US launches ‘wave of strikes’ on Iran after Trump tells Iran that power plants, bridges will be targeted if no deal is made – Middle East crisis live

Reuters news agency, citing a senior Israeli official, has reported that Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to the US on Saturday.

The official told Reuters that the Israeli prime minister wants to meet US president ‌Donald Trump, but ​it is not clear if ⁠he will.

If confirmed, it would be the first time Netanyahu has visited the US since the war against Iran began. His last visit was in February, about two weeks before the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran.

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency has reported that seven personnel were killed in US strikes on an Iranian military base in Bampur in the country’s south-east.

Quoting the Iranian army, the news agency reported that a number ⁠of personnel were also wounded and vowed a “decisive response” ‌to the attack.

For a second day in row, US strikes targeted Iran’s southern port city of Bushehr, home to the country’s only civilian nuclear plant, according to the state news agency IRNA quoting a local official.

“In continuation of the brutality of the American enemy, three points in the city of Bushehr were attacked today,” Mohammad Mozaffari, the governor of Bushehr, was quoted as saying.

He added that there were no reports of casualties.

Last Thursday, Iranian authorities said a US projectile hit an area close to the nuclear power plant. It was unclear whether the reported strike caused any damage to the facility.

More than 30 people have been killed in southern Iran in recent days, said government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani, as the US launch a fresh round of strikes targeting the country’s south.

In a post on X, Mohajerani said:

In the recent attacks on the southern part of the country, more than 30 civilians lost their lives. While expressing our condolences and sympathy to the bereaved families, we honour the memory of the fallen. The government will stand by the people with all its might. The south of Iran is the beating heart of this land. The south of Iran, the soul of Iran.”

More than 260 people have been injured in Iran in the recent wave of US attacks, according to the Iranian health ministry.

Six of the wounded were children, said Hossein Kermanpour, head of public relations for Iran’s ministry of health, in a post of X.

An Indian ⁠national ⁠who went missing ​after an attack ⁠on commercial vessel ⁠GFS ​Galaxy ‌off the coast ‌of Oman ‌is dead, his father-in-law said on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

Of ‌the 11 Indians ​on board, 10 were ⁠rescued, the Indian foreign ​ministry said ​on ​Sunday.

US Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked the advancement of a must-pass defense bill in protest of Donald Trump’s resumption of hostilities with Iran, writes the Guardian’s Chris Stein.

The hold up of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) comes amid the fiercest exchange in fire between the countries in weeks, which has amplified frustration among Democrats that the US remains involved in the conflict despite the passage last month of a war powers resolution intended to force a ceasefire.

Read the full story here:

In a flare-up that entered the fifth day, the US Central Command (Centcom) said it struck dozens of Iranian military targets near the strait and elsewhere along the country’s coast to “degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping and civilian crews”.

Iranian state media reported explosions near the port city of Bandar Abbas, on the island of Qeshm and on Bandar Imam Khomeini.

Soon after the strikes earlier on Wednesday, sirens rang out in Bahrain, while Kuwait and Jordan reported intercepting drones and missiles fired from Iran.

Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported that Iranian forces launched a drone attack on a military base in Jordan that hosts American warplanes, while the IRGC had hit US facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards paramilitary threatened earlier on Wednesday to halt all energy exports from the Middle East over the US blockade.

The export of oil and gas from the region will be either for everyone or for no one,” it said.

When US president Donald Trump announced the return of the blockade on Monday, he also said he would impose a 20% fee on ships passing through the strait. But he dropped the plan to collect fees hours before resuming the blockade, citing requests from allies in the Gulf.

Both US and Iran launched attacks as blockade reimposed.

Our full report of the all the latest is here:

A US strike hit a wheat storage silo in Hoveyzeh, south west of Iran, early on Wednesday, according to Iranian state broadcaster IRIB.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of events in the Middle East, with retaliatory strikes between the US and Iran continuing for a fourth day straight, despite an interim agreement intended to provide space to negotiate a lasting peace.

Instead, the US has now reimposed a naval blockade on the strait of Hormuz and Donald Trump has said that US strikes will target Iran’s power plants and bridges next week if Tehran does not agree to a deal.

Iran has responded by attacking US allies in the region.

Here is the latest:

• In an interview with Fox News, Trump said US attacks would continue to increase in severity until a deal was reached. “We’re going to knock out all their power plants,” he said. “We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.”

• US Central Command (Centcom) said the latest strikes were aimed at “degrading Iranian capabilities used to attack commercial shipping” in the strait, the key shipping channel for Gulf oil and gas where Tehran has repeatedly carried out attacks on civilian vessels.

• Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said the US decision to renew the blockade “has, in a way, dismantled the Islamabad memorandum”. Days of retaliatory strikes continue to push the region back into all-out war.

• Iran responded to US strikes on Wednesday by targeting American allies including Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had targeted what ⁠it described ⁠as command-and-control, logistics, ​fuel and military equipment facilities belonging to ⁠the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. Jordan’s army said early Wednesday that its air defences intercepted and shot down three ballistic missiles that entered its airspace.

• Since last week, renewed US attacks have killed at least 28 people in Iran, according to a tally based on Iranian media and official announcements.