Iran War Live Updates: Iranian Missiles Evade Israel’s Formidable Defenses, Hitting 2 Cities

Beirut/Tel Aviv3:17 a.m. March 22 Tehran4:47 a.m. March 22 Iran War Live Updates: Iranian Missiles Evade Israel’s Formidable Defenses, Hitting 2 Cities At least a dozen people were seriously injured as Iranian missiles struck Dimona and Arad, in one of the worst days for Israel in the war. The attacks showed Iran could still inflict damage despite three weeks of being bombed. - Erik Marmor/Getty Images - Erik Marmor/Getty Images - Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times - Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times - Amit Elkayam for The New York Times - Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times - Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times - Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times - Agence France-Presse — Getty Images - Amit Elkayam for The New York Times - Hussein Malla/Associated Press - Jalaa Marey/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images - Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times Iranian missiles evaded Israel’s formidable air defenses and struck two small cities in the south of the country, shattering buildings, seriously injuring at least a dozen people and demonstrating that Tehran can still inflict damage even after three weeks of devastating airstrikes from the United States and Israel. “This is a very difficult evening,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a social media post. As the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran entered its fourth week, Tehran showed no sign it intended to back down, even as President Trump posted a social media message on Friday suggesting he might be looking to exit the conflict. The following day, Mr. Trump issued two bellicose messages on social media. In the first, he said the United States had already met its goals in the war and that he had refused peace overtures from Tehran. Then he threatened that U.S. forces would “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if the country did not open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. Iran tried to send two missiles on Friday to hit a joint U.S.-British military base on Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean more than 2,500 miles from Tehran, Britain’s defense ministry said. One missile failed mid-flight, and the other was shot down by an American warship, a U.S. official said. Still, the audacious attempt at a long-range strike raised questions about the how far Iran’s missiles could reach. One of the Israeli cities hit on Saturday was Dimona, eight miles from Israel’s main nuclear research center, which is believed by researchers to be connected to the country’s nuclear weapons program. The explosives hit a residential area, seriously injuring a boy and inflicting moderate injuries on a woman, the Israeli authorities said on Saturday. There were no reports of damage to the nuclear facility, according to the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which urged “maximum military restraint.” The Israeli military said it had tried to intercept the missiles before it struck Dimona and had opened an investigation into what went wrong. The Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with Iran’s security forces, reported that the missile had been fired in retaliation for airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facility in Natanz earlier on Saturday and on the Bushehr nuclear power plant on Tuesday. Later in the night, even more damage was done in Arad, about 25 miles northeast of Dimona, where a ballistic missile hit a residential area and left at least 10 people seriously injured. Rescue workers were searching for casualties at a building wrecked by the strike. Here’s what else to follow today: U.S. strikes: Adm. Brad Cooper of Central Command, which oversees the U.S. military’s Middle East operations, said that the United States had bombed an underground facility on Iran’s coastline used to store anti-ship cruise missiles, mobile missile launchers and other equipment used to attack shipping. The United States had attacked more than 8,000 targets so far in the war and had badly degraded Tehran’s fighting power, Admiral Cooper said. The damaged targets included 130 vessels. Diplomats expelled: Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry announced on Saturday that it was expelling several Iranian diplomats from the embassy in Riyadh. It said that “in light of Iran’s continuing flagrant attacks against Saudi Arabia, the kingdom has informed the military attaché, his deputy and three other members of Iran’s embassy in Riyadh that they are considered persona non grata and should depart the kingdom within 24 hours.” Failed attack: The British ministry said that Iran fired two missiles on Friday at the base, Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands, which is far from where Tehran had been attacking Israel and Persian Gulf countries with drones and missiles in retaliation for U.S. and Israeli airstrikes. One missile failed mid-flight, and the other was shot down by an American warship, said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. Lebanon: Israeli forces bombarded the southern suburbs of Beirut, the capital, before dawn on Saturday, part of a wide-scale campaign against the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah. Death tolls: Iran’s U.N. ambassador has said that at least 1,348 civilians had been killed since the start of the war. On Friday, a Washington-based human rights group, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, reported that at least 1,398 civilians had been killed. The number of Lebanese killed rose to more than 1,000, Lebanon’s health ministry said on Thursday. At least 14 people have been killed in Iranian attacks on Israel, officials have said. The American death toll stood at 13 service members. President Trump, who days ago publicly called on Israel to avoid targeting Iranian energy sites for fear of triggering an escalating cycle of counterstrikes, threatened to hit Iran’s power plants if it did not “FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz” within 48 hours. He said that American strikes on Iranian plants would start “WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST.” Iran’s largest plant appears to be its only operating nuclear power plant, at Bushehr. For decades, nuclear power plants have been considered off limits because of the obvious risk of environmental catastrophe. The U.S. has led efforts to keep Russia and Ukraine from firing near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Bushehr is fueled by Russian-provided uranium and monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. It is not considered part of Ukraine’s nuclear weapons program. The spent fuel is returned to Russia. Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, the state broadcaster, said that the Iranian missile strike on the city of Dimona was intended to target Israel’s nuclear facilities there. The report appears to be the first confirmation from Iran that Israel’s nuclear facilities — which were not damaged, according to the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog — were the focus of the attack. Price of Brent Crude Oil Israel’s military said early Sunday that it had begun a new wave of strives on Tehran, targeting Iranian infrastructure. A group representing journalists who cover the Defense Department is seeking the immediate restoration of press access for its members after a federal judge ruled on Friday that key parts of the department’s media policy were unconstitutional. “Our clients and the public face ongoing, irreparable harm,” David Schulz, counsel for the group, the Pentagon Press Association, wrote in a letter, “so long as the experienced military reporters of the P.P.A. are excluded from the Pentagon while active combat operations are being conducted in multiple arenas.” The Pentagon last year imposed new rules that empowered it to declare journalists “security risks” and revoke their press passes if they engaged in any conduct that the department believed threatened national security. Rather than comply with those restrictions, dozens of journalists surrendered their press passes and continued covering the military outside the Pentagon. The New York Times accused the Pentagon of violating the First and Fifth Amendments with the new rules, and in his ruling on Friday, Judge Paul Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia sided with The Times. He ordered the immediate reinstatement of press passes for seven Times journalists who had previously held press passes. The Times said in a statement on Saturday: “We are seeking to have our passes restored in keeping with the judge’s order. Our legal department sent a letter to Pentagon counsel today asking for restoration on Monday.” In an interview, Mr. Schulz said he believed that the judge’s ruling meant that the Pentagon had a legal obligation to return passes to all of those who opted to turn them in last year. Pentagon correspondents have said that the press passes enhance their reporting on the military because they facilitate personal interactions with press officials and sources, though Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, last year curtailed the areas where reporters may roam without an escort. The Pentagon did not respond to questions about the restoration of press passes. On Friday, Sean Parnell, the department’s chief spokesman, wrote on X, “We disagree with the decision and are pursuing an immediate appeal.” Any appeal from the government would most likely include a petition for a stay of Judge Friedman’s order. Two Iranian missiles struck cities in southern Israel and wounded dozens as the war entered its fourth week and Israel continued to hammer Tehran and Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, with strikes. Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, said that U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran would “escalate significantly” this coming week as the U.S. military ramped up its aerial attacks. Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the military’s Central Command, said on Saturday that the United States had struck more than 8,000 targets since the start of the war and had diminished Iran’s arsenal. Iran, however, showed no signs of capitulating. Here’s what else happened on Saturday. Iran: The Israeli military said it had struck dozens of sites across Tehran, the Iranian capital, overnight, focusing on factories that developed “critical components for the development of ballistic missiles.” Among the targeted sites was a nuclear facility near Natanz, about 200 miles south of Tehran, according to Iranian state media. No radioactive leakage had been detected, and there was no danger to nearby residents, state media reported. The Israeli military denied that it had struck Natanz, which is considered the heart of Iran’s nuclear program and has long been a target for the United States and Israel. Iranian state media reported that a hospital in the southwestern city of Andimeshk was damaged in a strike. There was no immediate comment from Israeli or U.S. military officials or reports of casualties. Lebanon: The Israeli military launched strikes across Lebanon on Saturday, saying it was targeting infrastructure belonging to the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah “with increasing intensity.” Israeli warplanes struck the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, early Saturday. The areas are considered Hezbollah strongholds. The strikes came as heavy rain poured down on Beirut, where many displaced people camped outside. Over 800,000 people have been displaced in the country. Persian Gulf: A total of 22 countries, including Britain, France, Germany and Japan, have signed a statement saying they are ready to “contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage” through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil route that Iran has largely choked off from U.S. allies. The statement indicated that preparations to help secure the waterway were in progress. The United Arab Emirates became the first Arab Persian Gulf nation to join the collective on Saturday. The same day, the U.A.E.’s defense ministry said the country had intercepted three ballistic missiles and eight drones launched from Iran. Other U.S. allies in the region, including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, similarly reported intercepted missiles and drones. Iranian officials have repeatedly said that their strikes are aimed at U.S. military bases, not the Persian Gulf countries that host them. Israel: A missile struck the small city of Dimona, about 70 miles south of Jerusalem, and wounded dozens, including a 10-year-old boy with shrapnel injuries, Israel’s emergency medical services said. Israel’s nuclear weapons program is widely believed to be headquartered in Dimona, which is near the country’s main nuclear research facility, making the area a prime target for strikes. U.N. officials said there was no evidence that the nuclear site had been damaged in the attack. Later in the day, a missile also struck the city of Arad, about 25 miles northeast of Dimona, injuring at least 10 people seriously, according to Israeli emergency medical services. Indian Ocean: American and British officials confirmed on Saturday that Iran attempted to strike a joint U.S.