What we covered
• New strikes in Iran: Israel said it had begun a “broad-scale wave of strikes” against Tehran. State media reported that Jomhuri Avenue, a major street in the capital, was hit.
• Panic in Beirut: Israel also announced it was targeting Hezbollah. Israel’s prior evacuation order for nearly all of southern Beirut, believed to house more than half a million people, raised fears to a new level.
• Iran’s attacks: Middle East countries are intercepting strikes as dawn breaks on the war’s seventh day. Iran is seeking to degrade air defenses by destroying US-made radars that detect missiles and drones, satellite images in the Arabian Peninsula suggest.
• US ramping up campaign: President Donald Trump said he had “no time limits” on how long the war could go on, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth saying it had “only just begun.”
Trump says he's not concerned about rising gas prices amid Iran war
US President Donald Trump said today he is not worried about US gas prices rising as a result of the war in Iran: “If they rise, they rise.”
“I don’t have any concern about it,” he said in an interview with Reuters. “They’ll drop very rapidly when this is over, and if they rise, they rise, but this is far more important than having gasoline prices go up a little bit.”
The war with Iran has sent gas prices up 20 cents a gallon, or 7% in just a few days.
Trump told Reuters he is not looking to tap into the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the world’s largest stockpile of emergency oil held in a network of underground salt caverns in Louisiana and Texas
He also said he is sure the Strait of Hormuz, a channel just off Iran’s southern coast through which one out of every five barrels of oil on the planet passes, will remain open because Iran’s navy is at the “bottom of the sea.”
Trump’s comments come more than a week after he touted that gas prices had fallen during his State of the Union address.
A night of panic in Beirut as Israel orders mass evacuations
An Israeli military warning to evacuate nearly all of southern Beirut triggered scenes of chaos and panic Thursday evening as tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of residents jammed roads trying to flee the area.
“I saw people running out of their buildings barefoot,” a flower-shop owner named Hussein told CNN.
Family chat groups filled with desperate calls for relatives to run. But escape was hindered by grid-locked traffic and the challenge of evacuating the elderly and immobilized.
Explosions began rocking southern Beirut after nightfall and have continued into the pre-dawn hours.
CNN’s Matthew Chance was caught up in the rushed exodus.
Beirut’s southern suburbs are still badly scarred from Israel’s relentless bombardment during a 66-day war in 2024 against the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah.
But Thursday’s evacuation order for entire neighborhoods believed to house more than half a million people raised fears to a new level. In the past, Israeli military warnings tended to focus on a single building prior to an airstrike.
The terror was exacerbated by a video statement from Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday.
Khan Younis is the city in southern Gaza that was largely flattened during Israel’s war against Hamas. Israeli military officials acknowledged that about 70,000 Palestinians were killed in the war.
“Israelis seek to recreate the Gaza example in the (southern) suburbs,” wrote Michael Young, senior editor at the Carnegie Middle East Center.
Though Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire in 2024, Israeli warplanes have continued to bomb the Lebanese south and the Bekaa Valley on an almost daily basis since.
Fighting dramatically intensified on Monday, when Hezbollah announced it fired rockets into Israel, hours after the militia’s leader Naim Qassem vowed to “fulfill our duty in confronting the aggression” following the joint Israeli-US attack that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Hezbollah’s rocket attacks have triggered a backlash across Lebanese society and from the Lebanese government. In a first, the president announced a ban on Hezbollah’s military and security operations. And yet the US-backed Lebanese Army has been unable to stop the militia from firing on targets in northern Israel, as well as upon Israeli troops mounting incursions into southern Lebanon.
In the hours after the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of southern Beirut, the Lebanese government announced it was withdrawing visa-free travel for visiting Iranians.
CNN team hears waves of jet noise near Tehran
CNN staff on the ground in Iran heard two waves of sustained jet noise in the sky near Tehran on Friday as Israel said it launched a “broad-scale wave of strikes” on key regime infrastructure in the capital.
Iranian media also reported loud explosions and sounds from jets being heard across the capital
“The sound of several explosions from missile and airstrikes was heard from central, eastern, and western areas of Tehran,” reported Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency.
