- 'Escalate to de-escalate' -

The United States may need to "escalate" its attacks against Iran to be able to wind down the war, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

"Sometimes you have to escalate to de-escalate," he told NBC's "Meet the Press", after President Donald Trump gave seemingly contradictory trajectories for the military campaign.

- Lebanon condemns Israeli strikes -

Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun slammed Israeli strikes on bridges and other infrastructure in the country's south, calling such attacks a "prelude to a ground invasion".

Israel's defence minister said he ordered bridges in the area to be hit after alleging they were used by Iran-backed Hezbollah.

- Iran threatens Hormuz -

Iran's military threatened to completely shut the Strait of Hormuz if Trump acts on his threats to target the country's power plants.

"The Strait of Hormuz will be completely closed, and it will not be reopened until our destroyed power plants are rebuilt," the military's operational command Khatam Al-Anbiya said in a statement on state television.

- Netanyahu vow -

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to pursue senior commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards "personally", during a visit to an Israeli town struck by an Iranian missile the previous day.

"We're going after the regime. We're going after the IRGC, this criminal gang," Netanyahu said as he inspected the damage in the southern town of Arad.

- WHO warning -

The World Health Organization warned that strikes around nuclear sites in Iran and Israel had pushed the Middle East war to a "perilous stage".

"I urgently call on all parties to exercise maximum military restraint and avoid any actions that could trigger nuclear incidents," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.

- Infrastructure threat -

Iran's powerful parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf threatened to irreversibly destroy vital infrastructure across the region, which he said would cause oil prices to rise "for a long time", if the United States and Israel attacked Tehran's own infrastructure.

"Immediately after power plants and infrastructure in our country are targeted, vital infrastructure as well as energy and oil infrastructure across the entire region will be considered legitimate targets and will be irreversibly destroyed," Ghalibaf said in a social media post.

- Intercepted missiles -

Israel's military said Iran had fired more than 400 ballistic missiles at Israel since the start of the Middle East war, with around 92 percent of them intercepted.

- Qatar chopper crash -

Three Turkish nationals, including a serviceman, and three Qatari military personnel were killed when a helicopter crashed in Qatar's territorial waters, the Gulf country's defence ministry said.

While Qatar has been targeted by several Iranian strikes since the start of the Middle East war, no connection has been made between the chopper and the conflict triggered by US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

- Iran facilities damaged -

Iran's critical water and energy infrastructure have suffered extensive damage due to US and Israeli strikes, the country's energy minister Abbas Aliabadi said.

"The attacks targeted dozens of water transmission and treatment facilities and destroyed parts of critical water supply networks," he said, adding that repairs were under way.

- US facility attacked -

At least six overnight attacks targeted a US diplomatic and logistics centre at Baghdad's International Airport, two Iraqi security officials told AFP.

"Eight separate attacks, carried out until dawn with rockets and drones targeted the US centre," a senior security official told AFP, while a second security official said there had been six strikes.

- Fatality in north Israel -

Israel said rocket fire from Lebanon killed one person as Hezbollah said it attacked soldiers in northern Israel, the first fatality there in fire from Lebanon since the latest war erupted.

Local firefighters said flames engulfed two vehicles after a "direct hit" in the northern Israeli kibbutz community of Misgav Am.

- Saudi, UAE targeted -

Saudi Arabia's defence ministry said three ballistic missiles were detected around the capital Riyadh, while the UAE said it responded to Iranian missile and drone attacks.

- Israel strikes Tehran -

The Israeli military said its forces launched a wave of strikes on Tehran, hours after Iranian missile fire hit two cities in southern Israel.

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