With the Middle East war widening and no sign of when it will end, nations outside the region were struggling on Tuesday to get hundreds of thousands of their people out of countries that are now in the line of fire.
The Israeli and U.S. bombardment of Iran continued, Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone barrage at Gulf nations intensified, and Israeli forces pushed into Lebanon to halt Hezbollah rocket fire, while global financial markets slumped on fears of inflation as the price of oil soared.
President Trump said that officials the United States had eyed as potential new leaders of Iran had been killed in the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign, and that the worst outcome would be that whoever takes over Iran could be “as bad” as their predecessors — striking admissions of the uncertainty shrouding how the war will unfold and what will follow it.
Iranian clerics were expected on Wednesday to announce a successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, who was killed on Saturday by a targeted Israeli airstrike.
European countries and India were rushing to establish escape routes for their nationals in the region, including organizing emergency flights. France said some 400,000 of its people were in the Middle East.
The United States had said on Monday that Americans should leave more than a dozen countries, spanning from Egypt to Iraq, on their own. After President Trump was asked on Tuesday why the government was not helping them evacuate, the State Department announced that it was “facilitating charter flights from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan,” and that 9,000 Americans had left the region on their own.
Millions of foreign nationals live in the Persian Gulf states, most of them low-wage workers from South Asia and the Philippines.
In a legally mandated notification to Congress, Mr. Trump said the strikes on Iran were carried out because of “the threat to the United States” and U.S. forces in the region, to advance U.S. national interests and “in collective self-defense of our regional allies, including Israel.” He also said “it is not possible at this time to know the full scope and duration of military operations that may be necessary.”
Speaking to reporters at the start of a White House meeting with Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, Mr. Trump claimed that Iran had been about to attack its neighbors and Israel, and he made the decision to go to war on Saturday to pre-empt that action. He had previously said Iran was on the verge of having missiles that could reach the United States, though officials with access to U.S. intelligence have said that Mr. Trump exaggerated the immediacy of any threat Iran posed to the United States.
More than 800 people have been killed in the conflict across the Middle East since Saturday.
Here’s what we’re covering:
Iran succession: Asked who he would like to take over Iran, Mr. Trump gave a strikingly blunt answer. “Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” he said. “Now we have another group, they may be dead also, based on reports. So you have a third wave coming. Pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.”
Congressional updates: Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a closed-door briefing with members of the Senate, and had another scheduled with the members of the House. Mr. Rubio told reporters that the Trump administration had “over-complied” with the War Powers act’s rules on notifying Congress about military action. Democrats leaving the first session said it did not provide any additional clarity on the president’s strategic aims in attacking Iran.
Hezbollah attacks: Fighting escalated between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military said that it had targeted weapons storage facilities in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, as Hezbollah said it had fired attack drones at Israel. Israel’s advance in southern Lebanon prompted fears that it could be weighing a wider ground assault there. Read more ›
Navy escorts? President Trump said that the United States might deploy its Navy to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway south of Iran through which a fifth of the world’s oil travels. Tanker traffic through the strait have nearly stopped because of the fear the ships might be attacked. Read more ›
Death toll: Iran’s Red Crescent Society, the country’s main humanitarian relief organization, said that the death toll had risen to 787 since the start of the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Saturday. Six U.S. service members and dozens of people in Lebanon also have been killed. In one southern Iranian town, thousands of mourners filled the streets during the funeral for victims of an airstrike on a girls’ elementary school, according to footage and images verified by The New York Times. The bombing of the school on Saturday killed at least 175 people. Read more ›
