Ukraine and Russia exchange deadly drone attacks, Zelenskyy calls for energy truce
A view of the destruction in the area following Russia’s drone attack in the city of Odessa, Ukraine on February 12, 2026. (Artur Shvits/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that Russia is yet to respond to a U.S.-backed energy truce, as the two combatants continue to exchange long-range drone and missile strikes amid American-led peace talks.
Recent trilateral U.S.-Ukraine-Russia talks in the United Arab Emirates were described by all sides as constructive, though appear to have failed to find a breakthrough on several contentious points or secure a new truce covering critical energy infrastructure.
After the most recent round of talks last week, Zelenskyy said that U.S. officials proposed a temporary pause in attacks on energy targets, which would have mirrored the brief pause on such attacks that occurred at the end of January.
Zelenskyy said on Thursday that Kyiv is yet to receive a response from Moscow on the purported offer. “On the contrary, we’ve received a response in the form of drone and missile attacks. This suggests that they are not yet ready for the energy ceasefire proposed in Abu Dhabi by the American side,” he said.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 25 missiles and 219 drones into the country overnight, of which 16 missiles and 197 drones were shot down or suppressed.
The impacts of nine missiles and 19 drones were reported across 13 locations, the air force said. “The main targets are Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Odesa,” the air force wrote on Telegram.
Four people, including two children, were also injured in strikes on the central city of Dnipro, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said. An earlier strike on the Synelnykove city just outside of Dnipro killed four people and injured three others, the regional administration said in posts to Telegram.
The Interior Ministry said that at least 13 people were injured in a series of drone strikes in the city of Barvinkove in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
The regional military administration in Odesa said one person was also injured there by Russian strikes.
The Interior Ministry reported damage to several areas of the capital. At least two people were injured by the attacks on Kyiv, according to the head of the city’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that almost 2,600 residential buildings were left without heating due to “damage to critical infrastructure targeted by the enemy.”
In total, approximately more than 1 million people without heating in the Ukrainian capital, according to Klitschko and Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba.
DTEK — Ukraine’s top private energy firm — reported major damage to its energy infrastructure in Odesa, plus an attack on a thermal power plant.
Ukrenergo, the state energy transmission operator, reported power outages in Kyiv, Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described the attacks as “Russian terror” in a post to X. “Each such strike is a blow to peace efforts aimed at ending the war. Russia must be forced to take diplomacy seriously and deescalate,” he said.
Zelenskyy said in a post to Telegram, “There needs to be more protection against these attacks.”
“The most effective defense against Russian ballistic missiles is the ‘Patriot’ system, and the supply of missiles for these systems is needed every day,” he added, referring to the U.S.-made surface-to-air missile platform.
“Everything currently available in the air defense program should arrive faster,” he said.
Ukraine continued its own drone strike campaign overnight. The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 106 Ukrainian drones overnight into Thursday morning.
Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported that two people were killed in drone attacks. At least 15 other people were injured across the region by Ukrainian attacks, the governor said. Gladkov also said Ukrainian forces fired several missiles into the region.
Local officials in the Volgograd, Tambov and Voronezh reported damage to industrial sites and falling drone debris in or close to residential areas.
Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, reported temporary flight restrictions for airports in Kaluga, Volgograd, Saratov, Yaroslavl, Kotlas, Ukhta, Perm and Kirov.
Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement posted to social media that among the targets of the strikes were the main arsenal of Russia’s missile and artillery forces in the Volgograd region. “This arsenal is one of the largest ammunition storage sites of the Russian army,” the General Staff said.
The ongoing peace talks have seen no easing of long-range strikes by either side, as the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s February 2022 full-scale invasion approaches.
As yet, no next round of talks have been scheduled. Zelenskyy said the U.S. had proposed a new trilateral meeting to be held in Miami, but that, “So far, as I understand it, Russia is hesitating.”
“We are ready. It doesn’t matter to us whether the meeting will be in Miami or Abu Dhabi. The main thing is that there should be a result,” the Ukrainian president said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Thursday that Moscow had “a certain understanding” regarding the next round of talks. “We expect the next round to take place soon. We’ll also give you directions on the location,” he added, as quoted by the state-run Tass news agency.
Russian Foreign Ministry officials have this week been critical of the ongoing peace push.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov this week suggested that the U.S. side had drifted from the understandings reached between Moscow and Washington at the August meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
Lavrov also said Trump’s administration had failed to roll back former President Joe Biden-era sanctions against Moscow.
Lavrov and Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova framed the lack of progress as the fault of Kyiv and its European backers.
