The Iran war continued into its sixth day with another round of strikes by Israel and Iran. Meanwhile, hundreds of ships have been stranded due to Tehran’s threats to strike vessels in the Straight of Hormuz, affecting up to 20% of global oil trade. Follow our live blog.
Welcome to Euronews’ live blog coverage of the Iran war and the latest developments on day six of the ongoing conflict.
Israel has continued its strikes on Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, striking targets in Tehran, a military facility in Qom and air defences in Isfahan.
Iran fired another salvo of missiles at Israel, with the sound of sirens in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
In the US, lawmakers voted against curbing US President Donald Trump’s options in continuing the strikes on Iran, effectively allowing the intervention to continue at full force.
Follow the latest developments brought to you by Euronews’ journalists in the region and worldwide below:
Six repatriation flights partly funded by the EU, Commission says
The EU’s Emergency and Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) supported six repatriation flights from the Middle East on Wednesday and Thursday, the European Commission has said.
“Additional repatriation flights under the Mechanism are planned in the coming days, as an increasing number of EU member states have activated it,” the EU executive said in a statement.
Ten member states have so far activated the civil protection mechanism for this. These are Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, France, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovakia and Austria.
The Commission pays part of the costs for the repatriation lights. If a member state offers 30% of the seats on one of its flights to citizens of other member states, it can have 75% of the flight cost reimbursed by the EU.
The Commission can also book flights via the rescEU mechanism if no Member State can support a country requesting evacuation of its citizens. In that case, the Commission can cover 100% of the costs.
France, Italy, Greece coordinate military deployment to Cyprus
France’s Emannuel Macron spoke to Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Greece’s Kyriakos Mitsotakis to coordinate the military capabilities they’re sending to Cyprus, a source close to the French president said.
The three leaders also agreed to “work together to guarantee freedom of navigation in the Red Sea”, the source also said.
France, Italy and Greece all participate in Operation Aspides, which aims to secure passage for commercial vessels in the Red Sea, with the first two also taking part in counter-piracy Operation Atalanta off the Horn of Africa.
Tehran says it launched drones against US military site in Kuwait
Iran’s military said on Thursday that it had launched a drone attack against a US military site in Kuwait.
“Drone units of the armed force’s navy targeted a site of the US forces Camp Udairi in Kuwait using combat drones,” the army said in a statement broadcast by state-run TV.
Camp Buehring, formerly known as Udairi, is a major US military facility in northwestern Kuwait.
Kuwait has been under daily retaliatory attacks by Tehran since the outbreak of the Iran war on Saturday.
An 11-year-old Iranian national was killed by shrapnel from one of its strikes on Wednesday, Kuwaiti authorities said.
The US embassy there has been closed indefinitely due to attacks earlier this week.
Man on trial for plot to kill Trump and other US politicians says Iran pressured him to do it
A Pakistani man accused of plotting to kill US politicians including President Donald Trump said Wednesday he was pressured by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to devise the murder-for-hire scheme, according to US media.
Asif Raza Merchant, 47, was charged in September 2024 with seeking to hire a hitman to assassinate unidentified US politicians. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The IRGC have previously sought to kill top US officials, such as Trump, following the death of one of their commanders, Qasem Soleimani in a US strike in 2020.
During his trial on Wednesday, Merchant testified that he was forced into the plot to protect his family in Tehran, from the IRGC, adding that he thought he would get caught before anyone was killed, multiple media outlets reported.
He said he was never ordered to kill a specific person but noted his Iranian contact had mentioned three people in connection with the plot: Trump, former president Joe Biden and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley.
“My family was under threat, and I had to do this,” Merchant told the court through an Urdu interpreter, according to the Washington Post.
US officials previously said Merchant had “close ties to Iran” and described his alleged plot as “straight out of the Iranian regime’s playbook”.
He was arrested after reportedly trying to hire hitmen that turned out to be undercover FBI agents.
Iran’s Doha attack largest of the war so far, Euronews journalists report
We are now receiving further updates from Euronews journalists in Doha about the largest series of interception blasts above the city so far, with massive blasts sending shockwaves through the downtown West Bay area.
The barrage lasted for about an hour and a half, with large explosions every few minutes and plumes of smoke above the high-rise buildings as Qatar successfully intercepted all incoming Iranian missiles.
Residents found cover under awnings and canopies and inside buildings to shelter from debris, and the national emergency system alerts sounded on mobiles, urging people to shelter immediately.
This has been the longest and largest wave of Iranian missiles into Doha so far since the Iran war erupted on Saturday.
The attack comes hours after Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the prime minister and foreign minister of Qatar, Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, for the first time since the start of the war, a day after Qatar said there has been no contact with Tehran since Saturday.
In the call, the Iranian FM said that Iran’s missile strikes were directed at US interests and were not intended to target the Gulf state.
Qatar’s prime minister denied the claims saying the evidence on the ground showed otherwise, that the strikes are a “flagrant violation” of Qatar’s sovereignty and of international law and that they reflect “an escalatory approach” rather than a genuine desire for de-escalation or resolution, accusing Tehran of seeking to harm its neighbors and draw them into a war “that is not theirs”.
He also said such attacks could not go unanswered, citing the country’s inherent right to self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
Italy to send air-defence assets to Gulf countries, Meloni says
Italy will send air-defence assistance to Gulf countries hit by Iran’s retaliatory strikes, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Thursday.
In an interview with RTL 102.5 radio, Meloni said “Italy, like the UK, France and Germany, intends to send help to the Gulf countries.”
“We are clearly talking about defence, air defence, not just because they are friendly nations but because there are tens of thousands of Italians in that area and around 2,000 Italian soldiers that we must protect,” she added. “And the Gulf is vital for energy supplies for Italy and Europe.”
Separately, Defence Minister Guido Crosetto told parliament on Thursday that Italy would, along with France, Spain, and the Netherlands, send naval assets to defend EU member Cyprus “in coming days”.
Crosetto, while also addressing parliament, specified that the assistance sent to Gulf nations would be “air defence, anti‑drone and anti‑missile systems”.
We hope US respects its trade agreement with EU – Kallas
Asked about Washington’s threat to impose a “trade embargo” on Spain, Kallas reiterated that trade is an EU competence and that the deal struck last year “applies to all member states”.
“We hope that the United States also respects this agreement,” she said.
US President Donald Trump threatened a “trade embargo” against Spain on Tuesday after the southern European country refused to allow the US access to some of its military bases to conduct operations in the Middle East.
Madrid has been the most vocal critic of the US-Israeli operations in Iran, arguing that they go against international law.
The diplomatic spat continued on Wednesday when Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares issued a statement denying Spain was backing Washington’s campaign, moments after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Madrid had come round and agreed to help the US.
There has to be room for diplomacy – Kallas
“There has to be room for diplomacy here to really get out of this cycle of escalation,” Kaja Kallas also said, adding that “it’s clear wars really end in diplomacy”.
Kallas said that Gulf countries are “worried about civil war inside Iran” and the repercussions this could have on the wider region.
“Nobody can tell how does it really go, but the risks are clearly there,” she said.