Iran, at UN, insists will not submit to 'lawless aggression' amid US-Israeli war

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Shrapnel from ballistic missiles fired by Iran and debris from the Israeli interceptors that shot them down fell on Monday around Jerusalem's walled Old City and some of its most sacred Christian, Muslim and Jewish sites, Israeli police said.

There were no casualties or major damage reported at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the nearby hilltop plateau known to Muslims as Al-Aqsa compound and to Jews as Temple Mount, a flashpoint site that is holy to both faiths.

Photos distributed by police showed three officers carrying what appeared to be a large metal ring-shaped part of a missile off a red-tiled roof adjacent to the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional site of Jesus' crucifixion and burial and a popular pilgrimage site.

Another image showed a police cordon around a small area in the Al-Aqsa compound plaza which also houses the golden Dome of the Rock, with small fragments strewn on the floor.

"Jerusalem District police, bomb disposal teams, and Border Police units have secured the sites and are currently working to eliminate any remaining risk to the public," police said in a statement.

US President Donald Trump said Monday that he does not know whether Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei is still alive, adding that Washington was unclear whom it could negotiate with in Tehran.

"We don't know... if he's dead or not," Trump told reporters at the White House.

"A lot of people are saying that he's badly disfigured. They're saying that he lost his leg -- one leg -- and he's, you know, been hurt very badly. Other people are saying he's dead. Nobody's saying he's 100 percent healthy. You know he hasn't spoken."

"We don't know who we're dealing with" in Iran, Trump said. "We don't know who their leader is."

US President Donald Trump stepped up the pressure on Britain and France on Monday, saying he expected them to help secure shipping in the Strait of Hormuz during the war against Iran.

Trump said he had talked with French President Emmanuel Macron about it and his response had been "an eight, not perfect."

"I think he's going to help," Trump said, adding that he also believed Britain would be involved in a Hormuz mission.

Lebanese authorities on Monday said more than one million people had registered as displaced since war erupted on 2 March between Israel and Hezbollah.

A statement said the number of displaced people who had registered their names on a website affiliated with the social affairs ministry had reached 1,049,328, with 132,742 of them staying in more than 600 collective shelters.

President Donald Trump on Monday repeated his call to nations to help unblock the Strait of Hormuz, and appeared to criticize countries he said were not enthusiastic about providing aid.

Trump wants nations to help police the strait after Iran responded to US-Israeli attacks by using drones, missiles and mines to ‌effectively close the channel for tankers that usually transport a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas.

"Some are very enthusiastic about it, and some aren't. Some are countries that we've helped for many, many years. We've protected them from horrible outside sources, and they weren't that enthusiastic. And the level of enthusiasm matters to me." Trump said at an event at the White House.

Several US allies said on Monday they had no immediate plans to send ships to unblock the Strait of Hormuz.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned Monday that an Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon was an "error" which would "further exacerbate the already highly tense humanitarian situation" in the country.

"We urgently call on our Israeli friends: Do not take this path -- it would be an error," Merz said after Israeli military announced what it described as "limited ground operations" in Lebanon.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards threatened on Monday to target US companies across the region, calling on employees to evacuate the sites.

"Employees of American companies... are requested to leave these areas immediately. These areas will soon be targeted by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps," said the Guards in on their official Sepah News website.

It was not immediately clear which companies would be targeted but last week, the Tasnim news agency published a list of potential targets on Telegram that included the offices of tech giants such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Nvidia in Gulf countries.

Turkey on Monday condemned Israel's ground operation in Lebanon, cautioning against "another humanitarian catastrophe" unfolding in the Middle East.

"We firmly condemn the Israeli ground operation in Lebanon, which is worsening instability in the region," the ministry said in a statement.

"The implementation by the (Benjamin) Netanyahu government of genocidal and collective punishment policies, this time in Lebanon, will lead to yet another humanitarian catastrophe in the region," it said.

Lebanon's health ministry said Monday that Israeli attacks have killed 886 people in the country since war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah on 2 March, raising a previous toll of 850 a day earlier.

The new ministry statement said the toll included 67 women, 111 children and 38 health workers, with 2,141 other people wounded.

