Tehran (AFP) – Israel launched a fresh wave of strikes on Monday at Iran, which threatened retaliation against vital infrastructure across the Middle East in a war that has plunged the world into its worst energy crisis in decades. Explosions rang out in Tehran, Iranian media reported, while Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates said they were intercepting missiles and drones.
At least 40 energy assets across the oil- and gas-exporting region have been “severely or very severely damaged” in the conflict, said International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol, as the war ignited by Israel-US attacks on Iran entered its fourth week. Tehran has met the assaults by firing missiles and drones at Israel and across the Gulf in the last weeks, hitting energy sites and US embassies alike. It has also throttled traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway through which a fifth of global crude oil transits. With oil prices hovering above $100 a barrel over supply fears, US President Donald Trump threatened to “obliterate” Iranian power plants if Tehran failed to reopen the strait within 48 hours. The deadline, based on the time of his social media posting, would be 23:44 GMT, early morning Tuesday in Iran.
But Iran’s response was firm, with its powerful parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf vowing that vital infrastructure across the region would “be considered legitimate targets and will be irreversibly destroyed” if Trump carried out his threat. Laying out the scale of the crisis before the global economy, IEA chief Fatih Birol said 11 million barrels of oil are currently lost a day — more than the daily volume eradicated during two consecutive oil crises in the 1970s. “No country will be immune to the effects of this crisis if it continues to go in this direction. So there is a need for global efforts,” Birol told journalists in Canberra.
Asian stocks slipped while oil prices rose again early Monday, with US benchmark crude briefly touching the $100-per-barrel mark. In recent days, Iran has allowed a handful of vessels from countries it considers friendly to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, while warning it would block ships from countries it says have joined the “aggression” against it. Iran’s parliament is mulling imposing tolls on shipping through the strait, with Ghalibaf saying maritime traffic would “not return to its pre-war status.” Trump has offered varying timelines and objectives for the war, saying Friday he was considering “winding down” the operation, a day before his threat against power plants, which would mark a significant escalation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken of a long-term campaign against Iran’s government, a state sponsor of Hamas, which carried out the unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack against Israel, which responded by devastating Gaza. Israel has also expanded its ground campaign against Iran-allied Hezbollah in Lebanon, warning of a lengthy operation there. “Citizens of Israel, we face more weeks of fighting against Iran and Hezbollah,” Israeli military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said. Israeli forces were given orders to destroy bridges they said were used by Hezbollah to cross the key Litani river, 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of the border. More than 1,000 people have died in Lebanon since Israel launched strikes, according to the health ministry, with more than one million people displaced.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun warned that the bridge attacks “represent a dangerous escalation and flagrant violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and are considered a prelude to a ground invasion.” But the country’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam also put blame on Hezbollah, which began firing on Israel over the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei at the start of the war. “It was declared that this war was in retaliation for the assassination of Khamenei, so this means this war was imposed upon us,” Salam told the Al Hadath network.
Israel has prided itself on air defences, and Trump and Netanyahu both claim to have knocked out key Iranian military sites. But Iranian missiles evaded the defences to land in two southern towns, including Dimona, close to Israel’s desert nuclear facility, injuring dozens on Saturday. “We thought we were safe,” Galit Amir, a 50-year-old care provider, told AFP in Dimona. “We didn’t expect this.” Netanyahu vowed to pursue senior commanders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards “personally” as he inspected the damage in Arad, the other town struck by an Iranian missile. According to rescuers, a missile landed about five kilometres from what is widely believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, although Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons, insisting the site is for research.
Iran said the Dimona strike was in response to an earlier attack on its nuclear site at Natanz. Asked about Natanz, Israel’s military said it was “not aware of a strike.” In Iran, at least 3,230 people have died in the war, including 1,406 civilians, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. AFP is not able to access the sites of strikes nor independently verify tolls in Iran.
© 2024 AFP
