Democracy Dies with Dictatorship
NY Times
Apr 6, 2026
Iran War Live Updates: As Trump’s New Ultimatum Looms, Tehran Vows to Step Up Attacks
Iran said it would respond “crushingly” if President Trump carried out his threats to strike power plants and bridges unless Tehran reopens the Strait of Hormuz. An Israeli strike killed an Iranian intelligence chief overnight.
Updated
April 6, 2026, 6:30 a.m. ET38 minutes ago
Aaron BoxermanErika Solomon and Yan Zhuang
Here’s the latest
Iran said on Monday that it would retaliate forcefully if President Trump carries out his threat to strike Iranian power plants and bridges unless Tehran ends its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
Both countries appeared to stand on the precipice of what could become a new phase in the month-old war, as they escalated threats and Iran and Israel launched new attacks. An Israeli strike overnight on Monday killed Majid Khademi, the intelligence chief for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in the latest killing of a senior Iranian leader.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened to bombard critical Iranian infrastructure unless Iranian forces end their de facto blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, which is a conduit for a significant portion of the world’s oil and gas. Iran, in turn, has refused to back down, firing repeated volleys of ballistic missiles at its neighbors and ensnarling global shipping.
“If attacks on civilian targets are repeated, the subsequent phases of our offensive and retaliatory operations will be carried out much more crushingly and extensively,” Ebrahim Zolfaghari, an Iranian military spokesman, said on Monday.
Strikes on power plants could impact millions of civilians across Iran and many legal experts argue it could be considered a war crime under international law. Such attacks could also add to worries about the global economy, which has already been rattled by soaring energy prices since the war began in late February. Oil prices rose slightly during Asia’s business day on Monday before falling on media reports of progress in indirect talks between Iran and the United States.
The impasse has left Mr. Trump contemplating extreme options for the next steps, including a ground invasion of islands in the Persian Gulf. Mediators in Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey have sought to clinch a deal to end the crisis to little avail. While Mr. Trump has postponed threatened attacks before, analysts say repeatedly doing so without tangible progress toward a deal would risk eroding his credibility.
Mr. Trump, seemingly emboldened by the U.S. rescue of an American airman in Iran over the weekend, told Fox News on Sunday that he believed he could reach a deal with Iran by Monday. But he also said he was “considering blowing everything up” and taking control of the country’s oil if Iran did not cooperate.
In an expletive-laden social media post, Mr. Trump told Iranian leaders to “open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards” or else the attacks on infrastructure would commence. He later wrote “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!” appearing to suggest a deadline for the strikes.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
Iranian strikes: Israeli paramedics retrieved the bodies of at least three people killed in an Iranian missile strike in Haifa, according to the Israeli authorities. Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates reported attempted missile and drone strikes on Monday.
Warning from oil nations: Eight members of the consortium of influential oil producing nations known as OPEC Plus on Sunday expressed concern about the toll the war was taking on global oil supplies and energy infrastructure in the region. “Restoring damaged energy assets to full capacity is both costly and takes a long time,” the group said in a statement warning of a slow recovery after the war. Read more ›
Death tolls: The Human Rights Activists News Agency said at least 1,606 civilians, including 244 children, had been killed in Iran as of Friday. Lebanon’s health ministry on Thursday said at least 1,345 Lebanese had been killed since the latest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began. In attacks blamed on Iran, at least 50 people have been killed in Gulf nations. In Israel, at least 20 people had been killed as of Monday. The American death toll stands at 13 service members, with hundreds of others wounded.
35 minutes ago
Reham Mourshed and Hwaida Saad
Israel intensified strikes on Lebanon on Monday, pounding the southern suburbs of the capital, Beirut, and the south of the country. The Israeli military issued an evacuation warning for residents to leave seven suburbs of Beirut and parts of the southern city of Tyre.
Lebanon faced some of the heaviest bombardment in Israel’s offensive on Sunday, according to residents, with warplanes hovering over the capital and the south as many Lebanese Christians gathered to celebrate Easter. The strikes on Sunday killed 39 people, according to the government.
April 6, 2026, 5:17 a.m. ET2 hours ago
Bureau chief for Iran and Iraq
Iran warned that it would retaliate against any attack on its critical energy infrastructure, in an apparent response to President Trump’s threat to target power plants and bridges unless Iran fully reopened the Strait of Hormuz. “If attacks on civilian targets are repeated, the subsequent phases of our offensive and retaliatory operations will be carried out much more crushingly and extensively, and the enemy’s losses and damages from persisting with this approach will be multiplied,” Ebrahim Zolfaghari, the spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, state media reported.
April 6, 2026, 4:33 a.m. ET3 hours ago
Bureau chief for Iran and Iraq
Iran’s deputy minister of health, Masoud Habibi, said that more than 360 medical, healthcare, educational, and research centers have been targeted in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes. He told Iran’s news agency, IRNA, that 24 medics have been killed and 116 have been injured, and 44 ambulances have been taken out of service.
