Iran and Israel traded strikes on Tuesday, as the Middle East war showed no sign of de-escalation despite US president Donald Trump signalling ‘very good talks’ to end the three-week conflict.
The war, sparked by US-Israel attacks on Iran that killed its supreme leader, has upended global energy markets, roiled the world economy, and spiralled throughout the region — even dragging in safe-haven Gulf nations.
Iran named a former Revolutionary Guards commander to succeed Ali Larijani as head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council after the veteran insider of the Islamic system was killed in an Israeli strike.
Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, whose appointment was confirmed by state TV, is a former deputy commander-in-chief of Iran’s ideological army who has also held senior posts in the interior and justice ministries.
Larijani was killed last week in an Israeli strike, ending the life of one of the most heavyweight non-clerical figures in Iranian politics who had been seen as a possible point-man in any eventual talks with the United States.
Iran launched another round of missiles towards Israel on Tuesday morning, state television announced, after earlier strikes hit a building in the north while a loud explosion rang out in Jerusalem.
‘Iran fires new wave of missiles at occupied territories,’ the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting posted on Telegram.
Moments later, it posted that the ‘Iranian missiles passed through several Israeli missile defences’.
Israel’s army said it had conducted a ‘large wave’ of airstrikes across several areas of Iran, which had earlier launched a ‘direct hit’ on a building in an upscale area of Tel Aviv.
AFP images showed rubble-strewn streets and the side of a three-storey building in Israel’s commercial hub in ruins, as first responders scrambled to assist at least four people lightly injured at four different locations.
According to several Israeli media outlets, police believe the damage was caused by a cluster munition missile equipped with three to four warheads, each carrying around 100 kilograms of explosives.
Earlier, Iranian media reported US-Israeli warplanes had struck two gas facilities and a pipeline, hours after Trump stepped back from his threat to attack energy sites, citing negotiations to end the war.
Trump said his administration was speaking with an unidentified ‘top person’, warning if talks failed in the next five days ‘we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out’.
But Tehran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, reportedly involved in talks, said ‘no negotiations’ were underway, accusing Trump of seeking ‘to manipulate the financial and oil markets.’
Stock markets soared and oil prices saw brief respite after Trump’s abrupt about-turn that came ahead of a deadline he had set to reopen the Strait of Hormuz shipping lane or see the US ‘obliterate’ Iran’s power plants.
US media outlet Axios reported US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner may meet an Iranian delegation for talks in Pakistan as soon as this week, with vice president JD Vance possibly joining.
China’s top diplomat told his Iranian counterpart in a phone call that ‘talking is always better than to keep fighting’ after Tehran denied Trump’s claim that negotiations had taken place.
‘It is hoped that all parties can seize every opportunity and window for peace and start the peace talks process as quickly as possible,’ Wang Yi told Abbas Araghchi, according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement.
Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said Islamabad was prepared to host negotiations to stop the US-Israeli war with Iran, after mounting speculation it could act as a mediator.
‘Pakistan welcomes and fully supports on-going efforts to pursue dialogue to end the WAR in Middle East, in the interest of peace and stability in the region and beyond,’ he wrote on X.
‘Subject to concurrence by the US and Iran, Pakistan stands ready and honoured to be the host to facilitate meaningful and conclusive talks for a comprehensive settlement of the on-going conflict.’
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi said that Trump had called him to discuss the Middle East war — and the importance of the Strait of Hormuz.
Modi said it was a ‘useful exchange of views’, adding that India ‘supports de-escalation and restoration of peace at the earliest’, he wrote on social media.
Traditional mediator Qatar said Tuesday it ‘supports all diplomatic efforts’ to end the war.
Israel pounded Beirut’s southern suburbs throughout the night, while a strike on Bshamoun, south of the capital, killed two people on Tuesday, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
‘There’s nothing left. It’s all burned or destroyed... No walls, the windows are gone, the facade is gone, all my hard work has been lost,’ said Abbas Qassem, 55 from Bshamoun, weeping at the damage to his flat.
In Beirut, AFP images showed smoke billowing from gutted buildings, as rescuers picked through the rubble and twisted metal.
Strikes also targeted several service stations linked to Iran-backed Hezbollah, which Israel has vowed to dismantle.
Israel’s attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 1,000 people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, and displaced more than a million others.
The war has killed at least 3,230 Iranians, including 1,406 civilians, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. AFP cannot access strike sites nor independently verify tolls in Iran.
German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke on Tuesday of a ‘deep rift’ with traditional ally the United States and said the US-Israeli war on Iran was a ‘breach of international law’.
In unusually strong comments, the German head of state said that just as there was no going back from Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, ‘there will be no going back to before January 20, 2025’, when Trump entered the White House for a second time.
Britain is sending short-range air defence systems to the Gulf to help counter Iranian missile attacks, prime minister Keir Starmer said Monday.
‘We’re deploying short range air defence systems to Bahrain at speed,’ Starmer told a parliamentary committee, adding the UK was ‘doing the same with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia’.
Underscoring the war’s broad impact, Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region accused Iran of killing six of its fighters in the first deadly attack on the regional security forces since the start of hostilities.
And Qatar said the war had caused the ‘breakdown of the security system in the Gulf region.’
Iran’s neighbours had breathed a sigh of relief after Trump stepped back from an earlier threat to target the country’s power infrastructure.
Tehran had vowed to deploy naval mines and strike power and water infrastructure across the region in retaliation, threatening to escalate an energy crisis of already historic proportions.
‘Trump has been a master of sudden pivots and switches. So it’s sometimes hard to know if there is a strategy or if it’s just always improvisation,’ said Garret Martin, a professor of international relations at American University in Washington.
Since the war erupted, Tehran has retaliated by throttling traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for one-fifth of global crude, and by hitting Gulf energy sites and US embassies as well as targets in Israel.
Oil prices, which had tumbled after Trump’s comments, rebounded slightly in Tuesday trade, with Brent back above $100 a barrel.
Sri Lanka ordered street lights, neon signs and billboard lighting to be switched off from Tuesday as part of measures to cut energy consumption by 25 per cent to tackle supply shortages.
Government spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa said all state institutions had been asked to reduce the use of air conditioning as the Middle East war entered its fourth week, driving up oil and gas prices.
Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos declared a state of ‘national energy emergency’ on Tuesday, citing risks to the domestic fuel supply and energy stability created by the Middle East war.
The state of emergency was declared just hours after the country’s energy secretary said the Philippines planned to boost the output of its coal-fired power plants to keep electricity costs down as the war wreaks havoc with gas shipments.
