Iran War Live Updates: Trump Claims Success as Gulf Nations and Israel Fend Off More Attacks

Iran war: Trump declares victory as Gulf states block 2nd missile wave

By Muhammad Asghar | GlobalBeat

President Donald Trump said U.S.-led air defenses shot down 85 Iranian missiles overnight as strikes hit Saudi Arabia, UAE and Israel.

The overnight barrage brought the 48-hour tally to at least 340 projectiles fired by Tehran since Wednesday, the Pentagon announced.

Gulf monarchies had stayed on the sidelines during earlier Iran-Israel clashes. Their entry marks a widening of the 6-day-old war that began when Iran fired on Israeli bases in retaliation for the 1 April strike that killed 18 Revolutionary Guards in Damascus.

Saudi jets intercepted 27 cruise missiles over the Empty Quarter, the defense ministry in Riyadh said. The UAE reported 19 drones downed by Patriot batteries near Abu Dhabi’s oil terminals. No Gulf Arab deaths were confirmed, but shrapnel wounded 3 Indian workers at a Saudi desalination plant, medics told state TV.

“Coalition forces achieved a 96 percent kill rate,” Trump told reporters at the White House before dawn. He credited new THAAD units rushed to the region last week and “seamless” radar sharing between Israel and its former adversaries.

The claim could not be independently verified. Iranian state media said “dozens” of targets were struck and released footage of flames rising from what it called a Saudi military city.

Israel’s ambulance service reported 11 people treated for minor injuries after fragments landed south of Tel Aviv. The military said 42 rockets slipped through Iron Dome and David’s Sling, the worst leakage rate since 2021.

Oil prices leapt 8 percent in Asian trade before easing to $93 a barrel. Shipping insurers raised war-risk premiums for vessels docking in the Persian Gulf by 40 percent, cargo brokers in London said.

Tactical shift

U.S. officials said Iran fired mostly older Shahab-3 ballistic missiles while holding back its precision Fateh-110 stockpile. “They’re probing, trying to find gaps,” a Defense Department briefer told reporters on condition of anonymity.

The pattern mirrored Wednesday’s opening salvo: waves of drones first, then ballistic missiles 90 minutes later. But this time Tehran added Quds-force fast boats that lobbed cruise missiles from 40 km off the Saudi coast, according to satellite images shown to GlobalBeat.

Riyadh responded with its first offensive strikes of the war, hitting two boats and an unmanned submarine, Saudi spokesman Brig. Gen. Turki al-Malki said. He released infrared video of a helicopter gunship sinking a vessel.

Kuwait, Oman and Qatar opened airspace to coalition jets, a move that would have been unthinkable before the 2020 Abraham Accords. Bahrain’s state news agency said a U.S. F-16 squadron “forward deployed” to Isa Air Base overnight.

Market jolt

Brent crude spiked above $100 in electronic trade before profit-taking set in. Analysts warned a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz could push gasoline above $5 a gallon nationwide by Memorial Day.

“Every day this continues chips away at OPEC spare capacity,” RBC commodity chief Helima Croft wrote clients. The UAE’s Murban grade traded at a record $7 premium to Brent as buyers sought supplies outside the chokepoint.

Airlines re-routed Asia-Europe flights around Iranian airspace, adding 45 minutes flight time and roughly $15,000 in extra fuel per wide-body jet, the International Air Transport Association said.

Diplomatic scramble

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for a 72-hour humanitarian pause to evacuate foreign nationals. The UAE has asked security council members for a session Friday, diplomats in New York said.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sissi proposed a joint de-escalation channel including Turkey and Iraq. A senior French official said Washington had “not yet engaged” with the plan.

China’s foreign ministry urged restraint without naming Iran. Russia blamed “reckless Israeli provocations” for the cycle and called for a return to the 2015 nuclear deal, a stance echoed by Tehran’s envoy in Moscow.

Iran’s foreign minister is expected in Ankara on Saturday for talks with Turkey’s Hakan Fidan, Turkey’s state broadcaster TRT said. Ankara shares a 560-km border with Iran and hosts a NATO radar station.

Background

Israel and Iran have fought a shadow war for years through proxies, but direct state-on-state exchanges were rare until 2024. The killing of Revolutionary Guards commander Brig. Gen. Sayyed Razi Mousavi in a December Israeli strike in Syria broke an undeclared red line. Tehran responded with ballistic missiles against northern Israeli bases in January, to which Israel answered by bombing an Iranian consulate annex in Damascus on 1 April. That strike killed Mousavi’s successor and 17 others, prompting Iran to launch its first-ever salvo on Israeli territory from inside Iran six days ago.

The Gulf Arab states long viewed Tehran as their primary threat but refrained from open combat, fearing retaliation against oil assets. Secret security contacts with Israel accelerated after the Abraham Accords normalized Israeli ties with the UAE and Bahrain in 2020. Saudi Arabia has not signed the accords but allowed overflight rights and shared intelligence as informal relations warmed. All sides see Iran’s advancing nuclear program—now enriching uranium to 83 percent, just below weapons grade—as an existential risk that outweighs domestic opposition to cooperating with Israel.

What’s Next

The U.S. carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is due to transit the Suez Canal within 48 hours, doubling American fighter jets within striking distance of Iran. Israeli officials say they will respond “at a time and place of our choosing,” hinting at cyber strikes or assassinations rather than an immediate missile duel. Iranian lawmakers chanted “Death to America” after a closed briefing Thursday and authorized the president to tap $3 billion in reserve funds for missile production, state TV reported. European foreign ministers will meet in Brussels on Sunday to weigh re-imposing nuclear sanctions suspended in 2022.

What to watch

Whether Gulf defenses can sustain 90-plus intercept rates if Iran fires its newer precision missiles next week could decide the trajectory of the conflict. A single mass casualty hit on a Gulf city or Israeli economic node risks dragging U.S. troops into direct combat for the first time against Iran itself, something Washington has spent four decades avoiding.