Dubai’s image as a sunny, tax-free haven for tourists and business travelers was shaken on Saturday after Iranian weaponry struck across the United Arab Emirates, setting off blasts in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and causing damage, officials said.
The attacks landed as the federation of seven sheikhdoms already faced regional tension, with fallout that stretched beyond the immediate strikes. The UAE closed its airspace on Saturday and later shut its embassy in Tehran and withdrew its diplomats, while also calling the attacks aggressive and provocative, according to a foreign ministry statement.
Dubai and Abu Dhabi residents and visitors reported fear and confusion as sound from the air defenses became a defining feature of the day. UAE officials tried to reassure people that interceptions were underway, with Reem Al Hashimy, minister of state for international cooperation, telling CNN that loud sounds heard by the public were those of interception and that where damage occurred it was primarily debris.
The Ministry of Defense said Sunday that air defenses had dealt with 165 ballistic missiles, two cruise missiles and more than 540 Iranian drones over two days, adding to the picture of a sustained barrage that spread across civilian areas. Officials said the interceptions held through Saturday, but they pointed to debris from downed weapons as the cause of subsequent fires at prominent locations.
Among the sites shown in social media footage were fires near major tourist and skyline landmarks, including an image of fire outside the Fairmont on the man-made Palm Jumeirah island, flames on the facade of the Burj Al Arab, and smoke rising near Burj Khalifa, the 2,723-foot (830-meter) tower. The Dubai Media Office also reported that the Dubai International Airport was damaged and that four employees were injured.
The attacks also hit infrastructure linked to international travel and shipping. The Dubai Media Office said there was a fire at Dubai’s Jebel Ali Port, the city’s main sea terminal and a major shipping hub, reflecting how the strikes affected more than just individual buildings.
The blasts complicated travel plans for some visitors in the UAE. Kristy Ellmer, who said she was on a business trip from New Hampshire, described feeling relatively safe despite numerous detonations, saying: “You hear a lot of explosions at times, you know, there’s hundreds of them,” and adding, “It’s unsettling. We’re not used to hearing bombs, right, or missiles.”
Another traveler, Louise Herrle, an American tourist whose flight home with her husband was scrapped, said the strikes were her third attempt to visit the region. Herrle, speaking after the couple completed its Abu Dhabi and Dubai tour, said she would be “less likely to return to the Emirates or the region” and that she would probably “avoid this part of the world when there’s increased tensions,” because “it just explodes so quickly,” adding, “Maybe, she said, ‘the universe was trying to tell us something.’”
Analysts said the attacks struck at the core of Dubai’s appeal. Cinzia Bianco, an expert on the Persian Gulf at the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on X that the situation was “Dubai’s ultimate nightmare” and that “there might be a way to be resilient, but there is no going back.”
Jamie Osborne, a British racehorse trainer who said he was in Dubai for the Emirates Super Saturday, described the disruption from close range, telling AP that: “Last night was pretty surreal.” He said, “You’re standing in the paddock watching missiles get shot through the sky.”
For the UAE, officials’ immediate messaging and emergency measures aimed to contain the security shock. But with fires and transport interruptions tied to the strikes, the day offered a stark contrast to the emirate’s long-standing pitch of calm and predictability—an image that it had built over years by attracting foreigners to live largely tax-free in luxury, according to the AP report.