Here’s What Happened in the War in the Middle East on Thursday

The Israeli military pummeled the capitals of Iran and Lebanon with airstrikes as it kept on the offense on Thursday, encroaching further into Beirut and crystallizing fears among Lebanese that the city was no longer safe.

As Israeli strikes continued on the 13th day of the war, Iran tried to assert its dominance over the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea and transports a fifth of global oil supplies.

President Trump said that the war with Iran was “moving along very rapidly,” but did not offer details on when and how it would end, keeping with a pattern of conflicting messages on the war. He shrugged off soaring oil prices over concerns about the disruption in shipping through the strait, arguing that preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons was more important.

“We are doing what has to be done,” he said.

Here’s what else happened on Thursday:

Death toll: At least 1,940 people have been killed since the start of the war, most in Iran. More than 1,348 civilians there had been killed, Iran’s representative to the United Nations, Amir Saeed Iravani, told the Security Council on Wednesday. Iran has offered no updates to the death toll in the country since then. Up to 3.2 million people are now displaced inside the country, according to preliminary assessments by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

In Lebanon, officials said that more than 700 people had been killed — including 70 on Thursday — and over 1,500 others injured. More than 800,000 people there have been displaced, including over 200,000 children. Roughly one in 10 children in the country was among the displaced, according to the international charity War Child.
Iran: The Israeli military said it had launched a “large scale” wave of airstrikes on Tehran, the Iranian capital, showing no signs of easing its assault on the city. Among the targets that were hit was a compound in the city used to develop “critical capabilities” for nuclear weapons, the Israeli military said.

Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new supreme leader, delivered a forceful message in his first public statement since being chosen to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei, who was killed during U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on the first day of the war. He directed the Iranian military to continue blocking the Strait of Hormuz.

“We will not refrain from avenging the blood of your martyrs,” Ayatollah Khamenei said, according to text of the statement published by Iranian state media.

Lebanon: The Israeli military bombarded central Beirut, the Lebanese capital, with a new wave of airstrikes just a few hundred meters from the Lebanese government’s headquarters, an area near hip bars, high-end restaurants and high schools. It said it was targeting infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed armed group in Lebanon.

One of the Israeli strikes hit the campus of Lebanese University — the country’s main public university — and killed the director of the Faculty of Sciences, Dr. Hussein Bazzi, along with Dr. Murtada Srour, a professor there, according to Lebanon’s state-run news agency.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam gave a televised speech Thursday evening, shortly after strikes hit the Lebanese capital. “We cannot, under any circumstances, accept that Lebanon once again becomes an open arena for the wars of others,” he said, referring to the country’s history of being dragged into wars by Hezbollah against Israel.

The strikes in Beirut crystallized fears that the corners of the city that were once considered safe are no longer off limits as the Israeli military pushed its forces deeper into the country. As the capital was attacked, Israeli strikes continued to pummel the Dahiya, a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Persian Gulf: Two oil tankers were attacked off the coast of Iraq in the Persian Gulf early Thursday, killing at least one person. The attacks prompted Iraqi authorities to suspend all oil terminal operations. At least 37 crew members were rescued, officials said.

Iran claimed responsibility for attacking one of the vessels, which flew the flag of the Marshall Islands and was owned by an American company, according to senior Iraqi officials. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said in a statement reported by state media that the ship had “disobeyed and ignored” warnings.
Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel took questions from reporters for the first time since the war with Iran began, issuing threats to Iran’s new supreme leader and to Hezbollah.

He appeared to acknowledge, however, that Israeli attacks may not be enough to overthrow the Iranian regime. “We are creating the optimal conditions for the overthrow of the regime, but I can’t say for certain that the Iranian people would topple it,” he said. “A regime is toppled from within.”