-British military base in the Indian Ocean the previous day. Iran fired two missiles at the base, the Diego Garcia facility, according to a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity. One missile failed mid-flight, and the other was shot down by an American warship. Death toll: More than 2,300 people have been killed since the start of the war, most in Iran. Iran’s representative to the United Nations said last week that over 1,348 civilians had been killed there. On Thursday, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, a Washington-based advocacy group, reported that at least 1,394 civilians had been killed during the conflict. Separately, the Lebanese health ministry said that more than 1,000 people had been killed in the country. At least 13 American service members have been killed, while the Israeli death toll stood at 14, officials said. Pranav Baskar contributed reporting. An Iranian missile penetrated Israeli defenses on Saturday and injured over 40 people in a southern Israeli city eight miles from the country’s main nuclear research facility, according to Israel’s emergency rescue services. There was no evidence that the nuclear site had been damaged in the attack, U.N. officials said. The Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with Iran’s security forces, reported that the missile, which hit a residential area in the small city of Dimona, was fired in retaliation for airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facility in Natanz on Saturday and on the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant on Tuesday. The Israeli military has denied attacking the Natanz facility, and the U.S. military declined to comment. A second missile caused damage in Arad, a city about 25 miles northeast of Dimona, leaving at least seven people seriously injured, according to Israel’s emergency services agency, Magen David Adom. Teams were searching for other casualties. “This has been a very difficult evening in the battle for our future,” the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a post on X. Dimona is a sensitive target because it sits so close to the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, thought by researchers to be connected to Israel’s nuclear weapons program, which the country has not publicly acknowledged. After the strike, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said it had not received any indication of damage to the nuclear research center. The agency called for “maximum restraint” on military strikes in the vicinity of nuclear facilities. The Israeli military said it had unsuccessfully tried to intercept the missile before it struck and had opened an investigation into what went wrong. At least two people were wounded, according to Magen David Adom. A 10-year-old boy was listed in “serious” condition with shrapnel injuries, and a woman had “moderate” injuries from glass fragments. The others had only mild injuries. At least 33 people were wounded after a missile struck the city of Arad in southern Israel, emergency services said. Four of them were in serious condition as medical personnel searched for more casualties. Arad is just 25 miles northeast of the small city of Dimona, where another missile struck and injured dozens earlier in the day, according to emergency services. The Foreign Ministry of Saudi Arabia announced that it was expelling several Iranian diplomats from the embassy in Riyadh. It said that “in light of Iran’s continuing flagrant attacks against Saudi Arabia, the kingdom has informed the military attache, his deputy and three other members of Iran’s embassy in Riyadh that they are considered persona non grata and should depart the kingdom within 24 hours.” Iran’s missile strike on Dimona injured over 40 people, according to Israel’s emergency rescue service. At least two people were in “serious” or “moderate” condition, including a 10-year-old boy with shrapnel injuries and a woman with injuries from glass fragments. Most of the rest who were injured were in “mild condition,” including some hurt while fleeing to shelters and suffering from anxiety symptoms after the strike. The Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with Iran’s security forces, reported that Iran’s missile strike on the southern Israeli city of Dimona was in retaliation for strikes on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility and the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant. Dimona is near Israel’s main nuclear facility, the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center. and it is widely thought by researchers to be connected to Israel’s nuclear weapons program. After the strike, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said it had not received any indication of damage to the nuclear research center and called for “maximum” restraint in the vicinity of nuclear facilities. The IAEA is aware of reports of an incident in the city of Dimona, Israel, involving a missile impact and has not received any indication of damage to the nuclear research center Negev. — IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency ⚛️ (@iaeaorg) March 21, 2026 Information from regional States indicates that no abnormal radiation levels have been… pic.twitter.com/vJ6AlNHGmO News Analysis Ever since President Trump began what he now delicately calls his “excursion” into Iran, Washington has been consumed by the question of when he would call it a day — even if many of his war goals remain unaccomplished. On Friday evening, as he headed to Florida, Mr. Trump seemed to be designing that much-discussed exit. But he clearly has not yet