President Donald Trump effectively declared Tehran a legitimate military zone on Friday, calling its leaders “deranged scumbags” and celebrating the near-total destruction of the city’s military infrastructure while promising even more devastating strikes in the days ahead. Residents of Tehran offered a different perspective, describing a civilian city under siege, with ordinary people unable to leave, buildings shaking from powerful blasts, rubble everywhere, and the electricity cutting in and out in cold weather. The gap between the war’s prosecution in Washington and its experience in Tehran could not have been starker.
A 66-year-old retired professor in Tehran described begging the world to intervene, with sick family members at home and petrol too scarce to permit escape. A shopkeeper in the city’s centre described counting six explosions in one hour, taping newspapers over her windows as makeshift protection, and barely sleeping through nights of continuous bombing. She noted that the bombs had become so powerful and the explosions so continuous that she could no longer hear drones approaching before the blasts. Iranian authorities have confirmed over 1,300 deaths across the country since the war began.
US and Israeli forces have struck more than 15,000 targets combined since the conflict’s start, with Israel alone carrying out over 200 strikes in the most recent 24 hours. Trump’s late announcement about Kharg Island described the US Central Command operation as one of the most powerful in Middle Eastern history, obliterating every military facility on Iran’s primary oil export hub. He simultaneously threatened to destroy the island’s oil infrastructure if Iran continued attacking shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
The war’s violence extended throughout the Middle East on Friday. Lebanon recorded over 600 deaths and 800,000 displaced, with eight more killed in an Israeli strike on Sidon. Hezbollah injured about 60 in rocket attacks on northern Israel. Saudi Arabia intercepted close to 50 Iranian drones. Qatar ordered Doha evacuations before a missile interception. Two died in Oman in drone crashes. Dubai’s financial district sustained damage from intercepted debris. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched new coordinated strikes on Israel with Hezbollah as part of al-Quds Day.
The United States has lost 13 service members, including six in a tanker aircraft crash in Iraq. France lost one soldier in Iraq to an Iranian militia drone. Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei was described by US officials as wounded, disfigured, and hiding underground. European governments sought diplomatic channels with Tehran to secure Strait of Hormuz passage for commercial ships. Trump’s warning about striking Iran’s oil infrastructure kept global energy markets in a state of heightened anxiety, as the war showed every sign of entering an even more destructive phase in the days ahead.