Three weeks into Operation Epic Fury, the war in Iran is not winding down. It’s widening.
Israel launched a new round of airstrikes on Tehran early Friday — on Nowruz, the Persian New Year — while countries across the Middle East scrambled to intercept Iranian drones and missiles targeting their territory.
The attacks came on a day when Muslims in the region were also celebrating Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan.
The confluence of holiday celebrations and falling bombs underscored the grim reality of a conflict that has now killed thousands, displaced millions, and thrown global energy markets into their worst crisis since the 1970s.
Trump and Netanyahu Clash Over Energy Strikes — Then Press Forward Anyway
The most significant political rupture this week came not between the warring parties, but between allies.
On Wednesday, Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gas field — connected to the world’s largest natural gas reserve. The strike rattled global energy markets and drew a sharp public rebuke from President Trump, who said he told Netanyahu to stop hitting Iranian energy infrastructure.
Trump claimed on Truth Social that the U.S. “knew nothing” about the strike in advance.
That claim appears to be false. Sources briefed on the matter told both NPR and CNN that the U.S. and Israel coordinate on all targets. The disconnect between what both leaders say publicly and what happens operationally has become a recurring feature of this war.
Netanyahu responded Thursday at his first press conference since the conflict began on February 28. He said Israel “acted alone” in hitting South Pars, and that Israel would honor Trump’s request to hold off on future strikes against Iranian energy sites.
In virtually the same breath, he claimed Iran “has no ability to enrich uranium” and “no ability to produce ballistic missiles” — sweeping assertions that were immediately contradicted by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi told NPR that while the military campaign has caused enormous damage to Iran’s physical nuclear facilities, the country’s enriched material and enrichment capabilities will likely survive the conflict.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid pushed back too, warning that the relevant question isn’t what Iran can do today, but what it will be able to do when the war ends.
Iran Retaliates Across the Gulf
Iran’s response to the South Pars strike was swift and punishing — and it wasn’t aimed at Israel.
Iranian drones hit Kuwait’s Mina Al-Ahmadi oil refinery — the country’s largest — for the second time in two days, sparking fires that crews were still working to contain on Friday.
Iranian missiles struck Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas export hub, inflicting what QatarEnergy’s CEO said was enough damage to knock out 17% of the country’s LNG export capacity. Experts estimate that damage could take three to five years to repair.
In the United Arab Emirates, explosions echoed across Dubai as the country’s air defense systems engaged Iranian missiles and drones — this while worshippers marked Eid. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain were also on alert.
An Iranian missile struck Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday, injuring several people.
Iran’s strategy is clear: if its own energy infrastructure is targeted, it will ensure its adversaries’ neighbors pay the same price. The result is an expanding conflict zone that now stretches from Tehran to the Arabian Peninsula, with civilian populations in multiple countries caught in the crossfire.
The Energy Crisis Deepens
The economic fallout is enormous and accelerating.
Brent crude briefly surged past $119 per barrel on Thursday before pulling back after Netanyahu’s press conference, where he also claimed Israel was helping the U.S. reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The strait — through which roughly 20% of the world’s daily oil supply normally flows — has been effectively closed since Iran declared it shut on March 4. Tanker traffic has dropped by an estimated 70%, with more than 150 ships anchored outside the passage to avoid attacks.
Goldman Sachs estimated that the effective closure has cut roughly 16.1 million barrels per day of oil flows, even accounting for pipeline rerouting by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The bank warned that oil prices could remain above $100 per barrel through 2027.
Spot prices for physical crude have been even more alarming — Dubai and Oman grades hit $166.80 per barrel on Thursday morning.
The International Energy Agency took the extraordinary step of urging governments and households to reduce oil consumption, recommending remote work and less driving. IEA member countries have committed to releasing 400 million barrels from emergency reserves — the largest coordinated stockpile release in the agency’s history — but warned that supply measures alone cannot offset a disruption of this scale.
Some 20,000 seafarers remain stranded in the Gulf. The UN’s maritime organization said it would begin negotiating a humanitarian corridor, though no timeline was offered and Iran’s cooperation remains uncertain.
The Human Cost Keeps Climbing
While energy prices and geopolitical maneuvering dominate the headlines, the human toll of this war continues to mount — and the true scale remains difficult to assess.
As of March 17, the Iranian human rights organization HRANA documented at least 3,114 deaths from airstrikes inside Iran, including 1,354 confirmed civilians. Among the civilian dead: at least 207 children.
Hengaw, another monitoring group focused on Iran’s Kurdish regions, reported that Iran’s military has relocated forces into civilian spaces including schools, dormitories, and mosques — a practice that violates international humanitarian law and puts civilians directly in harm’s way.
A particularly devastating attack struck a girls’ elementary school in Minab, in Hormozgan Province. Iranian state media initially reported 167 children killed. U.S. Central Command has struck more than 7,000 targets since the war began. According to CNN, the Iranian Red Crescent reports that more than 18,000 civilians have been injured.
Strikes on fuel depots near Tehran earlier in the conflict caused what witnesses described as rivers of fire flowing through the streets, enveloping the city in toxic black smoke. Residents were told to stay indoors, wear masks, and conserve food and fuel. The war has also damaged multiple UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including Golestan Palace, Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan, and the Azadi Sport Complex.
Israel has confirmed the killing of four senior Iranian officials this week alone, including IRGC spokesperson Ali Mohammed Naini on Friday, intelligence chief Esmail Khatib, Supreme National Security Council head Ali Larijani, and Basij militia commander Gholamreza Soleimani.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei — who succeeded his father after the elder Khamenei was killed in the opening strikes on February 28 — has not been seen publicly since taking power.
On Friday, he issued a rare statement declaring that Iran’s enemies must have their “security stripped.”
No End in Sight
The EU called Thursday for “de-escalation and maximum restraint,” pressing for the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened and proposing a moratorium on strikes against energy and water infrastructure. A joint statement from France, Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, and Canada condemned Iran’s attacks on commercial vessels.
Trump, for his part, blasted NATO allies as “COWARDS” for refusing to help reopen the strait, writing on Truth Social that allies benefit from U.S. military power while contributing nothing.
He said the effort to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran is “militarily won” — a claim that sits uneasily alongside the continued daily exchange of strikes.
Meanwhile, the deployment of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit from San Diego this week has fueled speculation about a potential ground component to the conflict. Two thousand Marines aboard the USS Boxer and accompanying ships are headed to the Middle East.
A second Marine unit, the 31st MEU, is en route from Asia. Netanyahu himself hinted at a ground element, and Trump has floated — then walked back — the idea of arming Kurdish militias inside Iran.
The war that was supposed to be a swift degradation of Iran’s military and nuclear capabilities has instead become a sprawling regional conflict, with no diplomatic off-ramp in sight and costs — human, economic, and strategic — compounding by the day.
A majority of Americans — 56%, according to a recent NPR/PBS News/Marist poll — oppose the war. The U.S. has already spent an estimated $16.5 billion in the first 12 days alone.
For the people of Tehran marking Nowruz under airstrikes, for the families of the children killed in Minab, for the 20,000 sailors stranded at sea, and for the millions across the Gulf who spent Eid listening for the sound of incoming drones — the human cost of this war is not abstract.
It is lived, every day, in real time.
