Iran’s top security official has dismissed US President Donald Trump’s threats after he vowed to strike Iran “twenty times harder” if it continues to threaten the strategic Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the US-Israeli attacks.
The strikes have killed at least 1,332 civilians across Iran since Washington and West Jerusalem began their attack more than a week ago, the Iranian Red Crescent has reported.
Iranian National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani branded Trump’s threats “empty,” writing on Telegram: “Even those greater than you could not eliminate the Iranian nation. Be careful not to be eliminated!”
A new wave of US-Israeli strikes has killed at least 40 people in Tehran, bringing the number of Iranian civilians killed by the US-Israeli war to over 1,300.
Trump has also strongly criticized Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who was elected as Iran’s supreme leader following the killing of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has threatened to assassinate anyone who takes the post.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who held a phone call with Trump on Monday, said the escalating conflict risks entirely choking off the region’s oil exports through the now “de-facto closed” Strait of Hormuz. RT has assessed the impact of $100 oil, and the subsequent rise in Urals oil, for Russia.
• The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has reportedly promised full freedom of passage to ships from any Arab or European country that expels US and Israeli ambassadors.
• The price of Russian Urals oil has surged to a premium over Brent, which which peaked at over $120 on Monday. Trump has dismissed the spike as “a very small price to pay” for the war against Iran.
• As of Tuesday, the US-Israeli attacks have killed over 1,300 Iranian civilians, according to official data from Iran.
• The deadliest attack yet was a strike on a girls’ school in Minab in southern Iran that killed 168 children. Multiple media outlets have concluded from available footage that the school was hit by a US Tomahawk missile. Trump has dismissed the reports, insisting that Tehran is to blame.
• The US-Israeli strikes on oil facilities near Tehran have produced a “black rain” of toxic oil and soot, with residents reporting breathing difficulties. Online images and footage show thick smog over the capital, as Iran’s Red Crescent Society warns that the rain could be “highly dangerous and acidic.”
• At least 13 Israelis have been killed in the crossfire so far. Iran’s retaliatory strikes on US bases in the region have killed at least four in the UAE, one in Bahrain, six in Kuwait, and two in Saudi Arabia.Follow our live coverage below for continuous updates.
You can also read our previous updates here and here.
10 March 2026
Israel has taken out most of the central assets of Iran’s internal security forces and the IRGC’s Basij paramilitary militia in Ilam Province, the IDF has claimed.
The targets included the regional headquarters of the Islamic Republic’s internal security forces and its central intelligence unit, as well as several senior military officials, the IDF said in a statement.
No vessels associated with the US or Israel have “the right to pass through the Strait of Hormuz,” the commander of the IRGC Navy, Alireza Tangsiri, has warned.
“If you have any doubt, come closer and test it,” he posted on X.
Iran’s Press TV broadcaster has published footage of an unexploded 2,000 pound bomb being removed from a residential building in Koohdasht, Iran.
No power in history has succeeded in destroying the 6,000-year-old civilization that Iran is heir to, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said.
“Anyone who entertains the illusion of destroying Iran knows nothing of history,” he wrote on X.
“Aggressors have come and gone; Iran has endured.”
Trump does not have an exit strategy for the Iran conflict, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly told reporters at the US Capitol, according to AP.
“Clearly they do not have a strategic goal,” he reportedly said. “They didn’t have a plan. They have no timeline. And because of that they have no exit strategy.”
Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf has warned the US and Israel against attacking civilian infrastructure, threatening retaliation.
“No evil goes unanswered, we today decree the rule of ‘an eye for an eye’, without exception,” he wrote on X.
“If they start a war on infrastructure, we will undoubtedly target infrastructure.”
The US had spent $5.6 billion in munitions in the first two days of its attacks on Iran, the Pentagon has estimated in a report to Congress, according to CNN.
However, the enormous figure does not include other war-related expenses, AP has reported, citing an anonymous source familiar with the assessment.
The IRGC has claimed to have struck US and Israeli facilities across the Middle East in its latest drone and missile salvo.
The US naval base in Bahrain and an air base in the UAE were struck by a combined drone and missile attack, the corps said in a statement cited by the Fars news agency.
