Russia and Ukraine have made competing claims about who is gaining ground, as Russian strikes keep hitting Ukrainian cities and U.S.-backed talks in Turkey were postponed. A Ukrainian general said Kyiv's forces push Russians back in parts of the Dnipropetrovsk region. Another Ukrainian officer tells the AP that troops have advanced more than 6 miles, while Russia's leader said his army expanded gains in the Donbas. There was no independent verification of either side's claims. Meanwhile, Russian glide bombs hit Sloviansk and killed four people and drone attacks wounded more civilians, a Ukrainian official said Tuesday.
The investigative group Bellingcat says newly released video "appears to contradict" U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that Iran was responsible for an explosion at an Iranian school that killed over 165 people. The video shared by Bellingcat is a three-second clip of a video on the day the school was struck, circulated Sunday by Iran's semiofficial Mehr news agency. The video shows a munition falling on a building. A Bellingcat researcher identified the munition as a Tomahawk cruise missile — which only the U.S. is known to possess in this war.
By KAREEM CHEHAYEB, NATALIE MELZER and BASSEM MROUE Associated Press
The Lebanese parliament has extended its term by two years due to the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, which has pushed the region into an escalating conflict, and Israel stepped up its attacks on Lebanon. On Monday, lawmakers approved the move after fighting displaced more than half a million people in Lebanon. Israel also intensifies attacks on Lebanon, saying it targeted Hezbollah's financial arm, al-Qard al-Hasan, in Beirut's southern suburbs. Israel also said its ground forces launched "focused raids" in the south of Lebanon. Hezbollah said it hit Israeli troops and fired rockets into northern Israel. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch accused Israel of using white phosphorus in strikes on a Lebanese village in violation of international law.
By JULIA FRANKEL and MICHAEL BIESECKER Associated Press
Satellite images and videos of an Iranian girls school damaged by large explosions at the start of a U.S.-Israeli airstrike campaign targeting the Islamic Republic indicate a targeted attack from the air hit the building. That's according to military experts who spoke to The Associated Press. Iran says the blast killed at least 165 people, most of them children. The location of the strike, its affiliation to a coastal defense unit of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and the tight pattern of the damage suggest a targeted airstrike on the site. Several factors point to a U.S. strike, given the proximity of American forces to the school and focus on missile sites and naval forces in the war.
By JON GAMBRELL, DAVID RISING, SAM METZ and SALLY ABOU ALJOUD Associated Press
U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to rule out talks with Iran absent its "unconditional surrender." Israeli warplanes pounded Beirut and Tehran on Friday as Iran launched another wave of retaliatory strikes against Israel and Gulf countries on the seventh day of the war. The strikes in Lebanon were the heaviest since a 2024 ceasefire ended the last war between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah, who fired rockets at Israel in the opening days of the latest conflict. More than 95,000 people have fled Beirut's suburbs and southern Lebanon after sweeping Israeli evacuation warnings. The U.S. and Israel have battered Iran with strikes, targeting their military capabilities, leadership and nuclear program. The stated goals and timelines for the war have repeatedly shifted.
By JON GAMBRELL, DAVID RISING, ELENA BECATOROS and SAMY MAGDY Associated Press
U.S. President Donald Trump says he should be involved in choosing Iran's next supreme leader. The U.S. and Israel are hammering the country for a sixth day. Iran has kept up its retaliatory attacks on Israel, American bases and countries around the region. The war has escalated each day, affecting an additional 14 countries across the Middle East and beyond. On Thursday, Azerbaijan accused Iran of attacking it with drones — though Tehran denied that. Israel meanwhile issued a mass evacuation warning for all of Beirut's southern suburbs as the fighting escalated with Lebanon's Iran-allied Hezbollah militants. U.N. peacekeepers reported ground combat in southern Lebanon as more Israeli troops crossed the border.
The distinctive buzz of the Iranian-designed drones has become a familiar sound in Ukraine over the past four years. Now, it's increasingly heard across the Persian Gulf as Tehran strikes back with the cheap but effective weapons following the attack by the U.S. and Israel against Iran. The Shahed drones have made a transformative impact on the modern battlefield, with Russia sending swarms of the deadly weapons into the skies above Ukraine on nightly missions. While ballistic and cruise missiles fly much faster and pack a bigger punch, they cost millions and are available only in limited quantities. A Shahed drone costs only tens of thousands of dollars — a tiny fraction of a ballistic missile.
By JON GAMBRELL, MELANIE LIDMAN and SAMY MAGDY Associated Press
The war in the Middle East spiraled further Monday as Israel and the U.S. pounded Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump said the campaign would likely take several weeks. Tehran and its allies hit back against Israel, neighboring Gulf states and targets critical to the world's energy production. The intensity of the attacks, the killing of Iran's supreme leader, and the lack of any apparent exit plan indicated the conflict would not end anytime soon. Israel launched retaliatory attacks in Lebanon after Hezbollah fired missiles at it, and an Israeli military official did not rule out another ground invasion.