“At the current stage, it is the European Union that is preventing the Kyiv regime from making any compromises in exchange for promises to provide everything necessary to continue military operations,” Zakharova said in a briefing on Thursday, as quoted by Tass.
Residential and commercial buildings damaged by Israeli Air strikes that were targeting the Hezbollah affiliated al-Qard al-Hassan financial institution on March 22, 2026 in Tyre, Lebanon. (Photo by Guy Smallman/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — The escalating Israeli operation against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon may prove to be the most intractable theater of the wider U.S.-Israeli confrontation with Iran, analysts who spoke with ABC News warned.
But the showdown unfolding in Lebanon could pose an existential threat to both Hezbollah and the Lebanese state, experts said, with the latter having long struggled to rein in the powerful militia but now facing growing pressure — and threats — from Israel to do more despite the danger of civil instability.
The technocratic government that came to power in Beirut on a wave of optimism in February 2025 is now facing “the worst possible combination of factors,” Emile Hokayem of the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank told ABC News during a recent webinar hosted by the U.K.-based Chatham House think tank.
Lebanon “is a secondary front at the moment that is likely to burn for longer both because the Israelis see the political-military opportunity, but also the Iranians see it as a place where they can bleed and distract the Israelis,” Hokayem added.
Cascading crises Even before the latest round of violence erupted, observers were noting rising discontent with Hezbollah among the wider Lebanese population and their elected representatives.
The recent scars of Hezbollah’s activities were all too visible. On the edges of Beirut’s stylish downtown area and the trendy Mar Mikhael neighborhood is the devastated port area, wrecked by a massive explosion in 2020, with efforts to apportion responsibility for the disaster allegedly repeatedly stymied by Hezbollah. While some blame Hezbollah, others blame the entire political ruling class and the systemic corruption in the country.
Villages across the Hezbollah-dominated south and east of the country lay in ruins from Israeli missiles, bombs and artillery shells fired in clashes since Hezbollah attacked Israel in solidarity with Hamas after the latter’s deadly surprise Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. In a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon in 2024, the Israeli army partially withdrew, holding on to five positions in southern Lebanon.
Parts of Beirut’s southern Dahiyeh area — a longtime Hezbollah stronghold — were cratered, with giant posters of its slain totemic leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in a massive 2024 Israeli airstrike on the city, seen by ABC News late last year rising above the arterial road which runs through the area from the airport to the rest of the city.
The conflict significantly degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities, apparently setting the stage for Lebanon to appoint a new government with fewer ties to the group — led by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and President Joseph Aoun — after more than two years of a caretaker cabinet amid a political deadlock.
Neither were formally endorsed by Hezbollah. Aoun, the country’s former army chief, and his new government said they were committed to disarming Hezbollah, appealing to foreign partners to help.
Many observers suggested Hezbollah appeared to be in a historically weak position from late 2024 into early 2026. Its patrons in Tehran were themselves weakened by confrontations with Israel and, later, the U.S. Discontent inside Iran exploded into multiple rounds of anti-government protests, with Tehran’s funding and direction of foreign proxy forces a common grievance among demonstrators.
The fall of Tehran-aligned and Hezbollah-bolstered Syrian President Bashar al-Assad across the border in December 2024 robbed Hezbollah of strategic depth, vital arms smuggling routes and financial opportunities. Nasrallah — an icon of the Iran-directed “Axis of Resistance” — was dead, as were many of the group’s most senior military and strategic minds, according to long-time observers of the group.
Meanwhile, strikes that Israel described as targeted against Hezbollah personnel and infrastructure in Lebanon continued, killing hundreds of people despite the November 2024 ceasefire deal. Hezbollah did not respond, apparently pursuing a policy of strategic patience that some observers interpreted as operational weakness.
Before the outbreak of its latest war with Israel in 2023, estimates of Hezbollah’s military strength ranged from 30,000 to more than 50,000 personnel. Its parliamentary party won 15 seats in the last Lebanese legislative elections in 2022, securing around 20% of all votes to the tune of nearly 360,000 ballots, according to data from Lebanon’s Interior Ministry.
Aoun’s government took some steps to curtail Hezbollah’s uniquely powerful position, in which it had been able to establish — with Iranian help — what analysts often described as “a state within a state.”
The Lebanese Armed Forces claimed in January to have completed the first phase of the plan to disarm all non-state groups in the area south of the Litani River — around 18 miles north of Israel’s border — as part of the 2024 ceasefire deal.
Those efforts continued after the U.S. and Israel launched their latest military campaign against Iran in late February. In early March, the Lebanese government declared all military activities by Hezbollah illegal. The army also set up checkpoints to search vehicles headed south for weapons.
