Summary of developments so far
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have attacked Israel for the first time since the start of the Israel-US war on Iran, which enters a second month. The Houthis said the attack came after continued targeting of infrastructure in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories, adding that their operations would continue until the “aggression” on all fronts ends.
Pakistan is preparing to host talks with officials from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt aimed at ending the war. Foreign ministers will attend the talks on Sunday in Islamabad. Pakistan did not say if officials from the US or Iran are involved.
Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said he has held “extensive discussions” with Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian. Discussing ongoing hostilities in the Middle East, Sharif said Pezeshkian was briefed on Pakistan’s diplomatic efforts to engage the US as well as Gulf and other Islamic nations during the conversation that lasted more than an hour.
Elsewhere in the region, drones struck the airport in Kuwait, damaging its radar, and the key port of Salalah in Oman. Kuwait did not say where the drones came from, while Iran acknowledged an attack near the Omani port, claiming to have targeted a US “military support vessel” there.
Authorities in Abu Dhabi said falling debris from a missile interception injured six people. The UAE’s defence ministry said its forces were intercepting missile and drone attacks from Iran.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country and the UAE have agreed to “cooperate in the field of security and defence”. During an unannounced visit to Abu Dhabi, Zelenskyy said he and the Emirati president, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, reviewed the security situation in the UAE, focusing on Iranian strikes and the blockade of the strait of Hormuz.
Israel carried out dawn airstrikes on several towns in southern Lebanon, state media reported, while Hezbollah announced attacks on Israeli forces. The Israeli military has issued a new order for people in several villages near the town of Tyre in southern Lebanon to flee the area and move north, as it escalates its efforts to uproot the Iran-backed militant group.
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Thousands of US marines and sailors arrive in Middle East
Around 3,500 US marines and sailors arrived in the Middle East on Friday, US Central Command said today. Central Command oversees US military operations in the region.
The marines are from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, Central Command said. Those marines are highly-trained in a variety of operations, including storming beaches, parachuting onto islands or boarding ships for seizure operations, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The New York Times reported that the group of marines and sailors may participate in efforts to open the Strait of Hormuz, which has been mostly closed by Iran due to the ongoing US-Israel war. Although it is still unclear what the marines and sailors will do in the region, it is speculated they may be tasked with raids of different islands located within the Strait.
US Central Command, the Department of Defense’s command overseeing the US’s war on Iran, said on Saturday that US forces have struck over 11,000 targets since the US began its bombing campaign.
In a post on the social media platform X, US Central Command also included information about the types of US assets participating in the US-Israel war on Iran that began in 28 February. It includes a series of air, sea and land assets, like fighter jets, bombers, aircraft carriers and missile systems.
The social media post also said that intelligence sites, control centers, missile sites and military support infrastructure have been targeted. However, on the day the bombing campaign began, the US bombed a school in Iran, killing at least 175 people, mostly children.
Share‘More tragedy’ as five separate attacks on southern Lebanon kill nine paramedics and wound seven others, WHO chief says
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organisation, has called for an end to attacks on medical staff after nine paramedics were killed in southern Lebanon on Saturday.
They were killed while working in the field in five separate attacks on Lebanese villages, Tedros said, bringing the number of health workers killed this month to 51. Seven medics were also reportedly wounded.
He wrote on X:
double quotation markMore tragedy in southern Lebanon today … March has been the second most deadly month for health workers in Lebanon since [the] WHO started monitoring attacks on health care in the country in October 2023.
More than 120 health workers have also been reportedly wounded since the escalation began in Lebanon on 2 March, overwhelmingly in the country’s south.
In Zoutar al-Sharqiya, five health workers were killed in a strike and two were injured, one critically. Two more health workers were killed and three wounded in Kfar Tibnit; one paramedic died in an attack at a health facility in Ghandouriyeh, while another was killed in a strike in Jezzine. Two were wounded in an attack on Kfar Dajjal.
He added:
double quotation markHealth workers are protected under international humanitarian law and should never be targeted.
The only way to end these tragedies is to end attacks on health care, NOW!
