Israel Strikes Tehran Fuel Depots as Iran Picks Successor
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- Israeli forces struck fuel depots near Tehran on day nine of the US-Israeli assault, with Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani calling them "legal military targets" used for Iran's ballistic missile program as thick black smoke hung over the city.
- Netanyahu vowed to strike Iran's rulers "without mercy" with "many more targets" and an "organised plan to destabilise the regime," while Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei labeled the fuel depot strikes a "dangerous new phase" and a war crime.
- Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One he was not interested in negotiating the conflict that has "sent energy prices skyward," saying "At some point, I don't think there will be anybody left maybe to say, 'We surrender.'"
- Iran retaliated across the Gulf with drones and missiles on Saturday and Sunday: the UAE intercepted 16 ballistic missiles and 113 drones while reporting four migrant worker deaths, Kuwait lost two officers in a government office block fire, and Bahrain said an Iranian drone struck a desalination plant — the first such target in an Arab country.
- Saudi Arabia warned Tehran that continued Iranian attacks on the kingdom and its energy sector could push Riyadh to respond in kind, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Reuters.
- Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ayatollah, is the clear favorite to become Iran's next supreme leader, with the Assembly of Experts potentially meeting as soon as Sunday and a majority consensus already reached per Iranian media — a choice the source says would signal hardliners remain "firmly in charge."
- Israel struck a hotel in central Beirut on Sunday targeting Iranian commanders — its first strike on the heart of the Lebanese capital — after Hezbollah-launched rockets and drones prompted an Israeli campaign that the Lebanese health ministry says has killed nearly 400 people over the past week.
Why it matters: The fuel depot strikes in Tehran and the desalination plant attack in Bahrain show the war is now hitting civilian-adjacent infrastructure on both sides. Trump has publicly foreclosed negotiation, while the Mojtaba Khamenei succession would entrench hardliners — meaning the conflict's trajectory, as the source frames it, is escalation rather than de-escalation.