But the idea of the state’s open confrontation with the Iranian-backed militia group prompts fears of a slide back into the bloody anarchy of the 1975-1990 civil war that killed more than 100,000 people and devastated the young nation.
Sectarian tensions are again rising in Lebanon. Last month, Salam criticized the country’s sectarian political system — designed to ensure power sharing between the country’s ethnic and religious groups — as “a source of harm both for the state and for the citizens.”
The state’s forces, while popular, are broadly considered to be weak relative to other regional militaries and non-state actors. Meanwhile, despite its recent setbacks, Hokayem said Hezbollah remains “a very powerful coercive force domestically in Lebanon, where they can punish, intimidate and possibly assassinate their enemies.”
Hezbollah’s new leader, Naim Qassem, said in August that the group would not surrender its weapons to the state, warning there would be “no life in Lebanon” if its arms were taken by force.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see, in addition to communal violence, more targeted hits — including assassinations — inside the country,” Hokayem said of intensifying Hezbollah activity. “If the military, the security forces are not able to prevent that or contain this, then you can easily see a loss of trust in central institutions, which is already very low.”
“Given the trajectory of events, more likely than not the state will weaken despite what some people in Washington say or would like to believe,” he added.
A ‘prolonged’ conflict Israeli forces are now moving deeper into southern Lebanon, with the Israel Defense Forces having issued a series of “urgent” warnings for the full evacuation of the country south of the Zahrani River, which sits around 36 miles north of the border. That order came on top of an evacuation order for all residents south of the Litani River — 18 miles north of the border — and for all residents in the southern Beirut suburbs.
Human Rights Watch said that more than a million people have been forced to flee their homes — nearly one-fifth of the entire population of the country. More than 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Lebanon in the latest round of fighting, the country’s health ministry said.
Israel’s aggressive policy in Lebanon came after Hezbollah fired on northern Israel on March 2, joining Tehran in its response to the U.S.-Israeli campaign launched against Iran on Feb. 28.
Hezbollah defied assessments it had been substantially weakened by its two-year involvement in the war in Gaza, firing rockets and drones daily toward northern Israel.
The IDF said this week that Hezbollah had fired over 2,000 projectiles toward Israel so far. That fire has killed four people — two civilians and two soldiers.
IDF Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said on March 22 that the Israeli operation “has only just begun,” describing the nascent campaign as “a prolonged operation.” As of March 24, the IDF had destroyed multiple bridges spanning the Litani River.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he instructed the IDF to “accelerate the destruction of Lebanese homes in the line of contact villages, to thwart threats to Israeli communities, in accordance with the model of Beit Hanoun and Rafah,” referring to Israel’s destruction of Gaza towns during the war on Hamas.
Katz said troops would seize and hold southern Lebanon up to the Litani River to create what he called a “defensive buffer.”
More extreme voices have demanded a permanent occupation. Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, for example, said the Litani should form “the new Israeli border,” in an echo of longheld ambitions of Israeli ultranationalists.
Lebanon’s president described the destruction of the bridges over the Litani and continued Israeli strikes elsewhere as a “dangerous escalation and flagrant violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty.” The measures, Aoun said, “are considered a prelude to a ground invasion.”
But there appears little hope of relief from Beirut’s two prime foreign partners — the U.S. and France — Hokayem said. “The Americans essentially have washed their hands of Lebanon,” he said, citing frustration with the government’s inability or unwillingness to rein in Hezbollah.
“In Washington there are people who have this illusion that you can break the back of Hezbollah, if only there was a bit more spine in some in Beirut,” Hokayem said. “It’s very difficult to see that.”
Barbara Leaf, who served as the assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs under President Joe Biden, said during the Chatham House event that the U.S. had taken a “hectoring” approach with the new Lebanese government. The message, Leaf said, is, “Take care of Hezbollah, and if not, the Israelis will.”
The U.S. Department of State has urged all Americans in Lebanon — of whom there were around 86,000 in 2022, according to the State Department — to leave the country as soon as possible.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump said of the situation in Lebanon, “We’re working on it very hard. We love Lebanon. We love the people of Lebanon, and we’re working very hard.” Hezbollah, he said, “has been a disaster for many years.”
Days later, Trump again said Hezbollah has been “a big problem” that was “rapidly being eliminated” by Israeli military action.
With clear U.S. backing, Israeli leaders appear set on a decisive operation in Lebanon, which forms one theater of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s drive to create what he calls a “new Middle East” shorn of Iranian influence.
Those ambitions will require a long-term presence on Lebanese territory, Yezid Sayigh, of the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center think tank in Beirut, wrote in early March. “A complementing Lebanese effort is necessary, hence the effort to force the Lebanese government’s hand one way or the other,” he added.
