The United States expanded its air campaign against Iran on Thursday, striking bridges and military infrastructure across the country, while Tehran retaliated against American allies in the Gulf in a dramatic escalation of the war over the Strait of Hormuz. Israel has stayed out of the latest round of fighting, and Iran has not directly targeted the Jewish state.
President Trump said the United States is “winning big in Iran” and warned Tehran that “you will see the fruits of that labor very, very shortly.” The renewed fighting comes a month after Washington and Tehran signed a preliminary memorandum of understanding meant to end the war that erupted on February 28 with joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
US Central Command said its latest wave of strikes “hit dozens of Iranian military targets such as coastal surveillance and air defense sites, military logistics infrastructure, and maritime capabilities.” Overnight strikes on bridges in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, including the coastal city of Bandar Khamir, killed at least seven people, Iranian state television reported. Iranian state media also reported explosions in Bushehr, home to Iran’s only civilian nuclear plant, as well as in Qeshm, Bandar Abbas, Rask and Chabahar.
Trump has threatened to move beyond military targets to Iran’s power plants and bridges to force Tehran back to the negotiating table over the Strait. “Next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants. Next week comes the bridges,” Trump told Fox News. “I’ll save the energy targets for last, but ultimately we’ll hit energy targets.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump remains “open to diplomacy” even as he holds Iran “accountable.”
Iran strikes Gulf states, not Israel
Iran’s retaliation on Thursday hit US allies across the Gulf rather than Israel. Qatar came under a barrage of Iranian missiles that sent residents into shelters as air defenses fired to intercept them. Kuwait intercepted Iranian drones, and Bahrain sounded air raid sirens. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they struck a US base in Jordan with ballistic missiles, a response, Tehran said, to an American strike near a children’s hospital in Ahvaz that Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei called “barbaric.” A teacher in Ahvaz named Hani described the bombardment as “very intense,” saying, “My hands are shaking. There were at least 11 or 12 explosions.”
Israel has not entered the current exchange of fire, and Iran has not struck Israeli territory. Channel 12 reported that Israel is bracing for the fighting between Washington and Tehran to intensify further next week, with officials assessing that the United States may broaden its targeting from military sites to Iranian civilian infrastructure, in line with Trump’s public threats.
The absence of direct Iran-Israel fire does not mean Israel’s northern front is quiet. Israel’s active fighting in this war has been concentrated against Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, rather than against Iran itself. Iran continues to describe Hezbollah as part of its regional “Axis of Resistance,” alongside the Houthis in Yemen and Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq, but so far, Tehran has channeled its own missiles at American allies in the Gulf while leaving the Iran-Israel front to unfold through Hezbollah.
Strait of Hormuz at the center
The Strait of Hormuz, the waterway that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and gas, remains the flashpoint of the war. Iran blockaded the strait after the February 28 outbreak of fighting, briefly reopened it under last month’s US-Iran deal, then closed it again last week, vowing to keep it shut “until the US ends its aggression.” The US military reimposed its own blockade of Iran’s ports and, on Wednesday, fired Hellfire missiles from an aircraft into the smokestack of the Curacao-flagged tanker M/T Belma after it tried to break the blockade. “The ship is no longer transiting to Iran,” CENTCOM said.
Reuters reported Thursday that Iran has asked Yemen’s Houthi rebels to prepare to close the Red Sea’s Bab el-Mandeb Strait if the United States strikes Iranian power infrastructure, according to three sources, including two senior Iranian officials. A source close to the Houthis said the group has already positioned missiles and drones near the strait and is awaiting the order to strike. A shutdown of the Red Sea route, which now carries about 7% of global energy supplies, would compound the crisis already caused by the closure of Hormuz, since Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, have diverted much of their oil exports through Red Sea ports since the war began.
Diplomacy still on the table
Iran’s top negotiator, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, has struck a defiant tone, declaring that Iran is in “an essential and existential war with America” and warning that Tehran has “no reason to adhere” to the memorandum of understanding if it does not benefit from it. Iran’s military spokesman said Thursday that “all infrastructure in the region” would be “crushed” if the United States follows through on its threats.
Yet channels remain open. Channel 12 reported that Qatar has submitted a new proposal to Washington and Tehran to resume negotiations, one Iranian officials reportedly view favorably, and that Iranian attacks on Qatar had stopped after the proposal was presented. Trump said Wednesday that Iran allowed Dena Karari, an American citizen detained since December 2024, to leave the country, calling it a “gesture of goodwill.” Iran’s judiciary denied Thursday that any American prisoner had been released or exchanged.
Trump met with top aides in the White House Situation Room this week to weigh further escalation, including intensified airstrikes, seizing Iranian islands near the strait, and striking the Pickaxe Mountain nuclear site. Officials briefed on the discussions said Trump has not made a final decision and remains reluctant to commit ground troops. “They’re nasty people, but they want to make a deal,” Trump said of Iran’s leadership. Since last week, renewed US strikes have killed at least 30 people in Iran, according to government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani.
