Donald Trump has threatened “all hell will reign down” on Iran if it does not open the strait of Hormuz by Monday.
In a post on his Truth Social app, he wrote:
double quotation markRemember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!
On 27 February, the US president extended his deadline for Iran to open the key shipping route by 10 days to 6 April.
Updated at 10.48 EDT
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Updating our earlier post about attacks on Kuwait on Sunday, a fire has erupted in the Shuwaikh oil sector complex that houses the oil ministry and Kuwait Petroleum Corporation headquarters, after a drone attack, the Kuwaiti state news agency reported early on Sunday.
No injuries have been reported but the KPC says emergency and firefighting teams are fighting the fire, according to the report.
Separately, Kuwait’s state media, citing the finance ministry, said an Iranian drone attacked an office complex for government ministries, causing significant material damage but no casualties.
US federal agents have arrested the niece and grandniece of the late Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, in Los Angeles, after the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, revoked their permanent resident status, officials said on Saturday.
A street poster of the late senior Iranian military commander General Qassem Soleimani in Tehran. Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters
Rubio confirmed on social media that the mother-daughter pair are “pending removal” from the US. Officials allege the older woman, Soleimani Afshar, celebrated military strikes against American personnel, praised Iran’s new supreme leader after the US and Israel killed his predecessor, and described the US as the “Great Satan”.
You can read more about their arrest, and other moves by the US to terminate the legal status of people connected to the Iranian regime in our story here.
High-resolution aerial pictures of the area involved in the Middle East war will no longer be published by US satellite imagery company Planet Labs after a request from the Trump administration.
Planet said the US government had asked satellite imagery providers to implement an “indefinite withhold of imagery”.
“Effective retroactively from March 9, 2026, Planet is moving to a managed access model, extending the publication delay for all new imagery within the designated AOI (area of interest), and releasing imagery on a case-by-case basis and for urgent, mission-critical requirements or in the public interest,” the company said in a message to clients received by AFP.
Planet, founded in 2010 by former Nasa scientists and whose images are widely used by media and researchers, said it expected the new policy to last until the end of the conflict. The other major provider of satellite imagery, Vantor, (formerly Maxar), has also announced major restrictions.
Under US law any company headquartered in the US that commercially operates high-resolution satellite imagery may be subjected to restrictions for reasons of national security or foreign policy.
Israel has been targeted this morning by missiles launched from Iran, according to the Israeli military, in the latest salvo in the Middle East war.
“A short while ago, the IDF identified missiles launched from Iran toward the territory of the State of Israel,” the military said on social media.
Iran’s central military command has rejected US president Donald Trump’s threat to destroy the country’s vital infrastructure if it does not accept a peace deal within 48 hours, calling it “helpless”.
Earlier today, Trump said Iran has 48 hours to make or deal or open the strait of Hormuz before “all hell will reign down on them”.
This threat came as the US and Iran were racing to find a missing US pilot after a jet was shot down over the remote Khuzestan province in south-west Iran.
Gen Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi, in a statement from the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said Trump’s threat was a “a helpless, nervous, unbalanced and stupid action”.
And, echoing the religious language of Trump’s social media post, he warned that “the simple meaning of this message is that the gates of hell will open for you”.
President Trump. Photograph: Nathan Howard/Getty ImagesShare
The Kuwaiti army says its air defences are intercepting missile and drone attacks.
Posting on X, the army wrote: “Any explosions heard are a result of air defence systems intercepting hostile attacks.”
Kuwait’s defence ministry said it has dealt with eight missile and 19 drone attacks in the past 24 hours.
Pope Leo led the world’s Catholics into Easter at a Saturday night vigil Mass in St Peter’s Basilica and urged people not to feel numbed by the scope of the conflicts raging across the world but to work for peace.
Leo, who has emerged as an outspoken critic of the Iran war, said that mistrust and fear have been allowed to “sever the bonds between us through war, injustice and the isolation of peoples and nations”.
“Let us not allow ourselves to be paralyzed!” the first US pope exhorted in a service for the holiest night in the Catholic calendar, when the Bible says Jesus rose from the dead.
Updated at 17.45 EDT
The Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee issued a warning on social media telling residents of southern Lebanon’s Kfar Hatta to immediately leave the area.
In the statement, Adraee said residents of the southern village should move “at least 1,000 meters away from the village,” warning the Israeli military would soon act “with force” in the area.
“Anyone near Hezbollah elements, their facilities, and combat means is putting their life in danger,” he wrote.
The Kuwaiti Ministry of Defense said on Saturday that its air defense forces successfully intercepted eight ballistic missiles and 19 drones over the last 24 hours, amid ongoing regional hostilities involving Iran.
According to the Kuwait Times, during a briefing at the Government Communication Center, military spokesperson Colonel Saud Al-Atwan stated that the Kuwaiti Armed Forces neutralized all incoming threats within their operational zones. He confirmed there were no reports of fatalities, injuries, or property damage resulting from these specific engagements. He added that army explosive ordnance disposal teams were dispatched to four separate sites during the same period to secure debris.
Argentina’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said it has expelled Iran’s top diplomat on Saturday, as tensions continue between the Iranian government and Argentina’s administration, which maintains a close strategic alliance with the Trump White House.
Foreign Affairs Minister Pablo Quirno confirmed via X that Iran’s Chargé d’Affaires, Mohsen Soltani Tehrani, has departed the country. The exit follows a resolution issued Thursday that gave the diplomat a 48-hour window to leave Argentine territory.