April 6, 2026, 4:22 a.m. ET3 hours ago
Bureau chief for Iran and Iraq
Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, has said that if President Trump follows through on his threat to attack critical infrastructure, including power plants and bridges, it would violate international law. “The President of the United States, as the highest official of his country, has publicly threatened to commit war crimes,” he wrote on social media. “It is recommended that, before the name of the U.S. President is recorded in history as a major war criminal, he cease these threats—whose consequences will not be limited to Iran alone.”
Many international, independent legal experts have said that if Trump strikes key energy infrastructure, it could constitute a war crime under international law.
April 6, 2026, 4:08 a.m. ET3 hours ago
Reporting from Jerusalem
Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, said Israel had killed Major General Seyed Majid Khademi, the head of intelligence for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in a strike on Tehran overnight on Monday. In a statement, Katz described Khademi as one of the three top leaders of the I.R.G.C. Katz vowed that Israel would kill more Iranian leaders, saying that Israel was “continuing to hunt them down, one by one.”
April 6, 2026, 4:04 a.m. ET3 hours ago
Breaking news reporter
The authorities in Kuwait said on Monday that six people were injured after projectiles and shrapnel fell in a residential area in the north of the country following an Iranian attack.
April 6, 2026, 4:01 a.m. ET3 hours ago
Bureau chief for Iran and Iraq
Iranian state media has announced the death of the head of intelligence for Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Major General Seyed Majid Khademi. According to Iran’s state broadcaster, he was “killed in the criminal terrorist attack by the American–Zionist enemy” at dawn on Monday.
April 6, 2026, 2:35 a.m. ET5 hours ago
Oil prices rise slightly after Trump’s latest threats
Oil prices rose slightly and stocks in Asia were mixed on Monday despite continued attacks in the Middle East and threats by President Trump to escalate U.S. attacks on Iran. Trading was limited because markets were closed for holidays in parts of Asia and all of Europe.
Mr. Trump taunted Iranian leaders on Sunday after the U.S. rescue of an American airman whose jet had been shot down. The president demanded that Iran open the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passageway for oil shipments in the Middle East.
The conflict, now in its sixth week, has caused energy shocks that could drive up the cost of living around the world and deprive vulnerable regions of staples like electricity, clean water and cooking fuel.
Global oil prices rise
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, was about $109 a barrel on Monday, up 0.1 percent. That was around a 60 percent increase in price since before the war began.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, traded for around $111 a barrel on Monday, down slightly, but a rise of about 66 percent in the same period. The W.T.I. price is usually not above Brent — the gap is partly the result of differences in each oil type’s futures contracts, which are the main way for trading oil.
Price of West Texas Oil
Since fighting began, investors and analysts have been focused on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that is a vital trading route for oil and natural gas and that normally carries as much as one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. Shipping traffic exiting the Persian Gulf through the strait has been effectively halted since the war began.
A French-owned container ship transited the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, according to data from Marine Traffic, making it among the few known Western-owned ships to have traversed the waterway since the start of the war.
Continued attacks on energy infrastructure, by both Israel and Iran, have raised concerns about longer-lasting damage to the world’s oil and gas supply. Attacks on power and energy facilities continued in Iran and throughout the Gulf region on Sunday.
Stocks in Asia were mixed
Stocks rose in Japan and South Korea, with the Nikkei 225 in Japan up 0.6 percent. Other indexes in Asia were lower, and markets in Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan were closed. Stocks in Asia had mostly declined on Friday.
S&P 500 futures were mostly unchanged, providing little indication of how stocks will move when trading resumes in the United States on Monday. Through Thursday, the S&P 500 was down nearly 6 percent since it hit a peak in late January. It came dangerously close to what is known as a correction — a drop of 10 percent from a recent high — before stocks recovered.
Gasoline prices continued to rise
Gas prices rose again on Monday, jumping to a national average of $4.12 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. The increase has raised the cost for drivers by 38 percent since the war began.
Gas prices don’t move in lock step with crude, usually trailing increases or drops by a few days.
Diesel prices have increased even more quickly and stood at $5.62 on Monday, up 49 percent since the start of the war.
April 6, 2026, 1:10 a.m. ET6 hours ago
Breaking news reporter
Israel’s military said at about 6 a.m. local time that it had completed a wave of strikes on Tehran, without providing specifics.
April 6, 2026, 1:02 a.m. ET6 hours ago
Yan Zhuang and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad
The authorities in the United Arab Emirates said early Monday that a Ghanaian national suffered moderate injuries from falling debris in Musaffah, an industrial area in Abu Dhabi, after an air defence interception. In Fujairah, a building belonging to Du, a telecom company, was targeted by a drone reportedly launched from Iran, Emirati state media reported.
April 6, 2026, 12:46 a.m. ET6 hours ago
Breaking news reporter
Israel’s emergency service, Magen David Adom, reported injuries in several cities after missile strikes in the past hour. One woman suffered a serious chest injury from shrapnel in Petah Tikva, east of Tel Aviv. Two adults and two 5-year-old girls sustained mild injuries in Haifa, while a man suffered light injuries in Tel Aviv. At around the same time, the Israeli military said it was intercepting missiles launched from Iran, but did not say which areas the strikes were targeting.