Pain at the pump: Average price of gallon of regular gas hits $3.84 in U.S.

Iran intensified its attacks on oil and gas facilities around the Gulf on Thursday in retaliation for an Israeli attack on a key Iranian gas field, dramatically raising the stakes in a war that is sending shock waves through the global economy.

Brent crude oil, the international standard, spiked to as high as $118 a barrel, up more than 60% since Israel and the United States started the war with Iran.

Israel’s targeting of the Iranian part of the world’s largest gas field marked a major escalation, aimed at pressuring Iran’s government by making life intolerable for its citizens, analysts said. Iran responded by hitting a Saudi refinery, Qatari liquefied natural gas facilities and Kuwaiti oil refineries.

President Donald Trump warned that the U.S. would “ massively blow up the entirety ” of Iran’s gas field if it continues.

Israeli fire hit Iranian targets in the Caspian Sea for the first time Thursday, while U.S. forces were hunting Iranian boats in the Strait of Hormuz, striking Iranian drones, dropping 5,000-pound penetrator weapons into underground weapon-storage facilities and striking more than 90 targets on Iran’s oil-exporting Kharg Island.

Meanwhile, the death toll from Israeli strikes in Lebanon rose to more than 1,000 people on Thursday amid renewed fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Here is the latest:

UN agency wants a humanitarian corridor to evacuate ships trapped by the Iran war

The International Maritime Organization said it would work on a “safe maritime corridor” for the 3,000 vessels and 20,000 seafarers stranded in the Persian Gulf while the war effectively closes the Strait of Hormuz.

The agency also urged countries to provide those crews with food, water and fuel. However, its resolutions are non-binding.

IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said naval escorts for shipping would not be fully safe or sustainable, and stressed that only an end to fighting will solve the issue.

US approves $23 billion in arms sales to Arab allies as Iran war escalates

In notices sent to Congress on Thursday, the State Department said the U.S. would sell:

1. To the United Arab Emirates, more than $8 billion in air defense systems and related materiel, including drones, air-to-air missiles and F-16 fighter jet munitions.

2. To Kuwait, $8 billion in missile defense and radar systems.

3. To Jordan, $70.5 million of aircraft and munitions support.

Another $6 billion in sales to the three countries was approved but did not require congressional notification because they involved adjustments to previously approved packages or purely commercial sales, a State Department official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of those sales are not public.

Treasury secretary says US is going after Iranian defectors’ money

The U.S. says Iranians who allegedly defected from the government or military and transferred money abroad are facing scrutiny from Washington.

“At Treasury, we’ve seen where they’ve wired their money out of the country. We’re coming for that. We’re going to get it back to the Iranian people,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said alongside Trump at an Oval Office meeting Thursday.

Trump added that there have also been “a lot of military defections” in Iran. “I don’t blame them for that,” he said.

Trump invokes Pearl Harbor in talking about launching the Iran war

The U.S. president was pressed by reporters in the Oval Office to explain why he did not coordinate or inform allies, such as Japan, before launching the war.

“We didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise,” said Trump, who then said, turning to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi: “Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor, OK? Right?”

The Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese bombing of the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii killed more than 2,300 Americans. The U.S. declared war against Japan the next day.

Israeli emergency services say 2 people were injured by a missile strike in the north

Rescuers were pulling casualties from the rubble after a direct hit on a building in the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona, the Magen David Adom emergency medical service said Thursday. A man approximately age 60 is in serious condition with an abdominal injury and a woman, 70, is in moderate condition, it said.

Strikes from both Hezbollah and Iran have repeatedly targeted the city, which sits near Israel’s border with Lebanon.

Trump says he urged Netanyahu ‘don’t do that’ amid fallout from Israeli attack on gas field

Asked if he’d spoken to the Israeli prime minister about the attack, Trump said, “Yeah, I did, I did. I told him, ‘Don’t do that.’”

Trump continued, “And he won’t do that.” But he added, “We’ve — we’re independent. We get along great. It’s coordinated. But, on occasion, he’ll do something. And if I don’t like it. And so we’re not doing that anymore.”

Trump appeared to be suggesting that he’d spoken to Netanyahu only after the attack on Iran’s South Pars natural gas field. A person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that the United States was informed about Israel’s plans to strike, but did not take part.

Trump tries to justify $200 billion Iran war ask

The Pentagon is signaling that it needs an additional $200 billion for the war with Iran, but the president said Thursday that his administration also needs it for other reasons.

“This is a very volatile world,” Trump said from the Oval Office. He said the emergency spending, which would need congressional approval, would be a “very small price to pay” to ensure the nation’s military stays in top shape.

