Live updates: Israel says it killed Iran security chief Ali Larijani amid war

Oil tankers are beginning to move through the Strait of Hormuz, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said today, while insisting Iran’s efforts to halt traffic through the crucial shipping waterway had not damaged the U.S.

"Already you’re seeing tankers are starting to dribble ​through the straits, and I think it’s a sign of ​how little Iran has left," Hassett said in an interview with CNBC.

“We’re very optimistic ⁠that this is going to be over in the short ​run, and then there will be price repercussions when it ​is over for a few weeks, as the ships make it to the refineries," he added.

Israel is destabilizing the Iranian regime in the hopes of giving its citizens “the opportunity to remove it,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today after his country said it had killed the Islamic Republic’s top security official Ali Larijani and the head of its Basij force, Gholamreza Soleimani.

Local men sit in the rubble of a destroyed residential building in Tehran on Sunday. Shadati / Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images

“This will not happen all at once, and it will not be easy. But if we persist, we will give them the opportunity to take their destiny into their own hands,” Netanyahu said in a video address shared by his office today.

Israel “eliminated” Larijani and Soleimani, and was “determined” to win, he said. “I ask you simply to ignore voices of discouragement. We are achieving historic accomplishments,” Netanyahu added.

An American company that was targeted in a cyberattack that was purportedly carried out by an Iran-linked hacker group has said it is now contained.

Stryker, a medical tech company headquartered in Michigan, said in an update on its website that its products remained safe to use. "The incident has been contained, and we are now in the restoration process, which is progressing steadily," the weekend update added.

Last week's cyberattack on Stryker appeared to mark the first significant instance of Iran hacking an American company since the war with the U.S. and Israel began.

Handala Team, which cybersecurity companies say has ties to Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, claimed responsibility for the hack in statements on its Telegram and X accounts. The group said the attack was carried out in retaliation for a strike on a children's school in Minab in southern Iran, according to Reuters.

The director of the National Counterterrorism Center, a retired Green Beret and longtime supporter of President Donald Trump, said he has resigned over the war with Iran.

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,” Joe Kent said in a statement posted on X today. “It is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

 Jenny Kane / AP file

The National Counterterrorism Center oversees U.S. government intelligence on terrorist threats and retains a database of all known and suspected terrorists.

Kent worked under Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, and the two were political allies. Gabbard has kept a low profile since the war started and has previously criticized U.S. military interventions abroad.

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United Nations investigators have requested access to the site of a deadly strike on a school purported to have killed scores of children at the start of the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran, a member of the Iran fact-finding mission said.

The U.N. had credible reports that at least 168 people were killed in the strike and that the majority were female students, many as young as 7 years old, Max du Plessis told British broadcaster BBC today.

The aftermath of a missile strike on a school in Minab, Iran, on Feb. 28. Abbas Zakeri / Mehr News via Reuters

“We’ve requested access to Iran and we’ll continue to seek that access,” he said, adding that the probe was still at an "early stage" and the U.N. was trying to determine who was responsible and what the legal consequences, if any, may be.

His comments came as an American investigation into the strike is ongoing. A U.S. official and three sources familiar with the preliminary findings previously told NBC News that outdated intelligence likely led to the deadly strike.

Keeping Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport open amid regular Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s capital is “very complicated,” the country’s transport minister told NBC News. 

Fayez Rasamny said it was “very challenging” but Lebanon had taken the decision to “keep our airspace open since day one of the war.” 

On one occasion, he said, a Middle East Airlines flight from Paris had been unable to land for 40 minutes “because there were fighter jets in the area.”

After considering whether to turn back to Cyprus and the plane’s fuel supply, Rasamny said, the pilot landed after around 40 to 50 uncertain minutes.

A Middle East Airlines aircraft takes off from the airport in Beirut as smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs today. Ibrahim Amro / AFP - Getty Images

As many as 45 million more people could be pushed into acute hunger by June if the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran carried on until then, the World Food Programme has warned.

Millions could fall into acute food insecurity if the war does not end by the middle of the year and if oil prices remain above $100 a barrel, according to a new analysis, the WFP said in a statement on its website today.

This would add to roughly 318 million people around the world who are already food insecure, it said.

The global numbers of food-insecure people could reach levels that were last seen at the start of the war in Ukraine, which triggered a cost of living crisis and saw global hunger reach record levels with 349 million people impacted, the WFP added.

It also warned that its “latest projections indicate we are at risk of facing a similar situation in the months ahead if the Middle East conflict continues.”

A displaced family outside their tent along Beirut's seafront Sunday. Ibrahim Amro / AFP - Getty Images

A tanker has been struck by falling debris while anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, a British maritime monitoring agency said this morning.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said the vessel sustained minor structural damage and the crew was safe.

In an advisory yesterday, UKMTO said no confirmed vessel attacks have been reported since last Thursday, but the overall maritime threat level in the region remains critical due to prior attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

The waterway, one of the world’s busiest oil shipping channels, has been effectively blocked by Iran in response to the strikes by the U.S. and Israel.

The timing of a highly anticipated summit between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping is in doubt after Trump asked to delay it by “a month or so” so he can focus on the widening war with Iran.

