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Middle East crisis live: US and Iranian forces race to recover missing pilot from downed jet; Israel bombards Beirut | US-Israel war on Iran
Interim summary
Here’s a rundown on the latest news from the US-Israel war on Iran to bring you up to speed. It’s 10.30am in Tehran, 10am in Tel Aviv and Beirut and 3am in Washington DC.
Iranian and American forces were racing each other early on Saturday to recover a crew member of the first US fighter jet to go down in Iran since the war began.
Tehran said it had shot down the F-15 warplane. US media reported American special forces had rescued one of its two crew members and the other was still missing. A US military search-and-rescue operation is under way. Iran urged people in the rugged south-west to search for the jet’s crew.
The Iranian military said it also downed a US A-10 ground attack aircraft in the Gulf, with US media saying the pilot was rescued.
Donald Trump told NBC the F-15 loss would not affect negotiations with Iran: “No, not at all. No, it’s war.”
Fresh strikes hit Iran, Israel, Lebanon and Gulf countries. The Israeli military said on Saturday it began striking “Hezbollah infrastructure” in Beirut after destroying a bridge in eastern Lebanon to prevent the Iran-backed group’s reinforcements from crossing. Two loud explosions were heard in the capital within half an hour early on Saturday. Israel said it also launched a wave of strikes of Tehran.
The three UN peacekeepers wounded in a blast in southern Lebanon on Friday were from Indonesia, UN officials said, just days after three other Indonesians were killed in separate explosions.
A fire was reported after a drone hit storage facilities belonging to foreign oil companies west of Iraq’s southern port city of Basra, Reuters cited security sources as saying.
Recent US intelligence reports say Iran is unlikely to open the strait of Hormuz any time soon because its grip on the world’s most vital oil artery provides the only real leverage it has over the US, Reuters reported, citing three sources.
The UN force in Lebanon said a blast at one of its positions had wounded three peacekeepers, two of them seriously, in the third such incident in a week.
Israeli fire killed a man in Syria’s Quneitra province in the south near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Syrian state media said. The man was killed in an attack by “an Israeli tank”, the Sana agency said, while state TV said a car was targeted.
An Egyptian national was killed and four others wounded after a fire at a gas complex in Abu Dhabi, caused by falling debris from an intercepted attack, the government media office said. Two of the four people hurt were from Egypt and the others from Pakistan, it said.
Israel’s emergency service said a 45-year-old man was treated for minor injuries after Iran fired missiles at the central city of Bnei Brak on Saturday.
Trump asked lawmakers to approve a $1.5tn defence budget for 2027 as the US faces rising costs from its war with Iran and mounting global security commitments. The proposal would lift Pentagon spending by more than 40% in a single year – the sharpest increase since the second world war.
Dubai authorities said they responded to a “minor incident” caused by debris from an aerial interception falling on to the facade of the Oracle building in Dubai Internet City. No injuries were reported, the city’s media office said.
Key events
Here are some images coming in from around the Middle East as the war enters week six.
Photograph: Shir Torem/Reuters
UN says three wounded peacekeepers are Indonesian
The three United Nations peacekeepers wounded in a blast in southern Lebanon on Friday were from Indonesia, UN officials said, just days after three other Indonesians were killed in separate explosions.
The UN interim force in Lebanon (Unifil) said the blast occurred inside a UN facility near El Adeisse on Friday afternoon, injuring three peacekeepers who were rushed to a hospital. Two were seriously wounded.
The UN information centre in Jakarta said the “origin of the explosion” was unknown but identified the wounded peacekeepers as Indonesian, Agence France-Presse is reporting.
Friday’s incident came just days after an Indonesian peacekeeper died when a projectile exploded on 29 March in southern Lebanon, where Israel and Hezbollah are fighting.
AFP quoted a UN security source as claiming on condition of anonymity on Tuesday that fire from an Israeli tank was responsible.
A day later, two more Indonesian peacekeepers died after an explosion struck a Unifil logistics convoy, also in southern Lebanon.
The bodies of the three fallen peacekeepers are scheduled to arrive in Jakarta on Saturday evening, according to the military.
Iran has executed two men convicted of membership in a banned opposition group and carrying out disruptive actions aimed at overthrowing the Islamic republic, the judiciary said.
The executions on Saturday were the latest in a series targeting members of the banned People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), after four other convicted members of the group were executed earlier in the week.
“Abolhassan Montazer and Vahid Baniamerian … were hanged after trial and their sentences were upheld by the Supreme Court,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said on Saturday, cited by AFP.
The men were found guilty of attempting “rebellion through involvement in multiple terrorist acts”, as well as membership in the MEK group and carrying out acts of sabotage aimed at overthrowing the Islamic republic.
It was not immediately clear when the men were arrested.
