Trump Sets 48-hour Deadline for Iran to Open Strait of Hormuz to Imperialist and Zionist States While Tehran Pounds US Bases and Israel

US president threatens to ‘obliterate’ Iran’s power plants if waterway is not opened for shipping

Edited by Joshua Oliver and Peter Barber in New York, Gavin Huang in Hong Kong and Kieran Cash

Main developments

Iran state media released footage purportedly showing rockets fired towards Israel on Saturday © Iranian state TV

Donald Trump threatened to strike Iran’s power plants if the country did not open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours.

Benjamin Netanyahu said it had been a “very difficult” night after two Iranian missile strikes on southern Israel — including one near the country’s nuclear research centre — injured more than 120 people, 11 of them seriously.

Israel’s military chief said the war was at its “halfway point” and suggested the conflict would continue at least until early next month, while defence minister Israel Katz said the “intensity” of attacks on Iran would increase in the coming week.

Iran fired two ballistic missiles at Britain’s Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean, 4,000km away. Neither hit their target but Tehran’s use of missiles with such a long range will alarm military planners in Europe. 

Saudi Arabia and UAE intercept missiles

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates said they had intercepted missiles launched towards their countries on Sunday.

Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said it had intercepted one of three missiles launched towards the Riyadh region. The other two fell in an uninhabited area, it said.

The UAE’s defence ministry said it was “responding to incoming missile and drone threats from Iran”.

Earlier, Qatar’s defence ministry said one of its helicopters had crashed in the country’s waters and a search operation was under way.

The ministry said the helicopter was conducting a “routine duty” when it suffered a “technical malfunction”.

Maritime group reports explosion near shipping vessel

UK Maritime Trade Operations said it had received a report of an explosion near a bulk carrier off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.

The UKMTO said on Sunday the vessel reported “an explosion from an unknown projectile in close proximity” to the ship about 30km north of Sharjah. It said all crew were reported safe.

Trump sets 48-hour deadline for Iran to open Strait of Hormuz

Donald Trump has threatened to strike Iran’s power plants if the country does not open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours.

The US president said in a Truth Social post on Saturday evening in Washington that if Iran did not open the crucial waterway “within 48 hours from this exact point in time”, the US would “hit and obliterate” the country’s power plants, “starting with the biggest one”.

Trump did not specify which plants would be hit.

The ultimatum threatens to further escalate the conflict after Trump said on Friday he was considering “winding down” the US campaign and that the American military was getting “very close” to meeting its objectives.

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi had said on Friday in response to an Israeli attack on the country’s South Pars gasfield that there would be “zero restraint if our infrastructures are struck again”.

The conflict has in effect closed the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for oil and other cargo, and caused a surge in global energy prices. Trump has struggled to convince allies to participate in a naval mission to reopen it.

“The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it,” he wrote in a Truth Social post on Saturday. “The United States does not!”

Israel suffers ‘very difficult’ night as missile strikes injure 120

Benjamin Netanyahu said it had been a “very difficult” night after two Iranian missile strikes on southern Israel injured more than 120 people, 11 of them seriously.

The first strike on Saturday night hit the city of Dimona, near the country’s nuclear research centre and heavy-water reactor. A few hours later, a second salvo struck the nearby town of Arad, heavily damaging several multistorey residential buildings.

“We are determined to continue striking our enemies on all fronts,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

The Israeli military said it was investigating why aerial defences missed the incoming projectiles. Authorities said the second strike used a heavier warhead.

The strikes — and Iran’s missile launch towards the UK’s base at Diego Garcia — came despite US President Donald Trump saying Iranian missile capability had been “Completely degrad[ed]”.

Senior Iranian officials said the failure to intercept the missiles launched at Israel signalled the “entry into a new phase” of war.

“Israel’s skies are defenceless,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker, wrote on X.

Majid Mousavi, head of aerospace for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, said Iran’s “new tactics and launch systems” would greatly shock the US and Israel.

Israel’s top general says war at ‘halfway point’

Israel’s military chief has said the war against Iran is at its “halfway point” and will continue during the Jewish festival of Passover at the beginning of next month.

Eyal Zamir, chief of the general staff, said the joint US-Israeli assault on Iran “is beginning to accumulate into a systemic, strategic, military, economic and governmental achievement”.

But, in a video statement marking three weeks since the start of the offensive, he warned Israel should be prepared to “continue fighting for our future and our freedom” until Passover, in early April.

Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said earlier in the day that the “intensity of the attacks” against Iran would increase in the coming week.

Their comments came after President Donald Trump on Friday said he was considering “winding down” the American campaign against Iran and that the US military was getting “very close” to meeting its objectives.