Flames rise from an oil storage facility south of the capital Tehran as strikes hit the city during the U.S.–Israel military campaign, Iran, Saturday, March 7, 2026.
Vahid Salemi
Israel targeted Iran’s oil facilities for the first time early Sunday, with videos showing huge flames lighting up the sky, while Tehran responded to attacks on its infrastructure by targeting that of its regional neighbors, hitting a desalination plant in Bahrain.
Meanwhile, Iranian state media reported officials were close to announcing a successor for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in Israeli strikes at the start of the war. The Israeli Defense Force vowed it would “pursue every successor and every person who seeks to appoint a successor.”
President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have both pledged to continue hitting Iran hard.
Here’s what to know as the increasingly regional conflict enters its ninth day:
Iran and Israel launch attacks on critical infrastructure
This appears to be the first time Israel has targeted a civilian oil facility in Iran. An Iranian news agency reported at least four tanker drivers were killed.
The Israeli military says Iran made frequent use of that oil storage facility in Tehran to operate military infrastructure. Separately, Iran’s foreign minister said a U.S. airstrike damaged an Iranian desalination plant for the first time.
Also for the first time in the Gulf – a desalination plant in Bahrain was damaged in an Iranian drone attack.
These attacks on energy and water infrastructure are a significant escalation in the war. The region depends on desalinated sea water for drinking water. And much of the world relies on oil from the Gulf.
Iranian clerics say they’ve chosen a new – unnamed – supreme leader
Iran’s Assembly of Experts is the group of clerics tasked with appointing a successor. A member of the group says they’ve been working on approving the new leader and a majority consensus has been reached.
He didn’t say what that consensus was.
Israel’s military tweeted a warning in Farsi, saying Iran was trying to rebuild itself and select a new leader and that the Assembly of Experts would soon gather in the city of Qom.
The military said Israel would pursue any successor to Khamenei and target those participating in the selection process.
Netanyahu said in a press conference he seeks to “destabilize the regime and enable change.”
Bombing campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon continues
The Israeli military targeted a hotel in central Beirut Sunday, killing at least four people, according to Lebanese health officials. The hotel attack is the first time the heart of the capital has been struck since the war with Iran began.
A thick plume of smoke rises from an oil storage facility hit by a U.S.-Israeli strike late Saturday in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 8, 2026.
Vahid Salemi
The strike is part of Israel’s intensified bombing campaign in Lebanon against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group. Nearly 300 people have been killed and tens of thousands displaced, according to the Lebanese government.
A video shared online showed black smoke billowing from the window of a hotel room in the Ramada Plaza in central Beirut.
The Israeli military also said it killed five Iranian commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard based in Lebanon.
It said in a statement that it would “not allow Iranian terrorist elements to establish themselves in Lebanese territory.”
Israeli strikes have been mainly focused on south Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut, which are considered Hezbollah strongholds.
Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed political and military organization in Lebanon that has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union.
Hotels like the Ramada in Beirut are full of displaced families fleeing the Israeli bombing in the south.
Trump slams Britain and China urges restraint
Trump attacked British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Truth Social after reports that the U.K. has readied two aircraft carriers, possibly for deployment to the Middle East.
“That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer — But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!” the U.S. leader said.
Britain has not joined offensive operations against Iran. After initially refusing permission to the U.S. for use of British bases to attack Iran, Starmer later approved “defensive” U.S. action against Iranian missile sites from bases in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
Meanwhile, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said armed conflict in the Middle East will only breed hatred, and called for a ceasefire.
“Might does not make right” he said, adding, “the law of the jungle must not return and rule the world.”
China has offered to mediate in the conflict, but is more closely aligned with Iran than with either the U.S. or Israel.
That has raised questions over whether Trump will still meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in a few weeks.
Attacks Intensify in Iraq’s Kurdistan region
Attacks by Iran and its paramilitary proxies have intensified in Iraq and the country’s Kurdistan region. A missile strike on the U.S. base at the regional capital Erbil’s international airport killed a Kurdish security member, while rockets hit the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Saturday.
Iran and the Iraqi militias it backs hit a hotel used by the United Nations in the city of Suleimaniyah, as well as a brigade of Kurdish fighters and an Iranian opposition base near the Kurdistan region’s second city.
Komala, an Iranian-armed opposition group, said its base near Sulaymaniyah was hit by a missile Saturday, killing one of its fighters and wounding another.
The Iraqi government pledged to arrest militia members it blamed for the rocket attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Security sources said one of the rockets hit the embassy’s helicopter landing pad.
NPR’s Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv, Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Beirut, Kate Bartlett in Johannesburg, Jane Arraf in Erbil, and Jennifer Pak in Beijing contributed reporting.