decided whether to take it. And there is mounting evidence — average gas price approaching $4 a gallon, infrastructure in ruins across the Persian Gulf, a decimated Iranian theocracy digging in and American allies at first rebuffing and now struggling with demands to patrol hostile waters — that the repercussions of Mr. Trump’s excursion may outlast his interest in it. As always, Mr. Trump’s messaging is inconsistent, which his critics cite as evidence that he entered this conflict with no strategy and his followers cheer as strategic ambiguity. With thousands of additional marines headed to the region and the pace of American and Israeli attacks quickening, Mr. Trump told reporters on Friday he had no interest in a cease-fire because the United States was “obliterating” Iran’s missile stocks, navy, air force and defense industrial base. Hours later, perhaps sensitive to a Republican base understandably nervous about the political effects, he posted on his social media site that “we are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East.” But his latest list of those objectives left out a few of his previous goals and watered down others. He made no mention of defeating the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which appears to remain in power, along with Mojtaba Khamenei, who has succeeded his father as supreme leader, though he has yet to be seen or heard in public. Mr. Trump also omitted any message to the Iranian people, whom he told only three weeks ago: “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.” And after insisting in the failed negotiations that led up to the war that Iran had to ship all of its nuclear material out of the country — starting with the 970 pounds of enriched uranium that are closest to bomb-grade — he suggested a new goal. “Never allowing Iran to get even close to Nuclear Capability,” he wrote, “and always being in a position where the U.S.A. can quickly and powerfully react to such a situation.” That is, essentially, where the United States was after it buried Iran’s nuclear program in rubble last June. The sites have remained under the watchful eye of U.S. spy satellites. Mr. Trump ended the posting with a new demand for American allies, whom he had frozen out of his deliberations before starting the war, and gave no warning to prepare for its consequences. “The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — the United States does not!” American forces would help, he said. “Think of it as the new Trump Doctrine for the Middle East,” Richard N. Haass, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who served on the National Security Council and at the State Department during the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq war, wrote on social media. “We broke it, but you own it.” This is not where Mr. Trump expected to be after three weeks of war. Foreign leaders, diplomats and U.S. officials who have spoken with the president said that in the first week he voiced expectations that Iran would capitulate. That was clear in Mr. Trump’s demand on March 6 for Iran’s “unconditional surrender.” The demand was mystifying, said one European diplomat with long experience dealing with Iran, given the country’s competing power centers, its national pride and a Persian state that has existed within the rough boundaries of modern-day Iran, enduring many rises and falls, since the days of Cyrus the Great around 550 B.C. (That demand was also missing from his latest set of objectives. The White House has since said that the president does not expect a surrender announcement from Iran, but that Mr. Trump will determine when Iran has “effectively surrendered.”) Iran’s refusal to “cry uncle,’’ as Mr. Trump termed it to reporters on Air Force One, has been only one of the surprises to the president in recent weeks. The first was the crisis in the energy markets, which the International Energy Agency has called “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.” It has sent Mr. Trump and his aides scrambling. They have promised releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which was only 60 percent full, reflecting a lack of planning. Over the past week the Treasury Department has issued licenses for the delivery of Russian and Iranian oil already at sea. In other words, to calm the markets, the president has approved enriching an adversary that is at war with Ukraine, an American ally, and another that is at war with the United States. So far, the effects are minimal. Brent crude closed at around $112 a barrel on Friday after the Treasury announcements, and Goldman Sachs warned on Thursday that if ships were reluctant to make their way through the Strait of Hormuz, prices could remain high into 2027. The Iranians clearly understand that market chaos is their one remaining superweapon. On Saturday, Tehran warned it could set fire to other facilities in the Middle East. The United States believes the country entered the war with 3,000 or so sea mines — some of which are believed to have been destroyed — and the United States has focused on destroying small boats in the Iranian fleet that are targeting tankers associated with American allies. “All it takes is for one of those things to get through to shut down traffic,” said John F. Kirby, who served as both Pentagon and State Department spokesman after retiring as a naval officer. “The fear alone can be paralyzing to the shipping industry, as we have already seen.” Mr. Trump’s second surprise was his sudden need for allies. He didn’t imagine it at the beginning of the conflict, the defense minister of one Gulf nation said recently, because he thought the war would be short. But patrolling the strait, and other checkpoints, appears to be a task that could last months or years. His third surprise was the absence of any uprising among either the Revolutionary Guards or ordinary Iranians. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the Oval Office earlier this week “we are seeing defections at all levels as they’re starting to sense what’s going on with the regime.” But American and European intelligence officials say they have no evidence of such defections — even after Israel targeted, and eliminated, Iran’s supreme leader, its top security and intelligence chiefs and many top military officials. All that could yet come. Wars are not won or lost in three weeks. But Mr. Trump entered the Iran war after enjoying the fruits of quick victories. A bombing run over Iran’s three major nuclear sites in June was a one-evening expedition, essentially burying the country’s nuclear stockpiles and wiping out thousands of its centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium. The commando raid to seize Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela from his bed in Caracas was similarly swift. And so far, the government Mr. Trump left in place — essentially Mr. Maduro’s government — has been compliant. That operation has helped Mr. Trump destabilize Cuba, which has lost the Venezuelan fuel supplies that it has long depended on. The other day the electric grid in Cuba collapsed, and administration officials have been openly suggesting that the government will, too. Perhaps those quick results encouraged Mr. Trump to believe the U.S. military was all-powerful, and that the mullahs and generals and militias that run Iran, a country of 92 million people, would crumble. Perhaps he rushed. Military historians will be dissecting this conflict for a long time. But for now it is clear that Iran is a different kind of challenge. Mr. Trump started using the word “excursion” to suggest this is just a short trip, a brief diversion. But there is no real end in sight. Iran has kept up a steady stream of retaliatory strikes on its Persian Gulf neighbors in recent days, even though the overall pace of attacks appeared to have slowed down. The United Arab Emirates defense ministry said on Saturday its air defenses had intercepted eight drones and three ballistic missiles. The Kuwaiti army said on Saturday it had detected and intercepted nine ballistic missiles and nine drones in the last 24 hours. Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry reported on Saturday a handful of drones had been intercepted in its eastern region, and Bahrain’s armed forces said it had intercepted two additional missiles since Thursday. Qatar’s defense ministry has not announced any additional Iranian missile or drone attacks since Thursday, when a major liquefied natural gas complex was hit. Iranian state media reported on Saturday that a hospital in the southwestern city of Andimeshk was damaged in a strike. There was no immediate comment from Israeli or U.S. military officials or reports of casualties. The New York Times is trying to learn more about the incident. A total of 22 countries, including Britain, France, Germany and Japan, have signed a statement signaling willingness to help secure shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The United Arab Emirates said on Saturday it had joined, making it the second Arab Gulf nation to do so alongside Bahrain. The statement, first issued earlier this week, said countries were ready to “contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage” through the strategic waterway and that preparations were underway. Several people sustained minor injuries and at least two others were moderately wounded, including a 10-year-old boy with shrapnel injuries, after a missile hit in the small city of Dimona in the Negev Desert in southern Israel, emergency services said. The Israeli military said it had detected missiles launched from Iran and was responding to reports of strikes in the south. Israel’s main nuclear facility is near Dimona, making the area particularly sensitive to strikes, but there were no immediate reports the site was hit. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that Britain would not use R.A.F. Akrotiri, an air base in Cyprus, for offensive military action against Iran. The prime minister’s office said in a statement that Starmer’s commitment to stay out of the Middle East conflict was relayed to President Nikos Christodoulides of Cyprus in a telephone call on Saturday morning and that it was in keeping with Britain’s agreement with the United States to use its bases “in collective self defense of the region.” Starmer’s pledge to Cyprus came a day after Iran attempted to strike a joint U.S.-British military base in the Indian Ocean. R.A.F. Akrotiri, located just 150 miles west of Lebanon and one of two base areas on Cyprus that are sovereign British territory, was struck by what British and Cypriot officials said resembled an Iranian-made drone on the second night of the war. Nowruz, the Persian New Year, is a time of renewal and family celebration. But for many Iranians, that joy will be out of reach this year. The war in Iran has curtailed travel, and an internet blackout has compounded the separation, preventing families from connecting. Three weeks have passed since Iran’s internet blackout came into effect, according to the watchdog organization NetBlocks. The group said in a social media post on Saturday that only a few circumvention tools were still functioning, as authorities intensify the crackdown on satellite use and virtual private networks designed to bypass restrictions. For the country’s more than 90 million people, this digital blackout means being unable to see messages from loved ones, share greetings or stay informed about unfolding events. “The lack of accurate information and the absence of collective and immediate public communication have caused us to feel trapped in suffocation and silence,” said Saeed Souzangar, a tech entrepreneur and digital rights activist from the capital, Tehran, who responded to text messages from a New York Times reporter. Iran has a history of shutting down the internet. In January, the government imposed a nationwide blackout as it sought to suppress massive anti-government protests. Now, the current blackout has left Iranians isolated, blocking access to essential information and restricting communication, as authorities seek to assert control amid the ongoing conflict. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, defended the blackout in an interview with CBS News this month, saying that the internet had been shut down because of “security reasons” and that it was part of “urgent measures” taken “for the sake of war.” Alp Toker, director of NetBlocks, said this was the first time an internet shutdown had coincided with Nowruz celebrations in Iran. “The internet blackout has already broken Iran’s own record set weeks ago in January and is on track to become the most severe digital blackout globally,” Mr. Toker told The Times. The blackout’s impact has only intensified public anger, both inside Iran and among the diaspora. Many are especially frustrated by officials who appear to retain internet access and try to share their own messages online, said Amir Rashidi, a cybersecurity expert with Miaan, a digital-rights group based in the United States. “Internet shutdowns during Nowruz cut people off from their most basic need: connection,” Mr. Rashidi said in an interview. “At a time when families should be sharing joy across distances, they are instead left isolated and uncertain.” Iran’s attempted missile attack on Friday on a joint U.S.