Middle East crisis live: Jordan says it foiled Iranian missile attack as US launches ‘heavy’ strikes on Iran after pause

The Trump administration is facing growing demands to explain why wounded US soldiers went more than a week without adequate hospital care after a March drone strike in Kuwait, just days into the US-Israel war on Iran.

In a letter to the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, congressional Democrats urged the Pentagon to answer their questions – which include why the Pentagon’s public casualty count for the war with Iran briefly changed – by 12 August.

The letter, sent on Wednesday and led by the US senator Elizabeth Warren and the representative Pat Ryan, poses 23 questions to Hegseth over the 1 March strike on a US logistics hub at the port of Shuaiba, south of Kuwait City. It was first reported by the Washington Post.

A single Iranian drone evaded air defenses and hit the relocated operations center of the US army’s 103rd sustainment command, killing six reservists from Des Moines, Iowa, and wounding dozens more – the first US combat deaths of Operation Epic Fury, the war Donald Trump launched, alongside Israel, against Iran on 28 February.

The unit had asked for more medical staff and supplies before the strike and been turned down, according to reporting by the Washington Post and CBS News cited in the letter. There was no doctor on site afterward, no fixed aid station, and only one ambulance, with some of the wounded driving themselves to a hospital in Kuwait City, according to the reports. It took nine days before roughly two dozen soldiers, some still unscreened for brain injuries, were flown to the US military hospital at Landstuhl in Germany.

“Doctors told them that because they hadn’t been recorded as medical evacuees on the flight’s manifest or as seriously injured in [the defense department’s] casualty-processing database, they could only get limited treatment and had to wait in nearby barracks because the hospital was unable to admit them,” the letter states.

Yemen’s ⁠Iran-aligned Houthis attacked Saudi Arabia this week from Iraqi territory in coordination with Iraqi armed groups, according to assessments by Saudi Arabia and regional partners, reflecting growing coordination among Iran-aligned militias, two officials in the region said.

The assessments, which differ from official accounts, indicate that members ⁠of Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance have ⁠deepened their ties and ability ​to inflict damage to US allies in the region despite years of US and Israeli strikes on them from Lebanon to Iran after Hamas’ 2023 attack on Israel, Reuters reported.

The attacks included strikes on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia’s eastern province, the kingdom’s ⁠main crude hub.

A drone strike on the Egyptian port of Damietta, the first attack on the country since the US-Iran war broke out, could be a high-risk message for American interests everywhere in the Middle East, analysts say.

No party has claimed the strike on the Mediterranean port and Egypt has not assigned blame for the attack, which struck an American-owned and operated floating gas storage vessel, AFP reports.

Houthi militants in Yemen, who have imposed a Red Sea blockade on Saudi Arabia, have denied carrying out the attack, which raised fears for the only remaining safe maritime route for the world’s largest crude producer.

According to analysts, the goal of the attack – regardless of who launched it – could be to drag Egypt into the conflict, after months of Cairo acting as one of few diplomatic channels between Iran and the US.

The port strike, the furthest afield from the Gulf since the war broke out, also marks a new milestone by crossing the Red Sea into the Mediterranean.

The IRGC has claimed responsibility for an attack on a military base in Kuwait, according to Iranian state media.

The semi-official Fars news agency reported the IRGC attacked the Ali al-Salem airbase in Kuwait, which hosts the US air force. It claimed two drone hangars and a fuel tank for aircraft and military helicopters were destroyed in the strike.

There was no immediate comment from the US.

Iran ⁠is expected to receive within weeks a first shipment out of up to 400 Chinese-made shoulder-fired air-defence missile launchers, three sources familiar with the deal told Reuters, as it rebuilds its defences amid war with the United States.

The purchase, valued at $60-70 million, is one of Tehran’s largest-known efforts to strengthen its short-range air ⁠defences since the outbreak of its war with ⁠the US and Israel, which exposed gaps in ​Iran’s ability to protect military sites and strategic infrastructure.

The contract covers the purchase of between 300 and 400 man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS), including Chinese-made QW-12 and FN-16 missiles, the sources said.

The deal was signed with Zhongqing Baoshang International Investment, a Hong Kong-based company that the sources said was acting as an ⁠intermediary between the Iranian side and the Chinese supplier.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said three of its members were killed in a US attack on the north-western Zanjan province this morning, state media reported.

Iran’s state media reported that a couple and their child were killed in a US attack on a residential building in the Iranian island of Qeshm.

