump also discussed, for the first time since the war began, his decision in 2018 to withdraw from the Iran nuclear accord negotiated by President Barack Obama.
“That was a horrible, horrible dangerous document,″ he said, that would have given Iran “nuclear weapons three years ago.”
Iran was largely abiding by the agreement until Trump pulled out of it, and though it was under no restrictions after that, it did not manage to produce a weapon.
Trump just briefly mentioned the four U.S. service members who died. A reminder that this event at which he is speaking is a medal ceremony honoring veterans who’ve fought and died in American wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Trump said the attack could last “four to five weeks,” but “we have capability to go far longer than that.” He added: “I don’t get bored. There’s nothing boring about this.”
Trump’s own Defense Intelligence Agency estimated Iran would not be capable of building missles capable of reaching the United States for a decade or so, and had not made a decision to begin.
While President Trump has given conflicting justifications for his war in Iran, and has sought to downplay the country’s military strength, he said that the regime’s ballistic missile program was growing “rapidly and dramatically, and this posed a clear, colossal threat to America and our forces stationed overseas.”
Earlier in this speech, Trump enumerated four objectives of the war: destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, “annihilating” its navy, preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and ensuring that “the Iranian regime” cannot continue to fund regional proxies.
There was no mention of regime change in that list, though he has emphasized the Iranian regime as “sick” and “sinister.”
Trump said one reason for the attack was that Iran “would have missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America.” American intelligence agencies believe Iran was probably years away from having missiles that can hit the United States.
Trump, in his first public comments since the attack on Iran began, said the U.S. military “continues to carry out large-scale combat operations in Iran.”
The president just entered the East Room of the White House, where he is expected to give his first public remarks about the war he’s launched on Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is seated in the front row. Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, also is here, as is Gen. Dan Caine, who spoke briefly at the Pentagon earlier this morning. I also see Senator Tom Cotton.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer defended his decision not to allow the use of British bases earlier in the attacks on Iran, after President Trump said Britain had been too slow. “It is my duty to judge what is in Britain’s national interest.” Starmer told Parliament Monday. Britain would “not join offensive action,” Starmer said, adding that it would “protect our people in the region and support the collect self-defense of our allies.”
Asked by the opposition leader, Kemi Badenoch, why he had not agreed earlier to a U.S. request to use British bases, Starmer replied: “Any U.K. action must always have a lawful basis, it must also always have a viable and thought-through plan, and it must be in our national interest.”
Islamic Jihad, the second largest Palestinian militant group, said the commander of its military wing in Lebanon, Adham al-Othman, was killed in an Israeli attack in Beirut on Monday. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it targeted Mr. al-Othman.
Smoke rising from the site of a reported Iranian strike in Dubai on Sunday.Credit...Fadel Senna/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Flights resumed on a limited basis from Dubai International Airport on Monday night, as the U.S.-led attack on Iran caused widening chaos in the Middle East and tens of thousands of passengers faced travel disruptions.
Emirates Airline, whose hub is Dubai, said on its websitethat itbegan operating a “limited number of flights” Monday evening, prioritizing travelers with existing bookings. Passengers should not go to the airport unless they have been notified, the airline said.
The flights were the first since Saturday to take off from Dubai International Airport, one of the world’s busiest travel hubs. Major airlines serving the region — including Emirates, Etihad Airways, Gulf Air and Oman Air — suspended and diverted flights from affected areas since Saturday, when the United States and Israel began a major military campaign against Iran. Tehran has responded by launching hundreds of missiles and drones at the United Arab Emirates and other Persian Gulf countries, which are home to some U.S. military bases.
The budget carrier FlyDubai said that four flights would leave Dubai for destinations in Russia on Monday, and that fiveincoming flights were scheduled from countries including Somalia and Pakistan.
In Abu Dhabi, the U.A.E. capital and another travel hub, the international airport had “partially resumed” operations on Monday.
Fewer strikes were reported on Monday in Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, compared to the weekend. Early in the day, a rocket flew over the city, according to eyewitness video, Reuters reported.
U.A.E. air defenses successfully intercepted nine ballistic missiles, six cruise missiles and 148 drones over the past day, the defense ministry said Monday afternoon.
Over the weekend in Dubai, five-star hotels caught fire, explosions shattered the windows of apartment towers and the international airport was damaged, injuring four people. Amazon on Sunday said it had to shut off the power supply to one of its facilities in Dubai after unspecified objects struck a data center, causing a fire.
