Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
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ARAD, Israel (AP) — Iran and the allied Lebanese militant group Hezbollah stepped up attacks on Israel on Sunday after the United States and Iran threatened to target critical infrastructure in the war in the Middle East, now in its fourth week.
Iran said the Strait of Hormuz, crucial to oil and other exports, would be “completely closed” immediately if the U.S. follows up on President Donald Trump’s new threat to attack its power plants.
Trump late Saturday set a 48-hour deadline to open the strait.
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Iran’s parliament speaker said Tehran also would retaliate against U.S. and Israeli energy and wider infrastructure in the region.
Israeli leaders visited Arad, one of two southern communities near a secretive nuclear research site struck by Iranian missiles late Saturday, wounding scores of people.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was a “miracle” no one was killed. He claimed Israel and the U.S. were well on their way to achieving their war goals and asked the international community for more support.
The developments signalled the war, which the U.S. and Israel launched Feb. 28, was moving in a dangerous new direction, despite Trump’s comment last week he was considering “winding down” operations. It has killed over 2,000 people, rattled the global economy and sent oil prices surging.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for an airstrike that killed a man in northern Israel, while Gulf Arab states — including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — said they intercepted new Iranian strikes.
People follow a truck carrying the flag draped coffins of Gen. Ali Mohammad Naeini, a spokesperson for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and one of his comrades Amir Hossein Bidi , during their funeral procession in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Energy and desalination plants are threatened
Iran has practically closed the Strait of Hormuz that connects the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world.
Roughly one-fifth of global oil supply passes through it, but attacks on ships and threats of further strikes have stopped nearly all tanker traffic. Some of the largest oil producers have made cuts because their crude has nowhere to go.
The U.S. and its allies in Europe and Asia rely heavily on the oil to meet energy demand. In its most recent attempt to relieve pressure on energy prices, the U.S. has lifted some sanctions on Iranian oil at sea.
Trump said if Iran didn’t open the strait, the U.S. would destroy its “various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!”
Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf responded on X that if Iran’s power plants and infrastructure are targeted, then vital infrastructure across the region — including energy and desalination facilities — would be considered legitimate targets and “irreversibly destroyed.”
Under international law, power plants that benefit civilians can be targeted only if the military advantage outweighs the suffering it cases to civilians, legal scholars say.
Separately, Iranian officials said they would keep providing safe passage through the strait to vessels from countries other than its enemies.
Strikes in Israel and Iran bring new nuclear concerns
Iran said its strikes in the Negev Desert late Saturday were in retaliation for an earlier attack on Iran’s main nuclear enrichment site in Natanz, according to state-run media.
Tehran praised the attack as a show of strength, even as Israel’s military asserts that Iranian missile launches have gradually decreased in frequency since the war began.
“If the Israeli regime is unable to intercept missiles in the heavily protected Dimona area, it is, operationally, a sign of entering a new phase of the battle,” Qalibaf said.
Southern Israel’s main hospital received at least 175 wounded from Arad and Dimona, its deputy director Roy Kessous told The Associated Press.
Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though it doesn’t confirm or deny their existence. The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on X it had not received reports of damage to the Israeli centre or abnormal radiation levels.
Israel denied responsibility for hitting Natanz on Saturday, while the Iranian judiciary’s official news agency, Mizan, said there was no leakage. The Pentagon declined to comment on the strike.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has said the bulk of Iran’s estimated 441 kilograms of enriched uranium is elsewhere, beneath the rubble at its Isfahan facility.
Smoke and debris rise from an Israeli airstrike that hit the Qasmiyeh Bridge near the coastal city of Tyre, Lebanon, Sunday, March 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammad Zaatari)
Iran says strikes also hit hospital
Iran said strikes hit a hospital in Andimeshk. Its health ministry said patients and doctors were evacuated to another city.
Iran’s death toll in the war has surpassed 1,500, state media reported Saturday, citing the ministry. In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian strikes. More than a dozen civilians in the occupied West Bank and Gulf Arab states have been killed in strikes.
A Qatari military helicopter crash on Saturday, blamed on a technical malfunction, killed all seven aboard, Qatari authorities said.
The Israeli civilian was killed in the northern town of Misgav Am in what Israel’s military said “seemed to be” a rocket attack.
Hezbollah launched strikes on Israel soon after the war began, calling it retaliation for the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israel then targeted Hezbollah in deadly airstrikes and expanded its ground presence in southern Lebanon.
Fighting there has intensified. Israel on Sunday expanded its list of targets to include all bridges over the Litani River, which Defense Minister Israel Katz said Hezbollah is using to move fighters and weapons into the south. Israel later struck the Qasmiyeh bridge near Tyre, giving an hour’s warning.
Katz also ordered the military to accelerate its destruction of Lebanese homes near Israel’s northern border.
Lebanese authorities say Israel’s strikes have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced more than 1 million. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel.
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