Oil prices slid Monday on hopes more vessels could pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial shipping route that has been brought to a near standstill by the Middle East war.

The main US oil contract, WTI, slumped more than five percent to $93.37 per barrel, while international benchmark, Brent North Sea crude, fell more than two percent to $100.28 per barrel.

Monitor Marine Traffic on Monday said a Pakistani oil tanker had transited the strait with its automatic transponder system activated.

A strike on Monday near Iraq's western border with Syria killed at least four fighters from the former paramilitary coalition Hashed al-Shaabi, two security officials said.

The fighters from the group -- also known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), now part of Iraq's regular army -- "were killed and three others were wounded" in the late afternoon attack on a checkpoint at the entrance to the city of al-Qaim, a local security official said.

An official with the PMF, which includes pro-Iranian groups, put the toll higher, at six dead, blaming the United States for the strike.

He said the checkpoint, which also housed army and police personnel, was targeted again when ambulances arrived to help victims.

Iraq has recently regained a sense of stability following years of conflict, and was unwillingly drawn into the current Middle East war after having long been a proxy battleground between the US and Iran.

The Hashed al-Shaabi is an alliance of factions created in 2014 to fight jihadists and is now integrated into the Iraqi armed forces.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Monday that some "neighbouring states" hosting US forces and allowing attacks on Iran were also actively encouraging the killing of Iranians.

He said hundreds of Iranian civilians, including more than 200 children, had been killed in Israel–US. strikes.

"Stances should be promptly clarified," he added in a post on X. 

The head of a U.N. investigation said on Monday that an Israeli air strike on a prison last year was a war crime, and warned of risks of further repression following the current U.S.-Israeli bombings.

More than 70 people were killed when Israel struck Tehran's Evin prison last June during an air war with Iran, Iranian authorities have said. The jail, known for holding political prisoners, has also been damaged in the latest U.S.-Israeli air strikes, raising fears for the detainees, who include a British couple.

"We found reasonable grounds to believe that, in carrying out the airstrikes on Evin prison, Israel committed the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against a civilian object...," Sara Hossain, chair of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, told the UN Human Rights Council. She said 80 people including one child and eight women had been killed.

Her latest report, based on interviews with victims and witnesses, satellite imagery and other documents, was presented to the Council on Monday.

A World Health Organization official said on Monday that the US-Israeli war on Iran has led to the evacuation of six hospitals but that so far the system appeared to be holding up and authorities have not sought emergency relief from the global health agency.

"The primary healthcare and the health infrastructure of Iran is quite good and robust, and they're able to accommodate the casualties as of now," WHO regional director Hanan Balkhy told Reuters.

Iran's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, said on Monday that over 1,300 people have been killed since the February 28 conflict began and more than 7,000 people injured.

The WHO, which has an office in Tehran and helps Iranian authorities with disease management, has verified 18 attacks on health care and the killing of eight medics.

A drone attack caused a fire in a building in the north of the UAE on Monday, authorities said, amid a slew of nationwide attacks that disrupted Dubai's airport, hit an oil hub and killed a civilian.

"A building in the emirate of Umm Al Quwain was targeted by a drone, causing a fire but resulting in no injuries," the Umm Al Quwain Government Media Office said in a statement published by the official WAM news agency, without naming the building.

AFP journalists heard a loud blast over Jerusalem on Monday after the military detected incoming missiles.

The attack came after Israel said it had launched a broad wave of strikes on several Iranian cities, including the capital Tehran.

Spain will not take part in any military mission in the Strait of Hormuz because it considers the US-Israeli war on Iran to be illegal, Madrid's defence and foreign affairs ministers said on Monday.

The situation in the strait is a matter of grave concern for Europeans, but the European Union's position should be that the war must end regardless of economic considerations, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said.

"We mustn't do anything that would add even more tension or cause the situation to escalate further," he told reporters in Brussels.

Some EU members such as Germany, Italy or Greece have also signalled they will not join military operations in the strait, while others including Denmark have yet to make a decision.

Several explosions were heard across Doha on Monday, according to AFP journalists, with the Gulf state's defence ministry subsequently saying it had intercepted a missile attack.