Deborah Kapchan, a recently retired professor of performance studies at New York University, who is scheduled to fly to Paris from Abu Dhabi next week, said that she had always considered Abu Dhabi to be the safest place she had ever lived so it was jarring to be there now.
“I’m anxious to get out just because it’s very tense knowing that there are drones flying around,” she said.
Journalists have been ushered into the East Room of the White House where President Trump will appear soon for a Medal of Honor ceremony, honoring men who fought in Vietnam and Afghanistan. The room is full of military officers. The White House just said that the president will use this event to talk about the United States’s new war in Iran. Trump hasn’t been seen in public much since Friday and has communicated only through videos and posts to his social media account and short phone calls with individual reporters.
“Spanish military bases will not be used for anything that falls outside the agreement with the United States and the United Nations Charter,” Spain’s foreign minister said.Credit...Marcelo Del Pozo/Reuters
The Spanish government on Monday said that it had denied the use of its military bases to U.S. forces involved in the attack on Iran, including key refueling aircraft that departed Spain for other countries on Sunday.
At least 11 U.S. KC-135T and KC-135R tanker aircraft left the southern Spanish bases of Rota and Morón late Sunday evening, after the left-wing Spanish government objected to an operation it considered outside of international law.
“Spanish military bases will not be used for anything that falls outside the agreement with the United States and the United Nations Charter,” José Manuel Albares, Spain’s foreign minister, said Sunday in an interview on Spanish television. He called the U.S.-Israeli operations “unilateral.”
The new policy is the latest criticism of the United States from Spain, which has stood out in Europe for its consistent opposition to the Trump administration, including American immigration policies, support for Israel’s war in Gaza and the military operation to abduct and arrest President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.
Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has emerged as a beacon for Europe’s frustrated progressives, who view him as one of the last unabashedly leftist voices in an increasingly right-wing wilderness. But Mr. Sánchez has also become a target for conservatives.
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, told Euronews on Sunday that the Spanish government was “standing with all the tyrants of the world,” and that “is now standing with Iran.”
Mr. Sánchez has backed banning Israel from the Eurovision international song contest and was among the first European leaders to call Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip a “genocide” and to recognize a Palestinian state.
Mr. Sánchez has survived in power for nearly eight years, in part by consistently outflanking and enraging Spanish conservatives, who consider him willing to say or do anything to stay in office. Many of them consider his opposition to Mr. Trump as motivated more by domestic politics than by a moral compass. On Monday, they also portrayed him as a texting buddy of tyrants.
“With Maduro and the ayatollahs gone, his WhatsApp groups are getting empty,” Carmen Fúñez, an official of the opposition Popular Party, said in a news conference on Monday.
In the days and weeks leading up to the attack, U.S. military aircraft made use of bases in Spain for refueling and other operations involved in the military buildup in the Middle East. The bases had also been used by the United States in past conflicts and operations, including antiterrorism campaigns in Africa and in the evacuation from Afghanistan in 2021.
Spain’s defense minister, Margarita Robles, said on Monday that while there was an agreement with the United States on the use of the bases, Spain believed it only extended to use within the framework of international law. The United States and Israel, she said, had violated that framework.
Ms. Robles said the bases “could be used” in the future for humanitarian purposes.
Carlos Barragán contributed reporting from Madrid.
Displaced Lebanese gather along the Mediterranean coast in Beirut on Monday after fleeing their homes. Iran-backed Hezbollah attacked Israel overnight, bringing heavy Israeli retaliation. Credit...Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
A heavy barrage of Israeli retaliatory strikes against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia early Monday brought a fresh wave of displacement in war-weary Lebanon.
In villages across the country’s southern region near the Israeli border, parents bundled sleepy children into cars and crawled through miles of traffic toward the capital, Beirut, many clutching little more than a change of clothes. In Dahiya, the densely populated Hezbollah stronghold on the southern outskirts of Beirut, residents fled with barely a suitcase between them as explosions echoed nearby.
With no proper shelters to house them, the newly uprooted spilled into parking garages, schools and mosques. By midmorning, some had drifted to Beirut’s promenade along the Mediterranean. They settled beneath palm trees, wrapping themselves in blankets and sheets and waiting — for food, for safety, for whatever would come next.
“This country is beautiful, but we need peace,” said Musa Hashem, 50, a municipal worker who had fled Dahiya. He was sitting by the roadside with his twin brother and their eight children. “We just want this war to stop,” he said.
At least 52 people were killed and 154 others were wounded in the strikes, Lebanon’s minister of social affairs, Haneen Sayed, told The New York Times. The ministry also opened 171 shelters, 79 of which were already full. It also registered 29,000 displaced people — a figure aid workers and government officials warned was certain to climb.
