US-Iran war highlights: Iran vows to respond 'in kind’ after Trump's threats to attack power plants

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US Iran war LIVE updates: Here are some key points:

• Iran’s joint military command spokesperson said Sunday that the US had to bombard its own military aircraft and personnel that were struck and downed by Iranian fighters to “prevent embarrassment for President Trump and the hollow image of its military.”
• Al Jazeera Arabic is reporting that the death toll from Israeli attacks on Beirut’s Jnah and Ain Saadeh has risen to eight killed and 55 wounded.
• The United Arab Emirates said Monday its air defences were responding to a missile and drone attack.
• Israeli strikes in Lebanon on Sunday killed at least 15 people, a day after Israel threatened to hit Lebanon's main border crossing with Syria, forcing it to close.
• The sudden increase in US gasoline prices felt by American consumers is set to be on full display in key inflation data due out this coming week.

US Iran war LIVE updates: Iran’s joint military command spokesperson said Sunday that the US had to bombard its own military aircraft and personnel that were struck and downed by Iranian fighters to “prevent embarrassment for President Trump and the hollow image of its military.”

Ebrahim Zolfaghari added that several US military aircraft entered Iranian airspace to carry out a rescue operation for the pilot of a downed US fighter jet, but said Iranian fighters and air defense systems struck the aircraft and forced them to make an emergency landing in an area south of Isfahan.

A regional intelligence official, who was briefed on the covert mission and who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss it, told AP that the US military blew up two transport planes due to a technical malfunction that forced them to bring in additional aircraft to complete the rescue.

US Iran war LIVE updates: Little is known about his identity, but he was the weapons system operator sitting behind the pilot aboard the advanced F-15E fighter jet shot down last Friday.

The pilot was said by Trump to have been rescued by special forces in a daylight mission on Friday shortly after the crash in the rugged Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province of southwest Iran.

After ejecting, the missing weapons expert shouted "God is good" over the radio, apparently reflecting his firm religious beliefs, the Axios news site reported, citing Trump and US officials.

The airman was wounded after his ejection but could still walk, reportedly scaling a 2,100-metre (7,000-foot) ridgeline in the mountains before hiding in a crevice, according to The New York Times and Axios.

Trump wrote on Sunday that he had been "seriously wounded".

Al Jazeera Arabic is reporting that the death toll from Israeli attacks on Beirut’s Jnah and Ain Saadeh has risen to eight killed and 55 wounded.

The attack on Jnah killed five, including a 15-year-old girl and wounded 52 others, including eight children.

The attack on Ain Saadeh hills in the Matn district killed three people, including two women, and wounded three others – all women.

Earlier on Sunday, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said at least 1,461 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since March 2 while 4,430 others have been wounded.

The United Arab Emirates said Monday its air defences were responding to a missile and drone attack.

Air defence systems "are actively engaging with missiles and UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) threats," the defence ministry (MOD) posted on X.

"MOD asserts that the sounds heard across the country are the result of ongoing engaging operations of missiles and UAVs."

Israeli strikes in Lebanon on Sunday killed at least 15 people, a day after Israel threatened to hit Lebanon's main border crossing with Syria, forcing it to close.

Israel has launched airstrikes across Lebanon as well as a ground invasion in the south since March 2, when armed group Hezbollah entered the Middle East war on the side of its backer Iran.

Several houses in Khan Arnaba, a town in Syria’s Quneitra province, have sustained damage from falling debris after an Iranian drone was intercepted by Israeli air defences.

Syria’s state-run Alikhbaria TV quoted Quneitra’s media directorate as saying that debris caused material damage but there were no reports of injuries.

Brent crude futures gained $2.4, or 2.2 per cent, ‌to $111.43 a barrel.

US West Texas Intermediate crude futures, meanwhile, rose $3, or 2.7 per cent, to trade at $114.57 ⁠per barrel.

The General Staff of the Kuwaiti Army has said that air defence systems were intercepting hostile and missile drone attacks.

In a statement, the army said the sound of any explosions heard is the result of interceptions.

The United Arab Emirates' Defence Ministry has said that its air defence systems are responding to missile and drone threats.

In a statement, the ministry said the sounds heard in the sky are the result of ongoing interceptions.

The sudden increase in US gasoline prices felt by American consumers is set to be on full display in key inflation data due out this coming week.

Economists are pencilling in a 1% increase in the consumer price index for March — the sharpest one-month advance since 2022 — after the Iran war pushed gas prices at the pump up by about $1 per gallon.

At the same time, the core CPI, excluding energy and food, probably rose 0.3% from a month earlier, according to a Bloomberg survey ahead of the Bureau of Labour Statistics report due Friday.