The MEK, which initially supported the 1979 Islamic revolution before falling out with the leadership in the 1980s, has since been in exile and is designated a terrorist organisation by Tehran.
Iran is the world’s second most prolific executioner after China, according to rights groups.
Foreign oil facilities hit in southern Iraq – report
A fire has been reported after a drone hit storage facilities belonging to foreign oil companies west of Iraq’s southern port city of Basra, Reuters is citing security sources as saying.
US intelligence warns Iran unlikely to ease Hormuz strait chokehold soon – report
Recent US intelligence reports say Iran is unlikely to open the strait of Hormuz any time soon because its grip on the world’s most vital oil artery provides the only real leverage it has over the US, Reuters is reporting, citing three sources.
The finding suggests Tehran could continue to throttle the strait to keep energy prices high as a means of pressuring Donald Trump to find a quick offramp to the five-week-long war.
The reports also provide the latest indication that the war – intended to eradicate Iran’s military strength – may actually increase its regional sway by showing Tehran’s ability to threaten the key waterway.
Trump has sought to downplay the difficulty of reopening the strait, which nomally carries a fifth of the world’s oil trade. On Friday the US president appeared to suggest he could order American forces to reopen the passage, posting on his Truth Social platform:
With a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, + MAKE A FORTUNE. IT WOULD BE A “GUSHER” FOR THE WORLD???
But analysts have long warned that forcing the reopening could prove costly and draw the US into a protracted ground war.
Several blasts heard coming from Tehran’s north, according to an AFP journalist. It is now 8.20am on Saturday in Tehran.
We’re seeing images from the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak after Iran fired missiles on Saturday and the Israeli military said it was working to intercept them.
Israel’s emergency service said a man, 45, was treated for minor injuries from glass shrapnel and taken to hospital.
The military said after the launches that civilians were permitted to leave protected spaces nationwide while search and rescue forces were heading to central Israel amid “reports of impact”.
Authorities in Dubai say they have responded to a “minor incident” caused by debris from an aerial interception falling on to the facade of the Oracle building in Dubai Internet City.
No injuries were reported, the UAE city’s media office said in a post on X.
Israel attacks Hezbollah targets in Beirut after destroying bridge
The Israeli military said on Saturday it had begun striking “Hezbollah infrastructure” in Beirut after it destroyed a bridge in eastern Lebanon to prevent the Iran-backed group’s reinforcements from crossing.
Two loud explosions were heard in the capital within half an hour early on Saturday and smoke was billowing from the area of one of them, AFP is reporting.
Local media reported two strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, an area that has been a target of repeated Israeli strikes in recent days as the military presses on with its ground invasion in the country’s south as it seeks to establish a “security zone”.
Photograph: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters
On Friday the UN interim force in Lebanon (Unifil) said a blast at one of its positions in the country’s south near the border wounded three peacekeepers, as mentioned earlier – the third similar incident in days.
Israel’s military had warned it would target two adjacent bridges over the Litani River in the area “to prevent the transfer of reinforcements and military equipment”.
The Lebanese state-run National News Agency (NNA) said:
Israeli warplanes targeted the bridge that links Sohmor with Mashghara, leading to its destruction.
Lebanese local media reported that a second bridge was also hit.
The strikes in Sohmor continued into early Saturday, with the NNA reporting the town’s centre being hit twice as warplanes roared in the skies.
Israel has previously struck five other bridges over the Litani in the country’s south, including most of the main routes crossing the waterway.
Also in Sohmor, two people were killed and 15 wounded in an Israeli strike that hit “as worshippers were leaving the town’s mosque” after Friday prayers, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Lebanese authorities say more than 1,300 people have been killed in a month of hostilities.
Further to the last post: as combat search and rescue (CSAR) teams are activated to retrieve a missing pilot after a downing, their soldiers – such as retired master sergeant Scott Fales – have been suiting up in a “ready room”.
Experts like Fales – a pararescue jumper who played a key role in the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” incident in Mogadishu, Somalia – are always standing by whenever US aircraft are over enemy territory.
“Before any operations are conducted … there is always a CSAR plan,” Fales told Agence France-Presse.
Simultaneously, an immense amount of intelligence is gathered and analysed on the location and status of the missing aviator. Fales said:
Everything from human intelligence to imagery intelligence to, you know, all the different drones we have looking – signals intelligence. It’s all being used to try to find this guy.
Once the missing aviator is located, a rescue plan is formulated in real time inside the helicopters.
“Those gunners are spotting and looking for threats, the pilots are looking for a place to land, we’re reaching out to that downed aviator,” Fales said.