As concerns about a wider war grew on Monday, many people — both Lebanese and Syrian — began flocking to the border with Syria, hoping to leave the country.
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Friends reuniting at a school in Beirut where displaced families have taken shelter, on Monday.Credit...Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
On Monday, many fled not only in fear but in bitter disbelief, forced from their homes barely a year after a cease-fire that was meant to still the guns. Israel and Hezbollah signed that truce in November 2024, though near-daily Israeli strikes have since rattled Lebanon.
Some of those escaping on Monday spoke of homes still lying in rubble, businesses not yet recovered and their children’s schooling suspended once again by the thrum of war.
“We have been living daily with war for more than two years,” said Shadia Shahla, who works at a school in Tallouseh village in southern Lebanon, which she fled. During the 2024 war, she said she was displaced in Beirut for 66 days.
“Now a new war is here, and we are tired,” she said.
Ms. Shahla was among roughly 1,500 people who arrived at a technical training school in west Beirut on Monday. Some parents said no one was attending to their children, some of whom cried after going without food all morning. Many simply fell asleep in the cars or vans that had brought them, while aid officials at the school, visibly overwhelmed, scrambled to find and allocate rooms.
Haydar Baddah, a volunteer coordinating aid workers at the facility, said displaced people were arriving in droves, creating an urgent need for beds, food and medicine at the facility.
“The situation is really dire,” he said.
As Israel carried out strikes on Monday, some of those displaced expressed frustration, saying they were unhappy that Hezbollah had drawn them into yet another conflict. Some supporters of the group said they were exhausted by unceasing violence, while other Hezbollah supporters felt that the timing of the escalation was ill chosen, heightening their sense of fear and uncertainty.
“Their timing is all wrong,” said Nahida Selim, 55, who fled her home in Dahiya with her two children.
Nearby, her sister Lina, 40, was also waiting with her two children by a car along the promenade in Beirut.
“If Hassan Nasrallah were still alive, I don’t believe they would have gotten involved in this conflict,” Nahida added, referring to the Hezbollah leader assassinated by Israel in September 2024.
The sisters were hoping to find an apartment to rent in the city for the time being, but landlords were already raising prices to take advantage of the situation, they said.
“We just want to go back home,” Lina said.
Others said Hezbollah was justified in striking Israel, adding that for two years, Israel had repeatedly violated the cease-fire with near-daily attacks and continued to occupy some villages in the south. Some expressed anger and sorrow over Israel’s involvement in targeting key figures, particularly Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on Saturday.
“Diplomacy did nothing for us,” said Abdul Kareem Yunis, 42, who had moved to Dahiya after being displaced from Markaba village in southern Lebanon two years ago, only to be forced to flee again on Monday. “Israel is a power. And power needs another power to counter it,” he said.
Many of those affected were observing Ramadan. Monday’s strikes hit close to 3 a.m. local time, just as many were waking for the pre-dawn meal, turning what should have been a quiet, sacred moment into terror and flight.
Many said they didn’t know where they would find food or water come sundown on Monday. Several said they were too afraid to return to their apartments in Beirut, fearing more strikes as Israeli drones buzzed overhead.
“God is the one who gives food and safety,” said Mr. Hashem, whose family sat along the waterfront promenade with nothing but a bottle of water and a plastic bag containing za’atar, a popular Middle Eastern seasoning blend. “But we never know when either will come.”
Smoke rose from Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura refinery on Monday following an Iranian drone attack.Credit...Reuters
Iran attacked energy installations on Monday in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, both key American allies in the Persian Gulf, ratcheting up its military campaign by targeting critical infrastructure.
As Iran responds to the U.S.-Israeli assault that began on Saturday, Persian Gulf countries that host American military bases have become a prime target of its retaliation. Hundreds of Iranian missiles and drones have been fired at countries in the region, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait, killing at least six people and wounding more than 100, many of them migrant workers.
The scenes that have unfolded across the Gulf countries — including luxury hotels set ablaze in the Middle East’s business capital of Dubai — are their worst nightmare. Penned in between the United States, their primary security guarantor, and Iran, their decapitated and desperate neighbor, Gulf governments are facing a war that they had openly lobbied against.
“I urge the United States not to get sucked in further,” Badr al-Busaidi, the foreign minister of Oman, pleaded in a social media post on Saturday, when the war began. “This is not your war.”
On Monday, Iranian drones targeted a power plant and an energy facility in Qatar, the Qatari defense ministry said. Soon after, QatarEnergy, one of the world’s largest exporters of liquefied natural gas, said that it would halt production, a major shock that sent the price of natural gas soaring.
