Iran state media says its nuclear facilities were attacked on Friday, just hours after Israel threatened to “escalate and expand” its campaign against Tehran.
IRNA reports that a heavy-water plant and a yellowcake production plant were struck. Yellowcake is a concentrated form of uranium after impurities are removed from the raw ore.
Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation said the Shahid Khondab Heavy Water Complex in Arak and the Ardakan yellowcake production plant in Yazd Province were targeted.
The strikes did not cause any casualties and there was no risk of contamination, it said. Israel also attacked the Arak plant last June.
Word of the attacks came after US President Donald Trump claimed talks on ending the war were going well and gave Tehran more time to open the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has given no sign of backing down.
Earlier, Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz threatened escalation in a statement noting that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “warned the Iranian terrorist regime to stop firing missiles at the civilian population in Israel”.
“Despite the warnings, the firing continues – and therefore (Israeli military) attacks in Iran will escalate and expand to additional targets and areas that assist the regime in building and operating weapons against Israeli citizens,” Mr Katz said.
“They will pay heavy, increasing prices for this war crime.”
Israel launched a new wave of strikes on Iran on Friday and it said a third Iranian missile barrage targeted the country on Friday.
US stocks were falling on Friday as Wall Street stumbles toward the finish of a fifth straight losing week, which would be its longest such streak in nearly four years.
The S&P 500 fell 0.4% in early trading, deepening its losses after falling the day before to its worst drop since the war with Iran began. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.6%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.6%.
The losses are a break from Wall Street’s pattern this week, where the US stock market flip-flopped from gains to losses each day as hopes rose and fell about a possible end to the war.
With stock markets reeling and economic fallout from the war extending far beyond the Middle East, Mr Trump is under growing pressure to end Iran’s chokehold on the strait, a strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil is usually shipped.
The US has offered Iran a 15-point proposal for a ceasefire that includes it relinquishing control of the strait, but at the same time has ordered thousands more troops to the region, possibly in preparation for a military attempt to wrest the waterway from Iran’s grip.
With time running out on a deadline set by Mr Trump for Iran to open the strait, after which he had threatened to destroy Iran’s energy plants, he pushed his self-imposed deadline back to April 6 on Thursday, saying that talks on ending the conflict were going “very well”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that US objectives in Iran can be achieved without ground troops, which are en route.
Speaking to reporters following a G7 meeting in France, Mr Rubio said: “I won’t discuss military tactics.
But he stressed that most US objectives in Iran are “ahead of schedule”, adding: “We can achieve them without any ground troops.”
Asked again what role aside from ground invasion the troops could play, Mr Rubio said Mr Trump “has to be prepared for multiple contingencies” and that US forces are available “to give the president maximum optionality and maximum, opportunity to adjust to contingencies should they emerge.”
Thousands of US troops are en route to the region, including at least 1,000 from the 82nd Airborne Division.
Iran, however, maintains it is not engaged in any negotiations.
Israel’s attack on Friday on targets “in the heart of Tehran” struck sites used by Iran to produce ballistic missiles and other weapons, the Israeli military said. It also hit missile launchers and storage sites in western Iran.
Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said on Friday that it has delivered a batch of medicines to Iran.
The ministry said 313 metric tons of medicines were carried by rail to Azerbaijan’s border with Iran, where they were handed over to Iranian representatives. It said the supplies have been sent on President Vladimir Putin’s orders.
Smoke also rose over the Lebanese capital Beirut, while air raid sirens sounded in Israel as the military said it was working to intercept Iranian missiles. Iran also kept firing missiles and drones at its Gulf Arab neighbours, with sirens warning of attacks in Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia’s Defence Ministry said it shot down missiles and drones targeting the capital, Riyadh.
Kuwait said its Shuwaikh Port in Kuwait City had sustained “material damage” in an attack, but that nobody was hurt.
After Wall Street’s worst day since the war began, Asian shares mostly fell on Friday over growing doubts about the chances of de-escalation.
Oil prices rose again, the Brent crude, the international standard, at 107 dollars a barrel in morning trading, up more than 45% since Israel and the US attacked Iran on February 28 to start the war.
Iran’s stranglehold on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has caused growing concerns of a global energy crisis, and appears part of a strategy to get the US to back down by roiling the world economy.
