US and Israeli warplanes launched new waves of strikes on targets across Iran on Monday, as large crowds took to the streets of Tehran in a defiant show of support for Mojtaba Khamenei, the country’s newly appointed supreme leader.
The conflict, now in its second week, continued to escalate, with new Iranian missile and drone attacks targeting Israel, US bases across the Middle East and energy infrastructure in the Gulf.
In Lebanon, Israel intensified its offensive against Hezbollah with raids in the south and airstrikes in Beirut, while an Iranian missile was shot down over Türkiye. As drone attacks were reported in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, French President Emmanuel Macron said France and its allies were preparing a “defensive” mission to protect oil supplies in the Gulf.
In Tehran’s Enghelab Square on Monday, thousands gathered to offer allegiance to Iran’s new supreme leader, hours after the appointment was formally announced.
Chanting “Death to America, Death to Israel” and “God is great,” some waved Iranian flags, others held banners with the portrait of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the new leader’s father, who was killed after 37 years in power by an Israeli airstrike early in the war. Armored vehicles lined nearby roads and security personnel were stationed on the rooftops of surrounding buildings.
“The path of the martyr Imam Khamenei will continue under the name of Khamenei,” said Hosseinali Eshkevari, a member of Iran’s assembly of experts, the body tasked with selecting the supreme leader.
Another member, Mohsen Heydari, said the late Ali Khamenei had recommended the selection of the candidate “hated by the enemy.”
Israel has said it will target Iran’s new supreme leader, while US President Donald Trump, who has dismissed the younger Khamenei as a “lightweight”, criticized Mojtaba’s choice.
“I think they made a big mistake,” Trump told NBC. “I don’t know if it’s going to last. I think they made a mistake.”
The defiant rhetoric in Tehran and the appointment of Khamenei, whom analysts see as a hardliner with close ties to the Revolutionary Guard, intensified fears that the conflict could last weeks or even months and leave deep instability in its wake. Stock markets around the world fell sharply on Monday after rising oil prices.
Iran’s attacks in the Strait of Hormuz have virtually prevented oil tankers from using the key sea route through which a fifth of the world’s oil is transported.
During a visit to Cyprus to discuss regional security, Macron said a new naval mission would aim to escort container ships and oil tankers to gradually reopen the Strait of Hormuz after the end of “the hottest phase of the conflict.”
France has already sent about a dozen warships, including its aircraft carrier strike group, to the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and potentially the Strait of Hormuz as part of defensive support for allies threatened by the conflict in the Middle East.
Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani said in a post on X on Monday that safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz would not be restored “amid the fires set by the United States and Israel in the region.”
Analysts have said Iran hopes that restricting the flow of oil to global markets and attacking energy infrastructure in the region will threaten enough damage to the global economy to force Trump to end the U.S. offensive and end the war on Tehran’s terms.
However, neither the United States, Israel nor the Gulf states that have been hardest hit by the Iranian attacks appear willing to consider concessions.
On Monday, Kuwait’s emir Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad al-Sabah described Iran’s attacks on the kingdom as “a brutal attack by a neighboring Muslim country, which we consider friendly, although we have not allowed the use of our land, airspace or coasts for any military action against it.” Saudi Arabia said Tehran would be the “biggest loser” if it continues attacking Arab states.
In the United Arab Emirates, authorities said two people were injured by shrapnel from intercepting Iranian missiles over the capital, Abu Dhabi. By mid-afternoon, the Emirates Defense Ministry said 15 ballistic missiles and 18 drones were fired at the country on Monday.
A total of 253 missiles and 1,440 drones have been launched at the UAE since the war began. Four foreigners were killed in the United Arab Emirates and 117 were injured, officials said.
Iran also attacked Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, where it attacked a residential area, wounding 32 people, including several children, according to authorities. Another attack appeared to have sparked a fire at Bahrain’s only oil refinery, sending thick plumes of smoke into the air.
Bahrain also accused Iran of damaging one of its desalination plants, although its electricity and water authority said supplies remained online. Desalination plants supply water to millions of the region’s residents, raising new fears of catastrophic risks in arid desert nations.
Iran continues to attack Israel with drones and ballistic missiles. A man was killed in central Israel in a missile attack, the first such death in Israel in a week, in which a woman was also wounded.
The war has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, at least 397 in Lebanon and 11 in Israel, according to officials. Israel reported its first military deaths on Sunday, saying two combat engineers were killed in southern Lebanon, where it is fighting Hezbollah.
An Israeli military spokesman accused Iran of attacking Israeli cities with cluster bombs.
“We see daily that Iran is deliberately attacking densely populated civilian areas,” the spokesman said.
The official said Israel was attacking the “terrorist infrastructure” in Lebanon, which has been deeply engulfed in war in the Middle East since Hezbollah opened fire to avenge Khamenei’s assassination, triggering an Israeli offensive that has so far killed more than 400 people there, according to Lebanese authorities.
The Israeli military has ordered residents to leave Beirut’s southern suburbs, much of southern Lebanon and parts of the eastern Bekaa Valley, all areas that have served as Hezbollah’s political and security strongholds.
“Massive displacement across Lebanon has forced nearly 700,000 people – including some 200,000 children – to flee their homes, adding to the tens of thousands already uprooted by previous escalations,” said Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF regional director.
“Children are being killed and injured at a horrific rate, families are fleeing their homes in fear and thousands of children are now sleeping in cold, overcrowded shelters,” he said.
In Türkiye, NATO air defenses intercepted a ballistic missile that entered the country’s airspace – the second such attack since the war began. President Tayyip Erdoğan said Türkiye’s main goal is to keep the country out of the “fire” of conflict.