On the ground, they ensure the pilot is actually the person they are searching for, and a threat-versus-medical-needs assessment is done. In their minds, Fales said, would be:
What kind of immediate threat are we in? How much time do we have to get this person out? What kind of injuries do they have? And then we’ll make up our mind on the type, amount of treatment that’s needed on the scene – or do we just grab and go depending on the threat?
With a fellow soldier still unaccounted for in south-west Iran, Fales said he was “very hopeful” the aviator would be located.
I’m hoping that friendly people have found him and are hiding him. Or he’s still evading.
Hide, find water: ex-pilot tells how to survive being shot down
As US forces race against time and Iran’s military to locate an aviator reportedly shot down on Friday, a former air force pilot has detailed what it takes to hide, survive and extract someone behind enemy lines.
“You’re like, ‘Oh my God, I was in a fighter jet two minutes ago, flying 500 miles an hour, and a missile just exploded, literally 15 feet from your head,’” said retired brigadier general Houston Cantwell, who is now at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
With that said, a pilot’s training – known as survival, evasion, resistance and escape (Sere) – would likely kick in before he or she parachutes to the ground, the Agence France-Presse news agency’s report says.
“Your best view of where you may want to go or where you may want to avoid is while you’re coming down in your parachute,” said Cantwell, who logged 400 hours of combat flight experience, including missions over Iraq and Afghanistan.
Parachuting to the ground risked foot, ankle and leg injuries, the former airman said.
There are many stories of survivors from Vietnam that had severe injuries – compound fractures – just from the ejection.
Upon landing, “take an inventory of yourself to figure out: what condition am I in? Can I even move? Am I even mobile?”
Aviators then figure out where they are, whether it is behind enemy lines, where they can hide and how they can communicate.
Cantwell said:
Try to avoid enemy capture, as long as you can. And if I were in a desert environment, I’d want to try to find some water.
Simultaneously, combat search and rescue teams – highly trained soldiers and pilots already on alert – would be activated. But the missing crew member can increase the odds of a safe rescue. Cantwell said:
My priority would be, first of all, concealment, because I don’t want to be captured. I want to try to get to a location where I can get extracted.
In a city, that may be a rooftop. In a rural setting, a field where helicopters can land. Movement was best at night, he said.
Cantwell said that when he flew, he also carried a pistol.
Welcome summary
Hello and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the US-Israel war on Iran and its impact on the region, the world and the global economy.
Iranian and American forces were racing each other early on Saturday to recover a crew member of the first US fighter jet to go down inside Iran since the start of the war.
Tehran said it had shot down the F-15 warplane, while US media reported American special forces had rescued one of its two crew members and the other was still missing.
Iranian authorities urged people living in the country’s rugged south-west to search for the jet’s crew, as state TV broadcast images of what was said to be the mangled debris.
Iran’s military said it also downed a US A-10 ground attack aircraft in the Gulf, with US media saying the pilot was rescued.
US Central Command did not immediately comment on the loss of the F-15, but the White House said Donald Trump “has been briefed”.
The US president told NBC the F-15 loss would not affect negotiations with Iran, saying: “No, not at all. No, it’s war.”
Fresh strikes meanwhile hit Israel, Iran, Lebanon and Gulf countries – and large blasts reportedly rocked northern Tehran. Israel said it had launched a wave of strikes in the Iranian capital, alongside parallel attacks in Beirut.
Strikes by all sides have increasingly targeted economic and industrial sites, raising fears of wider disruption to global energy supplies.
Here are the other main news developments:
Tehran rejected a US proposal for a 48-hour ceasefire, said Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, citing an unnamed source. There was no immediate comment from the US. Earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran had officially told mediators it was unwilling to meet with US officials in Islamabad in the coming days.
The UN force in Lebanon said a blast at one of its positions had wounded three peacekeepers, two of them seriously, in the third such incident in a week.
Israeli fire killed a man in Syria’s Quneitra province in the south near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Syrian state media said. The man was killed in an attack by “an Israeli tank”, the Sana agency said, while state TV said a car was targeted.
An Egyptian national was killed and four others wounded after a fire at a gas complex in Abu Dhabi, caused by falling debris from an intercepted attack, the government media office said. Two of the four people hurt were from Egypt, while the others were from Pakistan, it said.
Trump asked lawmakers to approve a $1.5tn defence budget for 2027 as the US faces rising costs from its war with Iran and mounting global security commitments. The proposal would lift Pentagon spending by more than 40% in a single year – the sharpest increase since the second world war.
The US embassy in Lebanon said Iran and allied groups could seek to target universities in the country, where Tehran-backed Hezbollah is at war with Israel and Israeli troops are carrying out a ground invasion.
Three tankers, including one co-owned by a Japanese company, crossed the strait of Hormuz by hugging close to Oman’s shore – a rare transit route – maritime traffic data showed on Friday.
With agencies