Israel’s Ramat David air base and “hidden missile launchers” east of Tel Aviv were also hit by missiles, the statement added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian about the US-Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic in the second phone call this week, the Kremlin has announced.
“The Russian President reaffirmed his principled position in favor of a swift de-escalation of the conflict and its resolution through political means,” the Kremlin said. Pezeshkian thanked Moscow for its support, especially regarding deliveries of humanitarian aid to Iran, the statement said.
Medical personnel have been dispatched to Beit Shemesh following reports of an Iranian ballistic missile strike, Israel’s emergency service Magen David Adom has said.
US and Israeli strikes have to date damaged nearly 20,000 civilian buildings across Iran, the Islamic Republic’s Red Crescent Society has said.
This includes 16,191 residential units, 3,384 commercial units, 77 pharmaceutical and medical centers, and at least 69 schools, the organization’s chief Pir-Hossein Koulivand has said in a statement cited by PressTV.
Israel has “unlawfully” used white phosphorous munitions in its strikes on southern Lebanon, Human Rights Watch has claimed.
“The Israeli military’s unlawful use of white phosphorus over residential areas is extremely alarming and will have dire consequences for civilians,” the watchdog’s Lebanon researcher Ramzi Kaiss has said. “The incendiary effects of white phosphorus can cause death or cruel injuries that result in lifelong suffering.”
The humanitarian situation in Lebanon has deteriorated since the escalation of Israeli attacks on the country earlier this month, the UN Refugee Agency’s representative in Lebanon, Karolina Billing, has said.
Around 100,000 Lebanese civilians have been displaced internally following Israeli evacuation orders in southern Beirut, and the 500 collective centers opened for them have been struggling to cope, she added.
“The humanitarian needs are really immense at the moment and they’re really growing by the minute,” Billings noted.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has vowed to further escalate attacks on the Islamic Republic.
“Today will be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran,” he said at a Pentagon briefing. “The most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes, intelligence.”
General Dan Caine, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has claimed that American forces had destroyed 50 Iranian naval ships, some of which had been laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz.
UAE air defenses have destroyed eight ballistic missiles and 26 drones, the Defense Ministry has said, adding that nine drones fell on the country’s territory.
It added that since the start of the escalation, six people have been killed and 122 injured in Iranian strikes.
Russia is the “only winner” in the Middle East conflict, European Council President Antonio Costa has said, arguing that Moscow “gains new resources to finance its war against Ukraine as energy prices rise” and “profits from the diversion of military capabilities that could otherwise have been sent to support Ukraine.”
Iranian intelligence has claimed that Tehran destroyed half of the US and Israeli air defense radars, adding, as cited by Fars, that this “led the Americans to move defense equipment from East Asia to the region.”
It also suggested that the US and Israel had spent up to 75% of their ammunition due to continuous Iranian strikes, with new shipments still in transit.
Denmark’s Supreme Court has opened a hearing on a lawsuit filed by humanitarian organizations demanding a halt in arms exports to Israel.
The lawsuit, which was dismissed by a lower court last year, claims that Denmark is violating international law by selling Israel parts for F-35 fighter jets amid allegations that the Jewish state has orchestrated a “genocide” in Gaza.
Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official, has dismissed Trump’s threats of new strikes as “empty.” “Even those greater than you could not eliminate the Iranian nation. Be careful not to be eliminated!” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
Trump has told Fox News that he could be willing to hold talks with Iran. At the same time, he reiterated his criticism of Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, saying, “I don’t believe he can live in peace.”
The RT bureau in Tehran has reported multiple explosions in the eastern part of the city, as well as the sound of a jet buzzing overhead. Footage from the scene shows two plumes of smoke rising over the Iranian capital.
The New York Times has compared public support for US foreign military interventions at the initial stages of the conflict since World War II, with the Iran war being at the very bottom at 41%.
The analysis omits polling from early in the Vietnam War, but Statista figures suggest that in 1965, 59% of Americans thought that the US putting boots on the ground was “not a mistake.”
More than 80,000 Syrians have crossed from Lebanon into Syria since the start of the Middle East conflict, the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the country, Celine Schmitt, has told SANA news agency.