Four hospitals and 51 primary health care centres in Lebanon were currently closed, “significantly limiting access to essential care at a time when it is most needed”, he said.
Mohammed Suleiman, the father of Jaud, a 16-year-old volunteer paramedic killed in an Israeli attack alongside his colleague Ali Hassan Haber, 23, last Tuesday, prays with his colleagues at Jaud’s grave in Nabatieh, Lebanon, on 27 March. Photograph: Manu Brabo/ReutersShare
Updated at 14.40 EDT
IDF says it has hit Iran’s headquarters for naval weapons
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claims to have struck the headquarters of the Iranian regime’s Marine Industries Organization (MIO) in Tehran.
“This headquarters is responsible for the research, development, and production of a wide range of naval weaponry,” the IDF said in a statement, adding that the attack further damages Tehran’s “naval capabilities”, especially “its ability to produce advanced maritime weapons”.
The aerial strike was part of “a wide-scale wave of strikes” targeting infrastructure across Tehran overnight, the statement said, including sites used to produce and develop Iran’s weapons systems and air defence system.
Updated at 14.02 EDT
Lebanon says it is preparing to file complaint to UN security council over Israeli killings of journalists
Lebanon’s information minister, Paul Morcos, has said that his ministry and the foreign ministry are preparing to file a complaint to the UN security council over Israel’s targeting of journalists.
Earlier, we reported that Ali Shoeib, from the Hezbollah-owned al-Manar television station, and Fatima Ftouni and her brother and cameraman Mohammed Ftouni, from the pro-Hezbollah outlet al-Mayadeen, were killed in an Israeli strike targeting their car on a road leading to Jezzine in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese government condemned the killings as a “blatant war crime”.
Morcos told a press conference earlier that “Lebanon will not treat such attacks as normal and is committed to national unity”.
Morcos also “called for reaffirming and enforcing international protections for journalists and warned against any attempt to weaken these safeguards”.
Lebanese journalists hold placards and candles during a protest at Martyrs’ Square in central Beirut after the killing of their colleagues from an Israeli strike that targeted their vehicle. Photograph: Ibrahim Amro/AFP/Getty ImagesShare
Updated at 13.58 EDT
At least 47 people have been killed in Lebanon over the past 24 hours, the country’s health ministry has said.
Officials in Beirut said 112 had also been wounded as Israel’s bombardment continues.
At least 1,189 people have now been killed and 3,427 wounded since Israel’s renewed offensive began on 2 March.
ShareSecond Houthi missile fired at Israel – report
Houthi forces launched a second missile towards Israel, hours after the first which saw them enter the war on Saturday, an Israeli security source has told CNN.
The close allies of Iran fired a cruise missile at Israel, the source said, adding that both missiles were intercepted and no injuries or damage was caused.
Announcing the initial attack, the Houthis said they had fired a salvo of ballistic missiles at “sensitive Israeli military sites” and that they would continue military operations until the “aggression” came to an end on all fronts.
Updated at 14.09 EDT
As of Saturday morning, about two dozen injuries to US service members have been reported following the Iranian strike on a Saudi airbase that houses US warplanes on Friday, and the New York Times hears that most of them are traumatic brain injuries.
The paper cites a US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, who cautioned that the numbers could go up as more troops come forward to report traumatic brain injury symptoms caused by the explosions.
At least two service members were seriously injured in the attack on the Prince Sultan airbase, and two aircraft significantly damaged, including a refuelling tanker, the NYT reports, citing multiple US officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Estimates of the damage differed, and an earlier account given to the New York Times said both damaged aircraft were refuelling planes.
A satellite image shows planes at Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia on 21 February. Photograph: 2026 Planet Labs PBC/ReutersShare
Updated at 12.31 EDT
The UAE has intercepted 20 ballistic missiles and 37 drones on Saturday, its defence ministry has said.
It added that the country’s air defences have now intercepted 398 ballistic missiles, 15 cruise missiles and 1,872 drones since the start of “the blatant Iranian aggression”.
The defence ministry said the attacks have led to 11 deaths, including three military personnel.