-British military base in the Indian Ocean, 2,500 miles away, immediately prompted questions of how far Tehran’s weapons can reach. Before the current war on Iran, President Trump raised similar fears, noting in his State of the Union address that Iran was “working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.” But for now, Iran’s missiles cannot reach the United States, and as the failed strike on the military base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean demonstrated, the farther Iran fires, the less reliable its missiles and the less accurate its attacks become. Iran fired two missiles at Diego Garcia, said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. One failed mid-flight and the other was shot down by an American warship. The official added that the launch had surprised the United States because of its range. Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the Israeli military chief of staff, discussed the missile attack on Diego Garcia in a video statement on Saturday night, saying Iran had fired a “two-stage intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 4,000 kilometers” at “an American target” on the island on Friday. He did not elaborate, except to say that the attack underscored that Iran’s military capabilities could threaten Europe, not just Israel. The strike came before the announcement that Britain would allow the United States expanded use of its bases, including at Diego Garcia. A senior Western military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attack may indicate that Iran is trying to force the United States to spread out its defenses, and not merely focus on defending bases in the Middle East. Tom Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the 2,500-mile distance was “beyond what we and they usually advertise” as the range of Iranian missiles. “Iran has made its missile program a top priority for many years, and have displayed solid rocket motor plans,” Mr. Karako said. “It’s not a surprise that hard work yielded more substantial capability than some of the more optimistic publicly stated estimates. This is one reason why the United States and our European friends have been deploying missile defenses for quite a while now.” The United States has missile-defense facilities in Romania and Poland that are nominally meant to address the threat of Iranian missiles. A report by the Defense Intelligence Agency last year concluded that Iran did not have ballistic missiles capable of hitting the United States, and that it might take as long as a decade for it to have up to 60 intercontinental ballistic missiles. At a Senate hearing this week, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, affirmed the D.I.A. report that suggested Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile development was years away. But others have estimated a shorter timeline. Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he feared Iran could make a functioning ICBM in six months if it paired its space launch technology with its medium-range missile technology. John Ratcliffe, the director of the C.I.A., said Mr. Cotton was right to be concerned. He said if Iran was unimpeded it would be able to develop missiles that could threaten the continental United States, though he did not cite a time frame for such a development. “It is one of the reasons why degrading Iran’s missile production capabilities that is taking place right now in Operation Epic Fury is so important to our national security,” Mr. Ratcliffe said. Other experts cautioned that it was hard to draw many conclusions about Iran’s capabilities until more is known about the type of missile that was fired. But Nicholas Carl, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project, said it affirmed Iran’s ability to fire beyond 1,200 miles with its current capabilities. “That upends some of the assumptions that many have long had about the Iranian threat,” Mr. Carl said. “Even if Iran cannot reliably hit precise targets at that range, this raises the question of whether it can reach that far with cluster munition warheads, which it has fired repeatedly at Israel in order to maximize collateral damage and terrorize civilians — rather than to destroy discrete military targets.” Aaron Boxermanin Jerusalem contributed reporting. The Litani River, a 90-mile waterway that cuts across southern Lebanon, has again become a focal point of the latest war between Israel and Hezbollah, the second in two years. After Hezbollah, an Iran-backed group, fired rockets into Israel earlier this month, the Israeli military went on the offensive, launching large-scale airstrikes which Lebanese authorities say have since killed more than 1,000 people. Israel has issued sweeping evacuation orders for all of southern Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands of residents were warned to move north of the Litani River before those orders were later extended farther. The Litani’s role in the conflict dates back decades, shaped by repeated rounds of fighting along the Israeli-Lebanese border. Until 2000, Israeli forces occupied a swath of southern Lebanon that they called a security zone, as they fought a grinding insurgency led by Hezbollah. After Israel withdrew, the area south of the Litani remained one of Hezbollah’s strongest bases of operations, where the group has deep support among the area’s Shiite Muslim community. That reality shaped a cease-fire that ended a major war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. Under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, the area between Israel’s border and the Litani — roughly 15 to 20 miles to the north — was meant to be free of Hezbollah fighters. The resolution turned the river into the upper bound of a buffer zone that was to be