Israel renews Lebanon strikes as war spreads to Gulf states and Iran's leadership cracks

Israel renewed its assault on southern Lebanon early Sunday, targeting commanders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, a day after striking a Tehran oil storage facility in what appeared to be the first attack on a civil industrial site in the conflict. Missiles and drones struck Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain as the war expanded across the Gulf.

The widening conflict has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 290 in Lebanon, 11 in Israel, and six U.S. troops, according to officials in those countries. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised “many surprises” for the next phase of the war, as a public rift emerged within Iran’s remaining leadership over whether to continue attacking neighboring states.

Iran’s leadership divided

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian apologized Saturday for attacks on “neighboring countries” and said Iran’s leadership council had directed the armed forces not to strike neighboring states “unless we are attacked by those countries. I think we should solve this through diplomacy,” he said.

Pezeshkian also dismissed U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for Iran to surrender unconditionally. “That’s a dream that they should take to their grave,” he said.

But Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, Iran’s judiciary chief and a fellow member of the three-man council overseeing the country since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the war’s opening airstrikes, took a different position. “The geography of some countries in the region — both overtly and covertly — is in the hands of the enemy, and those points are used against our country in acts of aggression. Intense attacks on these targets will continue,” he posted on X.

Late Saturday, top Iranian security official Ali Larijani said in an address on state media that “our leaders are united on this issue and have no disagreements with one another.” Iran’s U.N. mission suggested, without offering evidence, that strikes on nonmilitary sites “may have resulted from interception by U.S. electronic defense systems.”

The Revolutionary Guard, which controls hundreds of ballistic missiles, had answered only to Khamenei and appeared to be picking its own targets since his death, according to the Associated Press. Pezeshkian’s authority over the Guard was not established.

Lebanon strikes

Israeli airstrikes killed eight people in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. Local media reported that an Israeli drone struck a hotel in Beirut, killing four and wounding 10 others. Those deaths followed at least 47 others killed in Israeli strikes on Saturday.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it would “not allow Iranian terrorist elements to establish themselves in Lebanese territory.”

Gulf attacks expand

Kuwait authorities said two border guards were killed when the country was struck by a swarm of missiles and drones. The Interior Ministry said only that the guards were killed “while performing their national duty.” Drones also targeted critical infrastructure including fuel tanks at Kuwait International Airport and a government building in Kuwait City, authorities said.

Hours after Pezeshkian’s apology, the UAE said debris from an aerial interception killed a driver. Four people have now been killed in the UAE since the war began; authorities said all were foreign nationals. Sirens sounded in Bahrain. Saudi Arabia said it destroyed drones headed toward its Shaybah oil field and shot down a ballistic missile aimed at Prince Sultan Air Base, which hosts U.S. forces. At least two people were killed by strikes in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

The day prior, an Israeli attack on a Tehran oil storage facility sent pillars of fire into the sky, visible in AP video. Iranian state media blamed “an attack from the U.S. and the Zionist regime” at the site, which supplies the capital and neighboring northern provinces. The strike appeared to be the first on a civil industrial facility in the war.

Missile hits Baghdad’s Green Zone

A missile landed on the helicopter landing pad at the U.S. Embassy complex in Baghdad, according to three Iraqi security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. An embassy spokesperson declined to comment. No casualties were reported.

It was the first reported strike to land in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone since the Iran war began, the AP reported. Iran and allied Iraqi militias have launched dozens of attacks on U.S. military bases and facilities in Iraq since the conflict began.

Iraq’s caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani called the embassy attack a “terrorist act” carried out by “rogue groups.”

Trump: ‘Not looking to settle’

Trump told reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One that the United States was not seeking to end the conflict through negotiations. “We’re not looking to settle,” Trump said. “They’d like to settle. We’re not looking to settle.”

Trump described the ongoing U.S. operations in Iran as an “excursion” and threatened that Iran would be “hit very hard” with more “areas and groups of people” becoming targets, without elaborating. He said issues including rising gas prices and the safety of Americans in the region would improve once the conflict ends.

Trump also said he had ruled out involving Kurdish fighters in the conflict. “The war is complicated enough without having … the Kurds involved,” he told reporters. Kurdish officials had told the AP in the days prior that Kurdish-Iranian dissident groups in northern Iraq were preparing for a potential cross-border military operation in Iran and that the U.S. had asked Iraqi Kurds to support them.

The U.S. and Israel have targeted Iran’s military capabilities, leadership, and nuclear program. The conflict’s stated goals and timelines have repeatedly shifted as the U.S. has at times suggested it seeks to topple Iran’s government or elevate new leadership.