By The Associated Press
As the war in the Middle East spirals further, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that the U.S. has “ the capability to go far longer ” than its projected four to five week time frame for its military operations against Iran.
The comment, made during a Medal of Honor ceremony, comes as the U.S. and Israel have continued pounding Iran since killing its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday.
Tehran and its allies have hit back against Israel, neighboring Gulf states, and targets critical to the world’s production of oil and natural gas.
The intensity of the attacks and the lack of any apparent exit plan set the stage for a prolonged conflict with far-reaching consequences.
At least 555 people have been killed in Iran so far by the U.S.-Israeli campaign, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said, and more than 130 cities across the country have come under attack. In Israel, 11 people have been killed, with 31 in Lebanon, according to authorities.
Here is the latest:
Rubio warns ‘hardest hits’ are still to come on Iran
Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to reporters before his scheduled House and Senate Intelligence Committees briefing about Iran on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo)
Pressed on how long the U.S. military would remain focused on Iran, Rubio said as long as it takes.
“The hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military. The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now,” he told reporters at the U.S. Capitol.
“How long will it take? I don’t know how long it will take,” he said. “We have objectives. We will do this as long as it takes to achieve those objectives.”
Rubio says regime change is not the objective in Iran
“We would love for there to be an Iran that’s not governed by radical Shia clerics,” he said heading into a classified briefing on Capitol Hill. “That’s not the objective.”
The initial joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran killed the country’s Supreme Leader Ali Ayatollah Khamenei, along with many other top leaders.
“The objectives of this operation are to destroy their ballistic missile capability and make sure they can’t rebuild it, and make sure that they can’t hide behind that to have a nuclear program,” he said. “That’s the objective of the mission.”
Rubio, Hegseth and others are briefing the congressional leaders and the top lawmakers on the national security committees in Congress about the Iran operation.
US death toll rises to 6 troops
The U.S. military on Monday announced the deaths of two more American service members during the operations against Iran, bringing the total death toll to six people.
U.S. Central Command stated in a post on X that U.S. forces “recently recovered the remains of two previously unaccounted for service members from a facility that was struck during Iran’s initial attacks in the region.”
The post did not state where two service members were killed. Their identities are being withheld until 24 hours after their families are notified, the military said.
Iran’s top diplomat shares a photo of graves dug for girls killed in apparent airstrike
Iran’s foreign minister posted an aerial photo showing rows of freshly dug graves for more than 160 girls who he said were killed by an airstrike on an elementary school in the country’s south.
“Their bodies were torn to shreds,” Abbas Araghchi said in a post Monday on social media, adding, “This is how ‘rescue’ promised by Mr. Trump looks in reality.”
The photo shows mourners gathered among long, orderly rows of graves stretching across an open dirt lot. White chalk rectangles mark measured burial plots as yellow excavators dig into the earth.
Iranian state media has reported that the girls’ school was hit in an airstrike on Saturday, killing at least 165 people and wounding dozens more. The Israeli military said it was not aware of strikes in the area. The U.S. military said it was looking into the reports.
Senior UN official highlights impact of recent Middle East escalations on children
U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo briefed the U.N. Security Council on Monday during a session chaired by First Lady Melania Trump on protecting children, education and technology in conflict.
Before making general statements about the impact of conflict on children worldwide, DiCarlo highlighted the immediate impact of the U.S.-Israel strikes and Iranian retaliation on the youngest citizens of regional countries.
“We have been reminded of this truth over the last two days. Schools in Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman have closed and moved to remote learning owing to the ongoing military operations in the region,” she said.
DiCarlo added that the world body was aware of the reports about the deaths at a girl’s school in southern Iran, which Iran said killed dozens of children. Both U.S. and Israel have said they are looking into it.
Mourners grieve Israeli teens killed in Iranian missile attack
Three young siblings killed in an Iranian missile strike in central Israel were buried Monday night at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
Yaakov, 16, Avigail, 15, and Sarah Biton, 13, were among nine people killed Sunday when a missile hit a shelter in a synagogue in Beit Shemesh, the deadliest attack on Israelis since the war began. Rescuers searched the rubble late into the night.
Israel’s rescue services said 65 people were hospitalized, including two seriously wounded.
President Isaac Herzog visited one of the injured, Penina Cohen, at Hadassah Hospital on Monday. She told him she lost her husband, Yosef, and her mother-in-law, Bruria, in the strike. She and her young son were sitting beside them in the shelter when the missile hit.
“I was right beneath the hole that was torn open, and I have no explanation for how we were not more seriously hurt. We experienced a great miracle,” she said. “Today my son turns 13, and he was meant to celebrate his bar mitzvah. Instead, we are burying my husband and mother-in-law.”
