The US-Israel war on Iran entered its eleventh day on Tuesday with no ceasefire in sight, as a senior Iranian official declared the government prepared for a prolonged conflict and ruled out any return to diplomacy. Kamal Kharazi, foreign policy adviser to the office of the new supreme leader, said the war would end only through economic pain inflicted on the United States and its allies, hardening Tehran’s publicly stated position at precisely the moment global markets were reeling from the conflict’s fallout. Brent crude briefly surged to $119.50 per barrel before pulling back to around $112.98, remaining well above the $100 threshold that analysts regard as a panic marker for world energy markets. The escalation in oil prices has begun to bite American consumers directly, with petrol prices rising by roughly 50 cents — about 17 per cent — since the war began on 28 February, prompting Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to call on President Donald Trump to release supplies from the United States’ Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
The United States confirmed its eighth military fatality of the war on Monday, identifying Sergeant Benjamin N. Pennington, 26, from Glendale, Kentucky, who died from injuries sustained in an Iranian attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on 1 March. Pennington was assigned to the 1st Space Battalion, 1st Space Brigade, based at Fort Carson, Colorado, and his death came a day after Trump paid tribute to fallen soldiers at a ceremony acknowledging American losses in Operation Epic Fury. The US State Department simultaneously ordered all non-emergency government employees and their family members to depart Saudi Arabia due to escalating safety risks, marking the tenth American diplomatic mission placed on ordered departure since the war began. Israel, meanwhile, destroyed the headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps air force and launched fresh strikes on sites linked to Hezbollah in Beirut’s Ghobeiry municipality, with verified footage showing a large explosion and thick clouds of smoke rising over the Lebanese capital. Human Rights Watch released a report on Monday accusing Israel of deploying white phosphorus in residential areas of southern Lebanon, in violation of international humanitarian law.
Iran launched another wave of missile and drone attacks across the Gulf on Monday night, targeting Israel and several Gulf states. In Bahrain, an Iranian strike on the village of Maameer triggered a fire, while the Bahrain Petroleum Company announced force majeure on group operations — a contractual declaration signalling it could no longer guarantee delivery commitments due to events beyond its control. Qatar issued a midnight alert advising residents of an elevated threat level, with a dozen explosions audible before its Ministry of Defence confirmed that armed forces had intercepted incoming missiles. Saudi Arabia’s air defences intercepted and destroyed a drone heading towards the Shaybah oilfield in the Rub al-Khali desert. Turkey’s Defence Ministry said NATO air defences shot down an Iranian ballistic missile entering its airspace — the second such interception of the war — a significant development given Turkey’s dual role as a NATO member bordering Iran. The Iranian warship affair deepened as a dispute between Washington and Tehran, with the US Indo-Pacific Command rejecting as false Iran’s claim that the warship IRIS Dena was unarmed when sunk near Sri Lankan waters on 4 March, with Iranian officials maintaining it was returning from a naval exercise in India in a non-combat capacity.
At home, Iran moved to consolidate behind its new supreme leader. Thousands of people gathered in Tehran’s Enghelab Square — Revolution Square — to pledge allegiance to Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, who was appointed on 8 March to succeed his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed in the opening strikes of the war. State media broadcast the rallies prominently, with demonstrators chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” and vowing to sacrifice their lives for the new leadership. The Israeli military, when asked whether Mojtaba Khamenei was a target for elimination, declined to rule anything out, stating only that it would act against anyone who threatens Israel. Trump, speaking at a press conference at his Doral resort in Florida, gave contradictory signals — saying at one point the war was nearly over, then telling House Republicans privately that “we haven’t won enough.” He also faced pointed questions over a Tomahawk missile strike on a girls’ elementary school in south-eastern Iran on 28 February that killed between 165 and 180 people, most of them children, deflecting responsibility by claiming several countries possess Tomahawk missiles — a claim contradicted by the weapon’s manufacturers, who confirm only the US, UK, and Australia operate the system. The war’s combined death toll now stands at more than 1,200 in Iran, over 400 in Lebanon, and approximately a dozen in Israel.
