Australia tells non-essential diplomats to leave Lebanon

Australia has told non-essential officials posted to Lebanon to leave due to the "deteriorating security situation" in the region, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Friday.

Wong said a small number of officials would remain in the country to provide consular support to Australians.

Two people killed in Oman after drones came down in Sohar province

Two people killed in Oman after drones came down in Sohar province: state news agency

Israeli military strikes Zrarieh bridge over Litani river in Lebanon

The Israeli military said it carried out an air strike on a bridge in southern Lebanon on Friday, in what appeared to be the first time in the current campaign against Hezbollah that Israel acknowledged it had targeted civilian infrastructure.

The Israeli military said that the Zrariyeh bridge, which spans the Litani River, was targeted because it was a key crossing used by Hezbollah militants moving between northern and southern Lebanon, but provided no evidence to support the claim.

It also said Hezbollah militants had positioned launchers near the bridge and carried out attacks on Israel from the area.

Striking the bridge was necessary to remove a threat to Israeli civilians, the military said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, Lebanon's state media reported that a drone struck a residential apartment in Beirut's Burj Hammoud district on the northern outskirts of the Lebanese capital on Friday.

It is the first time the area has been targeted.

Israel's military has carried out daily strikes this week on Lebanon in an offensive against Tehran-backed Hezbollah after it launched attacks on Israel on ‌March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader at the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have been displaced.

Multiple explosions and sound of fighter jets heard in Karaj, west of Tehran

Multiple explosions and sound of fighter jets heard in Karaj, west of Tehran: Iranian state media

Israeli military says it has launched wide-scale wave of strikes across Tehran.

Trump issues new threat to Iran online

US President Donald Trump issued a new threat online to Iran, writing: "Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today."

Trump made the post Friday on his Truth Social website, saying that "Iran's Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth."

"They've been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them," Trump wrote. "What a great honour it is to do so!"

Saudi Arabia says its air defences downed 50 drones in just a few hours

Saudi Arabia's Defense Ministry said early Friday that its air defenses downed 10 more drones headed toward the kingdom's Eastern and Central Provinces, bringing the total to nearly 50 drones entering Saudi airspace over the span of a few hours.

The barrage represents a higher-than-usual number of aerial threats for the kingdom, which has seen sites including the US Embassy in Riyadh, oil infrastructure, and a military base hosting US troops targeted as the war involving Iran has intensified.

Debris from interception causes fire in Duba

Thick black smoke rose over Dubai's skyline early Friday after what authorities described as a fire in an industrial area of the city-state.

An Associated Press journalist saw the fire in Dubai's Al Quoz neighborhood. Bystanders gathered to watch the smoke from the blaze.

Police stopped an AP journalist from going closer to the site of the blaze, which was in a cul de sac.

The Dubai Media Office, which issues statements for its government, said "debris from a successful interception caused a minor incident on the façade of a building in central Dubai." It said there had been no injuries, though the black smoke curled over the skyline as far as the sail-shaped Burj al-Arab luxury hotel.

Israeli strikes hit new areas in Beirut, killing one

An Israeli strike early Friday hit a car in Jnah, a coastal neighborhood in southwestern Beirut, and killed one person, the Lebanese health ministry said.

Separately, an Israeli strike hit an apartment in the Nabaa neighborhood, leaving it engulfed in flames, local media reported. Nabaa, on Beirut's northern outskirts within the densely populated Burj Hammoud district, is home to a sizable Armenian community. No casualties were immediately reported.

It was the first time such an area has been struck in this conflict or during the 2024 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Following the strikes, the Israeli army said it had targeted a Hezbollah member in Beirut. Both neighborhoods are far from the southern suburbs of Beirut, which the Israeli military has declared unsafe and issued evacuation notices for.

Missile attack on Israel injures 58

Israel's Magen David Adom ambulance service said some 58 people were hurt in a missile attack on Zarzir, a city around 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Jerusalem near the border with Lebanon. The service said one person was in moderate condition and 57 sustained very minor injuries from glass shards.

Footage shared by the ambulance service from the impact site showed damaged cars and scattered debris.

The Israeli military said it was operating with emergency services at the scene to clear debris.

Hezbollah said early Friday that it had fired several rocket salvos toward northern Israel and Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.

Iran war disrupts energy supplies as Iran's new leader resolves to keep fighting

Iran's secretive new leader issued his first public statements Thursday, resolving to keep fighting, promising more pain for Gulf Arab states and threatening to open "other fronts" in a war that has already disrupted world energy supplies, the global economy and international travel.