"Qatar announces that its armed forces intercepted a missile attack which targeted the State of Qatar," the ministry said in a statement, as Tehran presses a retaliatory campaign against Gulf states following attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz warned on Monday that Lebanese displaced by fighting with Hezbollah would not be allowed to return home until the north of Israel was secure.

"Hundreds of thousands of Shia residents of southern Lebanon who have evacuated and are evacuating their homes from southern Lebanon and Beirut will not return to their homes south of the Litani area until the safety of residents in the north is guaranteed," Katz told military top brass according to a statement.

The war in the Middle East started by US-Israeli strikes on Iran has "nothing to do with NATO" and is "not NATO's war", German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's spokesman said on Monday.

US President Donald Trump on Sunday called for nations including South Korea, France, China and Britain to help ensure safe passage in the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has declared closed to US and US-allied traffic.

He later upped the pressure on NATO allies, telling the Financial Times newspaper that the alliance faced a "very bad" future if its members did not do their bit to reopen the strait.

"NATO is an alliance for the defence of territory" and "the mandate to deploy NATO is lacking" in the current situation, Merz's spokesman Stefan Kornelius told a regular press briefing.

Germany needed to know from Israel and the United States "at what point the military objectives in Iran will have been achieved", a foreign ministry spokesman said at the same briefing.

Merz said on Friday that the Middle East war must end "as soon as possible" as the conflict "benefits no-one and harms many economically, including us".

Diplomatic talks with Iran are only possible if it ceases its attacks, Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday, as Tehran presses its missile and drone campaign against Gulf states.

"If they stop the attacks, then we can find a way out with diplomacy. But as long as our countries are being attacked, this is not the time to establish committees, it's the time to take a very principled position (on) protecting our countries and for them to stop attacking us immediately," Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said.

A non-Iranian oil tanker transited the Strait of Hormuz with its automatic transponder system activated, despite major disruption to shipping in the crucial waterway from the Middle East war, monitor Marine Traffic said on Monday.

"The Aframax tanker Karachi, carrying Abu Dhabi's Das crude, has become the first non-Iranian cargo to transit the chokepoint while broadcasting its AIS signal, suggesting that select shipments may be receiving negotiated safe passage," Marine Traffic said in a statement.

Britain is working with allies on a collective plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restore freedom of navigation in the Middle East but it will not be easy, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday.

"Ultimately, we have to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to ensure stability in the (oil) market. That is not a simple task," Starmer told reporters.

"So we're working with all of our allies, including our European partners, to bring together a viable collective plan that can restore freedom of navigation in the region as quickly as possible and ease the economic impact." 

Iran has not requested a ceasefire, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Monday according to the semi-official Students News Network, and wants to ensure that any end to the war with Israel and the US is definitive.

Araghchi said that the Strait of Hormuz is only closed to "enemies and those supporting their aggression".

A foreign ministry spokesperson added that states not party to the war have been able to transit their vessels through the strait with coordination and permission from Iran's armed forces.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati President Mohamed bin Zayed discussed on Monday Iran's retaliatory strikes on the Gulf and expressed solidarity and sympathy in their second call since a public row in late December.

The de facto Saudi ruler and the UAE's president discussed "the continued and blatant Iranian attacks targeting countries in the region," according to a statement published by Emirati news agency WAM.

"Both sides stressed the need for the immediate cessation of military escalation... underscoring the importance of prioritising serious dialogue and diplomatic means," it added.

Israel's military said on Monday it had launched a broad wave of strikes on the Iranian cities of Tehran, Shiraz and Tabriz, more than two weeks into the US-Israeli war against the Islamic republic.

"The IDF has just begun a wide-scale wave of strikes targeting infrastructure of the Iranian terror regime in Tehran, Shiraz, and Tabriz", the military said in a statement.

It is too early to quantify impact of the Middle East conflict on global growth, but there is a significant level of downside risk for the global economy right now, the Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said on Monday.

"Of course to a large extent it will depend on a lot of factors that we don't have ... the length of the conflict and continued developments but suffice to say there is significant level of downside risk in the global economy right now," Mathias Cormann said during a conference in Bucharest on Monday.