The diplomatic rift reached escalated earlier this week after Argentina formally designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.
Several hundred protesters gathered at Tel Aviv’s Habima Square on Saturday evening to demand an end to the war.
The demonstration took place amid strict wartime restrictions that typically limit public gatherings to 150 people. However, following a legal appeal, Supreme Court justices issued an interim ruling on Saturday allowing up to 600 participants at Habima Square and 150 at various other sites nationwide.
But authorities soon declared the assembly unlawful and police moved in to forcibly clear the square, resulting in at least 17 arrests.
Israelis carrying placards condemning the attacks and chanting slogans gather at Paris Square to protest the US and Israeli attacks on Iran in West Jerusalem, on April 04, 2026. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesIsraelis carrying placards condemning the attacks and chanting slogans gather at Paris Square to protest the US and Israeli attacks on Iran in West Jerusalem, on April 04, 2026. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesIsraelis carrying placards condemning the attacks and chanting slogans gather at Paris Square to protest the US and Israeli attacks on Iran in West Jerusalem, on April 04, 2026. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesShare
The death toll in Lebanon has reached 1,422 since the conflict with Israel began on 2 March, according to data from the Lebanese health ministry and reported by the Associated Press. In just the past 24 hours, Israeli strikes have killed 54 people and wounded 156.
The ministry reports that the cumulative fatalities include 126 children and 93 women. These losses follow a period of intense aerial bombardment that began after Hezbollah launched rockets into northern Israel in a show of solidarity with Iran.
Among those killed are 54 health workers, while Israeli strikes have targeted 87 emergency medical service facilities, the health ministry said.
Updated at 15.31 EDT
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, confirmed that Israel attacked Iran’s petrochemical plants following reports from Iranian media saying at least five people were killed in an attack on the Mahshahr petrochemical zone.
“After we destroyed 70% of its ability to create steel, which is used as the raw material for the weapons used against us, today we attacked their petrochemical factories,” Netanyahu said in a video statement posted on his X account.
“I promised you that we will continue to crush the terrorist regime in Tehran, and that is exactly what we are doing,” he said.
Smoke rises after strikes on the Mahshahr Petrochemical Zone in Bandar Mahshahr County, Khuzestan Province, Iran, in this handout picture released April 4, 2026, and obtained from a social media video. Photograph: Social Media/ReutersShare
Updated at 20.03 EDT
Dan Sabbagh
US search and rescue efforts for the missing second crew member of the downed F-15E fighter jet continued into a second day as Iran came under heavy bombing and Israel extended the war in Lebanon.
A pilot had been rescued on Friday after the F-15E Strike Eagle became the first US plane to be downed over Iran during the five-week-long war, but the second of the two-strong crew has not been accounted for.
Iranian media released pictures of a wreckage, including a distinctive F-15 tail fin, and a used ejector seat on Friday, with state media and businesses in the country offering a bounty if the missing crew member could be captured.
The US air force launched a massive search and rescue effort, using low-flying Pave Hawk helicopters and specialist C-130 Hercules transport.
Military pilots said the missing F-15 crew member would be trying to hide for as long as possible from the Iranian military and potentially seeking to transmit their location relative to a known secret point in the hope that US special forces coming in via helicopter would be able to rescue them.
Read more here:
Updated at 14.41 EDT
Israel is preparing to attack Iranian energy facilities but is awaiting a green light from the US, a senior Israeli defense official told Reuters on Saturday, adding that any such attacks would likely come within the next week.
The comments came after US president Donald Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum, sharpening focus on whether Washington would back further Israeli military action against Iran.
After an airstrike hit the Shahid Beheshti University in the Iranian capital of Tehran, causing significant damage to academic infrastructure, photos are circulating showing the extent of destruction to the campus.
American and Israeli fighter jets targeted multiple strategic and civilian sites inside Iran’s capital on Friday afternoon, including Shahid Beheshti University, one of the country’s leading academic institutions, Iranian state media reported.
A view of the damaged Shahid Beheshti University following a military strike carried out by the United States and Israel on 4 April, 2026 in the Velenjak district of Tehran, Iran. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesA view of the damaged Shahid Beheshti University following a military strike carried out by the United States and Israel on 4 April, 2026 in the Velenjak district of Tehran, Iran. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesA man takes pictures of the destroyed study equipments lying amid the debris of a damaged building of the Shahid Beheshti University following a strike, in Tehran on 4 April, 2026. Photograph: AFP/Getty ImagesA view of the damaged Shahid Beheshti University following a military strike carried out by the United States and Israel on 4 April, 2026 in the Velenjak district of Tehran, Iran. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesShare
The next phase of the US military offensive against Iran is set to utilize nearly the nation’s entire global inventory of stealthy JASSM-ER cruise missiles, necessitating a massive diversion of stockpiles originally allocated to other regions, according to reporting from Bloomberg.
An order was issued in late March to pull the $1.5 million precision weapons from Pacific command centers, a source told Bloomberg. To sustain the air campaign, missiles currently stationed within the continental US and other global facilities are being rerouted to the US Central Command (Centcom) bases and RAF Fairford in the UK.
The JASSM-ER, or Joint Air-to-Surface Missile-Extended Range, is capable of flying more than 600 miles and was designed to hit targets at a safer distances to avoid an enemy’s air defenses.