Early Friday, US President Donald Trump issued a new threat online to Iran, writing: "Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today." Trump tallied the damage inflicted on Iran and its leaders and called it a "great honor" to be responsible for it.

The remarks by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country's attacks were creating conditions for the Iranian population to topple the government.

"It is in your hands," Netanyahu said at a news conference, addressing the Iranian people. "We are creating the optimal conditions for the fall of the regime."

Since the start of the war, US and Israeli strikes have targeted security checkpoints in Iran to undermine the government's ability to suppress dissent, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, the US-based independent monitoring group known as ACLED.

Intense airstrikes hit early Friday around Iran's capital, Tehran, as well as outlying areas. It was not immediately clear what had been targeted.

Netanyahu denounces Iranian leader

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced Khamenei as a "puppet of the Revolutionary Guards."

Khamenei is close to Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and is widely seen as even less compromising than his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei said in a statement read by a state TV news anchor that he was keeping a "file of revenge." He did not appear on camera and has not been seen since his father and wife were killed in the war's opening salvo, which also wounded him, according to an Iranian ambassador.

Iranian leader calls for the shutdown of US bases

Iran's ambassador to Tunisia, Mir Masoud Hosseinian told The Associated Press the new supreme leader was wounded in the attack on his family's home, but "it is not serious." The hope is he will attend the massive, state-organized Eid prayer next week that his father traditionally led. However, Khamenei remains a target for the Israelis, who have vowed to kill him.

Hosseinian said Iran's strikes on Gulf nations have been strategic. "Even when we targeted hotels, we had precise information that they were hosting American and Israeli soldiers," he said.

Khamenei called on Gulf Arabs to "shut down" U.S. bases in the region, saying protection promised by Washington was "nothing more than a lie."

He also said Iran has studied "opening other fronts in which the enemy has little experience and would be highly vulnerable" if the war continues. He did not elaborate, but Iran has been linked to previous attacks on U.S., Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.

Attacks on Gulf states continued Friday with Saudi Arabia's defense ministry saying its air defenses downed more than three dozen drones headed toward the kingdom's Eastern Province over the span of a few hours, marking an unusually large barrage.

Iran's nuclear program takes more hits

Trump said in a social media post Thursday that ensuring Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon was a higher priority than soaring oil prices.

Hours later, Netanyahu announced Israeli attacks had killed a top Iranian nuclear scientist and hit others but gave few details.

Israel said earlier it struck a nuclear facility in Iran in recent days that it had destroyed with an airstrike in October 2024. Earlier this year, satellite photos raised concerns that Iran was working to restore the facility.

France says soldier killed in attack in Iraq

The US military said American forces have now struck more than 6,000 targets since the operation against Iran began, including more than 30 minelaying vessels.

On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said a French soldier was killed in an attack targeting Irbil in Iraq's northern Kurdish region.

Macron identified the soldier as Chief Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion of the 7th Battalion of Chasseurs Alpins from Varces.

"To his family, to his brothers in arms, I want to express all the affection and solidarity of the nation," Macron wrote on X. "Several of our soldiers have been wounded. France stands by their side and with their loved ones."

France earlier said six soldiers had been hurt in a drone strike in Irbil, where French troops are deployed as part of a multinational counterterrorism mission supporting Iraqi forces in their fight against Islamic State militants.

In the same region, British officials said several US personnel suffered minor injuries Wednesday when drone strikes hit a base in Irbil that houses both British and American troops.

And on Thursday in western Iraq, rescue efforts were underway after an American military refueling plane went down. US Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, said in a statement that two aircraft were involved, including one that landed safely, and that the cause was not related to friendly or hostile fire.

Israel targets heart of Beirut in fight with Hezbollah militants

Israeli warplanes pummeled Lebanon, targeting even the busy heart of Beirut, in response to missiles from Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters launched into Israel. One strike hit in a neighborhood that is close to Lebanon's parliament, United Nations offices and international embassies.

Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said forces were targeting a "facility affiliated with Hezbollah."

An Israeli strike hit in the vicinity of Lebanon's only public university, killing a professor and the director of the science faculty at the campus in Hadath, on the outskirts of Beirut's southern suburbs. There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Israeli strikes also killed 15 other people, including five children, in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. An AP photographer saw several buildings flattened in one village where rescue workers searched through the rubble.