Israel's Defense Forces (IDF) has issued an “urgent warning” to people in Beirut’s southern suburbs and in dozens of villages.

It says people should stay away from buildings affiliated with Hezbollah and that anyone near them is at risk

"For your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately,” the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said.

As the warning was issued, thick clouds of black smoke could be seen rising into the early morning sky over Beirut and Reuters reported that loud blasts could be heard.

Reports are emerging of an Iranian strike destroying a US air base in Bahrain.

Footage posted by the Fars news agency, affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), appears to show a wave of rockets exploding into distant targets.

It claims the IRGC's drone and missile attack destroyed a US command and staff building air base in Bahrain's Sheikh Isa region and caused fuel tanks to explode.

The US has not yet commented on the reported attacks.

Earlier, smoke could be seen billowing from a US-run naval base in Bahrain.

The US State Department has ordered American citizens to immediately leave Bahrain, along with a dozen other countries in the Middle East.

Suranjana Tewari
Asia Business Correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Asia and Europe stand to be the most impacted if it is confirmed that the Strait of Hormuz is closed or oil and gas infrastructure continues to be hit, according to industry analysts.

The supply of liquified natural gas (LNG) is of particular concern.

Qatar had earlier said it had suspended producing LNG after a reported drone attack from Iran on one of its facilities.

"Nothing can replace Qatari LNG," according to oil analyst Saul Kavonic, Senior Energy Analys at MST Financial.

"If the shutdown is prolonged, or worse the LNG infrastructure is damaged, it portends a larger gas market shock than in 2022 when Russia turned off pipeline gas to Europe."

A fifth of the world's LNG goes through the Strait of Hormuz, and Qatar transports 90% of its LNG exports through the narrow stretch that lies between Oman and Iran.

China, India, Taiwan and South Korea are among the countries that will be left most exposed in Asia, according to experts.

Image source, Getty Images

Conservative US commentator Tucker Carlson has urged the US to "get [Benjamin Netanyahu] under control".

"Sorry, it's not antisemitism. This is a head of state whose decisions are getting Americans killed and affecting the history of the world and the fortunes, but also the future of the United States," Carlson said in his latest podcast on Tucker Carlson Network.

The former Fox News host added: "The United States has to say to the government of Israel, 'You are not in charge.' ...No administration has paid a higher price for going along than the current administration."

Carlson, a Trump ally, had lobbied against military action and even met with Trump at the White House several times to dissuade him from an attack, according to the New York Times.

Several US leaders, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, had defended Washington's actions as "pre-emptive" because they knew Israel was going to strike - though Israel's PM Netanyahu's remarks appeared to suggest otherwise.

"Donald Trump is the strongest leader in the world. He does what he thinks is right for America," Netanyahu told Fox News on Monday night.

Osmond Chia
Business reporter

Global energy prices continue to climb on Monday as the conflict in the Middle East threatens to restrict supplies from the oil-producing region.

The Brent crude was up by around 1.9% at $79.25 (£59.11) a barrel, while US-traded oil was up by about 1.5%.

Global oil and gas prices have surged since the US and Israel began their attacks on Iran over the weekend.

Natural gas prices spiked on Monday after QatarEnergy, one of the world's biggest exporters, stopped production following "military attacks" on its facilities.

Daniele Palumbo and Shayan Sardarizadeh
BBC Verify

Image source, Vantor

New satellite images analysed by BBC Verify show damage to a major oil refinery in Saudi Arabia after reported drone strikes.

The images, captured today by Vantor, show fire and scorch marks around cooling towers in the central area of the oil refinery, located in the eastern city of Ras Tanura.

The area is occupied by a series of pipes connecting the different storage units to the central pier of the site that is normally able to fill four tankers simultaneously. The site has a productive capacity of 550,000 barrels per day.

The Aramco oil company said today that it had to temporarily shut down the refinery due to the strike.

Image source, Vantor

Trump told cable network NewsNation that the US would retaliate "soon" for the attack on the US embassy in Riyadh and the deaths of the US service members.

Six service members have been killed so far while 18 are injured, the US said on Monday night.

"[Trump] also told me he doesn’t think boots on the ground will be necessary," Kellie Meyer, a NewsNation political reporter, wrote on X.

More now from Netanyahu's interview with Fox News.

When asked by presenter Sean Hannity if Israel "dragged Donald Trump" into the conflict, the prime minister laughed.

"That’s ridiculous. Donald Trump is the strongest leader in the world. He does what he thinks is right for America," Netanyahu responded.

"I know the cost of war," he went on to say. "But I know that sometimes war is necessary to protect us from the people who would destroy us."

Earlier US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US attacked Iran "pre-emptively" on Saturday because "we knew there was going to be Israeli action".

"We knew that if we didn't pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties," Rubio had said.

Osmond Chia
Business reporter

Amazon Web Services (AWS) says two of its data centres in the United Arab Emirates were "directly struck" by drone strikes in the region.

Another facility in Bahrain was hit by drone strikes nearby, said AWS on Monday in a list of alerts, external on its services in the region.

The company, which operates data centres and digital services worldwide, said the strikes have caused "structural damage" and "disrupted power" to its infrastructure.