Oil prices have been roiled by five weeks of conflict, climbing to almost $120 a barrel last month as key Middle East energy assets came under attack and Iran effectively closed the critical Strait of Hormuz, creating what the International Energy Agency called the biggest supply disruption in the history of the market.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry says at least three people have been killed and three others wounded in an Israeli air attack on Ain Saadeh, east of Beirut.

The IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency reported that 15 ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz with Iran's permission over the past 24 hours, according to the latest figures.

According to Fars, maritime traffic through the key waterway is still 90 per cent lower than it was before the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Ukraine and Syria pledged greater security cooperation in talks on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said as Kyiv seeks to promote its military expertise across the region following the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Zelensky, continuing his tour of Middle East countries, met with his Syrian counterpart, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Damascus.

"We agreed to work together to provide more security and opportunities for development for our societies," Zelensky wrote on Telegram.

In a later post, Zelensky said there had been wide-ranging discussions with the Syrian leader and three-way talks that included Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

"We managed to discuss everything: from security and defence issues and the situation in the region due to all the events around Iran to energy and infrastructure cooperation between our countries," Zelensky wrote.

In recent weeks, Zelensky has visited Middle East countries, offering Ukrainian expertise in countering drone and missile attacks developed during its four-year war with Russia.

Hezbollah has claimed that it has carried out a series of attacks on Israeli forces and sites in northern Israel and along the border with southern Lebanon.

In a statement, Hezbollah said explosive devices targeting Israeli forces were deployed near the town of Shamaa in southern Lebanon, and later fired on what it described as a rescue force arriving at the scene.

It also said it launched rocket attacks targeting Israeli army positions and gatherings near the town of Ainata, as well as areas east of the Khiam detention centre.

The group further reported firing rockets towards the northern Israeli towns of Nahariya and Metula, and said it targeted the Meron air operations command and control base in northern Israel.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The Jordanian military says it shot down two missiles and two drones fired from Iran over the country’s territory in the past 24 hours.

In a statement carried by the Jordan News Agency, a spokesperson for the Public Security Directorate said authorities also responded to 18 reports of falling debris and projectiles during the same period.

No injuries were reported, though some material damage occurred, the spokesperson added.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei responded to Trump’s latest threats against his country.

“Our armed forces have made it clear that in case Iran’s infrastructure is attacked, we would react in kind,” he said.

“Our armed forces would target any similar infrastructure that is owned or in any way or manner related to the United States or contributes to their act of aggression against Iran.”

Israel’s Fire and Rescue Authority said Sunday that it was searching for three people in the northern Israeli city of Haifa after an Iranian missile strike.

Paramedics said they rushed to the scene and searched through the rubble to dig out the injured, finding an older man in serious condition. They added that three other people were mildly injured, including a baby.

The rescuers described the damage as resulting from a direct hit, but it was not immediately clear if the building had been struck by a missile or shrapnel from an interception.

The United Arab Emirates’ Sharjah government said that one Nepali and three Pakistani nationals were wounded Sunday in a fire caused by falling debris from an intercepted Iranian projectile at Khor Fakkan port, according to a statement posted on the social platform X.

One individual was severely wounded and had to be hospitalised, while the others suffered mild and moderate injuries, the statement said.

The statement did not specify whether the intercepted projectile was a missile or a drone.

Thousands of people have been killed across the Middle East in the Iran war, which began when the U.S. and Israel struck Iran on February 28. Those strikes triggered Iranian attacks on Israel, U.S. bases and the Gulf states, while opening a new front in Lebanon.

Here are the latest death tolls reported.

IRAN

U.S.-based rights group HRANA said 3,540 people have been killed since the war erupted. It said 1,616 of those were civilians, including at least 244 children.

The group says its data comes from field reports, local contacts, medical and emergency sources, civil society networks, open-source materials and official statements.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said that at least 1,900 people have been killed and 20,000 injured in Iran in the U.S.-Israeli strikes so far. It was not clear if those figures included at least 104 people who the Iranian military said were killed in a U.S. attack on an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka on March 4.

LEBANON

Lebanese authorities say 1,461 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since March 2, including at least 124 children.

More than 400 fighters from Hezbollah have been killed since the Lebanese armed group launched attacks in a new war with Israel on March 2, two sources familiar with the group's count told Reuters. It is unclear if the death toll reported by the authorities includes the fighters. At least 10 Lebanese soldiers have been killed since March 2 in Israeli strikes on Lebanon, with most of the casualties in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese army.

Meanwhile, three United Nations peacekeepers from Indonesia were killed in two separate incidents in southern Lebanon, one from a roadside explosion, the other from a projectile.