But the ongoing operation may undermine the very partners Israel needs in Beirut, Hokayem said. “A Lebanon in which so much territory is occupied will struggle to enter any kind of genuine peace negotiations with Israel,” he said.
“I don’t think they could be a central authority with enough strength and legitimacy,” he added.
Faced with yet another national crisis, many in Lebanon are pessimistic. The country must consider “the worst-case scenarios,” political scientist Ziad Majed wrote earlier this month.
This means, Majed said, huge destruction in Hezbollah’s heartlands in the south, the eastern Bekaa Valley and southern Beirut combined with a military occupation blocking hundreds of thousands of displaced people from returning to their homes.
Such a scenario, Majed warned, could “lead to suffocating living crises and social and political tensions that many might exploit for political opportunism, incitement and other forms of sectarian conflict.”
The Greenlandic flag flies over houses, Jan. 17, 2026, in Nuuk, Greenland. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — The leaders of all 27 European Union nations will meet for an “extraordinary meeting” later this week, European Council President Antonio Costa said on Sunday, in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s escalating pressure campaign to acquire Greenland.
European leaders are mobilizing after Trump on Saturday announced a 10% tariff to be imposed on all goods sent to the U.S. from eight NATO nations — Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands and Finland — that recently sent small contingents of troops to Greenland to take part in military exercises there.
On Sunday, Trump sent a letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store in which the president again expressed his desire to take control of Greenland. Store’s office confirmed to ABC News on Monday that Oslo received the message from Trump. The details of the letter were first reported by PBS.
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump wrote.
“Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also,” the president continued. “I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”
Costa said he had called the meeting due to the “significance of recent developments.”
European leaders are mobilizing after Trump on Saturday announced a 10% tariff to be imposed on all goods sent to the U.S. from eight NATO nations — Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands and Finland — that recently sent small contingents of troops to Greenland to take part in military exercises there.
Costa said recent conversations with European leaders had reconfirmed their “strong commitment” to international law, Arctic security through NATO and solidarity with Denmark and Greenland in the face of Trump’s continued effort to acquire the Arctic island.
European leaders also agreed that “tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and are incompatible with the EU-U.S. trade agreement,” Costa said, noting the bloc’s “readiness to defend ourselves against any form of coercion” and to engage “constructively with the US on all issues of common interest.”
An EU Council spokesperson confirmed to ABC News that the summit would be an in-person meeting in Brussels.
Trump said the new tariffs will come into force on Feb. 1 and will increase to 25% on June 1. The president said the measures would remain in place until the U.S. is able to purchase Greenland.
Greenland is a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Trump first raised the prospect of acquiring the minerals-rich island in his first term. Danish and Greenlandic politicians have repeatedly rebuffed such proposals.
Trump’s new tariffs raise the risk of a fresh transatlantic trade war. A French official confirmed to ABC News on Monday that French President Emmanuel Macron “will request the activation of the EU’s anti-coercion instrument in the event of new U.S. tariffs.”
That mechanism, colloquially known as the bloc’s “trade bazooka,” would allow the EU to impose severe restrictions on U.S. goods and services. Among the available measures would be restrictions on U.S. investment in EU nations, blocks on access to public procurement schemes and limits on intellectual property protections.
Trump has repeatedly suggested that U.S. sovereignty over the world’s largest island is necessary to ensure American security and blunt Chinese and Russian influence in the Arctic region. On Sunday, the president again claimed that only the U.S. can ensure the security of Greenland.
A 1951 defense agreement grants the U.S. military access to Greenland. Danish politicians have repeatedly expressed willingness to work with Washington to expand the American and NATO presence there.
Danish officials have also sought to head off concerns about the supposed vulnerability of the Arctic. Last year, Copenhagen announced a $6.5 billion Arctic defense package in response to U.S. criticism that it had failed to adequately protect Greenland.
But such steps do not appear to have deterred Trump, who has said he would consider taking Greenland by force if other means to acquire the land fail.
Indeed, it was the recent deployment of more NATO forces to the Arctic territory that prompted Trump to threaten a new raft of tariffs. The troops traveled to Greenland to take part in the Danish-led Operation Arctic Endurance.
Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen and Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt are scheduled to visit NATO’s headquarters in Brussels on Monday for a previously planned meeting with the alliance’s Secretary General Mark Rutte, NATO said in a press release.
On Monday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged “calm discussion” between allies. “The security of Greenland matters and it will matter more as climate change reshapes the Arctic,” he said, noting the need for “greater attention, greater investment and stronger collective defense.”