Trump says he’s ‘not putting troops anywhere’

Asked about the possibility of deploying U.S. ground troops to Iran, Trump responded, “No. I’m not putting troops anywhere.”

He then said he could deploy military forces wherever he wants, and wouldn’t tell reporters about his plans.

Trump added, however: “I’m not putting troops.”

Japanese prime minister condemns Iran during Oval Office meet

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said during her first visit to the White House that Japan condemns Iran’s actions during the war, including attacking neighboring Gulf countries and effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz.

“Iran’s development of nuclear weapons must never be allowed,” she said, speaking through an interpreter. “That is why we, Japan, have been urging them and also reaching out to other partners in the world.”

Takaichi said she brought a specific proposal to the White House on Thursday to “calm down” the global energy markets.

Trump has implored Japan to help the U.S. reopen the Strait of Hormuz, due in part to its heavy reliance on imported oil.

Turkey’s foreign minister spoke with Iran as missiles were fired on Riyadh

Hakan Fidan said Thursday that he told his Iranian counterpart during a phone call while in Saudi Arabia’s capital that missiles were striking the city even as they spoke.

“At least don’t send missiles while the meeting is taking place,” Fidan recalled telling Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Fidan was in Riyadh on Wednesday for a gathering of Muslim and Arab foreign ministers to discuss the Middle East war.

Qatari prime minister calls for a halt to Iranian attacks on his country

Qatar is open to diplomacy and maintaining good ties with Iran, said Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who serves as both prime minister and minister of foreign affairs.

But he condemned Iran’s attacks on the Ras Laffan energy complex in Qatar as an “act of sabotage” that demonstrates Tehran’s “policy of aggression” and “dangerous escalation.”

He rejected Iran’s claim that it was only targeting U.S. interests and bases, saying the strike on the gas facility hit a vital source of the Qatari people’s livelihood.

He said Israel chose to start this war against Iran, and in return Iran chose to retaliate with hostility toward its neighbors.

Sen. Bernie Sanders files resolution to block $600 million in arms sales to Israel

The resolution has virtually no chance of becoming law, but allows Sanders to force a vote that will put senators on record over whether they support Trump’s decision to sell bombs to Israel during the war with Iran.

The independent senator from Vermont has been an ardent critic of Israel’s actions in the region. “No more weapons to support an illegal war,” his statement said Thursday.

So far, Democrats have been mostly united in their opposition to U.S. involvement in the war, but the votes on the arms sales may divide the Democratic Caucus. Similar efforts to block arms sales during Israel’s war in Gaza split Democrats, yet also demonstrated the growing resistance within the party to Israel’s military operations.

UN chief calls for peace and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz

Secretary-General António Guterres called for “diplomacy to prevail over war” and said fallout from the conflicts in the Middle East has spread globally.

“The prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz causes enormous pain in so many peoples around the world that have nothing to do with this conflict,” he said during a meeting of European Union leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

He called on Israel and the United States to cease their military campaign and for Iran to open the key oil route and halt attacks on neighboring states, which he said “were never parties to the conflict.”

Israeli minister says electricity grid in the north has been damaged as media show fire near Haifa refinery

Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said after the latest Iranian missile barrage that the electricity grid in northern Israel sustained some damage. He said crews had restored electricity to some areas and were working to restore it to those still without power.

Meanwhile, Israeli media showed images of black smoke rising from the oil refinery in the northern city of Haifa. They reported that initial assessments show that part of an Iranian cluster munition hit the refinery.

Hegseth: ‘It takes money to kill bad guys’

The defense secretary did not directly confirm at his news conference that the Pentagon has asked the White House for $200 billion more to fund the Iran war. The White House, meanwhile, did not answer more questions about the funding request.

Hegseth said the amount could change, but “we’re going back to Congress and our folks there to ensure that we’re properly funded.”

It’s an extraordinarily high number and comes on top of $839 billion in the Pentagon budget plus $150 billion in extra funding the Defense Department received last year in Trump’s big tax cuts bill. It would need approval by a Congress that has not authorized the war, and lawmakers are showing growing unease with the military operation’s scope and strategy.

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Turkey says it is talking to both the US and Iran to end the war

Turkey is trying to understand where the two adversaries stand and is searching for ways to prevent the conflict from “spreading and worsening,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said.

In a joint news conference with his Qatari counterpart in Doha, Fidan accused Israel of being the “primary instigator” of the war, but stressed that Iran also bears serious responsibility.