Iranian media outlets have shared footage of missile strikes targeting the US Al Harir base in Iraq. The IRGC earlier said the attack involved five missiles.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei has blasted EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who stated that the Iranian people “deserve freedom [and] dignity… even if we know this will be fraught with danger and instability during and after the war.”
“Please spare the hypocrisy,” Baghaei said, accusing her of making her career on “standing on the wrong side of history – green-lighting occupation, genocide, and atrocities.”
According to the spokesman, von der Leyen is “laundering US/Israeli crime of aggression and war crimes against Iranians.”
“Where was your voice when more than 165 innocent IRANIAN little angels were massacred in the city of Minab?” he said.
Senior EU officials have been conspicuously silent on the strike on a girls’ school, which US media outlets suggest was hit by a US Tomahawk missile.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has reiterated that Moscow is ready to provide assistance in settling the Middle East conflict.
He added that even before the current escalation, President Vladimir Putin had proposed “various variants of our mediation and our services that could have contributed to defusing tensions.”
Some of Trump’s aides are urging him to prepare an “Iran exit ramp” to stop the hostilities that have sent ripples through the oil markets and carry the risk of a major domestic political backlash, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing sources.
Gulf oil giants are cutting production as the Strait of Hormuz remains de facto closed, Bloomberg has reported, citing sources. Previous media reports suggested that fuel storages in the region are filling fast while the options for transportation grow thin.
Sources told Bloomberg that Saudi Arabia had lowered output by 2 million to 2.5 million barrels a day, while the UAE reduced production by 500,000 to 800,000 barrels a day. Kuwait is said to have cut its output by about half a million barrels a day, and Iraq by about 2.9 million a day.
RT’s Steve Sweeney is reporting from the Lebanese village of Bir al Garbieh, where locals are preparing to bury 17 people killed in Israeli strikes.
“Even in death, there is no respite, fighter jets and drones overhead. There is an outpouring of grief, naturally, but there is also a sense of anger and defiance,” he said.
Israeli strikes on Lebanon have killed 486 people and injured 1,313 since the start of the conflict, the Lebanese Health Ministry has said.
Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, the world’s top oil exporter and fourth-largest company, has sounded the alarm over potential “catastrophic consequences” caused by disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.
The Pentagon spent $5.6 billion worth of munitions during the first two days of the war with Iran, the Washington Post reports, citing sources, adding that the figures underscore concerns of the conflict chipping away at combat readiness.
The previous large-scale US military involvement in the Middle East – the invasion of Iraq in 2003 – cost an estimated $3 trillion.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, held a phone call on Monday, following reports of an Iranian missile falling in Türkiye. According to Tehran’s readout of the call, Pezeshkian said the reports are aimed at “creating discord” between Iran and the “friendly and brotherly country of Türkiye.”
“Iran has always declared its readiness to reduce tension in the region, provided that the airspace, land, and waters of our neighbors are not used to attack the people of Iran,” the statement read.
The Turkish readout of the call stated that Erdogan does not approve of “unlawful interventions” against Iran or “Iran’s targeting of the brotherly countries in the region,” adding that the strikes benefit no one.
Israeli hospitals have taken a total of 2,339 injured people since the start of the conflict, the Health Ministry has said, adding that 95 are now undergoing treatment.
Trump has not ruled out the prospect of the US seizing Iranian oil. Speaking to NBC News, the US president declined to answer a question on the matter, but noted that “certainly people have talked about it.”
The Iranian Red Crescent has released a video of first responders extricating victims of the strike on Resalat Square in Tehran.
US-Israeli strikes have damaged another Iranian school in Khomein, central Iran, Fars reports, adding that several surrounding residential buildings were also affected. The outlet did not report any casualties.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has told PBS News that talks with the US on settling the conflict may be off the table. He also suggested that disruptions in the oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz are not Iran’s fault.
“The transportation of oil has been slowed down or stopped not because of us, because of the attacks and aggression made by Israelis and Americans against us,” he said. “They have made the whole region insecure.”
Fars news agency has released a clip purporting to show first responders pulling a dead one-year-old girl from the rubble in Tehran.
A US-Israeli attack has hit residential blocks in Resalat Square in Tehran, killing at least 40 people, Tasnim and Al Jazeera have reported. According to Tasnim, Iranian rescue forces are continuing to search the area.