The Night That Changed the Scale of the War
Seven days into Operation Epic Fury, the United States and Israel delivered what Al Jazeera's correspondent inside Tehran described as 'the heaviest bombardment we have witnessed — heavier than any previous night.' The shockwaves from strikes near the Al Jazeera bureau were strong enough to rattle windows kilometers away. Thick clouds of smoke choked the Iranian capital from before dawn, as fighter jets roared overhead and enormous explosions lit up the city skyline. It was not the beginning of a wind-down. It was an escalation.
Israel's military chief confirmed late Thursday that the IDF had now conducted 2,500 strikes with more than 6,000 weapons against Iran and Lebanon combined since the operation began. He announced the military was moving to 'the next phase' of the war — a phrase that sent alarm bells ringing across diplomatic capitals and military command centers from Washington to Beijing. What the 'next phase' entails has not been officially defined, but the scale and intensity of overnight strikes on Tehran's key government district — Pasteur Street, where the Iranian President's office and other key institutions are located, and which is near where Khamenei was killed — makes clear that it involves going deeper into the heart of the Iranian state.
Iran's response remained defiant but, crucially, diminished. CNN's analysis noted that 'Iran's strikes in the region have decreased significantly' compared to earlier days — a reflection, analysts say, of Iran's degraded missile and drone infrastructure rather than a change in political will. Iran still struck: a 'hybrid drone and missile attack' on Tel Aviv on Thursday night sent Israeli air defense systems into overdrive; CNN teams on the ground saw what appeared to be a cluster warhead in the skies above central Israel. Eight Israeli soldiers were wounded by Hezbollah fire from Lebanon on Friday. But the pace and scale of Iran's retaliation is measurably lower than it was on Days 1 and 2, and that asymmetry — US and Israeli strikes intensifying, Iranian retaliation declining — is the clearest military indicator yet that the balance of the war is shifting.
The Death Toll: 1,320 and Climbing
The combined death toll from the US-Israel war on Iran, according to Lebanese and Iranian state media, has now exceeded 1,320 people. That figure spans Iran, Lebanon, and the broader region, and includes both military and civilian deaths — though distinguishing between the two in a conflict of this scale, with limited independent access and an active Iranian internet blackout, is extremely difficult. Iranian state television reported that overnight strikes destroyed residential buildings, car parks, and petrol stations near Pasteur Street in Tehran. A medical clinic was also struck, according to Iranian state media — a claim that, if verified, would constitute a potential violation of international humanitarian law and add fuel to the growing international pressure for a ceasefire.
The UN Human Rights Office has called for an independent investigation into the civilian casualties. Several European governments have quietly pushed back on the characterization of all struck sites as 'military infrastructure.' The Trump administration has not responded directly to the civilian casualty allegations, with Hegseth maintaining Thursday that 'the US does not target civilians' and that any incidents are under investigation.
Israel Moves to the 'Next Phase': Lebanon and Beyond
The single most alarming strategic development of Day 7 is Israel's declared move to the 'next phase' of the war, which involves a dramatic intensification of strikes in Lebanon as well as the continued campaign in Iran. The IDF launched a new wave of strikes in densely populated areas of southern Beirut on Friday morning, targeting buildings Israel says are used by Hezbollah command structures and 10 high-rise buildings identified as Hezbollah-linked. Evacuation orders issued Thursday night covering entire Beirut neighborhoods — home to more than half a million people — caused mass panic, with residents flooding highways, sleeping in cars, and desperate scenes reminiscent of the worst moments of Lebanon's prior conflicts with Israel.
Eight Israeli soldiers were wounded by Hezbollah fire on Friday — a sign that despite Hezbollah's degradation over the past two years, the group retains meaningful offensive capability. The Lebanese health ministry reported 123 people killed and 683 others wounded in recent Israeli strikes in Lebanon. With Israel now explicitly pushing 'deeper into Lebanon' while simultaneously conducting its most intensive bombing campaign yet against Tehran, the conflict has fully expanded from a bilateral US-Israel vs. Iran operation into a multi-front regional war. Lebanon did not start this conflict. It is paying an enormous price for it.
Kuwait and the Gulf Under Sustained Attack
Day 7 brought the confirmation that Iran's campaign against US military infrastructure in Kuwait is ongoing and intensifying. Iran's armed forces announced on Friday they had launched another wave of drones targeting US bases in Kuwait. The Kuwaiti army confirmed its air defenses were responding to 'missiles and drones that breached Kuwait's airspace,' without specifying the origin. In Bahrain — where the US Navy's 5th Fleet is headquartered — an Iranian strike hit a hotel, two residential buildings, and an oil refinery. The oil refinery strike is particularly significant: it is Iran explicitly targeting energy infrastructure in a US-allied Gulf state, both as retaliation and as economic warfare.
Saudi Arabia's Defense Ministry confirmed on Friday that three drones were intercepted east of Riyadh, while air defenses intercepted three ballistic missiles targeting a base south of the capital overnight Thursday. These strikes on Saudi territory are the most significant expansion of the conflict yet: Saudi Arabia is not a combatant in Operation Epic Fury. It has not joined the US-Israeli coalition. Yet Iran — or more precisely, Iran's proxies and allied forces — is now targeting Saudi soil. The implications of Saudi Arabia being drawn into direct conflict will be examined in Article 3 of this report.
Trump's Warning — And the Succession Clock
President Trump repeated his warning of 'unprecedented force' if Iran's retaliation continues, and renewed his call for Iranian military forces to defect. The succession clock in Tehran continues to tick: seven days after Khamenei's death, the Islamic Republic still has no confirmed new supreme leader. Ali Larijani — the senior Iranian statesman and current head of the Supreme National Security Council — has emerged as the most operationally functional senior figure, but his constitutional path to the supreme leadership requires an Assembly of Experts vote that has not yet taken place. The longer the succession vacuum persists, the harder it becomes for Iran to credibly signal a willingness to negotiate — because no single figure has the authority to make binding commitments.
The Trump administration, for its part, shows no sign of pausing operations to allow the succession process to play out. 'We will take all the time we need,' Hegseth said Thursday — and Day 7's strikes suggest that is not idle rhetoric. The question of whether there is any diplomatic off-ramp left, and what it would look like, is the defining strategic question of the war's second week.
"From the very early hours of today and into the morning, we have been witnessing a continued wave of massive strikes... compared to previous days, we saw heavier bombardment overnight." — Al Jazeera correspondent reporting from Tehran, March 6, 2026
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