“The United States will be central to that effort, and the U.K. stands ready to contribute fully alongside our allies through NATO,” Starmer said, adding that any decisions about the territory’s future should be left to Greenlanders and Danes.
Trump’s use of tariffs against allies, Starmer continued, “is completely wrong. It is not the right way to resolve differences within an alliance. Nor is it helpful to frame efforts to strengthen Greenland’s security as a justification for economic pressure.”
ABC News’ Victoria Beaule, Tom Soufi Burridge and Kevin Shalvey contributed to this report.
A view of gigantic poster as daily life continues despite the ongoing conflict in Tehran, Iran on April 1, 2026. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — President Donald Trump is set to address the nation on Wednesday evening with an “important update” on the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, which was launched on Feb. 28.
ABC News has collated a timeline of the key events in the conflict to date.
Feb. 28: Combined U.S.-Israeli airstrikes began, with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed alongside dozens of senior political and military leaders in strikes on his office in Tehran. Iran immediately began retaliatory attacks targeting Israel, U.S. facilities and allies across the Middle East.
The opening salvo of strikes targeted Iranian government and military sites across the country, but there were allegations of collateral damage. The most significant was an airstrike on a girls’ elementary school in the southern city of Minab, which Iranian state media said killed 168 people.
March 1: Six American troops were killed in an Iranian drone strike on a U.S. base in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait — the first U.S. personnel to be killed in the conflict. Three U.S. F-15 fighter jets are also shot down by friendly fire from Kuwaiti air defenses.
The first commercial tankers were struck by projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz, marking the beginning of Iran’s efforts to choke the flow of shipping through the strategic chokepoint.
March 2: The Iran-aligned Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon launches attacks into northern Israel, framing them as retaliation for several months of Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon. Israel responded by intensifying its campaign — including with fresh strikes in Beirut — and launching new ground operations along the shared border.
March 4: The Iranian IRIS Dena frigate was sunk by a U.S. submarine off the coast of Sri Lanka, killing at least 104 crew members, according to the Iranian military.
The Israeli military issued an “urgent warning” to all residents of southern Lebanon located south of the Litani River ahead of intended strikes, ordering them to immediately evacuate and head north of the river — highlighting a vast area.
March 8: Mojtaba Khamenei was selected by Iran’s Assembly of Experts as the country’s next supreme leader, succeeding his father who was killed on Feb. 28. Mojtaba Khamenei’s candidacy was reportedly backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in which the new leader once served.
March 12: A U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft went down over western Iraq, killing six airmen. Another aircraft involved in the incident was damaged but able to land safely.
March 17: Ali Larijani, the influential secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was killed in an Israeli strike in Tehran.
March 18: The Israeli military strikes the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, which is shared by Iran and Qatar. The attack signaled a move toward the targeting of energy and critical infrastructure targets, prompting Tehran to warn it would target energy targets across the Gulf.
March 20: Iran is accused of launching a missile attack targeting Diego Garcia, a U.S.-U.K. military base in the Indian Ocean, around 2,500 miles from Iranian territory. The U.S. and Israel said the attacked showed that the range of Iranian missiles was longer than Tehran previously admitted.
March 22: Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or face punishing strikes on critical energy infrastructure. The president later extended his deadline.
March 24: Airstrikes targeted three major Iranian steelworks, reflecting an apparent shift in U.S.-Israeli strategy toward degrading Iran’s economic base.
Iranian drones and missiles targeted the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, damaging several American aircraft — among them an E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft — and wounding multiple service members.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Israeli military will destroy homes in southern Lebanon, just as it did in the war-torn Gaza Strip, in a continued effort to eliminate Hezbollah militants from the area. Israel will implement “the Rafah and Beit Hanoun models,” Katz said, referring to two Gaza border towns that Israel destroyed in its offensive in the Palestinian enclave.
March 28: The Iran-aligned Houthis rebels in Yemen fired a ballistic missile toward Israel, marking their first involvement in the conflict.
March 28: U.S. Central Command announces the arrival of some 3,500 U.S. sailors and Marines in the Middle East aboard the USS Tripoli, amid reports of a possible American ground operation against Iran. Around 1,500 soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division are also expected in the region.
March 30: Trump again demanded the end of Iranian harassment of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, threatening to broaden U.S. strikes to target Iranian energy facilities and desalination plants.
March 31: Katz says Israeli forces will occupy Lebanese territory up to the Litani River — around 18 miles north of the Israeli border — and block the return of hundreds of thousands of displaced residents.
April 1: Trump prepares for an “important” address to the nation related to the war in Iran.