Japan calls for release of two nationals detained in Iran
Japan has confirmed that two of its citizens are being held in Iran and has called for their release.
Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said he’d met with Iran’s ambassador to Japan to request that the prisoner’s protection and release be treated as an “extremely important matter.”
Japan hasn’t confirmed the names of the two citizens held, but has previously said that one was detained by local authorities in Tehran on January 20.
Both detainees are safe and contact had been made since the war started on Saturday, when US and Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader, Motegi said Friday.
His comments came as Israel launched a “broad-scale wave of strikes” on key regime infrastructure in Tehran. It’s not clear where the Japanese citizens are being held.
Hezbollah warns Israeli residents to evacuate border area
Lebanon’s Hezbollah has warned Israeli residents to evacuate towns within 5km of the border between the two countries.
“The aggression of your army against Lebanese sovereignty… will not pass without a response,” the group said on Telegram early Friday.
Israel and Hezbollah have been trading blows as the conflict widens in the Middle East.
Israel carried out more strikes overnight in Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut that it considers a Hezbollah stronghold. It follows Thursday’s announcement from the Israeli military that it had begun targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in Beirut.
So far, 123 people have been killed and 683 wounded from Israeli strikes in Lebanon, according to the country’s National News Agency on Thursday evening, citing the ministry of public health.
Trump says he has “no time limits” on how long war with Iran could go on
President Donald Trump said in an interview published Thursday that he has “no time limits” on how long the war with Iran could go on.
“I have no time limits on anything,” the president told Time in a Wednesday phone call. “I want to get it done.”
Trump has previously said publicly that he expects the war to last four to five weeks, but observers note those timelines could potentially change if he faces increasing political pressure domestically or decides his objectives have been reached.
He detailed several objectives to Time on Wednesday: “They can’t have a nuclear weapon. That’s number one, two, and three. Number four, no ballistic missiles.” Another aim, Trump said, is installing “somebody that is rational and sane” to lead Iran.
The president also responded to a question about whether Americans should be concerned about retaliatory attacks in the United States.
“I guess,” Trump said. “But I think they’re worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time. We plan for it. But yeah, you know, we expect some things. Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.”
Gulf states intercept missiles and drones, US air base targeted in Qatar
Countries in the Gulf continue to fend off retaliatory strikes from Iran as the conflict entered its seventh day.
Here’s what we’re seeing as dawn breaks in the Middle East on Friday morning:
Qatar: Air defenses “successfully intercepted” a drone attack targeting the Al-Udeid Air Base a short ago, the Qatari Ministry of Defense said early Friday. The base is the largest US military installation in the Middle East.
Kuwait: In the last hour, air defenses were working to intercept “hostile missile and drone attacks” that breached the country’s airspace, the Kuwait army said in a post on X. Ministry of Defense spokesperson Brigadier General Saud Abdulaziz Al-Atwan said falling debris from an earlier interception had damaged a vehicle but no injuries were reported.
Saudi Arabia: Three ballistic missiles targeting Prince Sultan Air Base were intercepted and destroyed, the kingdom’s Ministry of Defense announced on X earlier on Friday.
Bahrain: The country’s Interior Ministry said on Friday that a hotel and two residential buildings in the capital Manama were hit, causing a fire that was later extinguished.
United Arab Emirates: Air defenses responded to “incoming missile and drone threats from Iran,” UAE’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement released around 1 a.m. local time.
US gives India "30-day waiver" to allow some Russian oil sales
The United States has given India a “30-day waiver” to purchase Russian oil currently stranded at sea as the conflict in the Middle East continues to cause energy disruptions.
The announcement comes amid growing energy supply fears and as the Trump administration scrambles to limit the economic fallout from the war in the Middle East.
It also comes months after Trump slapped India with tariffs in a bid to pressure its government to stop purchasing Moscow’s crude.
India emerged as one of Russia’s largest buyers of crude oil after the invasion of Ukraine, but the country has been cutting back in recent months in response to pressure from Washington.
Oil expert Amena Bakr discussed the disruption to the markets today.
"Depletion is pretty rapid," says former US military official on American missiles
CNN’s Christiane Amanpour speaks to retired admiral Mike Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the inventory of US missiles.
