Middle East crisis live: More than 100 children killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon, health ministry says

Israelistrikes have killed more than 100 children inLebanon,according to the latest datafrom the Lebanese health ministry.

Atotal of 773 people have been killedsince Israel’s first strikes on the country on 2 March, with a further1,933 people wounded, the ministry said in its daily report.

It said103 children had now been killedin the strikes, and a further326 children have been wounded.

The US state department is offering rewards of up to $10m to anyone with information onIran’s new supreme leaderMojtaba Khameneias well as nine “key leaders” of theIranian Revolutionary Guard Corps(IRGC).

Among the six figures named are new secretary of the Supreme National Security CouncilAli LarijaniandEsmail Khatib, the minister of intelligence.

The others are listed only by their positions.

In aposton X, the US state department said: “Your information could make you eligible for relocation and a reward.”
ThePentagonis moving additional Marines and warships to the Middle East asIransteps up its attacks on thestrait of Hormuz,the Wall Street Journal reports, citing three US officials.

US defence secretaryPete Hegsethhas approved a request fromUS Central Commandfor an element ofan amphibious ready groupandattached Marine expeditionary unit(MEU), typically consisting of several warships and 5,000 Marines and sailors, the officials told the WSJ.

According to the WSJ, the Japan-basedUSS Tripoli and its attached Marines are now headed for the Middle East.

Marines are already in the Middle East supporting theIranoperation, the officials said.

CNN also hearsabout the MEU deployment to the region from three officials familiar with the matter.

It is not yet clear what the MEU will be used for or where exactly it will be deployed.

Per CNN’s report: “These units have traditionally been used for missions like large-scale evacuations and amphibious operations that require ship-to-shore movements, including raids and assaults.

They also have a ground and aviation combat component and some units are trained for special operations.”
Their presence gives commanders additional options for a range of contingencies, one of the sources told CNN.

Donald Trumpand his administration haverepeatedly refused to rule outUS boots on the ground in Iran.

Earlier,Donald Trumpsaid he believes thatRussiamight be helpingIran“a little bit”, before pointing toUSsupport forUkraineas possible justification.

In an interview on Fox News Radio on Friday morning, the US president was pressed on whether he believesVladimir Putinis supporting Iran following US-Israeli strikes on the country.

He said:
double quotation markI think he might be helping him a little bit, yeah, I guess.

And he probably thinks we’re helping Ukraine, right?

Yeah, we’re helping [Ukraine] also.

And so, [Putin] says that, and China would say the same thing.

You know, it’s like, hey, they do it and we do it.

In all fairness, they do it and we do it.

On Thursday, the UK defence secretary,John Healey, said thatPutin’s “hidden hand”lies behind Iran’s military methods.

He was speaking after British officers at the UK’s military headquarters in London told him that drone pilots fromIranand Iranian proxies were increasingly adopting tactics “from the Russians”.

Iran has already fired more than 2,000 Shahed drones – long-range weapons heavily used byRussiaagainst Ukraine – across the Middle East in response to the US-Israeli attack launched on 28 February.

Last week,the Washington Postand others reported that Moscow was providing Tehran with intelligence on US military assets in the region.

Putindenied Russian involvementin a phone call with Trump, US special envoySteve Witkoff said on Tuesday.

A British counter-drone unit has shot down “multiple drones overnight”following recent strikes on coalition bases inIraq, theUK’s Ministry of Defence has said.

It comes after aFrenchsoldier waskilledin a drone attackin Iraq’sErbilregion last night, and a base housing UK and US forces in the areacame under attackfrom anIraniandrone on Wednesday.

Overnight,UK Typhoon jets flew air defence operations over Bahrain for the first time, the MoD said in an updatesharedon X.

It added:
double quotation markBritish Typhoon and F-35 jets are now flying in defence of British interests and allies acrossQatar,Cyprus,UAE,Jordan, andBahrain.

UK defences in the eastern Mediterranean now include Typhoon and F-35 jets, air defence and counter-drone units, Wildcat and Merlin helicopters, and a further 400 air defence personnel are currently deployed to protect British lives and interests.

The armed suspect whocrashed into a large Michigan synagoguehad lost four family members in anIsraeliairstrike in his nativeLebanonlast week, an unnamed official told the Associated Press on Friday.

Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a naturalized US citizen born inLebanon, was killed by security after ramming into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township outside Detroit on Thursday.

There were no casualties or injuries to the synagogue’s staff, teachers and 140 children at the early childhood center on site.

The FBI, which is leading the investigation, described the attack as an act of violence targeting the Jewish community.

A local official in Mashgharah, in central Lebanon, told the Associated Press on Friday that Ghazali’s two brothers and a niece and nephew were killed at their home in the 5 March airstrike just after sunset as they were having their fast-breaking meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Only 77 ships have so far crossed the strait of Hormuz in March as the Mideast war disrupts one of the world’s most vital shipping routes, a maritime data firm reported on Friday.

Lloyd’s List Intelligence said most of these vessels belonged to the so-called ‘shadow fleet’ – ships used to skirt Western sanctions and regulations, typically linked to Russia andIran.

They are often ageing ships in poor condition, without proper insurance and with opaque ownership.

The 77 transits recorded so far this month compare with 1,229 passages between 1-11 March last year, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

Sri Lanka on Friday repatriated the remains of 84 Iranian sailors who perished when their frigate was sunk nine days ago by a US submarine, local officials said.

The seamen were killed when the IRIS Dena was torpedoed on March 4 just off the coast of Sri Lanka, in an incident that extended the Middle East war to the Indian Ocean, AFP reported.

An Airbus A340 chartered by Iran “left a short while ago carrying the remains of the sailors,” an airport official at Mattala International Airport in the island’s south told AFP by telephone.

“The departure was delayed because 84 sealed boxes had to be loaded,” added the official who requested anonymity.

The destination of the flight was not disclosed.

A drone strike killed two members of an Iranian Kurdish armed opposition group in northern Iraq on Friday, a senior official from the exiled party said, blaming the attack onIran.

Since the start of the Middle East war, Iran has repeatedly struck positions belonging to Iranian Kurdish exiled groups in Iraq.

“A drone struck one of our positions at 4.40pm, killing two party members and wounding four others,” Mardin Zahidi, from the Khabat Organisation of Iranian Kurdistan, told AFP.

The attack occurred in the mountains of Bashiqa, in an area under Kurdish control, between the city of Mosul and the autonomous Kurdistan region.

Zahidi blamed the attack “on Iran and its militias”.

Turkey’s defence ministry on Friday said a ballistic missile fromIranhad been shot down in Turkish airspace by Nato forces, the third such incident of the Middle East war.

“A ballistic munition launched from Iran and entering Turkish airspace was neutralised by Nato air and missile defence assets deployed in the eastern Mediterranean,” a ministry statement said.

Hours earlier, sirens sounded at Turkey’s southern Incirlik airbase, a key Nato facility where US troops are stationed located just outside the southern city of Adana, state news agency Anadolu reported.

Nato air defences shot down a first ballistic missile fired from Iran on 4 March, with a second intercepted on Monday.

On the main street of Metula on Thursday morning there was one thing everybody agreed on: the night had been “difficult”.

The sirens had fallen silent only a few hours earlier when military authorities were sure there would be no further waves of attacks with rockets and drones on targets across northern Israel launched byHezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant Islamist movement, and its sponsor, Iran.

Yet any calm was fragile and partial.

Warplanes flew low over the small town, the northernmost community inIsrael, and the loud percussive bang of interceptions of missiles came frequently.

In the background was the thud and crack of what residents drinking coffee in the Bela cafe said was Israeli artillery firing not far away.

Pro-Israel Palestinian militia have launched repeated raids, clandestine assassination and abduction operations deep inside parts of Gaza controlled by Hamas in recent months, with new operations launched recently despite the outbreak of conflict with Iran.

The militia, which are all based in eastern parts of Gaza that are under Israeli control after a ceasefire came into effect in October, have received significant logistic support from Israelsince last yearbut appear to have increased their firepower, allowing new and more aggressive attacks in recent weeks.

Israeli strikes inGaza, which had averaged around 10 a day across the devastated territory over the last five months, have continued even as Israeli jets carry out bombing campaigns in Iran and Lebanon.

On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike and tank shelling killed ​six Palestinians, including two women and a girl, in separate attacks in Gaza City, the deadliest incidents ‌inGazasince the US-Israeli offensive onIranbegan, health officials said.

At least 16 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by airstrikes since the outbreak of war with Iran on 28 February, health officials say.