It’s the latest complication from the U.S.-Israeli attack on Tehran, which has close ties with Beijing, as the conflict adds another possible point of tension between America and China.

 Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images file

The summit was meant to focus on trade, as both Trump and Xi seek to extend a delicate tariff truce between the world’s two biggest economies. But China showed little immediate sign that it was bothered by the likely delay, which analysts said may actually prove beneficial to efforts to further stabilize relations.

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An Iran-aligned militia group fired a combination of drones and rockets, at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad earlier today, according to a U.S. official.

Of the seven projectiles fired, U.S. defenses intercepted six of them, but one got through and struck an empty slab of concrete on the compound, the official said. There were no injuries or serious damage, the official added.

Security outside the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad today. Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP - Getty Images

An image released by Israel's government press office today shows what it says is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordering the killing of senior Iranian regime officials.

@IsraeliPM via X

Hundreds of Starlink satellite internet terminals have been seized in Iran, the semi-official news agency ISNA reported today, citing the Intelligence Ministry.

The seizure happened in “a large-scale combined operation using extensive technological tools” to identify the locations of satellite systems and “criminal activities of their users,” ISNA quoted the ministry as saying.

“These measures will continue until all satellite internet terminals that in any way serve the enemy are fully identified,” the ministry was quoted as adding before it warned that the procurement and use of illegal Starlink systems was criminal and “during wartime it carries the most severe punishment for offenders, especially those linked to or cooperating with the enemy.”

Iran has been offline since the U.S.-Israeli military operation against it began last month. The blackout has now lasted for more than 400 hours, the monitoring service NetBlocks said earlier today.

Israel’s military said it has begun a “wide-scale wave of strikes” across Iran’s capital, Tehran. The announcement came shortly after air raid sirens were heard going off in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis today said that Europe should prepare short- and long-term measures to support consumers and businesses as energy prices soar due to the conflict in the Middle East.

More troops have joined ground operations in southern Lebanon with the aim of expanding Israel’s “forward defense,” the country's military announced this morning on Telegram.

Israeli soldiers are seen along the border with Lebanon in northern Israel today. Ariel Schalit / AP

The Israel Defense Forces said the “limited and targeted ground operations” had begun in “recent days.” Troops were working to “establish the forward defensive posture in order to remove threats and create an additional layer of security for residents of northern Israel,” it added.

The announcement came as fears of a prolonged occupation in southern Lebanon grew, where hundred of thousands of people have been displaced from in recent weeks.

The IDF said it would "continue to operate with determination" against Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group.

Air raid sirens have been heard going off in Tel Aviv.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has told reporters that his military will continue going after Iranian leaders.

Together with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said he had instructed the IDF to "continue pursuing the leadership."

Katz said that Iran's powerful security chief, Ali Larijani, and Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij force, were killed last night. He did not say what formed the basis of the Israeli military assessment.

A handwritten note commemorating Iran's dead sailors was posted on Ali Larijani's X account, shortly after Israel said it had killed the powerful security chief.

The note was also posted on Iranian state media. There was no public evidence indicating when the note was written or whether Larijani wrote it.

"The security and field of effort of the nation’s soldiers in distant areas, aimed at safeguarding the country’s national interests, continues despite all hardships," reads the handwritten note, signed off with Larijani's name.

The funeral of the sailors, killed in a U.S. attack, is expected to be held today.

Iran has not confirmed Larijani's death, and it was not immediately clear what Israel was basing its assessment on.

The Israeli military has killed Iran's powerful security chief, Ali Larijani, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz claimed this morning.

Ali Larijani, center, participates in the Quds Day rally in Tehran on Friday. Supreme National Security Council / ZUMA Press via Alamy

Iran offered no immediate response to the claim, and it was not immediately clear what Israel was basing its assessment on.

Israel will update Trump later today that the "high rate of turnover" in Iran's leadership is "continuing and even accelerating following the elimination of two of the most senior remaining figures," Katz said.

Larijani would be the highest-ranking Iranian official to be killed after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's death at the very start of the war.

Larijani was an influential figure in Iran's leadership who was viewed by some as a de facto ruler in the wake of Khamenei's death, and with the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei making no public appearances.

The Israeli military said today it had killed Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij, an all-volunteer force of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard that is key in suppressing protests around the country.

Israel said Soleimani was killed in an airstrike yesterday. It said that he has acted as the unit's commander for six years and helped oversee the regime's repression of dissent and mass arrests.

Gholamreza Soleimani. Atta Kenare / AFP via Getty Images

Iran gave no immediate confirmation of Israel's claim to have killed Soleimani. He would be one of the most senior Iranian officials to have been killed since the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei early in the war.

Both the U.S. and Israel have targeted the leadership of Iran's internal security apparatus throughout the conflict, hoping to damage the regime's ability to put down any unrest.

Multiple drones were intercepted by air defense systems near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad as Iranian-backed militias target American interests in Iraq.

It was not immediately clear if the facility suffered any damage.

Drones intercepted near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad

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Military officials have included options in regular war planning for Trump to end the conflict in Iran should he decide to do so, six people familiar with the plans told NBC News.

So far, he hasn’t.

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