“Whatever the justification may be, Iran’s attacks on countries in the region undermine the foundations of regional stability and are unacceptable,” Fidan said.

Treasury secretary says US is considering lifting sanctions on Iranian oil currently at sea

“In the coming days, we may un-sanction the Iranian oil that’s on the water. It’s about 140 million barrels,” Scott Bessent said Thursday on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria.” He said the move is a way to prevent only China from benefiting from the crude.

Bessent said it amounts to roughly “10 days to two weeks of supply that the Iranians had been pushing out that would have all gone to China,” and that “good actors” such as Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan and India should have access.

“In essence, we will be using the Iranian barrels against the Iranians to keep the price down for the next 10 or 14 days, as we continue this campaign,” he said.

The Trump administration also eased sanctions on certain Russian oil shipments for 30 days to boost global oil supplies while the Iran war continues.

Israel says it has killed more than 500 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon

Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said Thursday that 200 of those killed were members of the elite Radwan unit. He gave no further evidence.

The claim came as the death toll in Lebanon topped 1,000.

Asked about the strike on the South Pars gas field, Shoshani declined to comment, but said that in general the Israeli military had “great coordination” with the United States.

Lebanon’s health ministry says over 1,000 people killed in war between Israel and Hezbollah

Among the 1,001 killed were 118 children and 79 women, and 2,584 people were wounded, according to the ministry’s daily casualty count released Thursday.

More than one million people in Lebanon have been displaced in the intense fighting, as Israel continues its daily strikes across large swaths of southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs. Hezbollah has fired rockets and drones into northern Israel while its militants clashed in southern Lebanon with Israeli ground troops.

Egypt Red Crescent facilitates aid entry and assists patients as Gaza border reopens

The Egyptian Red Crescent supported Palestinian medical patients crossing in and out of Egypt.

The Rafah border crossing with Gaza reopened Thursday after Israel closed it from the Palestinian side when the Iran war began.

Teams on the Egyptian side assisted people returning to the Gaza Strip, provided psychosocial support to children, and helped facilitate the entry of an aid convoy carrying 1,950 tons of food, flour, fuel and winter supplies. It remains unclear whether the convoy entered Gaza after inspection at the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom Crossing.

WTO warns prolonged high oil and gas prices in 2026 would ‘slash’ already grim trade forecast

The World Trade Organization issued the warning as it published a regular forecast that trade growth in goods — even before the energy market shocks due to the Mideast war — would drop to 1.9% this year, compared to 4.6% in 2025.

If crude oil and liquefied natural gas prices remain elevated throughout 2026, it said Thursday’s economic growth forecast would darken further, slashing another 0.5 percentage points off global trade and as much as 1 percentage point for regions dependent on energy imports.

And that scenario would in turn reduce growth in the volume of goods traded to 1.4%, the Geneva-based trade body said Thursday. Net fuel-importing regions like Asia and Europe would face the biggest cuts, while net fuel exporters that can still export “would broadly enjoy more income and therefore more import growth.”

US Jews grapple with a surge in attacks and bitter rifts over Israeli policies

There is widespread anger over rising attacks on Jewish communities in the U.S., alongside deep internal divisions over whether to support or oppose Israel’s actions in the Middle East. Rabbis nationwide also say soaring security costs are straining congregations, with some synagogues spending over $1 million annually as threats rise.

Last week, communities united in condemning an attempted attack at a Detroit-area synagogue. A man whose family members were killed by an Israeli strike in Lebanon drove a pickup truck into a building hosting more than 100 preschool children; he later killed himself in a gunfight with police.

“No matter what Israel does, no matter how immoral or brutal or horrifying, it doesn’t justify attacking a synagogue or justifying attacking American Jews in any way,” said Peter Beinart, a Jewish author and commentator.

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Health of the new Iranian leader is ‘unclear’ after strike, Gabbard says

The health of Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei remains uncertain, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Congress Thursday.

Testifying before the House Intelligence Committee, Gabbard said his exact condition, as well as the leadership structure in Iran, is not fully known to U.S. intelligence.

“It is unclear his status or his involvement. He was injured very severely in one of the Israeli strikes,” Gabbard said. “So the decision-making is unclear.”

Officials have said the new leader was wounded and possibly disfigured by the Israeli strike. Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei issued his first statement on the war last week, though he did not appear on camera and the speech was read by a news anchor.

He was chosen to succeed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a major attack by Israel and the United States at the start of the war.

Japan and European nations demand an end to attacks on shipping, oil and gas

The leaders of five European countries and Japan condemned “in the strongest terms” Iranian attacks on shipping and oil and gas facilities, and demanded Tehran reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued a joint statement Thursday with the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan, demanding Iran “cease immediately” its drone and missile attacks and other attempts to block the Strait to commercial shipping.

