THE NEW YORK TIMES: New wave of Israeli airstrikes battering Tehran

The Israeli military said it had launched “a broad-scale wave of strikes” on Iranian government infrastructure in the early hours of Saturday morning. Soon after, Iranian state media said Israeli strikes had hit the area near Mehrabad Airport in Tehran.

Two Tehran residents who live near the airport said in text messages that it appeared to have been badly damaged and that they could see what looked like commercial planes burning on the tarmac. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions about whether it had struck the airport.

The new wave of strikes in Tehran came hours after it emerged that US officials believe Russia has provided intelligence to Iran during the U.-Israeli war, including satellite imagery showing the locations of warships and military personnel. The involvement of Russia was the latest indication that the Middle East conflict was expanding.

The information sharing by Russia could complicate relations between Washington and Moscow, even though some of the officials played down its importance, pointing out Russia has long provided similar information to Iran and it was unclear if Tehran could act on it.

Bombing in Iran and Lebanon continued unabated Friday, as oil and gas prices surged upward again, in another sign of how the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, now nearly a week old, was having economic ramifications around the world.

President Donald Trump demanded “unconditional surrender” by Iran on Friday in a social media post, the most uncompromising goal he has set so far for the war, and one that could portend a much longer conflict in the Middle East.

On Friday afternoon, Israeli officials said their forces had destroyed an underground bunker that had been used by Iran’s supreme leader before he was killed last week.

The Israeli military also pounded the southern outskirts of Beirut and issued more evacuation warnings in Lebanon as it intensified its campaign there against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. About 300,000 people in Lebanon have fled their homes since the bombing began, the Norwegian Refugee Council estimated.

“We civilians are paying for the price of war,” said Mohamed Hjoula, 35, who had taken refuge with about 40 family members on Beirut’s waterfront promenade after leaving their homes.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launched a wave of drones and missiles at Israel, according to a statement from the force reported by IRNA, the country’s state news agency. Air-raid sirens went off in Tel Aviv, and the Israeli military said that it had detected missile launches from Iran, though there were no immediate reports of major damage.

Meanwhile, the price of the US domestic benchmark crude soared by almost $US10 a barrel in a single day, closing near $US91 on Friday, the highest price since 2023. The average price of unleaded gasoline in the United States reached $USW3.32 per gallon, up 11 per cent since the war began. The concurrent increases could be a serious shock to an already-slowing world economy.

In other Iran war news:

• Iranian state television reported attacks on a compound in Tehran where the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had lived, and Israel published video showing a series of airstrikes in roughly the same area, saying that its military had destroyed an underground bunker in the compound. The New York Times reviewed satellite imagery showing fresh damage to buildings at the site.
• As Iran’s retaliatory strikes hit US allies in the Persian Gulf, Qatar’s foreign ministry said Iran had carried out an attack on buildings in neighbouring Bahrain where members of the Qatari navy were, but reported no injuries. Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said that it had intercepted and destroyed three ballistic missiles launched toward a military complex south of the capital, Riyadh, while the United Arab Emirates said it had intercepted nine ballistic missiles and more than 100 drones on Friday.
• The State Department is battling accusations from diplomats and travellers who say the Trump administration endangered US citizens by beginning a war without adequate plans for helping Americans leave the Middle East.
• Hundreds of people have been killed in Iran since the start of the US-Israeli attacks, according to the Red Crescent Society, Iran’s main humanitarian relief organisation, including at least 175, many of them children, who died in the bombing of a girls’ elementary school. More than 200 people in Lebanon have been killed, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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