Two other children were also injured in the attack and taken to hospital, according to Iran’s official IRNA news agency.

Videos following the attack in the Chah-Tango neighbourhood of Qeshm city, in the southern Hormozgan province, show rescue workers searching through rubble for survivors.

The US military did not immediately comment on the report, but said earlier that it had “successfully completed a heavy wave of strikes against Iran”.

The island sits in the strait of Hormuz and has been subject to frequent US attacks.

Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least four people, including two children, health officials said.

An eight-year-old girl and an 18-month-old child were among the people killed in Israeli attacks in Bureij refugee camp, Khan Younis and Gaza City today, Reuters reported, citing Gaza health officials. The Israeli military said the strikes targeted Hamas militants, without ‌providing further details.

Israel has continued to launch strikes on Gaza on a near daily basis despite agreeing to a ceasefire with Hamas in October. More than 1,200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks since the ceasefire took effect, according to Gaza health officials.

The latest attacks came as mediators from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey held talks with Hamas leaders to work towards the next phase of the ceasefire, which includes a surge in humanitarian aid, governance by a civilian Palestinian administration, the ‌disarmament of Hamas, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the deployment of an international force to help maintain security.

A Hamas official said the group was coming ​with a “positive and good” response, but he did not say whether the group had agreed to fully disarm, according to Reuters. Sources close to Hamas told the news agency that the group was willing to “confine and store” heavy weapons under a Palestinian body, but not hand it over to Israel.

Shell more than doubled its profit in its second quarter of the year, as Europe’s biggest oil and gas company reaped the benefits from the jump in oil and gas prices triggered by war in the Middle East.

The FTSE 100 company’s net profit hit $9.84bn (£7.4bn) in the three months to June, more than double compared with the same period last year.

Wholesale energy prices have soared because of the conflict in the Middle East, boosting profit margins and activity on Shell’s trading desks.

The global oil price has climbed from about $61 a barrel in January to highs of $126 at the end of April, owing to disruptions to flows of oil and gas through the strait of Hormuz. Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded at $93.18 a barrel on Thursday.

Wael Sawan, Shell’s chief executive, said there had been “severe disruption in global energy markets” due to the war, as the company also reported a 30% drop in production from its integrated gas division on the same quarter last year.

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The Egyptian government said a fire at the port of Damietta was caused by a drone attack.

Two natural gas vessels caught fire after an explosion at the port yesterday. The office of the Egyptian prime minister said initial investigations showed the fires on the two ships had been caused by a drone.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, although US president Donald Trump suggested Iran was behind it. He told reporters in the Oval Office that the incident was “more of the same” and that the US was “going to be hitting them very hard, because it’s our turn to hit them”.

An Iranian attack struck a Chinese company building in the north of Kuwait, killing a worker, the country’s defence ministry said.

In a statement posted on the Kuwaiti army’s X page, ministry spokesperson Saud Abdulaziz al-Otaibi said the attack caused significant material damage to the building.

Iran has launched a series of missile strikes and drone attacks against several Arab countries in the Middle East, including Kuwait and Jordan, claiming to target US bases in those locations.

Here are some images on the newswires this morning after the US military announced a heavy wave of strikes against Iran:

Pakistan said negotiations between the US and Iran are “ongoing” despite escalating attacks in the Middle East.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Tahir Andrabi, said Islamabad was doing its “utmost” to bring the warring parties back to the negotiating table under the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by the US and Iran in June.

“Negotiations between the parties are ongoing,” Andrabi said at a press briefing today.

“We are doing our utmost to bring the parties back to the Islamabad MoU.”

Iran state media reported that the US military attacked three cities in the southern Bushehr province overnight.

Quoting a local governor, the official IRNA news agency said the cities of Bushehr, Jam and Khormoj were targeted in airstrikes and missile attacks.

Iran’s only civilian nuclear power plant is located in Bushehr, which Iranian authorities say has come under repeated US attacks.

In case you’re just joining us, here’s a quick recap of the latest. It’s 9.30am in Tehran and 2am in Washington DC.

• The US military said it completed a “heavy wave of strikes” against Iran on Thursday in retaliation for Tehran targeting American bases in Jordan, as intensified fighting fueled the risk of a return to all-out war in the region.

• The new strikes were launched hours after Donald Trump vowed to hit Iran “very hard” after a days-long pause in violence between the two sides.

