Heated exchanges between Iran and the United States continued unabated over the weekend, as Iranian missiles rained down on Gulf states and Israel attacked critical infrastructure in Tehran.
American President Donald Trump » warned: “Today, Iran will be hit very hard! and that of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu promised that “many surprises” awaited us for the next phase of the week-long conflict. A senior Iranian official responded: “We do not approve of war, but the aggressors must be punished.” »
Airstrikes against Iran continued Saturday, a week after the United States and Israel launched their joint campaign to rid Tehran of its nuclear and missile capabilities and promote regime change.
US forces struck more than 3,000 targets in the first week of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury, US Central Command said in an X post. The Israel Defense Forces said on Saturday job on
Flames rise from an oil storage facility south of the capital Tehran as strikes hit the city during the US-Israeli military campaign in Iran, Saturday March 7, 2026.
Vahid Salemi | AP photo
One of the attacks hit an oil facility in southern Tehran, Iranian state media confirmed. This appears to be the first time a civilian industrial facility has been targeted during the war, according to the Associated Press. State media blamed “an attack by the United States and the Zionist regime” on the facility that supplies the capital and neighboring northern provinces.
Meanwhile, Tehran’s energy-rich neighbors in the Gulf said they had intercepted more Iranian missiles and drones heading toward their airspace.
Earlier on Saturday, Iran announced it had struck a US air base in the United Arab Emirates, shortly after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his country would stop attacking Gulf countries. Iranian news agency Tasnim said The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ navy drone unit attacked Al Dhafra Air Base, south of Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The UAE Ministry of Defense said in a statement job on X, it detected 121 unmanned aerial vehicles on Saturday and intercepted 119 of them, while two fell on the territory of the United Arab Emirates. The UAE Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
Ali Larijani, a senior Iranian security official, said that “we do not approve of war, but the aggressors should be punished.” He also called for unity among Iranian officials.
Larijani’s statement followed an apologetic statement from Pezeshkian on Saturday, in which he said his country did not intend to attack others.
“I apologize to neighboring countries,” Pezeshkian said. “We have no intention of invading other countries. Let us put aside all the disagreements, concerns and resentments we have towards each other. Today, let us defend our own soil to bring Iran out of this crisis with dignity.”
Addressing demands for surrender, Pezeshkian, via the Iranian National News Agency’s Telegram social media channel, said Saturday that the United States can “take its dreams to the grave; we will not surrender unconditionally.” His comments come after Trump demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender” on Friday.
Trump followed through on his demands Saturday morning by taunting Iran with a job on its Truth Social account: “Iran, which is beaten to HELL, apologized and surrendered to its neighbors in the Middle East, and promised that it would not shoot at them again. Today, Iran will be hit very hard!”
Pezeshkian’s apology also sparked a backlash from hardliners in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the religious elite. In one of Pezeshkian’s most outspoken criticisms, radical cleric and lawmaker Hamid Rasai addressed the president on social media, saying, “Your stance was unprofessional, weak and unacceptable.”
The Gulf region under threatGulf states are launching air defenses to repel Iranian attacks, many of which take the form of one-way drones, such as the low-cost Shaheds.
Iran has targeted several air defense and radar systems in the Middle East – in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia – in retaliation for US and Israeli attacks. The Wall Street Journal reportedciting U.S. officials, military analysts and commercially available satellite imagery.
The Saudi Defense Ministry said it intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles launched toward Prince Sultan Air Base, an active U.S. Air Force air expeditionary base in Saudi Arabia. The country intercepted nine of the ten Iranian drones launched against it on Friday.
Saudi Arabia has told Iranian officials that while it favors a diplomatic settlement to the Iran-US conflict, continued attacks on the kingdom and its energy sector could push Riyadh to respond in kind. sources told Reuters. The message was delivered before Pezeshkian apologized, Reuters reported.
Elsewhere, Dubai, the United Arab Emirates’ largest city, issued an alert calling on its residents to immediately take shelter in secure buildings and stay away from windows, doors and open spaces.
In Dubai, several explosions were heard on Saturday morning and the government announced that it had activated air defenses. Passengers waiting for their flights at Dubai International Airport were taken into train tunnels.
The fighting has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 290 in Lebanon and 11 in Israel, according to officials in those countries. Six American soldiers were killed.
Strait of Hormuz transit slows to flowAt the same time, traffic is almost non-existent in the Strait of Hormuz, with oil tankers still fearing their ships could be caught in the crossfire.
Data from the Maritime Information Center revealed that the number of ships transiting the strait each day has fallen to single digits. Only four commercial transits were confirmed in the past 24 hours, the data showed.
Iran’s Larijani said that although Iran has not closed the Strait of Hormuz, it is effectively closed because of the war.
Kuwait, OPEC’s fifth-largest oil producer, said it was cutting oil production due to “Iranian threats to the safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Intensifying war-caused disruptions to global fuel supplies sent the price of U.S. crude oil soaring, posting its biggest weekly gain in futures trading history. WE West Texas Intermediate crude climbed 35.63% for the biggest weekly gain in the history of futures contracts since 1983. World reference Brent crude jumped about 28% for its biggest weekly gain since April 2020.
The price of American crude has increased by almost 60% since the start of this year.
Call to appoint a new supreme leaderTwo influential Iranian clerics have called for the rapid selection of a new supreme leader, Iranian state media reported.
One of the clerics, Naser Makarem Shirazi, a grand ayatollah who enjoys a wide following for his religious rulings, said an appointment was needed quickly to “help better organize the country’s affairs,” state media reported.
These calls suggest that at least some members of the religious establishment are uncomfortable with the idea of leaving a three-man council in charge – even temporarily – under constitutional rules – after the assassination of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Trump has argued that the United States should play a role in choosing the new leader, a demand that Iran has rejected.
—CNBC Emma GrahamSpencer Kimball, Terri Cullen, Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report