controlled by the Lebanese military, with support from United Nations peacekeepers. That agreement, however, largely failed. Though the border remained relatively calm for two decades, Israel argued that Hezbollah was building up weapons and fighters south of the river. Lebanon’s government and Hezbollah accused Israel of remaining in disputed border areas and of repeatedly violating Lebanese sovereignty. After war erupted again in October 2023, Lebanon’s government pledged the following year to disarm Hezbollah under the terms of another fragile cease-fire agreement, beginning in areas south of the Litani. That agreement also mostly failed. The Lebanese government claimed progress in recent months, but Israeli officials accused Hezbollah of rebuilding its military capabilities faster than the Lebanese state could dismantle them. The latest round of fighting has cast further doubt on how durable those disarming efforts were. Now, as the conflict escalates, Israel appears to be moving to enforce its own version of a buffer zone. In recent days, the Israeli military has attacked bridges and crossings over the Litani, accusing Hezbollah of using them to move fighters and weapons into southern Lebanon. Analysts say the strikes serve a dual purpose: increasing pressure on the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah, while also creating a choke point to disrupt the group’s supply lines as Israeli forces push deeper into the country. Many in Lebanon fear that the Litani could become the ultimate objective of Israel’s expanding ground invasion, and possibly the boundary of a renewed Israeli-occupied zone in southern Lebanon. Sirens warning of an attack sounded in Bahrain on Saturday. The island nation hosts a U.S. Navy base and has been targeted by at least 143 ballistic missiles and 242 drones since the conflict began. The Saudi defense ministry said it had intercepted dozens of drones overnight in the country’s Eastern Province. The Israeli military said it had struck dozens of sites across Tehran overnight, focusing on factories that developed “critical components for the development of ballistic missiles.” Israel has long argued that if Iran obtained a nuclear weapon, it would pose an existential threat. But Israeli officials have also increasingly argued that Iranian ballistic missiles — which have been repeatedly fired at Israel and across the Persian Gulf since the war began in late February — also pose a menace to their national security. Israel carried out strikes across Lebanon on Saturday, targeting the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, amid deadly ground clashes close to the country’s southern border. The violence came as people around Lebanon attempted to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan. At the same time, heavy rain and thunder swept through the capital, Beirut, where many displaced people are camping outside and have nowhere else to go, as the war approaches its fourth week. The Israeli military said in a statement that it was targeting infrastructure in Beirut belonging to Hezbollah “with increasing intensity.” Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that two areas in the south of the city had been hit early on Saturday, though it did not specify what had been targeted. The areas are considered Hezbollah strongholds. Footage broadcast on Lebanese news networks showed fire and plumes of smoke after several locations were hit. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties from the attacks. Over 1,000 people have died in Lebanon since the war began, with more than 2,700 injured, according to Lebanese health officials. Israel ordered mass evacuations from Beirut’s southern suburbs early in the war, but many people have continued to return to collect belongings and check on their homes and businesses. Late on Friday, the Israeli military issued renewed evacuation warnings for seven areas of southern Beirut. Gunfire could be heard in the south of the city shortly before Israeli airstrikes began. Security analysts said that was likely Hezbollah’s way of warning those still in the neighborhood to leave. Several villages and towns in southern Lebanon were also hit by Israeli airstrikes on Saturday, according to Lebanese state media. Many Lebanese, battered by years of conflict, are worried that Israel could be preparing to mount a full-scale invasion of southern Lebanon. Avichay Adraee, an Israeli military spokesman, said in a statement that Israeli forces had killed a Hezbollah militant in southern Lebanon during ground operations overnight. An Israeli Air Force plane also struck several other fighters who had fired at Israeli troops, while three other militants were killed by tank fire, Mr. Adraee said. Israeli tanks were seen advancing on Saturday toward the coastal town of Naqoura, which is home to the headquarters of the United Nations peacekeeping force, according to a U.N. observation report reviewed by The New York Times. Hezbollah said in statements on Saturday that the group was clashing with Israeli troops in Naqoura and several other border towns, including the strategically important town of Khiam, which has seen intense fighting in recent weeks. The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah was ignited in early March after the group fired rockets on Israel, opening a new front in the wider war between Israel, the United States and Iran. Sirens in Israel’s Upper Galilee region were activated at least four times in about two hours on Saturday, according to the Israeli military’s Home Front Command. Israel’s national emergency service reported property damage but no injuries after responding to incidents in the country’s north. In Lebanon, more than a million people have been displaced so far. Space in shelters is limited, forcing many to sleep in their cars, on roadsides and in schools. “Where do they want us to go?” said Hasnaa Ali Hashem, 55, who had fled the Burj al-Barajneh neighborhood in southern Beirut. Israel renewed an evacuation order for that area on Friday night. Ms. Hashem said she had refused to leave her neighborhood until five days ago, when she evacuated to a stadium hosting displaced people. Rain poured through the stadium’s columns, she said, soaking makeshift tents and flimsy mattresses distributed by aid groups. “We don’t want to live like this,” she said. “We want to go home.” Rawan