A widening regional war intensified as Israeli jets struck targets in Tehran and Lebanon while Iran launched new missile attacks and governments across the Middle East and beyond responded to the expanding conflict.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A rapidly escalating conflict across the Middle East intensified Friday as Israeli airstrikes targeted locations in Iran and Lebanon while Iran responded with new missile and drone attacks across the region. The latest developments mark a full week of expanding hostilities involving multiple countries and have raised concerns about broader economic and humanitarian consequences.
According to reporting by the Associated Press, Israeli airstrikes struck both Tehran and Beirut while the United States expanded its own military operations targeting Iranian naval assets. Officials indicated that a U.S. strike targeted an Iranian drone carrier at sea as part of a broader campaign against Iran’s fleet.
The Israeli military said its air force carried out a large-scale operation involving 50 fighter jets that struck an underground bunker in Tehran once used by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and still utilized by senior Iranian officials following his assassination.
Meanwhile, Iran launched retaliatory attacks early Friday targeting neighboring countries hosting U.S. forces. Initial reports indicated no immediate casualties.
Israeli officials said the weeklong campaign has significantly degraded Iran’s air defenses and missile launch systems. At the same time, U.S. War Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that strikes against Tehran were “about to surge dramatically.”
Iranian officials responded with warnings that the ongoing war could devastate the region’s military and economic infrastructure, developments that have already unsettled global financial markets.
Energy markets have also reacted to the conflict. The director of the International Energy Agency said Iranian gas exports to Asian markets have effectively stopped due to the fighting. If the disruption continues, he warned, buyers from Europe and Asia could begin competing for limited liquefied natural gas supplies.
“If the crisis continues this way, the Asian buyers and the European buyers will need to compete for the LNG which will get scarce and scarce,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said during a press conference in Brussels.
“So this will be the challenge for European countries if the crisis continues in the next days or weeks to come.”
On the ground, Israeli forces issued evacuation warnings to residents in an industrial district of Qom, a major religious center located south of Tehran. Witnesses reported heavy bombardment striking the Iranian capital later Friday.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said mediation efforts had begun involving unnamed countries attempting to halt the conflict. Writing on social media, the president stated, “Let’s be clear: we are committed to lasting peace in the region yet we have no hesitation in defending our nation’s dignity & sovereignty.”
“Mediation should address those who underestimated the Iranian people and ignited this conflict,” he added.
Missile exchanges between Israel and Iran continued throughout the day. Israeli officials reported a new barrage of missiles launched toward the country, triggering air defense responses over major cities including Tel Aviv, where explosions were heard as interceptors attempted to neutralize incoming projectiles.
The conflict has also spread into Lebanon, where Israeli strikes have targeted locations connected to the Hezbollah militant group. Lebanese health authorities said an Israeli attack in the southern coastal city of Sidon killed five people and wounded seven others. Israel did not immediately comment on the strike.
Lebanon has experienced significant casualties since fighting intensified between Israel and Hezbollah. Officials reported that 123 people have been killed and 683 wounded since hostilities resumed. The number of civilians among those casualties remains unclear.
Humanitarian organizations say the fighting has displaced hundreds of thousands of people across Lebanon. Hachem Osseiran, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Middle East, described widespread displacement.
“Across Lebanon, hundreds of thousands of people have had to flee their homes,” Osseiran said.
“The intensification of hostilities, coupled with evacuation orders covering entire districts in Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley, has sown panic and confusion. Many people have fled, some on foot, with nothing but the clothes on their backs and no clear sense of where to go.”
Governments across the region and beyond have begun responding to the widening conflict.
Azerbaijan announced plans to evacuate its diplomatic personnel from Iran after Iranian drone attacks struck its Nakhchivan exclave, wounding four civilians and damaging an airport facility. Azerbaijan’s foreign minister Jeyhun Bayramov said embassy and consulate staff were returning home under orders from President Ilham Aliyev, who described the drone strikes as a “groundless act of terror and aggression.”
Elsewhere, the British ambassador to Bahrain announced that the United Kingdom would deploy Royal Air Force fighter jets to help defend the island nation amid Iranian attacks targeting the country.
“Today, I’m delighted to tell to people that the U.K. will be flying RAF jets above Bahrain as a contribution to the defense of Bahrain, one of our closest allies in the whole world,” Ambassador Alastair Long said.
“This matters hugely to the U.K. that we are part of defending Bahrain and making sure it prevails in this terrible attack against it by Iran.”
International humanitarian agencies have also been affected by the conflict. The World Health Organization temporarily suspended regional operations earlier this week due to airspace closures and security risks linked to the Strait of Hormuz. WHO’s regional director Dr. Hanan Balkhy said operations are now resuming after a temporary pause.
More than 50 emergency aid shipments intended for 25 countries and designed to assist over 1.5 million people were delayed during the disruption.
“What we’ll be doing over the next few days is to identify now the urgent shipments that need to go out quicker than others,” Balkhy said.
Security concerns have also emerged outside the immediate war zone. British authorities arrested four men in London suspected of spying on the Jewish community on behalf of Iran. Metropolitan Police said the suspects — an Iranian national and three dual British-Iranian citizens aged 22, 40, 52 and 55 — were detained shortly after 1 a.m.
Commander Helen Flanagan, who oversees counterterrorism policing in London, said authorities are investigating whether the men were assisting a foreign intelligence service.
“We understand the public may be concerned, in particular the Jewish community, and as always, I would ask them to remain vigilant and if they see or hear anything that concerns them, then to contact us,” Flanagan said.
Meanwhile, Iran launched additional missile and drone strikes targeting Israel, including the deployment of Khorramshahr-4 ballistic missiles, according to Iranian state television.
Other governments are now moving to protect their citizens and stabilize energy markets amid the crisis. Indonesia announced plans to evacuate nationals from Iran, while South Korea secured emergency shipments of six million barrels of crude oil from the United Arab Emirates in an attempt to stabilize rising fuel prices triggered by the conflict.
Airlines and transportation systems across the region are also gradually resuming limited operations as airspace restrictions ease, though officials warn the situation remains volatile.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called for immediate steps to reduce tensions and prevent further escalation.
“The world urgently needs to see steps to contain and extinguish this blaze,” Türk said.
“Instead we are only seeing more inflammatory, bellicose rhetoric, more bombings, more destruction, killings and escalation, that fuels it further.”
He urged all parties involved in the conflict “to take immediate steps to de-escalate, to give peace a chance,” while calling on other countries to press for restraint.
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