As we reported earlier, six people were injured after a missile was intercepted in the capital, Abu Dhabi.
US Central Command has dismissed claims by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that Iranian forces attacked several locations in Dubai hosting more than 500 US forces and caused “heavy losses”.
“No US personnel have been attacked in Dubai,” Centcom said in a post on X, accusing Tehran of “manufacturing lies”.
It comes after, as we reported earlier, Kyiv denied Iran’s claims to have targeted and destroyed a Ukrainian anti-drone system depot in the UAE, calling it a “lie” and “disinformation”.
“This is a lie, we officially refute this information. The Iranian regime often conducts such disinformation operations – and in this it is no different from the Russians,” the Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson, Georgiy Tykhym, said.
Updated at 11.42 EDT
Lebanon condemns ‘blatant war crime’ after Israel kills three journalists
William Christou
Israel killed three journalists in south Lebanon today, firing several missiles from a drone at their car, their TV channels and authorities said, prompting condemnations from the Lebanese presidency who called the killings a “blatant war crime”.
Ali Shoeib, from Hezbollah-owned al-Manar TV, Fatima Ftouni and her brother and camerman Mohammed Ftouni from pro-Hezbollah outlet al-Mayadeen, were killed in the strike, their organisations and the Lebanese military confirmed.
Shoeib was a well-known war correspondent in Lebanon, where he reported for al-Manar for nearly three decades. Condolences were shared by journalists all over the country.
The Israeli military claimed the strike was targeting Shoeib, who it claimed was a member of Hezbollah’s Radwan force – the most elite unit of the pro-Iran armed group which specialised in cross-border raids. It said that Shoeib’s contact with senior members of Hezbollah, and his work documenting the location of Israeli forces, was evidence he was a military member of the group. It made no comment on the killing of the other two journalists in the car.
A policeman checks the charred car that was carrying Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV correspondent Ali Shoeib, Beirut-based al-Mayadeen TV reporter Fatima Ftouni and her brother, and video journalist Mohammed Ftouni, before they were killed in an Israeli airstrike, in Jizzine, south Lebanon. Photograph: Mohammed Zaatari/AP
Ftouni had also been reporting from the frontlines of the Israel-Hezbollah war in recent days. Her own family had been killed in Israeli strikes weeks earlier. Eighteen months earlier, her and her colleagues were struck by an Israeli bomb while they were sleeping in a hotel in south Lebanon; Ftouni survived but two of her colleagues did not.
The three journalists were struck as they were driving in Jizzine, a district in south Lebanon far away from the frontlines.
The Israeli military has made similar claims about several journalists it killed in Gaza, which it claimed also worked as Hamas operatives, including Anas al-Sharif, a correspondent for Al Jazeera. Israel has killed more than 220 journalists since 2023, including nine journalists during their work in Lebanon.
International law says that regardless of political affiliation, journalists are considered civilians and targeting them is a war crime. Eight out of the nine journalists killed by Israel in Lebanon during their work worked for Hezbollah-affiliated outlets, and analysts have suggested the killings come as a part of Israel’s strategy of attacking the civilian wings of the group.
Lebanon’s president Joseph Aoun put out a statement condemning the strike, saying:
double quotation markOnce again, the Israeli aggression violates the most basic rules of international law, international humanitarian law and the laws of war, by targeting journalists, who are ultimately civilians performing a professional duty.
Updated at 13.00 EDT
Iran fired six ballistic missiles and 29 drones at Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan airbase on Friday, injuring at least 15 troops, including five seriously, the Associated Press news agency reported, citing sources who were not authorised to speak publicly.
It is reported to be the second direct strike to hit the base during the conflict, after five US air force refuelling planes were struck and damaged in an attack earlier this month.
A map of the Middle East, pinpointing the location of the Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia.Share
Julian Borger
The entry of the Houthis, who control Yemen’s most populous areas, poses a direct threat to the Bab al-Mandab strait at the southern end of the Red Sea, a second major choke point in the supply chain of energy supplies and other trade in and out of the Middle East.