Sheikh Ahmad, Hwaida Saad and Euan Ward contributed reporting. The war in the Middle East has left Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, balancing two key allies, Iran and Qatar, that are on different sides of the regional conflagration. The United States and Israel have been waging a huge air assault against Iran, which has responded by firing missiles and drones at Israel and at Persian Gulf nations, including Qatar. The crossfire presents a problem for Hamas: While it has repeatedly expressed its solidarity with Iran in its battle with Israel and the United States, it has subtly tried to convey to Qatar that it cares about its interests, too. “Hamas is walking on the knife’s edge,” said Iyad al-Qarra, a Palestinian analyst sympathetic to the militant group. “Between Iran and Qatar, it’s in a very difficult position.” Hamas is part of Iran’s so-called axis of resistance, the network of militias that the Iranian government has cultivated in the Middle East. Hamas officials have described Iran as the biggest foreign backer of its military wing, a source of vast funding, equipment and training. Hamas also has strong ties with Qatar, which has hosted its senior officials for years and provided hundreds of millions of dollars to Gaza — with Israeli approval — for poor families, infrastructure projects and public-sector employees’ salaries. Israeli officials have more recently said they regret the decision to allow Qatari money into Gaza, since it enabled Hamas to divert funds to military operations. At the start of the war, Hamas condemned the Israeli-American attack on Iran, calling it “a direct assault on the entire region,” and issued a statement mourning the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader. “The departed martyr offered political, diplomatic, popular, and military support to our people, its cause, and its resistance, despite the pressure, the siege, and the conspiracies against the Islamic Republic,” Hamas said in its statement about Ayatollah Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Feb. 28. In a letter dated March 13, Mohammed Darwish, a top Hamas official, wrote to Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the slain leader, congratulating him on his appointment as successor and encouraging him to continue Iran’s support of Hamas. But for two weeks, Hamas was silent on Iran’s attacks on Qatar, even as its officials in the capital, Doha, were receiving alerts of incoming Iranian missiles and drones. A week ago, on the 15th day of the war, Hamas issued its first and, to date, only statement on Iran’s attacks on countries in the region, calling on Iran not to target them. It did not mention Qatar by name. Hamas’s statements, one expert said, reflect divisions within the group. “There are two currents in Hamas: one close to Iran, which is stronger, and another close to Arab states, which is weaker,” said Esmat Mansour, a Palestinian political analyst who spent years in Israeli prisons with senior Hamas leaders. “We can see both of these currents manifesting in Hamas’s statements since the beginning of the war.” Abas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, told Japan’s Kyodo News agency on Friday that Iran was ready to help Japanese ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Japan imports more than 90 percent of its oil through the strait. Iran has allowed some countries, including China, India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Iraq, to secure safe passage through the critical maritime route. Admiral Cooper repeated an assessment he has made in three previous video updates that “Iran’s combat capability is on the steady decline as our offensive strikes ramp up.” He offered no timeline for how long the war would last, a decision that senior U.S. military officials have said is up to President Trump. Admiral Cooper said airstrikes against underground missile sites and storage areas along Iran’s southern coast had “degraded” the country’s ability to effectively stop commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. He provided no details on how or when the U.S. and its allies would fully reopen the strait. Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the military’s Central Command, said on Saturday that in the three-week war the U.S. military had struck more than 8,000 military targets, including 130 Iranian vessels.“Their Navy is not sailing. Their tactical fighters are not flying, and they’ve lost the ability to launch missiles and drones at the high rates seen at the beginning of the conflict,” he said in a four-minute operational update video. Fragments of an Iranian missile struck an empty kindergarten in the city of Rishon LeZion south of Tel Aviv earlier on Saturday morning, the Israeli authorities said. The Israeli military said an Iranian cluster munition had struck the school. Israel has closed schools and universities in most of the country since the beginning of the war. Iran targeted the joint U.S.-British Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean, but the attack was unsuccessful, Britain’s defense ministry said on Saturday without providing details. The island archipelago where the base is located is roughly 2,500 miles from Iran. On Friday, Britain said that American forces could use the island base to strike Iranian forces that were threatening ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The ministry said that Iran targeted Diego Garcia before the announcement. The United Arab Emirates’ defense ministry said the country had intercepted three ballistic missiles and eight drones launched from Iran on Saturday. Earlier, in a social media post marking the Eid holiday, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said Iran was not seeking conflict with neighboring Muslim countries, calling them “brothers.” Iranian officials have repeatedly said that their strikes are aimed at U.S. military bases, not the Persian Gulf countries that host them. Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, said in a statement that the U.S.-Israeli military campaign in Iran would “escalate significantly” this week, without saying what the two militaries intended to attack. While President Trump has at times suggested that the war could end sooner rather than later, Israeli officials have consistently told the public to prepare for a protracted battle with Iran.