President Donald Trump had said the US has a “virtually unlimited supply of these weapons.”
CNN's Christiane Amanpour speaks to former chairman of the joint chief of staff Admiral Mike Mullen (Ret.) about the inventory of US missiles while it continues to be at war with Iran.
US military strikes Iranian drone carrier
US Central Command announced Thursday on X that it struck an Iranian drone carrier.
“U.S. forces aren’t holding back on the mission to sink the entire Iranian Navy,” the post said. “Today, an Iranian drone carrier, roughly the size of a WWII aircraft carrier, was struck and is now on fire.”
The post did not contain details about where the strike occurred.
Hotel and residential buildings hit in Bahrain, interior ministry says
Bahrain’s Interior Ministry said on Friday Iran strikes targeted a hotel and two residential buildings in the capital Manama, causing a fire.
“No loss of life were recorded,” the ministry said in a post on X.
Bahrain civil defense crews extinguished a fire that broke out in a flat in one of the buildings, the ministry added.
Emotional reunions seen at airport after Americans return to US
The first chartered evacuation flight of American citizens who were stuck in the Middle East returned to the US Thursday afternoon, flying from Abu Dhabi and landing at Dulles International Airport near Washington, DC.
Hundreds of Americans were on board the flight, a State Department spokesperson said.
The scene at the airport was full of emotional reunions between family members and friends.
Anxious families gathered at the international arrivals terminal waiting for their loved ones. Many families shared that while they’ve been able to be in contact with their traveling loved ones, they were told to keep the evacuation flight a secret and were not given any information such as a flight number to track.
Passengers on the chartered flight included embassy workers and their families and tourists who were stranded in Abu Dhabi.
“Just glad to be back,” said Bruce Imel of Pennsylvania who had been on his way to Bangkok for vacation with his daughter when the US and Israel attacked Iran, trapping them in a five-day layover in Abu Dhabi.
He said they saw and heard multiple explosions.
“We were near the airport when the airport got hit and also near the consulate when the consulate got hit,” Imel said.
He said they struggled in the beginning to get any information from the US State Department. “It was tough at first, but then they started getting it figured out,” he said.
The Americans who were stuck overseas were at least able to communicate with their families back in the US.
“Texting and calling and all of us were doing that,” Imel’s wife Helen said.
Imel added, “Yeah, family was doing a great job of keeping our spirits up.”
Canada may consider defending Persian Gulf partners, but won't take part in "Epic Fury"
Canada could consider helping to defend Persian Gulf partners that may require “support,” the country’s defense chief said Thursday, without specifying what type of support may be involved.
However, Chief of the Defence Staff Jennie Carignan told reporters that Canada was not talking about participating in Operation Epic Fury against Iran.
“Because there is a conflict in place, the law of armed conflict now applies. And therefore any states being attacked can take defensive measures to self defense. So therefore any operation would have to be within that zone of self defense,” she said.
Carignan’s office told CNN she would be speaking to her counterparts in Europe on Friday.
Hegseth warns "just wait" as US intensifies attacks on Iran. Catch up on today's headlines
It is day six of the war with Iran.
Here’s what we know about the conflict after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of the United States Central Command, spoke to reporters today:
- More US strikes: Over the last 24 hours, Iranian ballistic missile attacks have decreased by 90% and drone attacks by 83% while US strikes against the Iranian Navy “have intensified,” sinking 30 ships and striking a drone ship that is currently on fire, according to Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of the US Central Command.
- War will escalate: “If you think you’ve seen something, just wait,” Hegseth said as he signaled that the war will soon escalate.
- US uses “new capabilities”: The United States is fielding “a number of new capabilities” in the war with Iran, Cooper said. He explained that the US isn’t just using expensive weapons to intercept relatively cheap ones.
- Warning for Iranians to lay low: Hegseth reiterated that Iranian people should not protest during the US-Israeli military campaign, but said there will “come a moment” when President Donald Trump or the Iranian people will decide “it’s the time to seize that advantage.”
- Hegseth blames Iran: Hegseth said Iran is responsible for the widening conflict across the region by “targeting allied countries that would otherwise want to stay out of this.”