Iran accuses US of hypocrisy before Melania Trump’s UN meeting on protecting kids during conflict
Moments before U.S. First Lady Melania Trump led a U.N. Security Council session Monday on protecting children in armed conflict, Amir Saeid Iravani, Iranian ambassador to the U.N., blasted the subject of the meeting, saying that it was in contrast to the reported deadly strikes on a girl’s school in Iran on Saturday.
“It is deeply shameful and hypocritical,” Iravani told reporters, “that on the very first day of its presidency of the Security Council, the United States convenes a high-level meeting on protecting children, technology, and education in armed conflict under the agenda item ‘Maintenance of international peace and security,’ while at the same time launching missile strikes against Iranian cities and bombing schools and killing children.”
He added, “For the United States, ‘protecting children’ and ‘maintaining international peace and security’ clearly mean something very different from what the UN Charter provides.”
US military says it’s taken out 11 Iranian warships in the Gulf of Oman
“Two days ago, the Iranian regime had 11 ships in the Gulf of Oman, today they have ZERO,” U.S. Central Command said in a post on X.
The statement follows President Donald Trump’s Truth Social post on Sunday that U.S. forces had “destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships.” The president said they would be “going after the rest” and had “largely destroyed their Naval Headquarters.”
UN says Israel’s Gaza closure causes fuel rationing and water shortages
The U.N.’s humanitarian office tracking Gaza said Monday that the Israeli closure of all crossings into Gaza was stretching stocks of food, inflating the prices of basic goods and halting municipal services like solid waste collection as humanitarian workers tried to ration fuel supply. It said that reduced water production in some parts of Gaza City had left people drinking as little as two liters of water a day.
COGAT, the Israeli military body overseeing civilian affairs in Gaza, closed crossings into the territory at the start of the unfolding war and froze the entrance and exit of humanitarian workers. It said the crossings cannot not be safely operated under fire and that they would reopen as soon as the security situation allows.
Tense calm in Jerusalem during a lull in Iranian missile fire
A tense calm has settled over the central Jerusalem after an afternoon and evening with no sirens announcing incoming missiles from Iran. The streets are still quite empty in West Jerusalem, where most Israelis live.
NATO chief calls on European allies to support war against Iran
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in an interview that the United States’ and Israel’s war against Iran is crucial for security in Europe. He said the allies could support the effort even without direct involvement in military operations, through logistics and access.
Rutte, a former prime minister of the Netherlands, said he unreservedly approves of Trump’s decision to attack Iran and kill its supreme leader. Rutte cited the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.
“It would be a stranglehold on Israel. It could potentially mean Israel’s defeat,” Rutte told German public broadcaster ARD in its Brussels studio on Monday.
When asked about the possibility of NATO entering the war, Rutte said absolutely no one believed that NATO would be involved. “This is Iran, this is the Gulf, this is outside NATO territory,” he said.
NATO troops deployed for 20 years to Afghanistan, and its 2011 air campaign helped topple Libya’s late leader Moammar Gadhafi.
Iran says it shot down 20 drones since the war began
Iranian state-run IRNA news agency said the country’s military has shot down 20 “enemy drones” since the beginning of the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Saturday.
Iraqi militias threaten US military presence in Jordan
A prominent Iran-backed Iraqi militia has threatened to attack American military bases in neighboring Jordan.
Kataib Hezbollah has claimed attack on U.S. bases in northern Iraq in solidarity with Tehran.
Iran has been targeting American military assets in the Mideast in its ongoing war with Washington and Israel.
The Iraqi government for years has tried to keep a delicate balance maintaining strong ties with both Washington and Tehran.
Israel strikes a Hezbollah-linked financial institution in Lebanon
The military said it has completed a wave of strikes targeting branches of al-Qard al-Hasan, saying the quasi-banking system is being used to fund the militant group’s military wing.
The strikes come amid a day of successive Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon and in its capital, following Hezbollah rocket fire on Israel.
Al-Qard al-Hasan is officially a non-profit charity institution operating outside the Lebanese financial system, and one of the tools by which Hezbollah entrenches its support among the country’s Shiite population.
Israel targeted the institution also in 2024 during its months-long conflict with Hezbollah.
More US adults oppose initial airstrikes on Iran, early polling suggests
Americans’ initial reactions to Trump ordering airstrikes against Iran over the weekend appear more negative than positive, according to a new snap poll from The Washington Post that was conducted via text message on Sunday.
About half of those polled opposed the strikes, while 39% were in support. Roughly 1 in 10 were unsure. Democrats and independents drove much of the disapproval, with nearly 9 in 10 Democrats and about 6 in 10 independents opposed to the military strikes.
Republicans were much more supportive, with 81% backing the military action. About 1 in 10 Republicans were opposed, and a similar share were unsure.