Earlier on Monday, Saudi Arabia’s energy ministry said that a fire had broken out at the Ras Tanura oil refinery in the kingdom’s eastern province after two Iranian drones were intercepted, causing fragments to fall. Some units of the refinery were shut down as a precautionary measure, it said. Five drones near the Prince Sultan Air Base, a military complex south of the capital of Riyadh, were also intercepted, the defense ministry said.
A drone attack also struck the American embassy compound in Kuwait, according to two U.S. officials, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. In video from the scene verified by The New York Times, smoke could be seen billowing from an area surrounding the embassy. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement on Sunday night, foreign ministers of the Gulf countries condemned the Iranian attacks and affirmed their right to respond. It is unclear how much impact their response could have though, given that their own militaries remain heavily dependent on the United States.
The statement called for a return to diplomacy as “the sole path to overcome the current crisis,” and warned that escalating the conflict could “drag the region toward dangerous trajectories with catastrophic consequences.”
The share prices of American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines fell on Monday morning.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
Airline stocks fell on Monday as the escalating conflict in the Middle East forced governments and airlines to shut down airports and cancel flights, sending oil prices surging.
The sell-off followed weekend strikes on Iran by the United States and Israel and retaliation by Iran on targets across the region. President Trump said he expected the attacks on Iran could last four to five weeks, but “we have the capability to go far longer than that.” Global shipments of oil and goods through the key Middle Eastern corridor, the Strait of Hormuz, have slowed to a trickle since the attacks began on Saturday.
At least 11,000 flights to and from Middle Eastern countries have been canceled, according to Cirium, an aviation data firm. That number is expected to rise. At least one million travelers have been affected by the disruption so far, according to Cirium. About 668,800 passengers flew to and from the Middle East every day in 2025.
Flights into the United Arab Emirates, a global hub for connecting traffic, were particularly disrupted. Dubai International Airport was damaged over the weekend, and all flights were suspended on Saturday, though a limited number were expected to restart on Monday. Emirates, Etihad Airways, and flydubai were among the most affected by the conflict. Qatar Airways was also notably disrupted over the weekend.
Higher oil prices will drive up the price of jet fuel, hurting airlines’ profits. In addition, the conflict is likely to force travelers to cancel or put off their trips, particularly international flights, which tend to be more profitable for carriers than shorter routes.
Analysts at Citi said in a note that they expected Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, to trade between $80 and $90 a barrel this week as the conflict continues.
If oil prices rise further, however, or if the Strait of Hormuz is forced to close, U.S. inflation “could start to become meaningful and sustained,” said Eric Parnell, chief market strategist at Great Valley Advisory Group, a financial research firm.
“This would likely undermine expectations for further Fed rate cuts and pressure both stock and bond markets,” Mr. Parnell added.
The share prices of American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines fell more than 6 percent Monday morning before recovering somewhat. United and American suspended regional service, and Delta extended cancellations to Tel Aviv through March 31.
The drop in the three airlines’ stock is largely because of the possibility of higher energy costs, said Brian Mulberry, chief market strategist at Zacks Investment Management. The spike in oil prices and the pressure on the Strait of Hormuz could affect the companies’ earnings by 15 to 20 percent, Mr. Mulberry added.
How long tension in the Persian Gulf lasts and how much shipping and refining will be impacted is “the important part for markets,” Mr. Mulberry said.
In its 2025 annual report, American Airlines said fuel accounted for about a fifth of its total operating expenses. At Delta, fuel made up 17 percent of expenses, while United reported 21 percent of costs.
The Middle East has rapidly become an aviation hub, more than doubling its share of global flights over the past two decades, to about 5.5 percent today, according to Cirium. The region is one of the fastest-growing in the world and its airlines enjoy the highest profit margins in the industry, according to the International Air Transport Association, a trade group.
Even as flights in the region restart, it may take time for airlines to fully restore operations.
“Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways were all caught in the middle, of course, when the fighting broke out this past weekend,” said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst at Atmosphere Research Group. “They have aircraft and crews that are scattered around the world. So they will have to get those airplanes back to their home bases.”
Those and other airlines have established a lucrative business linking the United States and Europe with Africa and Asia through flights that connect in the Middle East. Last year, an average of about 138,000 passengers connected daily through Doha, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, according to Cirium.
Stocks of Asian and European airlines also fell. And the pressure spread to travel agencies, hotels and cruise operators. At the same time, energy shares rallied.
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