Data centres store and process information for a wide range of businesses and internet services like websites and online applications in a region. Any damage to such facilities could be seriously disruptive.

AWS urged its customers in the Middle East to immediately backup their data and move their systems to AWS platforms in the US, Asia, Europe or elsewhere, given the "unpredictable" situation in the Middle East.

Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended the Israeli military strikes on Iran, claiming Tehran's recent nuclear build-up would have been "immune within months" before Israel's intervention.

Despite the joint Israeli-US air raids targeting three nuclear sites during the 12-day war in June, Netanyahu says Iranian soldiers and technicians started building new sites, including "underground bunkers", where they could develop ballistic missiles and atomic bombs.

"If no action was taken now, no action could be taken in the future," Netanyahu told Fox News.

Israel has long opposed Iran's nuclear enrichment, warning it could be used to develop nuclear weapons, instead of being harnessed for peaceful purposes as the Iranian government claims.

Image source, Getty Images

The BBC's Tom Bateman questioned US Secretary of State Marco Rubio about Iranian reports that a school had been struck, which reportedly killed dozens of civilians, including children.

"The US would not deliberately target a school," Rubio repeatedly said.

Image source, Getty Images

The US is not going to get into a conflict that will drag on for years, Vice President JD Vance said in an interview with Fox News, adding that the president had one clear objective: to make sure Iran could "never have a nuclear weapon".

"What the president determined is he didn't want to just keep the country safe from an Iranian nuclear weapon for the first three, four years of his second term - he wanted to make sure that Iran could never have a nuclear weapon, and that would require fundamentally a change in mindset from the Iranian regime," Vance says.

He added that this would not go on long-term, adding: "There's no way that Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multi-year conflict... we're not going to get into the problems that we've had with Iraq and Afghanistan."

Vance also added that Iran's nuclear facilities are not built just for civilian enrichment purposes, as the regime has claimed, but are built to develop nuclear weapons.

Ghoncheh Habibiazad
Senior reporter, BBC Persian

Image source, Getty Images

Tehran’s historic Golestan Palace, which is listed as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site, has been damaged following strikes on the capital, according to Iranian state media.

UNESCO has expressed concern over the protection of heritage sites, external following reports that the palace was damaged.

Local news outlets had reported on an explosion in Tehran’s Arg Square, near the palace.

Golestan Palace served as the royal residence of Iranian monarchs during the Qajar dynasty and later became the official seat of the Pahlavi dynasty.

Osmond Chia
Business reporter

The cost of hiring a supertanker to ship oil from the Middle East to China has reached an all-time high of more than $400,000 (£298,300), according to data from the London Stock Exchange Group.

That value is almost double of what it was last week when the US threatened to attack Iran.

Iran has targeted ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway in the south of the country, through which about a fifth of the world's oil and gas is shipped.

The record fees are for the biggest oil-carrying vessels that can haul up to two-million barrels of crude.

These values are just one of the ways we are seeing prices surge since the Israeli and US attacks on Iran over the weekend.

Image source, Getty Images

Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Defense has confirmed that the US embassy in Riyadh was attacked by two drones, according to initial estimates.

In a statement shared to X, the ministry said this resulted "in a limited fire and minor material damage to the building".

The US Mission to Saudi Arabia has issued a shelter in place notification for Jeddah, Riyadh and Dhahran, and says it will limit non-essential travel to any military installations in the region.

It is currently just after 03:00 local time (00:44 GMT) in Riyadh.

US House Speaker Mike Johnson has described the attacks on Iran as being "defensive in nature".

"The US struck in a defensive posture," Johnson said on the operation, adding that he believes the current military operation will be "limited in scope" and "short in duration".

Johnson made the remarks to journalists following a defence and intelligence briefing of the so-called "Gang of Eight", a congressional leadership team made up of Democrats and Republicans.

Image source, EPA

We are now getting reports of explosions in the diplomatic quarter of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital city.

According to Reuters quoting sources, a fire has broken out at the US embassy, which is located in that area.

Helen Livingstone
Reporting from Sydney

Australia's defence minister has confirmed that an air base used by Australian forces near Dubai was hit by a drone at the weekend, adding that no Australians were injured in the attack.

"On the first night there was a strike at the Al Minhad Air Base, but all the Australians who are there are safe and accounted for," Richard Marles has told reporters.

The UAE air base is used by multiple western militaries, and is the Australian Defence Force's Middle East headquarters. Marles says Australia has 100 personnel in the Middle East, with most stationed in the UAE.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has previously said his country backs the US and Israel "acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security".

How the US-Israel war with Iran is jeopardising shippingpublished at 23:38 GMT 2 March

23:38 GMT 2 March

The Strait of Hormuz is a crucial artery for the movement of global energy supplies.

Iran has warned it will "set fire" to ships passing through strait - only about 50km (31 miles) wide at its entrance and exit - threatening key supply chains.

BBC Verify's Ben Chu takes a look at what's been happening to marine traffic in the strait since the US-Israel war with Iran broke out.

Iran has launched missiles towards several areas of Israel, the Israeli military warns, after sending out phone alerts across the country for people to take shelter.

Anti-air defence systems are "operating to intercept the threat", the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says.

Image source, Reuters