Middle East crisis live: Israel launches fresh attacks on Tehran and Beirut | US-Israel war on Iran

Israel struck a headquarters belonging to the Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya, an ally of Hamas and Hezbollah, in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on Tuesday, state media reported.

“The Israeli enemy carried out an air raid a short while ago, targeting a headquarters of the Jamaa Islamiya” in the coastal city, state media said.

The group had previously been the target of Israeli strikes in Lebanon after claiming responsibility for rocket launches towards Israel during the war between Israel and Hezbollah that began in October 2023.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday offered US allies in the Middle East a swap of some of their air defence missiles in exchange for Kyiv’s vaunted drone interceptors, to better protect them from Iranian drone attacks.

The Israeli and US strikes on Iran have triggered retaliatory Iranian strikes – including with drones – across the region.

Russia has been using Iranian-designed Shahed drones throughout its four-year invasion of Ukraine, and Kyiv has developed a range of cheap and effective drone interceptors – aerial craft designed to hit incoming attack drones mid-air – that it says are world-leading, AFP reported.

At the same time, Ukraine is struggling with a shortage of PAC-3 air defence missiles – expensive ammunition fired at incoming Russian missiles to defend Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure.

“The number one issue is how to protect their skies. We ourselves live with this question,” Zelenskyy said.

“Let’s speak about weapons that we’re short of: PAC-3 missiles – if they give them to us, we will give them interceptors,” he added.

One of Iran’s two airports, Mehrabad, which mainly handles domestic flights, was targeted on Tuesday by strikes.

The Mehr news agency published photos showing a cloud of grey smoke rising into the sky behind what appeared to be a runway.

“The American-Zionist terrorists attacked the area around the Mehrabad airport” in the capital’s west, it said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said Turkey is making “intense” diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in the Middle East.

“Attacks on Iran, and missile and kamikaze drone attacks (by Iran) on neighbouring countries in the Gulf have fuelled instability,” he said in a televised address.

“Through peace-oriented diplomacy, we are making intense efforts to resolve issues at the negotiating table,” he added.

Earlier, foreign minister Hakan Fidan met Washington’s Syria envoy Tom Barrack, ministry sources said.

He also spoke with his UK counterpart Yvette Cooper to discuss “the current security environment in the region”, evaluating “in detail” the “diplomatic efforts that could be undertaken to end the hostilities and establish stability”.

The son of Iran’s last shah Reza Pahlavi, who has positioned himself as an alternative if the Islamic republic falls, called on Tuesday for national unity from Iranian ethnic minorities as war engulfed the Middle East.

Iran’s population of more than 85 million is ethnically diverse, with large Azeri, Lur, Kurdish, Arab, Baloch and Turkmen minorities, AFP reports.

The Islamic republic has long been accused of discriminating against ethnic minorities, with many groups supporting successive waves of anti-government protests in the country and some – particularly the Kurds and Balochis – waging insurgencies seeking self-determination.

Pahlavi in an X post looked to assure ethnic minorities they would not be discriminated against if he were leading the country, and appeared to urge them not to use the current conflict to press for separation.

“We stand at the threshold of this regime’s fall. Yet we must remain vigilant and prepared, and deny opportunistic forces – those who have long cast covetous eyes on Iran’s soil – the chance to exploit this moment,” he said.

“You are an inseparable part of Iran’s historical and cultural fabric… I am confident that you will remain steadfast in this covenant,” he added.

“I firmly believe that through national unity and shared resolve, a bright future awaits you and every Iranian.”

Hezbollah said it targeted an Israeli tank on the edge of a Lebanese border village on Tuesday, hours after Israel’s defence minister ordered his troops to take control of more strategic positions inside Lebanon.

In a statement, the pro-Iran armed group said: “In response to the criminal Israeli aggression… and after monitoring movements by the Israeli enemy army in Tel Nahas on the outskirts of Kfar Kila, our fighters targeted a Merkava tank with appropriate weapons and scored a direct hit.”

Earlier on Tuesday, a Lebanese army source told AFP Israel was undertaking a ground incursion “from Kfar Kila and the Khiam plains” along the Lebanon-Israel border.

IDF claims to have struck building housing Iran’s Assembly of Experts – report

Israel’s military said Tuesday its air force had struck industrial sites “throughout Iran” that were used to produce weapons including ballistic missiles, on the fourth day of a joint US-Israel attack on the Islamic republic.

“During strikes conducted throughout Iran, the IDF (military) targeted industrial sites used by the Iranian regime to produce weapons, particularly ballistic missiles,” the military said in a statement.

While most flights remain grounded in the Middle East because of the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran, some travellers were able to leave and return to their homes after several days in limbo.

Here are some images of the region that are coming out over the wires:

IDF announces more strikes on Tehran

Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency services said they were treating seven people with injuries following the latest salvo of missiles fired from Iran.

“At three scenes in central Israel, MDA paramedics and EMTs are providing medical treatment to 7 injured people, including: a woman around 40 years old in moderate condition with blast injuries, and 6 additional casualties in mild condition suffering from glass shrapnel and blast-related injuries,” an MDA statement said.

Israeli police said officers were operating at several sites in the central and Tel Aviv districts where shrapnel had fallen.

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva has cast doubt on the prospect of negotiations with the United States on Tuesday, three days after the US and Israel launched join strikes on the country.

“For the time being we are very doubtful about the usefulness of negotiation,” Ali Bahreini, ambassador of the Iranian mission to the UN in Geneva, told reporters.