Iran's head of the judiciary said on Monday there should be no leniency or delay in issuing verdicts against those affiliated with Israel and the United States.

"We must not delay or show leniency in executing final verdicts against those who, during wartime and unrest, committed crimes and were affiliated with the aggressor enemy," said Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, according to Tasnim news agency.

He added that it was "necessary to accelerate the review and resolution of cases involving elements accused of threatening public security."

Authorities have in recent weeks carried out sweeping raids across Iran, arresting in the last few days hundreds of people suspected of cooperating with Israel and the United States, local media reported.

Explosions hit the Iranian capital on Monday, an AFP journalist reported, hours after Israel said it conducted large-scale overnight strikes.

The blasts were heard in central Tehran as air defence systems were activated, the journalist said. It was not immediately clear what was targeted.

The city was rocked by heavy explosions overnight, the reporter added.

A Palestinian civilian was killed on the outskirts of the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi when a missile hit their car on Monday, authorities said, as Iran pressed on with strikes on the Gulf following US-Israeli attacks.

"Authorities in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi responded to an incident in the Al Bahia area involving a missile strike on a civilian vehicle, which resulted in the death of one Palestinian national," the Abu Dhabi Media Office said in a statement.

تعاملت الجهات المختصة في إمارة أبوظبي مع حادث نتيجة سقوط صاروخ على مركبة مدنية في منطقة الباهية، ما أسفر عن مقتل شخص واحد من الجنسية الفلسطينية.

ونهيب بالجمهور استقاء المعلومات من المصادر الرسمية فقط، وتجنُّب تداول الشائعات أو المعلومات غير الموثوقة.

— مكتب أبوظبي الإعلامي (@ADMediaOffice) March 16, 2026

Logistics and service centres enabling the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier to remain operational were considered to be targets by Iran, the spokesperson for the unified command of Iranian armed forces, Khatam al-Anbiya, said on Monday.

"Aircraft carrier Gerald Ford in the Red Sea is a threat to Iran. Accordingly, the logistics and service centres for USS Ford strike group are considered to be targets," Ebrahim Zolfaqari said in a video shared by the semi-official Fars news agency.

The Israeli military said on Monday it had begun what it described as "limited ground operations" against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

"In recent days, IDF troops from the 91st division have begun limited and targeted ground operations against key Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon, aimed at enhancing the forward defence area," the military said in a statement.

"This activity is part of broader defensive efforts to establish and strengthen a forward defensive posture, which includes the dismantling of terrorist infrastructure and the elimination of terrorists operating in the area, in order to remove threats and create an additional layer of security for residents of northern Israel," it said.

"Prior to the troops' entry into the area, the IDF conducted strikes using both artillery and the Israeli Air Force against numerous terrorist targets in order to mitigate threats in the operational environment."

Oil loading operations have been suspended at the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah, two sources told Reuters on Monday, after a drone attack sparked a fire in the emirate's petroleum industrial zone.

Fujairah, located on the Gulf of Oman just outside the Strait of Hormuz, is typically a critical exit point for about 1 million barrels per day of the UAE's Murban crude - a volume equivalent to roughly 1percent of global demand.

Civil defense teams are currently working to control the blaze, the Fujairah government media office said in a statement, adding that no casualties have been reported.

The suspension marks the second major disruption at the vital bunkering hub in recent days. Operations at Fujairah had resumed on Sunday following a separate drone strike over the weekend.

The attacks come as the ongoing US-Israeli war with Iran strangles shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that normally handles a fifth of the world's oil supply.

The Israeli military said on Monday it had destroyed a plane used by Iran's late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at Tehran's Mehrabad airport overnight.

It said the aircraft had been used by senior Iranian officials and military figures to travel domestically and internationally and coordinate with allied countries.

Mehrabad is one of Tehran's oldest airports, now serving domestic and regional flights. In addition to being the busiest civilian domestic airport, it is a dual-use facility housing air force assets

EU member states will discuss what can be done from the European side to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, the EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Monday.

"It is in our interest to keep the Strait of Hormuz open and that's why we are also discussing what we can do in this regard from the European side," she said, speaking to journalists ahead a EU foreign affairs meeting in Brussels