Israel strikes Tehran as Iran targets Gulf sites

Explosions echoed across Tehran early Monday as Israel launched another wave of strikes on Iran, even as the Tehran government threatened retaliatory attacks on critical infrastructure across the Gulf — a confrontation that has pushed energy markets into their worst crisis in decades.

Iranian media reported blasts in the capital, while authorities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates said they intercepted incoming missiles and drones.

International Energy Agency director Fatih Birol said at least 40 energy assets across the oil- and gas-exporting region have been “severely or very severely damaged” as the conflict — ignited by Israel-US attacks on Iran — entered its fourth week.

In recent weeks Iran has responded to the strikes by launching missiles and drones at Israel and targets across the Gulf, hitting energy installations and US diplomatic sites.

With oil trading above $100 a barrel amid worries about supply, US President Donald Trump warned he would “obliterate” Iranian power plants unless Iran reopens the strait within 48 hours.

The deadline, calculated from the time of his social media post, fell at 11.44pm Irish time — early Tuesday in Iran.

Smoke rises after explosions as the Israeli army announced a new wave of attacks on Tehran

Iran countered that threat by vowing to hit energy and water infrastructure across the Gulf if the United States moved to damage its electricity grid — stoking fears of severe disruption in a region that relies heavily on desalination for potable water.

The prospect of reciprocal strikes on civilian systems unsettled oil markets, which opened choppy in Asian trading.

After more than three weeks of sustained US and Israeli bombardment that officials say has significantly degraded Iran’s missile forces, Tehran has nonetheless continued to demonstrate the capacity to strike back.

Air raid sirens sounded across parts of northern and central Israel, including Tel Aviv, and in the occupied West Bank overnight, warning of incoming missiles from Iran.

The Israeli military said early this morning it had launched a wide-ranging set of strikes targeting Iranian infrastructure in Tehran.

Iranian news agencies reported at least one child was killed and several people injured in a bombing of a residential area in western Khorramabad city.

An air strike damaged a residential neighbourhood in the northwestern city of Urmia, Iranian media said. Video showed Iranian Red Crescent rescuers searching for survivors; there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Mr Trump’s warning came less than a day after he suggested the US might be considering scaling back the campaign, even as US Marines and heavy landing craft moved into the region.

“If Iran’s fuel and energy infrastructure is attacked by the enemy, all energy infrastructure, as well as information technology…and water desalination facilities, belonging to the US and the regime in the region will be targeted pursuant to previous warnings,” Iranian military spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaqari said, according to state media.

Strikes on electricity networks would damage Iran, officials say, but could be catastrophic for Gulf neighbours that consume roughly five times as much power per person.

Electricity keeps the Gulf’s gleaming desert cities habitable, in large part by powering desalination plants that supply 100% of Bahrain and Qatar’s drinking water.

Those facilities meet more than 80% of drinking water needs in the United Arab Emirates and about half of Saudi Arabia’s supply.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf warned on X that critical infrastructure and energy facilities across the Middle East could be “irreversibly destroyed” if Iranian power plants are attacked.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps added that such strikes would keep the shipping lane along Iran’s southern coast — through which about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas normally transits — closed.

“The Strait of Hormuz will be completely closed and will not be opened until our destroyed power plants are rebuilt,” the Guards said in a statement.

The Saudi defence ministry reported early Monday that two ballistic missiles had been launched toward Riyadh; one was intercepted and the other fell in an uninhabited area.

Yesterday, Iranian strikes on two southern Israeli towns wounded dozens in what an Israeli hospital described as a major casualty incident.

Those towns sit near Israel’s secretive nuclear reactor and several military sites, including Nevatim Air Base, one of the country’s largest.

More than 2,000 people have been killed during the war the US and Israel launched on 28 February, a conflict that has disrupted markets, driven up fuel costs, stoked global inflation fears and rattled the postwar Western alliance.