The countries said they are ready to contribute to “appropriate efforts” to ensure ships can pass safely through the strait, a key oil route. British officials have acknowledged that planning for such action is at a very early stage.

The leaders also called for a “comprehensive moratorium” on attacks on oil and gas installations.

Hegseth warns that US military controls Iran’s fate

Hegseth warned that Iran should stop targeting neighboring countries with drones and missiles as American forces continue to attack the Islamic Republic.

“The United States military controls the fate of that country,” Hegseth said Thursday from the Pentagon. “Iran has the ability to make the right choices. It should not, going forward, target Arab allies, Arab countries, trying to create pain, the pain that they created themselves.”

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added that U.S. forces continue to attack deeper into Iranian territory, with A-10 Warthog attack planes hunting Iranian boats in the Strait of Hormuz and Apache helicopters striking Iranian drones.

Caine said the U.S. military has also dropped 5,000-pound penetrator weapons into underground weapon-storage facilities.

Journalists wounded on-air while reporting on Israel’s war with Hezbollah

The two journalists were lightly wounded in a strike while reporting in southern Lebanon near the coastal city of Tyre.

Steven Sweeney, correspondent of state-run Russia Today, was giving a broadcast on Israel’s targeting of infrastructure during its war against the Hezbollah militant group. Cameraman Ali Reda Sbeiti was also wounded.

In a video widely circulated on social media, the strike apparently fell just meters away from Sweeney while he was speaking on camera. He was taken to a hospital in Tyre for shrapnel wounds in his arm, and Sbeiti also was treated for light injuries.

The circumstances of the strike were unclear. Russia Today did not issue an immediate statement.

Hegseth says US taking ‘countermeasures’ to help Iranians get information

Without giving details, the defense secretary said the U.S. was working “to ensure that messaging is delivered, not just to the Iranian people writ large, but to the right audiences, certain audiences that need to hear certain things about what their fate might look like or what their choices are.”

An internet blackout imposed by the government in Tehran has stifled almost all communications from the country, making it nearly impossible to reliably survey Iranian perspectives on the escalating conflict.

“Their own people can barely receive a lot of those messages and communicate because of the blackout that they’ve imposed upon them,” Hegseth said. “But we work around that for sure.”

Hegseth says all 11 of Iran’s submarines are ‘gone’

Saying that Iran’s “surface fleet is no longer a factor,” Hegseth also said that “their submarines — they once had 11 — are gone.”

The crafts Hegseth referenced are “midget” submarines designed to work in shallow waters in the Persian Gulf and its narrow mouth, the Strait of Hormuz.

The small vessels are designed to evade sonar as they lay mines and fire torpedoes.

Hegseth opens Pentagon briefing with remarks about dignified transfer

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says he told families of service members killed in the Iran war that U.S. forces “will finish this.”

Hegseth said they told him “through tears, through hugs, through strength and through unbreakable resolve” that they wanted the U.S. military to “finish this. Honor their sacrifice. Do not waver. Do not stop until the job is done.”

“My response, along with that of the president, was simple: Of course we will finish this. We will honor their sacrifice,” Hegseth said. “Their sacrifice only steels our commitment.”

Pregnant woman among 4 killed in Iranian missile attack on the West Bank

The Palestinian Health Ministry said earlier that three women were killed and three others, including a child, were wounded in the overnight attack. It says a fourth person, a 32-year-old pregnant woman, has died.

The fatalities were the first in the occupied West Bank during the Iran war.

Russia’s nuclear chief says ‘no one will escape radiation’ if Iran’s nuclear reactor is hit

The head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom on Thursday urged the U.S. and Israel to make sure they don’t hit Iran’s Russia-built nuclear power plant.

Alexei Likhachev warned that “not a single party to the conflict will escape the impact of radiation if there is a serious accident.” He had previously reported that a strike on Tuesday hit the territory of the plant near the building of metrology service close to the operating nuclear reactor, causing no injuries or damage.

Likhachev said that Rosatom had evacuated some of its personnel in Bushehr and is planning to pull out most of 480 people left there, leaving just a few dozen to operate the plant.

French president condemns ‘reckless’ escalation

Emmanuel Macron has also called for a truce as the Middle East enters a religious holiday at the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. “The fighting should stop for a few days to try to give negotiations another chance,” Macron said in Brussels ahead of a meeting of European Union leaders. He said France is pushing for a moratorium on attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure.

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