• Jordan’s military said later it had foiled an Iranian attempt to target the kingdom with five missiles, the state news agency reported. There were no casualties.

• US forces struck dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets including military command centres, US Central Command said.

• Iran’s state news agency Irna reported strikes on several cities in the south-western Khuzestan province, as well as on Qeshm island in the Gulf. Areas around the cities of Abadan, Shadegan, Arvandkenar and Ahvaz – all in Khuzestan – were struck, Irna said, citing provincial authorities.

• Earlier, the US partnered with Saudi Arabia to strike Iran-backed militias in neighbouring Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 20 fighters and six Iranian advisers. Saudi Arabia had reported two days of drone attacks targeting crude facilities.

• Drone strikes ignited fires on two natural gas vessels in Egypt’s port of Damietta, British maritime security firm Ambrey said. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the strikes on a US-owned floating storage facility and a Greek-owned tanker.

• The Israeli military accused Iran-backed Hezbollah of a truce violation in Lebanon, saying it had fired a drone at an Israeli vehicle.

• Oil prices erased some of their previous gains despite the escalating attacks ⁠around the Gulf, with Brent futures falling 1.06% to $89.78 a barrel as of ⁠0418 GMT Thursday. US West ⁠Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.76% to $83.82 a barrel.

To recap on their closed-door meeting earlier at the White House, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu ⁠explored all possible paths ​to curb Iran’s nuclear program, including diplomacy, economic pressure and force, a senior Israeli official told Reuters.

The Israeli prime minister did not tell Trump that Israel’s preference ⁠now was for further attacks on Iran, the official said in briefings with reporters after the meeting on Tuesday. “In the end, it’s his decision,” the official said of Trump while speaking ⁠on condition of anonymity.

The US president had three options and all were discussed at length, said the official, ​listing them as “a [negotiated] deal, continuing the blockade and economic ‌pressures, and a massive strike”. Netanyahu also ‌added unspecified new ideas to the mix, the official added.

Trump had voiced irritation with Netanyahu ahead of their meeting, complaining ‌that details had surfaced publicly about the Israeli prime minister’s plans to talk about new intelligence on Pickaxe Mountain, a deep-underground, nuclear-linked facility that Trump has threatened to bomb.

Pushing back against any notion of tensions over the issue, the official said the two allies readily share intelligence, denied that Netanyahu had pushed Trump to escalate militarily against Iran and left open the possibility of a diplomatic solution.

At the same time, the Israeli official acknowledged that Trump was the “senior partner” while ‌Netanyahu was the “junior partner” in the allies’ conflict with Iran.

Oil prices erased some of their previous gains on Thursday despite the escalating attacks ⁠around the Gulf as investor focus shifted to supply flows through the key chokepoints in the region.

Brent futures fell 1.06% to $89.78 a barrel as of ⁠0418 GMT. US West ⁠Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell 0.76% to $83.82 a barrel.

Brent settled up 7.91% in the previous session and WTI up 6.56% in one of the sharpest spikes of ⁠the Iran war, reversing a 5% plunge on Tuesday after a pause in hostilities in the five-month conflict, Reuters reports.

Prices surged as Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to hit Iran “very hard” ⁠after an Iranian missile attack on Tuesday on a US base in Jordan. The US on Thursday said it carried ‌out two hours of reprisal attacks on Iran.

“Trump’s ‘hit hard’ rhetoric caused the price spike immediately but looks like the market has fully priced [that] in and [is] considering the ‘Taco’ possibility right now,” said Lin Ye, vice-president of commodity markets, oil, at Rystad Energy, referring to the acronym “Trump always chickens out”.

Ye said the ‌market was following a pattern: geopolitical headlines were triggering rapid price spikes, but those gains were often short-lived as actual supply flows and parallel diplomatic efforts tended to determine how long ​those upward price moves persisted.

Rystad Energy estimates about 13m barrels ⁠a day of oil from the Gulf is still reaching markets.

Jordan’s military is saying it has foiled an Iranian attempt to target the kingdom with five missiles, the state news agency reports.

The agency quoted the armed forces as saying “interception measures” were carried out and there were no casualties.

The military said it maintained “the highest levels of readiness to deal firmly with any threat” targeting the country’s security and its citizens, the Jordan News Agency posted on social media.

Earlier today the US military launched a “heavy wave” of new strikes on Iran in response to Tehran’s attack on American military installations in Jordan on Wednesday.