Other developments in the conflict:
Iran attacks Israel: Iran said it launched a hybrid drone and missile attack as footage from CNN teams in Tel Aviv appeared to show a cluster warhead in the skies above central Israel.
Israel strikes Lebanon suburb: Israel has been carrying out more strikes in Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut that it considers a Hezbollah stronghold.
Italy said US-Israeli attack on Iran is illegal: Italy’s defense minister said today the US and Israeli decision to attack Iran was “outside the rules of international law,” in remarks that came as Italy closes its embassy in Tehran and sends defensive weapons to the Persian Gulf.
Saudi Arabia intercepts missiles: Saudi Arabia intercepted and destroyed three ballistic missiles targeting Prince Sultan Air Base, the kingdom’s Ministry of Defense announced on X.
CNN’s Tori B. Powell, Aditi Sangal, Haley Britzky, Sharon Braithwaite, Max Saltman, Tamar Michaelis, Oren Liebermann, Michael Rios and Sarah El Sirgany contributed to this report.
Israel striking southern suburb of Beirut it considers a Hezbollah stronghold
Israel has been carrying out more strikes in Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut that it considers a Hezbollah stronghold.
Its military said it was targeting Hezbollah infrastructure.
Loud explosions have been heard in the area over the past few hours. Footage on Reuters has shown plumes of smoke rising to the night sky.
Israel had previously issued evacuation orders for the area, a significant expansion from previous orders that were typically limited to specific buildings.
Amid the strikes, Kuwait’s embassy in Lebanon called on its citizens to leave Lebanese territory as soon as possible.
Iran war is a "perfect example of asymmetric warfare," military analyst explains
Iran may not possess the same military arsenal as the United States and Israel, but it is employing asymmetric warfare strategies to counter their superior military power.
Hear CNN military analyst Cedric Leighton explain:
Iran may not possess the same military arsenal as the United States and Israel, but it is employing asymmetric warfare strategies to counter their superior military power. CNN military analyst Cedric Leighton explains.
Saudi Arabia intercepts three ballistic missiles targeting military air base
Saudi Arabia intercepted and destroyed three ballistic missiles targeting Prince Sultan Air Base, the kingdom’s Ministry of Defense announced on X in the early hours of Friday.
The Saudi air base, south of Riyadh, is previously known to have housed US military aircraft.
Information on casualties or damage was not immediately available.
Amid reports of CIA links to Iranian Kurds, one militia makes a curious purchase
As tension becomes increasingly palpable in northern Iraq – caught between pressure from the United States and threats from Iran – the owner of a car dealership in the city of Erbil told CNN one Iranian Kurdish militia bought 50 Toyota Land Cruiser LC71 in one go.
CNN agreed not to disclose the name of the group to safeguard the dealer’s identity.
The curious purchase took place on Tuesday, the same day CNN revealed the CIA was working to arm Iranian Kurdish forces, ahead of a potential ground offensive in Western Iran.
CNN could not confirm what the intended purpose of the purchase was but the model in question is a four-wheel-drive and well suited to rough terrain.
The border between Iraq and Iran is located in a remote mountainous region.
The Toyota Land Cruiser is a very popular vehicle choice in Iraq.
Hegseth says the US has "only just begun to fight" in war with Iran
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signaled that the United States war with Iran will soon escalate during a press conference Thursday at US Central Command.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth emphasized on Thursday that there is “no shortage of American will” in the fight against Iran, and that the US would remember the six fallen US service members by “rededicating ourselves” to the fight, while adding that the US has "no shortage of munitions."
Some weapon math: Before the war began, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine and other military leaders warned Trump that a protracted military campaign could impact US weapons stockpiles – particularly those that support Israel and Ukraine, CNN previously reported. The US has been “burning” through long-range precision-guided missiles over the last several days.
Hegseth said Thursday that the US has “no shortage of munitions.”
“Our stockpiles of defensive and offensive weapons allow us to sustain this campaign as long as we need to,” he said. “We have only just begun to fight and fight decisively.”
Hegseth’s comments come after President Donald Trump has already indicated that a “big wave” of US strikes has yet to come.
“We haven’t even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon,” he told CNN.
