Iran named Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s slain supreme leader, as his father’s successor, according to a statement from top clerics published on state media early Monday local time. As the U.S.-Israeli war continued, the Pentagon announced that a seventh U.S. service member had died after sustaining injuries last week from an Iranian strike on a Saudi military base where American troops were stationed.
Here’s what else happened on Sunday.
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DEATH TOLL: At least 1,759 people have been killed since the start of the war, largely in Iran. The country’s ambassador to the U.N. said on Friday that at least 1,332 civilians, including scores of children, had been killed in U.S. and Israeli attacks.
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IRAN: Israeli attacks on fuel depots outside Tehran turned the sky above the city black in an apocalyptic scene. Thick smoke from immense oil fires — known to release dangerous chemicals and pollutants — hung over the city and left the streets largely empty, residents said.
Israeli and U.S. attacks also continued elsewhere in the country. The U.S. military warned civilians to stay home, suggesting that it could strike densely populated areas that it said Iranian forces were using to conduct military operations.
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LEBANON: Israel continued its attacks on Lebanon and hit a hotel in central Beirut on Sunday, killing at least four people, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. The overall death toll from Israeli attacks in the country has risen to 394 people, including 83 children and nine medical professionals, Lebanon’s health minister said. Four hospitals have been damaged, and several others are out of service because of threats, he added.
In the eastern Lebanese village of Nabi Sheet, residents gathered on Sunday to bury those killed during fierce ground fighting between Israeli forces and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
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PERSIAN GULF: The State Department ordered American diplomats in Saudi Arabia to leave, an indication of growing risk in the region, current and former U.S. officials said.
The kingdom announced its first two civilian deaths since the war began, saying that an Indian national and a Bangladeshi national were killed and 12 other Bangladeshi residents were injured when a “military projectile” fell on their residence in the Al Kharj region, which is home to a Saudi air base used by the U.S. military. Foreign nationals, many of them migrant workers, have been heavily hit by Iranian attacks in Gulf countries.
Bahrain said that an Iranian drone had damaged a water desalination plant, an essential lifeline in the Gulf. Iran’s foreign minister said that the strike came after the United States had hit a desalination plant in Iran, adding that with the strike the United States had set the precedent for attacks on infrastructure. A spokesperson for the U.S. Central Command denied responsibility for the strike.
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ISRAEL: The Israeli military said that two of its soldiers had been killed in southern Lebanon, the first military deaths it has announced since the United States and Israel began the war last weekend. Israeli officials did not provide further details on the circumstances of their deaths.
Anushka Patil is a Times reporter covering breaking and developing news around the world.
The post Here’s What Happened in the Conflict on Sunday appeared first on New York Times.
