The voices of ordinary people trapped inside a bombed-out Tehran offered a devastating counterpoint on Friday to President Donald Trump’s triumphal declarations about the US-Israeli military campaign. While Trump called Iranian leaders “deranged scumbags” and celebrated their deaths as a personal honor, a retired professor in the Iranian capital begged the world to intervene, describing sick relatives who could not leave, streets filled with rubble, and buildings shaking from the force of the blasts. A shopkeeper described counting six explosions in a single hour and taping newspapers over her windows as makeshift protection.
The war began when Israel killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had led Iran for 37 years, triggering a chain of escalations that has since consumed the entire region. Tehran has been under near-continuous bombardment since the conflict began. Iranian authorities have reported over 1,300 deaths in the country, a figure that is expected to rise as US and Israeli strikes continued through the day and night. Power outages, rubble, and acute fuel shortages have made life in the city increasingly difficult to sustain.
US and Israeli forces have combined to strike more than 15,000 targets since the war began, a pace exceeding 1,000 strikes per day. Israel reported over 200 individual strikes in the most recent 24-hour period, targeting Iranian missile systems, air defences, and weapons production facilities. Trump’s late announcement that US forces had obliterated every military installation on Kharg Island in one of the most powerful raids in the region’s history underscored the extraordinary scale of the campaign.
The broader Middle East continued to be engulfed in violence. Lebanon recorded over 600 deaths and 800,000 displaced, with eight more killed in Sidon on Friday. Hezbollah launched rockets at northern Israel, injuring about 60 people. Saudi Arabia intercepted close to 50 Iranian drones. Qatar ordered Doha evacuations before a confirmed missile interception. Two people died in Oman from drone crashes. A building in Dubai’s financial district sustained damage. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced new coordinated strikes on Israel.
Thirteen American service members have died in the conflict, including six in a tanker aircraft crash in Iraq. France lost one soldier to an Iranian militia drone in Iraq. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth described Iran’s leadership as desperate and in hiding, with new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei wounded and disfigured according to US assessments. Trump meanwhile warned that Iran’s oil infrastructure at Kharg Island could be targeted next, a threat with profound implications for global energy markets already severely disrupted by the ongoing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.