Live. Fire breaks out near Fujairah port after drone interception, UAE officials say

Explosions rang out over Jerusalem on Saturday, reporters in the city heard, shortly after the Israeli military warned that it had detected incoming missiles from Iran.

As the Middle East war triggered by US-Israeli strikes on Tehran entered its third week, the military said its "defence system is operating to intercept the threat."

The UAE slammed the targeting of its consulate in Iraqi Kurdistan for the second time in a week, the foreign affairs ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

"The United Arab Emirates expressed its strong condemnation and denunciation of the treacherous terrorist attack by a drone, which targeted the UAE Consulate General in Iraqi Kurdistan, for the second time in a week, and resulted in the injury of two security personnel and caused damage to the consulate building," it said.

According to TankerTrackers, two tankers were loading oil on Kharg on Saturday, hours after the US said it struck Iranian military facilities there.

President Donald Trump said in a social media post early on Saturday that all military installations on the key island had been “totally obliterated.”

Kharg handles almost all of Iran’s crude oil exports.

The head of Iran’s parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy said that by providing drone support to Israel, Ukraine has “effectively become involved in the war.”

Ebrahim Azizi wrote in a post on X that the entire country has become a target for Iran.

Eleven countries have requested Kyiv’s help in countering Shahed-type drones amid the Iran war and Tehran's ongoing attacks against the Gulf states, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week.

As Russia’s all-out war entered its fifth year, Ukraine’s drone interception rate stands at around 80%.

Since 2022 Kyiv has developed a complex and multi-layered air defence system against drones, which includes mobile fire groups, often using pickup trucks armed with heavy machine guns, various electronic warfare and Ukraine’s domestically developed interceptors.

According to Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, over 70% of all Shahed-type drones targeting the capital and the Kyiv region were shot down by interceptors in February.

Lebanon's health ministry said on Saturday that Israeli strikes had killed 26 paramedics and wounded 51 others since the conflict erupted between Israel and Hezbollah.

It came after Lebanese authorities said an overnight Israeli strike killed 12 doctors, paramedics and nurses working at a healthcare centre in the southern town of Burj Qalawiya, following another strike on the town of Sawaneh that left two paramedics affiliated with Hezbollah and its ally Amal dead.

The ministry statement also accused Israel of repeatedly "targeting ambulance crews while they were performing rescue duties," after the Israeli military on Saturday accused Hezbollah of using ambulances militarily.

Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Saturday the damaged structures included 36,469 residential units and 6,179 commercial facilities, according to state-run IRNA news agency.

Iran hasn’t provided any information about military losses and damage.

Mohajerani, meanwhile, said the war has taken a heavy toll on women, with 223 women and girls killed and 2,129 others wounded since 28 February,

She didn’t provide an overall death toll, but previously authorities have said that 1,230 people have been killed.

Two Indian-flagged tankers carrying liquefied petroleum gas bound for ports in the country's west crossed the Strait of Hormuz, the South Asian country's shipping ministry said on Saturday.

"They crossed the Strait of Hormuz early morning safely and are en route to India," Rajesh Kumar Sinha, special secretary of the ministry of ports, shipping and waterways, said at a news briefing in New Delhi.

Tehran has largely halted traffic through the key sea route, that normally carries one fifth of global oil supplies, since the United States and Israel launched an attack on Iran last month.

Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that the war with Iran was entering a "decisive phase," praising US strikes on what Washington called military targets on the Kharg Island oil export hub.

"The global and regional struggle against Iran, led by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is escalating and entering the decisive phase that will continue as long as necessary," Katz told military top brass in a televised statement.

“Export and import operations, as well as the activities of companies based on the island, are currently ongoing,” Ehsan Jahaniyan, deputy governor of Bushehr province, was quoted as saying by NourNews, an outlet close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

Kharg Island is home to the primary terminal that handles the country’s oil exports.

Jahaniyan also said that daily life activities were normal, adding that the strikes left no casualties.

Early on Saturday, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported that US strikes were limited to military facilities.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday said Lebanon was ready to engage in "direct talks" with Israel and offered to host negotiations in Paris.

"The Lebanese government has signalled its willingness to engage in direct talks with Israel," he said on X.

"France is ready to facilitate these talks by hosting them in Paris," Macron said, adding he had spoken to the president and prime minister of Lebanon.

Lebanon-based Hezbollah launched air strikes on Israel on 2 March, it says in response to the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in joint US-Israeli strikes in the opening salvos of the war.

Since then, Israel and Hezbollah had traded almost daily fire, with the IDF saying on Friday it had struck more than 1,100 positions and killed "more than 380 Hezbollah terrorists."

Iran's military warned on Saturday that it considers ports in the United Arab Emirates to be legitimate targets and urged residents to avoid them, in a statement carried by state TV.

Tehran "considers it its legitimate right to defend its national sovereignty and territory by striking American enemy missiles located in ports, docks and US military hideouts" in the UAE, the military's central operational command, Khatam Al-Anbiya, said.

The statement urged civilians to "evacuate" port areas.

Iran's cultural heritage and tourism ministry said on Saturday at least 56 museums and historic sites across the country have been damaged, as the Middle East war is in its 15th day.

In Tehran, US-Israeli strikes damaged the UNESCO-listed Golestan Palace in the early days of the conflict, local media reported.

The palace complex is one of the oldest sites in the Iranian capital and once served as the residence of the Qajar dynasty.

The ministry said Tehran has recorded the highest number of damaged monuments, with 19 suffering varying levels of harm.

