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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Iran war’s targets widened dangerously into civilian infrastructure Sunday as Bahrain accused Iran of striking one of the desalination plants that are crucial for Gulf nations’ drinking water.
As Israeli-struck oil depots smoldered in Tehran after a late-night strike, prompting environmental warnings for citizens, Iran’s president vowed to expand attacks on U.S. targets across the region on the ninth day of the war.
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U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have vowed to press ahead with the coordinated campaign, which has rippled across the region and appears to have no end in sight.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in his latest threat, backtracked from conciliatory comments a day earlier in which he apologized for attacks on Gulf neighbours’ soil. Iranian hard-liners had swiftly contradicted him, saying war strategy wouldn’t change.
In Lebanon, intensifying Israeli strikes targeting the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah pushed the death toll higher as hundreds of thousands were displaced.
In Israel, the military reported the first soldier deaths since the war began, saying two were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon. Three people were injured in Israel in an afternoon strike.
The war, which Israel and the United States launched with airstrikes on Feb. 28 that killed Iran’s supreme leader, has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, at least 397 in Lebanon and at least 11 in Israel, according to officials. Six U.S. troops have been killed.
The conflict has rattled global markets, disrupted air travel and left Iran’s leadership weakened by several thousand Israeli and U.S. airstrikes.
Iran’s president toughens tone
Pezeshkian said Iran’s military response would only strengthen.
“The more pressure they impose on us, the stronger our response will naturally be,” Pezeshkian said.
“Our Iran, our country, will not bow easily in the face of bullying, oppression or aggression — and it never has.”
A day earlier, Pezeshkian said Iran regretted regional concerns and urged neighbouring states not to take part in U.S. and Israeli attacks. He accused the U.S. of trying to pit countries against one another.
As multiple Gulf states continued to report intercepting incoming missiles and drones from Iran, Iranian hard-liners contradicted his remarks.
“The geography of some countries in the region — both overtly and covertly — is in the hands of the enemy, and those points are used against our country in acts of aggression. Intense attacks on these targets will continue,” judiciary chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei wrote on X.
Mohseni-Ejei and Pezeshkian are part of the three-member leadership council overseeing Iran since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed.
As Iran awaits the selection of a new supreme leader, Trump and Netanyahu said their war aim remains the replacement of Iran’s leadership altogether.
“We’re not looking to settle,” Trump told reporters Saturday.
Residents look on and take pictures as flames and smoke rise from an oil storage facility struck as attacks hit the city during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (Arileza Sotakbar/ISNA via AP)
Desalination and oil facilities attacked
The Gulf nations of Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates reported additional Iranian missiles launched toward them Sunday, including several that hit new categories of civilian infrastructure.
The UAE said Iran launched more than 100 missiles and drones. Only four drones fell at unnamed locations, the defense ministry said.
Bahrain accused Iran of indiscriminately attacking civilian targets and damaging one of its desalination plants, though its electricity and water authority said supplies remained online.
Desalination plants supply water to millions of residents in the region and thousands of stranded travellers, raising new fears of catastrophic risks in parched desert nations.
Home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, Bahrain also has seen hotels, ports and residential towers hit, with at least one person killed.
The desalination plant strike came after Iran said a U.S. airstrike damaged an Iranian desalination plant. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the strike on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz had cut into the water supply to 30 villages.
He warned that in doing so “the U.S. set this precedent, not Iran.”
In response, CENTCOM spokesperson U.S. Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins said that “U.S. forces do not target civilians — period.”
In Iran, authorities said Israel’s overnight strikes on four oil storage tankers and a petroleum transfer terminal killed four people. Witnesses in Tehran said the smoke was so thick from a fire at the north Tehran oil depot that it looked as if the sun had not risen.
Israel’s military said the oil depots were being used by Iran’s military for fuel to launch missiles.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said about 10,000 civilian structures across the country had been damaged, including homes, schools and almost three dozen health facilities. It also warned Tehran residents to take precautions against toxic air pollution and the risk of acid rain after Israel’s strikes.
Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, said the war’s impact on the oil industry would continue to spiral, warning it soon could become harder to produce and sell oil. Some regional producers, including in Iraq, have curbed output amid dangers in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran maintains sufficient fuel, Veys Karami, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company, told Iran’s state-run news agency.
People stand on the wreckage of destroyed houses that were hit by Israeli airstrikes in Sir al-Gharbiyeh village south Lebanon, Sunday, March, 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
More strikes hit Lebanon
Israel renewed its assault early Sunday on parts of Lebanon. Health Minister Rakan Nassereddine said 83 children and 82 women have been among those killed.
Israel’s military has ordered large swaths of the country to evacuate, and Lebanese officials said over 400,000 people have been displaced.
In Beirut, sheltering families crammed into schools, slept in cars or in open areas near the Mediterranean Sea, where some burned firewood to keep warm. The government said it would open a sports stadium to shelter thousands more.
Israel’s renewed offensive began last week after Hezbollah launched rockets toward northern Israel during the war’s opening days.
The subsequent strikes have been the most intense since a November 2024 ceasefire. Israel withdrew from most of southern Lebanon at that time but continued near-daily strikes, primarily in southern Lebanon, saying Hezbollah had been trying to rebuild its positions there.
Hezbollah said last week that after more than a year of abiding by a ceasefire its patience has ended, leaving it with no option but to fight.
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