Respondents were about twice as likely to say the U.S. should stop the military strikes as that time, rather than continue them.
Spain says joint US bases were not used in attack on Iran
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the U.S. attack an “unjustifiable” and “dangerous” military intervention.
Defense Minister Margarita Robles said “no assistance of any kind, absolutely none,” had been provided from the Rota and Morón bases in southern Spain, which are shared with the U.S. but remain under Spanish command.
“There is a deal with the U.S. over these bases, but our understanding of the deal is that operations have to comply with international legal frameworks and that there has to be international support for them,” Robles said.
The U.S. and Israel were acting “unilaterally without the support of an international resolution,” Robles said.
Flight map data from FlightRadar24 showed that several U.S. military aircraft had left the bases in southern Spain since the weekend attack, including nine tankers that departed Sunday from Morón for Germany.
Israel says it intercepted a drone from Lebanon
Israel’s military said the hostile aircraft was intercepted and it is reviewing the incident. The army’s social media post did not blame the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah or any other party.
Iran-backed Hezbollah did not immediately issue a statement. The group had fired rockets late Sunday into northern Israel, sparking Israeli strikes throughout Lebanon that killed at least 31 people and displaced thousands.
Drone hits at a fuel terminal in the UAE but fire is contained
Authorities in Abu Dhabi quickly responded to the drone attack on the Musaffah fuel terminal and got the fire under control. No injuries were reported and operations at the terminal were not affected, according to a statement by the Abu Dhabi Media Office posted on X.
Russia’s Putin speaks to Saudi crown prince
Vladimir Putin held a phone call Monday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss “the escalation in the Middle East as a result of American-Israeli armed aggression” against Iran, the Kremlin said.
Both “expressed serious concern over the real risks of the spreading of the conflict, which has already affected several Arab countries and is fraught with catastrophic consequences,” the Kremlin said in the readout of the call.
Putin “emphasized the urgent need to resolve the current extremely dangerous situation through political and diplomatic means,” and Prince Mohammed “expressed the opinion that Russia could play a positive, stabilizing role in these times, given its friendly relations with both Iran and the Persian Gulf countries,” the readout said.
Tennis stars in Dubai and Paralympians face travel issues due to war
Former U.S. Open tennis champion Daniil Medvedev has indicated he’s one of what the ATP Tour calls “a small number of players and team members” it is trying to help leave Dubai. A widespread travel shutdown has also caused issues for athletes heading to the Paralympics.
Medvedev’s Instagram account reposted on Monday a report from a Russian-language tennis outlet, Bolshe, which said he was safe and staying at a friend’s apartment in Dubai, amid flight cancellations after winning the ATP event there last week.
Medvedev and others are due to play at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, California, where main-draw matches start Wednesday.
The Winter Paralympics open in Italy on Friday and some athletes are facing travel difficulties, the International Paralympic Committee said. Iran has one cross-country skier expected to compete at the March 6-15 Paralympics.
Trump articulates his four objectives for the US war in Iran
The president said U.S. forces are out to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities, wipe out its naval capacity, stop the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon and “ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm fund and directors armies outside of their borders.”
He said U.S. attacks have already “knocked out” 10 ships, and that attacks on Iran’s missile capacity is ensuring they is destroyed while stopping “their capacity to produce brand ones.”
“This was our last, best chance to strike — what we’re doing right now — and eliminate the intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister regime,” Trump said.
Trump says the US expected the Iran operation to take 4 to 5 weeks
The president said during an unrelated event at the White House that from the beginning, the U.S. has projected that time frame but “we have the capability to go far longer than that.”
He then said he wouldn’t get “bored” of continuing the operation over such time. “I don’t get bored. There’s nothing boring about this.”
Trump said the U.S. had also projected it would take four weeks to get rid of Iran’s military leadership, but that was quickly accomplished “so we’re ahead of schedule there.”
Iranian missiles filmed flying over Jerusalem skies
Iranian missiles drew straight lines of smoke across clear Jerusalem skies Monday afternoon. the conflict’s third day.
Interceptions by Israel’s advanced aerial defense system could be seen as the projectiles flying overhead suddenly lost course and began haphazardly falling before disappearing from view, leaving circles of smoke behind where they’d been hit by the interceptor missiles.
Loud booms could be heard, intermingled with the barking of dogs and chirping of birds.
Jerusalemites were told to take shelter three times Monday morning and early afternoon, but sirens didn’t ring for much of the afternoon.
Israeli military says airstrike in Beirut targeted a senior Hezbollah official
An Israeli airstrike in the Lebanese capital heavily damaged a building as the Israeli military said it targeted a senior Hezbollah official.
The strike occurred near the old compound of the Iranian embassy in Beirut’s Beir Hassan neighborhood.