IRAQ

At least 108 people have been killed since the start of the crisis, according to Iraqi health authorities. Those include civilians, members of the Iran-affiliated Shi'ite Popular Mobilisation Forces, U.S.-allied Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, police and army.

One foreign crew member was killed in an attack on tankers near an Iraqi port, according to port security officials.

ISRAEL

Missiles launched from Iran and Lebanon have killed 19 people in Israel, according to Israel's ambulance service. The Israeli military said 10 of its soldiers were also killed in southern Lebanon. Separately, Israeli forces misfired and killed an Israeli farmer near the border with Lebanon on March 22.

UNITED STATES

Thirteen service members have been killed. Six were confirmed dead after a U.S. military refuelling aircraft crashed over Iraq, the U.S. military said, while seven others have been killed in action during operations against Iran.

Twelve U.S. troops were wounded, two of them seriously, in an Iranian military strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, a U.S. official told Reuters on Friday.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Twelve people have been killed in Iranian attacks, including two army soldiers, according to the UAE authorities. The latest fatality occurred when debris from an intercepted attack fell on Abu Dhabi's Habshan gas facilities.

QATAR

Seven people were killed on March 22 in a deadly helicopter crash in Qatar's territorial waters after a technical malfunction during "routine duty," according to Qatar's defence ministry. No further details were provided. Four of those killed were Qatari armed forces personnel, one was a Turkish serviceman from the Qatar-Turkey joint forces, and two were technicians working for Turkish defence manufacturer Aselsan.

KUWAIT

Authorities have reported seven deaths, including three people killed in Iranian attacks, two interior ministry officers and two army soldiers.

WEST BANK

Four Palestinian women were killed in an Iranian missile attack in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

SYRIA

Four people were killed when an Iranian missile struck a building in the southern city of Sweida on February 28, state news agency SANA said.

BAHRAIN

Two people were killed in two separate Iranian attacks, with the most recent hitting a residential building in the capital Manama, according to the interior ministry.

The UAE's defence ministry said on March 24 that one of its civilian contractors was killed in an Iranian attack on Bahrain. It identified the contractor as a Moroccan national.

OMAN

Two people were reported killed on March 13 in a drone strike on an industrial zone in Sohar province, marking the first fatalities inside the country, which had been hosting mediation talks between the U.S. and Iran. One person died earlier when a projectile hit a tanker off the coast of Muscat, the vessel's manager said.

SAUDI ARABIA

Two people were killed when a projectile fell on a residential location in Al-Kharj city, southeast of the capital Riyadh.

FRANCE

One French soldier was killed, and six others were wounded after a drone attack in northern Iraq, where they were providing counter-terrorism training.

Israel’s Ministry of Health says 6,951 people have been injured and taken to hospitals since the US-Israeli war on Iran began on February 28.

Of those, 123 patients remain hospitalised, including two in “critical condition”, the ministry said.

Lebanese Christians marked Easter Sunday by turning their prayers to the south, where villages remain trapped by fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

This year's celebrations were dedicated to "people in the south," said Jenny Yazbek al?Jamal, as she left mass at a church in Beirut's northern suburb of Jdeideh.

With family living in the region, the 55-year-old said she feels like "one of them".

It is not only Christian villages suffering in this war added al-Jamal, who leads the parish choir.

"Muslim villages too... we stand with all the people of the south who were forced to flee their homes."

Here is how Democratic and some Republican lawmakers and others have responded to US President Donald Trump’s expletive-laden social media post threatening Iran.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump “is ranting like an unhinged madman on social media” while “threatening possible war crimes and alienating allies”.

Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks, chair of House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that Trump’s post “used language that was profane and incoherent”. He added: “That is not strength-it raises the risk of miscalculation, undermines US credibility, and makes diplomacy more difficult.”

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said that the post was “completely, utterly unhinged. He’s already killed thousands. He’s going to kill thousands more.”

Former Trump ally and ex-Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has also attacked the President, saying that it was “NOT what we promised the American people when they overwhelmingly voted in 2024, I know, I was there more than most. This is not making America great again, this is evil.”

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, has condemned an Israeli air strike on a densely populated area in Beirut, just metres from Rafik Hariri Public Hospital, and called for the protection of civilians and health facilities.

The organisation said today’s attack was followed by a mass-casualty influx at the hospital, with people arriving bleeding and on the shoulders of others. In the first hour after the Israeli bombing, four people were killed and nearly 40 injured, MSF said.

“We are seeing elderly people and adolescents arriving with critical injuries to the head, chest and abdomen, including shrapnel wounds,” Dr Luna Hammad, MSF’s medical coordinator at the hospital, said in a statement.

“When strikes hit crowded residential areas without warning, the consequences are severe: both in human casualties and in hospitals’ capacity to respond.”