Iran US tensions news: US-Israel strikes on Tehran spark conflict in Middle East; Netanyahu, Trump hold phone call

Five explosions were just heard in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, CNN reported. According to the report, four of those explosions were very loud.

It is unclear whether the explosions were caused by strikes, intercepts by the UAE’s air defence systems, or something else.

Kuwait’s Defence Ministry has said that its Ali al-Salem Air Base came under attack by a number of ballistic missiles, all of which were intercepted by the country's air defence systems.

“Ali Al-Salem Air Base came under attack by a number of ballistic missiles. This morning, the Kuwaiti Air Defence Force successfully intercepted them, resulting in fragments and debris from the interception operation falling in the vicinity of the base,” the ministry’s spokesperson, Colonel Staff Saud Abdulaziz al-Otaibi, said in a statement.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, General Mohammad Pakpour, was likely killed in the US-Israel joint strikes on Iran this morning, The Times of Israel reported.

The strikes by Israel and the US targeted several top Iranian military commanders and leaders, including the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Pakpour was appointed by Khamenei after his predecessor Hossein Salami was one of several key military figures killed in an Israeli strike during the 12-day war in June 2025. Read more here.

The Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, spoke to Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed bin Salman amid the ongoing US-Israel conflict with Iran.

According to a readout of the phone call, Qatar and Saudi Arabia stressed the need for an “immediate halt" to any escalations and a return to the negotiation table.

UAE’s Defence Ministry has said that it has intercepted a new wave of missiles from Iran.

There have also been reports of explosions heard in Dubai, which might have been caused by the interceptions.

The number of people killed in the Israeli attack on the girls’ elementary school in Iran’s southern city of Minab has risen to 51, with 60 others injured, according to the IRNA news agency.

The United Nations’ rights chief Volker Turk deplored the Middle East fiasco and urged all parties to return to negotiations, saying attacks would only result in “death, destruction and human misery”.

“I deplore the military strikes across Iran this morning by Israel and the United States of America, and the subsequent retaliatory strikes by Iran,” Turk said in a statement.

“As always, in any armed conflict, it is civilians who end up paying the ultimate price.

Turk said missiles and bombs were “not the way to resolve differences” but will only “result in death, destruction and human misery”.

“To avert these terrible consequences for civilians, I call for restraint and implore all parties to see reason, to de-escalate, and for a return to the negotiating table where they had been actively seeking a solution only hours earlier,” he said.

Iranian deputy foreign minister Hamid Ghanbari has said that the timing of US, Israeli strikes on Iran during a new round of nuclear talks was “deeply troubling”.

Such timing “breaks trust and raises serious doubt about the commitment to a peaceful solution,” Ghanbari said in an interview with Al Jazeera English.

He added that Iran has the right to defend itself and regrets any humanitarian loss caused by the current military escalation.

Finland’s President Alexander Stubb has said that the US is largely operating outside traditional international law following its strikes on Iran, Finnish public broadcaster Yleisradio Oy (Yle) reported.

“Usually, justification for these types of attacks has been sought either from the UN or at least from allies. Now, there has not been much asked about this,” Stubb said, according to Yle.

Bahrain’s Interior Ministry has said that sirens are sounding across the country amid missile attacks from Iran.

Russia’s ⁠Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held ⁠a phone call ⁠with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araqchi, where he condemned what Russia’s Foreign Ministry said was ⁠an “unprovoked armed attack” ⁠by the US and ⁠Israel on Iran, ⁠and urged ⁠an immediate halt to the strikes.

Dubai airport has suspended all flight operations until further notice.

Israel has banned ⁠public gatherings, shut schools ⁠and workplaces and moved hospital patients to underground facilities.

Defence Minister Israel Katz declared a ⁠state of emergency across the country, warning the public of Iranian missile and drone attacks.

The police urged against non-essential travel so as to allow security and emergency vehicles to move freely.

Spain’s ⁠PM Sanchez has ⁠rejected what he called ⁠”unilateral” military action by the US and Israel, which he ‌said represented an escalation and contributed to a more uncertain and hostile international order.