The vast Naghsh-e Jahan Square, a 17th-century architectural jewel in the heart of the central Iranian city of Isfahan, has also been damaged.

In the port of Siraf, in Bushehr province, several houses were hit in the historic quarter, home to many century-old buildings.

UNESCO, the UN's culture agency, told AFP on Friday it was concerned about hundreds of historic sites in Iran, Israel and Lebanon that have been damaged or threatened by the war.

Iran’s military command threatened on Saturday to attack cities in the United Arab Emirates, claiming they were used by US forces to launch strikes on Iran’s Abu Musa and Kharg islands.

According to Iran’s state television, the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said, without providing evidence, that US forces launched attacks on the Islamic Republic from “ports, docks and hideouts within” cities in the Emirates.

It called on people to evacuate “ports, docks and locations where US forces are sheltered in UAE cities.”

The UAE said last month it would not allow attacks on Iran to be launched from its territory.

Bahrain’s Defence Ministry said on Saturday that Iran fired 10 drones and three missiles towards the island nation.

That brings the total number of missiles and drones fired at Bahrain during the two-week war to 124 and 203, respectively.

President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday he had thanked the Iraqi prime minister for taking measures to protect French forces, after a drone strike killed a French soldier in the Kurdistan region.

"Yesterday, I spoke with the Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani," Macron said on X.

"I thank him for his commitment to getting to the bottom of this attack and to strengthening measures to protect our forces, who are present in Iraq to fight, alongside the Iraqis, against the scourge of terrorism."

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least four people were killed in an Israeli air strike on an apartment in the southern city of Sidon on Saturday.

It gave no other details.

The United Arab Emirates has detained 10 foreigners who allegedly posted footage on social media of missile and drone attacks on the county.

UAE General Prosecutor Hamad Al Shamsi ordered them to remain in detention over accusations of spreading disinformation, some of which included AI-generated videos of purported attacks on UAE landmarks.

He said in a statement that their acts are punishable by imprisonment of at least a year and a fine of at least 100,000 dirhams (€23,744).

US President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post on Saturday night: “The Fake News Media hates to report how well the United States Military has done against Iran, which is totally defeated and wants a deal - But not a deal that I would accept!”

It comes after Trump claimed the US had “totally obliterated” military targets on Iran's Kharg Island, which handles almost all of the country’s crude exports.

And in a phone call with Axios on Wednesday, Trump said the Iran war would end soon because there is "practically nothing left to target."

A drone was intercepted in the eastern region of Saudi Arabia on Saturday, the Defence Ministry said in an online post.

The statement published on the platform X gave no further details.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported more Israeli strikes on Saturday morning targeting Beirut and the country’s south.

More details to follow.

The United States can provide "reliable" energy supplies to Asia-Pacific, US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said on Saturday, as the Middle East war cripples the region's oil and gas flows.

Prices have surged since US-Israeli strikes on Iran killed its supreme leader and plunged the Middle East into war.

The conflict has virtually halted traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit point for oil and gas, the vast majority of which is destined for Asia.

US President Donald Trump's "energy dominance" policy aims to ensure that "we have energy to allow for prosperity at home, and we have the ability to sell energy to our friends and allies," Burgum told an event in Tokyo bringing together 17 countries from the region.

That ensures the region has a "reliable, affordable and secure" energy supply that "can't be interrupted by a terrorist regime," he said.

An Israeli strike hit an apartment building in a northern Beirut suburb that had also been targeted a day earlier, Lebanese media reported on Saturday.

Reporters on the scene saw rescue workers and damage, including a hole, in a building in the Nabaa-Burj Hammoud area, outside Iran-backed Hezbollah's strongholds in the capital's southern suburbs.

The same building had been struck on Friday without causing casualties.

Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported at least 15 explosions on Saturday with thick smoke rising over Kharg Island, earlier hit by US strikes.

It said the strikes targeted an air defence facility, a naval base, the airport control tower and an offshore oil company’s helicopter hangar, adding no oil infrastructure was damaged in the attack.

An air strike hit a house in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, early on Saturday, killing at least one person, according to a security official and another affiliated with the Iranian-backed armed groups in the country.

The strike in Baghdad’s Karrada district also wounded two people, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the press.

In a statement, the Iraqi military condemned the strike as “a blatant violation of all humanitarian values and a disregard for international conventions.”

The Israeli army told people in an industrial zone in the west of Iran's northern city of Tabriz to leave on Saturday ahead of military operations.

"Urgent warning to all people located in the industrial area west of Tabriz," the Israeli military posted on X, adding it would "continue to operate in the area in the coming hours."

Internet shutdowns in Iran since US-Israeli strikes late last month triggered a war in the Middle East meant that residents were unlikely to be able to access online evacuation warnings.

A missile struck a helipad inside the US Embassy in Baghdad, two security officials said.

The projectile landed within the embassy’s boundaries after the Green Zone, the heavily fortified district in central Baghdad that houses Iraqi government institutions and foreign embassies, added the security officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as they are not authorised to speak with the press.

US President Donald Trump has said the US military has heavily bombed targets on Iran's Kharg Island, which handles almost all of the country’s crude exports and threatened to hit the island's oil infrastructure.

"The United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island," Trump said on social media.

"I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider."

The United States and Israel have treaded carefully around the island, but Trump administration officials have been reported as saying that capturing Kharg was on the table as the war in the Middle East persists.

The island, located around 30 kilometres off the Iranian mainland, handles roughly 90% of Iran's crude exports, according to a recent JP Morgan note.

State media in Iran said there was no damage to any oil infrastructure on the island following the US strikes.