A Gulf Arab bloc said Iran is now exacting tolls from ships to ensure their safe passage through the waterway.
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff said Washington has delivered a 15-point “action list” to Iran for a possible ceasefire, using Pakistan as an intermediary. The list includes restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme and re-opening the strait.
More than 1 million people are now displaced in Lebanon, fleeing continued Israeli strikes and evacuation warnings.
1/3 are children.
They deserve more than survival.
They deserve a childhood. pic.twitter.com/Rso20PmzZI— UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency (@Refugees) March 27, 2026
Iran has rejected the US offer and put forth its own five-point proposal, which includes reparations and recognition of its sovereignty over the strait.
Diplomats from several countries have been trying to organise a direct meeting between envoys from the US and Iran, possibly in Pakistan.
Egypt’s foreign ministry said the country’s foreign minster Badr Abdelatty held phone calls the day before with his Turkish and Pakistani counterparts as part of their “intensive efforts” to organise the talks.
Mr Abdelatty said he hoped the tri-country effort would result in “gradual de-escalation efforts that would ultimately lead to the end of the war”.
As the diplomatic efforts went on, a group of US ships drew closer to the region with some 2,500 marines. Also, at least 1,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne – trained to land in hostile territory to secure key territory and airfields – have been ordered to the region.
Middle East war: LIVE from the UN today, starting with the Human Rights Council’s Urgent Debate on the school strike in Minab, Iran, on the first day of Israeli and US bombing. We’ll also have updates from UN agencies providing relief in the region #HRC61https://t.co/nXys0WUkmM
— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) March 27, 2026
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said more than 600 schools have been damaged or demolished and more than 1,000 students and teachers “martyred or wounded” in Iran during the war.
“The aggressors’ targeting pattern accompanied by their rhetoric leave little doubt as to their clear intent to commit genocide,” Mr Araghchi said by video during an urgent debate at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday.
The debate focused on a February 28 strike at an elementary school in the southern city of Minab.
More than 165 people were killed, most of them of children, according to Iranian state media. Experts says evidence suggests the blast was likely caused by US airstrikes.
US officials have said an investigation is under way. The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
As American and Israeli attacks on Iran continued, the UN Security Council scheduled closed consultation on Iran for Friday in New York, diplomats said.
They added that Russia had asked for the meeting on US-Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure in the country, and that the United States, which holds the Security Council presidency, had scheduled it.
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the humanitarian organisation’s teams in Iran have reported that “countless homes, hospitals and schools have been damaged or destroyed” and that nearly every neighbourhood in Tehran has sustained damage.
“Civilians are paying the highest price for this war – it must end” he said in a statement.
The International Organisation for Migration said Friday that 82,000 civilian buildings, including hospitals and the homes of 180,000 people have been damaged in Iran so far.
“If this war continues, we risk a far wider humanitarian disaster,” Mr Egeland said. “Millions could be forced to flee across borders, placing immense pressure on an already overstretched region.”
Since the war began, more than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran, according to the health ministry.
Eighteen people have died in Israel, while at least three Israeli soldiers have also been killed in Lebanon.
At least 13 American troops have been killed and 303 injured. Of the total wounded to date, 273 service members have returned to duty, said Captain Tim Hawkins, spokesman for US Central Command.
That leaves 30 troops wounded and out of action, with 10 still considered seriously wounded, Capt Hawkins said.
Four people in the occupied West Bank and 20 in Gulf Arab states have died.
Authorities said more than 1,100 people have died in Lebanon. In Iraq, where Iranian-supported militia groups have entered the conflict, 80 members of the security forces have been killed.
Later on Friday it emerged that an airstrike on the southern Lebanese village of Saksakiyeh killed four people, according to the Health Ministry.
Officials said the airstrike that destroyed a house in the coastal village also wounded eight people.
Lebanon’s state media reported airstrikes in other parts of south Lebanon including the southern city of Nabatiyeh and villages close to it as well as other towns and villages in the coastal Tyre region.
The strikes came as further parts of south Lebanon witnessed intense clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters.
Hezbollah said its fighters fought fierce battles in the villages of Chamaa and Bayada near the Mediterranean coast.
Israel has moved thousands of troops across the border into Lebanon, where Israeli officials said they want to take control of the entire area south of the Litani River, some 20 miles (30km) north of the border.