In a statement posted on ⁠the social media platform X, Sanchez also said he rejected the actions of the Iranian government and the Revolutionary Guard.

“We demand immediate de-escalation ‌and full respect for international law,” he ‌added.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a statement that the country will use all its military means under its right of self-defence to protect itself.

According to a statement, Araghchi has made phone calls with counterparts in countries including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Iraq, telling them Iran will use "all its defensive and military capabilities under legitimate right of self-defence" to protect the integrity of Iran.

Araghchi also "reminds" these countries of "their responsibility to prevent the misuse of their facilities and territories" by the US and Israel to attack, according to the statement.

Just hours before the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran, Oman’s foreign minister said a breakthrough in US-Iran talks had brought a peace deal “within our reach.”

“A peace deal is within our reach if we just allow diplomacy the space it needs to get there,” Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi told CBS’ Face the Nation on Friday in a rare interview, adding that the main obstacles to a deal had been overcome.

“If the ultimate objective is to ensure forever that Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, I think we have cracked that problem through these negotiations by agreeing a very important breakthrough that has not been achieved any time before,” he said. “The single most important achievement, I believe, is the agreement that Iran will never ever have the nuclear material that will create a bomb.”

Albusaidi said Iran had agreed not to stockpile excess nuclear material that could be used to build a bomb, a concession he suggested went beyond the limits imposed under the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated during the Obama administration.

“This is something that has really been missed a lot by the media, and I want to clarify that from the standpoint of a mediator,” he said. “There would be zero accumulation, zero stockpiling and full verification… by the (UN nuclear watchdog), the IAEA.”

Iran’s Mehr news agency is reporting that at least two students have been killed by an attack that hit a school east of the capital, Tehran.

Earlier, an Israeli strike hit an elementary girls' school in Minab, a city in the Hormozgan province of southern Iran, killing 40 people, IRNA reported.

French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement that the outbreak of war between the US, Israel and Iran “has grave consequences for international peace and security”.

“The current escalation is dangerous for everyone. It must stop,” he said.

“At this crucial moment, all measures are being taken to ensure the security of our national territory, our citizens, and our assets in the Middle East,” added Macron, noting that France stands ready to deploy “the necessary resources to protect its closest partners, should they request it”.

An Iranian missile attack on Saturday caused "significant damage" to the runway of a Kuwait air base hosting Italian air force personnel, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was quoted by the ANSA news agency as saying.

"There was significant damage to the runway, but no Italian personnel were injured," Tajani told reporters.

"The Italian air force members at the Kuwait base that was attacked with missiles from Iran are all safe. They were all in the bunker," he said.

Kuwait's Ali Al Salem base hosts Italian air force personnel taking part in the Task Force Air Kuwait since 2019 for surveillance operations against the Islamic State group in Iraq.

Israel’s military has issued a statement claiming to have hit “hundreds of Iranian military targets”, including missile launchers, as it conducted air strikes on western Iran.

It added that its air force was working to intercept incoming retaliatory attacks from Iran.

The Fars news agency says Iran’s senior officials are “in perfect health”, including President Masoud Pezeshkian, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and security chief Ali Larijani.

“While Israeli sources have claimed to have targeted and succeeded in attacking the president and senior Iranian leaders, official sources within the country report that senior regime officials, including the heads of the armed forces, are in perfect health,” the report said.

The death toll in an Israeli-US strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran rises to at least 40, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

At least 45 others were wounded in the attack in Minab in Iran’s Hormozgan province.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has a base in the city.

Neither the US nor Israel has offered any details on the campaign so far.

A US official quoted by Al Jazeera said that Washington will continue to launch “extensive” strikes from air and sea at Iran.

According to the official, the US-Israeli attacks aim to dismantle the Iranian security apparatus and are currently limited to targets inside Iran.

The report said that the US Air Force was participating in the strikes and that it was coordinating with the Israeli military.