A heavy water research reactor facility in central Iran's Khondab was attacked by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Friday, reported Xinhua, quoting Iran's semi-official Fars news agency. No casualties or danger to residents in the area have been reported so far, Fars added, citing local authorities. The Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran later confirmed the attack. Meanwhile, a yellowcake production plant in central Iran's Yazd province was also hit by U.S.-Israeli strikes, with no radioactive leaks reported so far, semi-official Mehr news agency reported. The plant, inaugurated in May 2023, produces yellowcake, a uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions and serving as an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the two attacks in two statements. Separately, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported Friday that two people were killed and two others injured in U.S.-Israeli strikes on a cement plant in the southwestern Fars province. Earlier in the day, Fars news agency reported that two steel plants in Iran's Isfahan and Khuzestan provinces came under separate U.S. and Israeli strikes on Friday. The attack on Isfahan's plant killed at least one person and injured two others, the IRNA reported. On Friday, the IRNA reported that 71,356 residential units and 20,399 commercial ones have been damaged across Iran since the beginning of the conflict, which has also resulted in the deaths of 212 children and 240 women. Meanwhile, a man around 60 years old was killed in the central Israeli city of Tel Aviv by a missile launched from Iran on Friday night, Israel's national emergency service Magen David Adom (MDA) and the Israel Police said, reported Xinhua. According to the police, the incident involved a dispersing cluster munition missile that struck several locations in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. It added that the fatality, a construction worker, was hit by shrapnel from a cluster munition released by the missile and exploded near him. MDA also reported two people who were lightly to moderately injured from the hits. The launch from Iran activated air defense sirens in large areas of central Israel near midnight, sending residents rushing to shelters. Earlier in the night, a missile was launched from Iran into southern Israel, causing light injuries to two people. Hormuz closed to US-Israel-allied ships: IRGC Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) announced on Friday that passage is prohibited for any vessel through any corridor in the Strait of Hormuz to and from the ports of countries allied with and supporting the United States and Israel, reported Xinhua. Earlier in the day, the IRGC Navy turned back three container ships with different nationalities that were approaching the corridor only for the authorized vessels' passage, according to a statement published on IRGC's official news outlet Sepah News. It said the container ships decided to set sail following the lies told by U.S. President Donald Trump that the Strait of Hormuz is open. The IRGC Navy declared the Strait of Hormuz is closed, warning that any transit will face severe consequences, the statement added. Trump claimed on Thursday that Iran had agreed to let 10 oil tankers pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, the IRGC urged civilians in regional states to immediately evacuate areas near places where U.S. forces are staying to avoid harm. In a separate statement on Sepah, the IRGC said the Iranian armed forces have been tasked with killing the terrorist forces of the United States and Israel wherever they found them. In a post on social media platform X on Thursday, Iran's Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi warned hotels in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries against accepting U.S. soldiers. From outset of this war, U.S. soldiers fled military bases in GCC to hide in hotels and offices. They use GCC citizens as human shield, Araghchi said. Iran operation to conclude in weeks: Rubio U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that the ongoing operation against Iran is expected to conclude in weeks. Speaking to reporters after attending a G7 foreign ministers' meeting in France, Rubio said the operation would end at the appropriate time, in a matter of weeks, not months. He noted that the United States could still achieve the objectives without any ground troops, including destroying Iran's missile and drone capabilities. A reporter from the U.S. news website Axios wrote on social media platform X that Rubio told his G7 counterparts the conflict with Iran could continue for another two to four weeks. Rubio also said Washington was open to diverting U.S. weapons from Ukraine to the Middle East, although such a move has not been made so far. Regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Rubio said no meetings are currently scheduled to address the issue. He also rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's recent claim that U.S. security guarantees are tied to territorial concessions in Donbass, calling it a lie and stating that Zelensky was told that such guarantees would only come after the end of the conflict. The G7 foreign ministers' meeting was held in France on Thursday and Friday, with discussions focusing on issues including the situation in Iran and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. 10 US service members injured in attack on Saudi Arabia's Air Base Ten American service members were injured in an attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia amid the conflict in the region, reported ANI, quoting CBS News reported on Friday (local time). According to CBS News, citing sources, the assault involved Iranian missiles and drones. Among the injured, two were very seriously hurt, while eight sustained serious injuries, according to the US military's classification system, CBS reported. A spokesperson for US Central Command said that over 300 American service members have been wounded in the ongoing US-Iran conflict, most of whom have since returned to duty, CBS News reported. Additionally, 13 service members have lost their lives in the course of operations. 11 killed in Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon At least 11 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday, reported Xinhua, quoting Lebanon's official National News Agency. An Israeli airstrike on the town of Saksakiyeh in the Sidon district killed four people and injured eight others. Earlier, an airstrike on Kfar Remmen killed two people and injured eight others, while another strike on Tahwitat al-Ghadir in Beirut's southern suburbs killed two. An additional strike on Bazaliyeh, north of Baalbek, destroyed a house, killing one person and lightly injuring two others. An Israeli airstrike on the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiya before noon killed two people and destroyed a house. Hezbollah said it carried out multiple attacks on Israeli military positions and settlements along the border and in the occupied Golan Heights. Meanwhile, UN Children's Fund said more than 370,000 children have been displaced across Lebanon in the past three weeks, part of a wider displacement of over one million people. The agency added at least 121 children have been killed and 395 injured. Lebanon's Information Ministry reported that Israeli attacks have caused significant damage to healthcare infrastructure, including 70 assaults on ambulance and emergency teams. The attacks resulted in 42 paramedics and health workers killed and 119 injured. The International Committee of the Red Cross has warned that Lebanon's humanitarian situation is deteriorating rapidly. Its regional director, Nicolas Von Arx, stressed the urgent need to protect civilians and ensure their safe return once hostilities end. Cross-border fighting has continued along the Lebanon-Israel border since March 2, when Hezbollah launched rockets toward Israel for the first time since a ceasefire agreed on Nov. 27, 2024, triggering intensified Israeli airstrikes across southern and eastern Lebanon. Iranian FM says 600 schools damaged amid US-Israeli strikes Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said on Friday that more than 600 schools across Iran have been demolished or damaged since the United States and Israel launched military actions against the country on Feb. 28, with over 1,000 students and teachers killed or injured. Speaking via video link at an urgent debate of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Araghchi said a primary school in the southern Iranian city of Minab was hit in what he described as a calculated attack, leaving more than 175 students and teachers dead. Araghchi said Iran is amid the throes of an illegal war imposed by the United States and Israel, calling it a blatantly unjustified and brutal war of aggression. Referring to the strike on the school in Minab, he said that given the attackers' most advanced technologies and the highest precision military and data systems, no one can believe that the attack on this school was anything other than deliberate and intentional. He stressed that targeting the school constituted a war crime and a crime against humanity, and said the incident was not a mere incident nor a miscalculation, but an act that demands unequivocal condemnation and accountability. He also condemned continued strikes by the United States and Israel on civilian targets, including hospitals, ambulances, health workers, Red Crescent rescuers, refineries, water sources and residential areas, saying such actions reflect a pattern of attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure with no regard for laws of war and basic principles of humanity. The aggressors' targeting pattern accompanied by their rhetoric leave little doubt as to their clear intent to commit genocide, he said. Araghchi said Iran has never sought war but will firmly defend itself, adding that the Iranian people have the resolve and determination to resist what he described as aggression. He also called for holding those responsible accountable.
March 28, 2026