With Iran’s near total closure of the Hormuz strait, the gateway to the Gulf, a shutdown of the Bab al-Mandab, located between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, would amplify the already grave impact of the war on the global economy, and could also reignite a Saudi-Yemen conflict, which caused huge humanitarian suffering for seven years before a 2022 truce.
Since the US-Israeli attack on Iran on 28 February, Saudi Arabia has been able to divert some of its oil exports by pipeline to the Red Sea. Saudi commentators have said that if this route was also threatened, Riyadh could also enter the war directly.
Farea Al-Muslimi, a research fellow in Middle East and north Africa programme at the Chatham House thinktank, said: “The decision by the Houthis to join the broader Middle East conflict marks a serious and deeply concerning escalation.
“The potential impact on key commercial maritime routes, especially in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, cannot be overstated,” he added. “At the same time, vital economic and military infrastructure across the Gulf region may become increasingly exposed.”
Read the full report here:
Here are some of the latest images from around the Middle East:
Members of the media work amid wreckage of vehicles at an auto service centre in Tehran, Iran. Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPAQatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani receiving Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, who has made agreements with the UAE and Saudi Arabia on defence since the war began. Photograph: Qatar Amiri Diwan/AFP/Getty ImagesFirst responders gather near a crater left by an Iranian missile in Beit Shemesh, Israel. Photograph: Erik Marmor/Getty ImagesShare
Updated at 09.37 EDT
The situation at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant continues to deteriorate and attacks pose a direct threat to nuclear safety, the head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom said after another strike near the facility.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Friday that Iran had informed it of another strike in the vicinity of Bushehr, the third such incident in 10 days, with no damage to the operating reactor and no release of radiation reported.
The Russian foreign ministry on Saturday called for “unequivocal and firm condemnation” of the attack near Bushehr.
It said:
double quotation markWe hope that, by receiving timely and objective information directly from the Iranian authorities about what is happening on the ground, the Director General of the IAEA will be able to convey a simple message to the aggressors immediately and unequivocally: ‘It is time for you to stop.”’
ShareHow likely is Trump to order boots on the ground?
Andrew Roth
Amid tentative White House efforts at diplomacy to end the war in Iran, US troops have also been arriving in the region to deliver what Donald Trump has hoped could be a knockout blow if he can’t negotiate a ceasefire with Tehran.
Thousands of US marines aboard navy amphibious ships from the 31st and 11th expeditionary units have been deployed to the Middle East from Asia. Another 2,000-odd paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne are also being sent to the theatre – they are tasked with deploying worldwide within 18 hours of notification and execute parachute assaults, including against a “defended airfield” to prepare for further ground operations.
The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, repeated on Friday that the US believes it will be able to achieve its goals without boots on the ground, but when marines are in position next week, Trump could order an assault to either provide leverage to reopen the strait of Hormuz or to degrade Iran’s ability to keep the waterway closed by force. The lack of heavy armoured units, logistical depth and other elements needed for a protracted military conflict will limit the White House’s ability to escalate the conflict, however, potentially extending a stalemate that could be devastating to the international economy.
Read the full piece here:
One of the world’s largest shipping companies, Maersk, has suspended its operations at the port of Salalah in Oman after a drone attack.
In a statement on its website, the Danish company said:
double quotation markIn the early hours of Saturday 28 March 2026, a security incident occurred at the Port of Salalah in Oman. It is understood that the incident involved drone activity and explosions were also reported.
We are pleased to confirm that all Maersk crew are safe and accounted for and no Maersk vessels or cargo have been affected.
Following the incident in which a terminal crane sustained damage, the port was immediately evacuated and operations across the facility were temporarily suspended.
The Port of Salalah remains in full cooperation with relevant authorities and Maersk’s current estimate is that operations will be on hold for approximately 48 hours.
The official Oman News Agency reported this morning that the port was targeted by two drones, injuring one foreign worker and damaging one of the cranes.
This was followed by a statement from an Iran military spokesperson, claiming Iranian forces targeted a US “military support vessel” at a “considerable distance” from the Omani port. The statement added that Tehran respected “the national sovereignty of the brotherly and friendly country of Oman”.