US-Iran war live updates: Israel bombards Beirut and Tehran as US says strikes on Iran to ‘surge dramatically’

That’s a wrap for another day of our rolling coverge as the war in the Middle East continues.

Thanks for following along as we brought you live updates of the events as they happened.

With updates rapidly developing over the past week, here’s a rundown of the main events that have happened in the war so far.

Saturday February 28: At 06:30 GMT, Israel launched strikes on Iran. Within an hour, US President Donald Trump confirmed his country’s involvement in an eight-minute video posted to his Truth Social platform. By late Saturday, Trump confirmed that the strikes had killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other top officials.

Sunday February 1: Iran launched huge retaliatory attacks on Israel and US allies in the Gulf. Strikes targeted the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman.

Monday February 2: The Israeli operation expanded to Lebanon, with the IDF saying it was targeting Hezbollah, an Iran-backed group. The economic cost of the war also became apparent — oil prices surged while airline stocks sharply fell amid fears of a prolonged regional conflict.

Tuesday February 3: Reports from inside Iran painted an increasingly dire picture, with journalists describing extensive destruction across Tehran, saying “every part” of the capital had been hit during the bombardment

Wenesday February 4: The conflict moved to the seas. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that American forces had sunk an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean as hostilities widened beyond air operations.

Thursday February 5: The crisis broadened further when Azerbaijan said two Iranian drones had crossed into its territory, hitting sites including an airport — a striking sign that the war was spilling into new parts of the region.

Friday February 6: Residents in Tehran say that have experienced the “worst night” of Israeli strikes so far – with the US saying attacks are set to intensify.

The Israel Defense Force has declared Iran’s “terror regime” is a problem for the “entire region.”

“The Iranian regime’s terror network goes far beyond Israel,” The IDF wrote on X.

This isn’t just Israel’s problem, it’s the entire region’s problem.”

Oil production has been halted at a US oil field in Iraqi Kurdistan after an attack there, BBC reports.

An update shared on X by the Kurdistan regional government says the oil field, which is operated by US firm HKN Energy and is in the Dohuk province, was attacked “by outlaw groups in Iraq.”

This has resulted “material damage to the field and the suspension of production there.”

An underground bunker that was planned to be used by the former supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been destroyed following an attack involving 50 Israeli fighter jets, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

It says Khamenei was “eliminated” before he could use the bunker - which was intended to function as the supreme leader’s “secure emergency command centre.”

The IDF says the bunker “spanned multiple streets” in the centre of Tehran and “continued to be used by senior Iranian regime officials.”

See the photos of the destruction in Tehran in the wake of this weeks strikes by the US and Israel.

An Israeli strike in the southern coastal city of Sidon in Lebanon killed five people and wounded seven others, Lebanon’s health ministry says.

There was no immediate statement from the Israeli military.

AP reported that as of Thursday evening, 123 people had been killed in Lebanon and 683 wounded in the resurgence of hostilities between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. It’s not clear how many were civilians.

Maersk, one of the world’s biggest container shipping groups, says it has temporarily suspended its FM1 service connecting the Far East to the Middle East, as well as the ME11 service linking the Middle East to Europe, following a “risk assessment and operational review.”

“This decision has been taken as a precautionary measure to ensure the safety of our personnel and vessels while minimising operational disruption across our wider network,” the Danish company said in a statement.

⁠Qatar’s ⁠energy minister Saad al-Kaabi ⁠says that ⁠even if the war ended ‌immediately, it would take Qatar “weeks to months” to return ⁠to a ⁠normal cycle of deliveries.

In an interview with the ⁠Financial Times, he said the war could “bring down the economies of the world”, predicting that all Gulf energy exporters would shut down production within weeks and drive oil to $150 a barrel.

Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, says that “the world urgently needs to see steps to contain and extinguish this blaze.”

“Instead we are only seeing more inflammatory, bellicose rhetoric, more bombings, more destruction, killings and escalation, that fuels it further,” he said.

Türk is urging the countries involved in the war “to take immediate steps to de-escalate, to give peace a chance.” And he says that other countries should “call clearly on those involved to pull back.”