Israel Attacks Beirut and Tehran as Fighting in Middle East Accelerates

The Israeli military said it had begun a “broad-scale” attack in Iran’s capital, hours after hitting Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon. The Pentagon said Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes were decreasing.

by Euan WardErika SolomonDayana Iwaza and Ephrat Livni

Even as Israeli drones hovered over Beirut, Lebanon, the Israeli military said it had begun a “broad-scale wave of strikes” against the Iranian regime infrastructure’s in Tehran in the early morning hours of Friday in the Middle East.

Israel made the announcement only hours after it had unleashed a major bombardment Thursday evening on a Hezbollah stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut, in another sign that Lebanon is fast becoming a new front in the widening conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran.

A series of airstrikes caused huge explosions in the Dahiya area, on the outskirts of the city, in the most intense attack since a cease-fire in late 2024 halted fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

At least three buildings totally collapsed. Hundreds of displaced people were sleeping on the streets of downtown Beirut, some huddling around small fires to stay warm.

The intensified bombardment came not long after Israel military officials acknowledged that their forces had moved deeper into Lebanon than previously disclosed and Israeli armed vehicles began massing at the border.

The Israeli military had said earlier that it was going to hit targets in the Dahiya, warning people to evacuate to the north and setting off a panicked exodus on Thursday.

In Washington, President Trump said that he should have a role in choosing Iran’s new leader, and that Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the former leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who appears to be the leading candidate — to succeed his father, was an “unacceptable” choice.

Mr. Trump’s comments, in interviews with Reuters and Axios, were the most explicit he has made about his view of an American role in creating a new government in Tehran.

They came as European countries stepped up their deployment of military assets in the Middle East, while world leaders braced for the war’s impact on the global economy.

European leaders, several of whom disapproved of the initial U.S.-Israeli assault, emphasized that their deployments were being done to protect their citizens and their interests, as well as crucial shipping routes, and not to support the bombing of Iran.

U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran continued unabated. The U.S. military said that it was “finding and destroying” Iran’s mobile missile launchers. Israeli officials said they had achieved air superiority in Iran, having knocked out 80 percent of the country’s air defenses and 60 percent of its missile launchers.

Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, said at a news conference in Tampa, Fla., that U.S. air attacks had seriously damaged Iran’s air defenses and missile capability. He said the retaliatory ballistic missile attacks by Iran have decreased by 90 percent since Saturday. Retaliatory drone attacks, he said, had decreased by 83 percent.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the United States had no shortage of munitions. “Our stockpiles of defensive and offensive weapons allow us to sustain this campaign as long as we need to,” he said.

Iran has said its strikes, begun in retaliation to the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign that killed Ayatollah Khamenei on Saturday, are in self-defense. But the targets Iran has hit in the Persian Gulf in recent days have included American embassies, energy installations, airports and hotels.

Here’s what else we’re covering:

• War powers vote: In a vote of 219 to 212, the House blocked a bipartisan measure intended to rein in President Trump’s ability to continue the war in Iran without Congress’s approval. Four democrats joined all but two Republicans in opposing the effort. A similar vote was blocked in the Senate on Wednesday.

• Evacuations: The State Department is battling accusations from diplomats and travelers who say the Trump administration endangered American citizens in the Middle East by beginning a war against Iran without adequate plans for helping Americans leave the region. The State Department began evacuating Americans from the region by charter flight on Wednesday and says it has communicated with thousands of American citizens. But veteran diplomats and exasperated travelers said it had done too little, too slowly to help people stranded by flight cancellations and airspace closures in the region. Read more ›

• Oil supply: The Trump administration is allowing Indian oil refiners to buy Russian oil for the next 30 days amid concerns over energy shortages because of the war in Iran. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on X that the decision was made to “enable oil to keep flowing into the global market” and that it will not “provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government.” Last August, Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on Indian imports to deter it from buying Russian oil. Read more ›

• Sunken ship: Iran’s foreign minister accused the United States of an “atrocity at sea” after a torpedo launched from a U.S. Navy submarine sank an Iranian frigate in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka on Wednesday. Dozens of sailors were killed, Sri Lankan authorities said. After a second Iranian naval vessel asked the Sri Lankan government for permission to dock, Sri Lanka agreed to bring the 208 people on the ship to Colombo. Read more ›

• Americans killed: Six U.S. service members have been killed. The Defense Department on Wednesday night released the name of a fifth American killed in an Iranian attack on Sunday, and released the name of another soldier believed to have died in the same incident. Read more ›

• Death toll: At least 787 people have been killed in Iran since the start of the U.S.-Israeli attacks, according to the Red Crescent Society, Iran’s main humanitarian relief organization, including at least 175 who died in the bombing of a girls’ elementary school. At least 102 people in Lebanon have been killed, according to the Lebanese health ministry.