Rocket trails are seen in the sky amid a fresh barrage of Iranian missile attacks, above the Israeli coastal city of Netanya, on March 17.
Image: Jack Guez / AFP
Oil prices resumed their push higher on Tuesday as several countries pushed back against Donald Trump's demand that they help secure the key Strait of Hormuz, while Iran continued to target crude-producing neighbours.
The advances pared some of the previous day's sharp losses that came after the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said more stockpiles could be tapped if needed.
Trump has called for allies in Europe and elsewhere to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively closed, saying at the weekend that securing the waterway "should have always been a team effort, and now it will be".
But on Monday, there was only a lukewarm response, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz saying the war started by US-Israeli strikes on Iran was "not a matter for NATO", while Britain, Spain, Poland, Greece and Sweden all distanced themselves from the calls.
A plume of smoke rises over the Iraqi capital Baghdad on March 16, 2026. A loud explosion was heard in Baghdad late on March 16, AFP journalists said, with smoke seen near the city's heavily fortified Green Zone.
Image: AFP
Australia and Japan also opted not to join.
The US president told The Financial Times on Sunday that it would be "very bad for the future of NATO" if the allies refused to help, and said Monday that he had asked to delay a summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping by a "month or so" over the issue.
With the crisis showing no sign of ending soon, both main crude contracts rose more than two percent to sit around $100.
They had dropped Monday after IEA boss Fatih Birol flagged that member countries could unlock more oil from strategic stocks "if needed", after already agreeing last week to a record release of 400 million barrels.
Traders were also cheered by news from monitor Marine Traffic that a Pakistani oil tanker became the first non-Iranian tanker to transit Hormuz with its automatic transponder system activated.
But attacks on Middle Eastern oil facilities continued, with drones hitting major oil fields in the United Arab Emirates and Iraq on Monday, while Israel said it had launched a "wide-scale wave of strikes" in Tehran as well as attacks on Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital Beirut.
And a drone and rocket attack targeted the US embassy in Baghdad early Tuesday, a security official said.
Here are the latest developments Monday in the Middle East war:
Qatar said on Tuesday that it had intercepted a missile attack as Iran presses its retaliatory campaign over strikes by the United States and Israel that killed its supreme leader.
An AFP journalist heard several explosions in Doha, a day after blasts resounded across the Qatari capital.
Qatar, like several Gulf nations, has been targeted by drones and missiles in recent days.
"The Ministry of Defence of the State of Qatar announces that armed forces intercepted a missile attack which targeted the State of Qatar," the defence ministry posted on X.
In nearby Dubai, an AFP journalist heard three explosions after a mobile phone alert warned residents of the UAE's most populous city to "immediately seek a safe place" over "potential missile threats".
Israel's army said on Tuesday that it had launched a "wide-scale wave of strikes" in the Iranian capital, Tehran and started striking Hezbollah targets in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
A drone and rocket attack targeted the US embassy in Baghdad early on Tuesday, a security official said.
The security official said that "three drones and four rockets attacked the embassy, with at least one drone crashing inside it".
A missile strike on a house in Iraq's capital Baghdad killed four people, with initial reports suggesting two of the victims were "Iranian advisors" to Tehran-backed groups, a security official told AFP.
Iraq was drawn into the Middle East war after having long been a proxy battleground between the United States and Iran, with strikes targeting Iran-backed groups that have claimed daily attacks on US interests in Iraq and the region.
Israel's President Isaac Herzog told AFP that Europe should back his country's fight against Hezbollah, as Israeli forces carried out ground operations in Lebanon.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war when Hezbollah attacked Israel on March 2 in response to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes.
"Europe should support any effort, any effort, to eradicate Hezbollah now," Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent wishes to Iranians for the coming Nowruz holidays, marking the Persian New Year.
"This year, this holiday has special meaning...I take this opportunity to wish you a happy Nowruz — a year of freedom. A new beginning of hope to all of you," he added, referring to the holiday that will be celebrated on Friday.
A drone sparked a fire Monday at a luxury hotel frequented by foreign diplomats in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone shortly before air defences foiled a rocket attack at the US embassy.
A drone strike caused a fire at a major oil field in the United Arab Emirates, authorities said, as Iran continued its drone and missile strikes across the Gulf.
Authorities in the emirate of Abu Dhabi said they were still responding to the fire at the Shah oil field, without reporting injuries.
Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli troops and vehicles in at least three Lebanese border towns, after the Israeli army announced it had begun limited ground operations in Lebanon.
Iraq's powerful armed group Kataeb Hezbollah said its senior security commander Abu Ali al-Askari had been killed, without providing details on the circumstances of his death.
He was also the spokesperson in charge of issuing all key statements in the group's name.
Two drones targeted a major southern Iraqi oil field late Monday, an oil ministry spokesperson told AFP, after the second attack in four days.
Majnoon oil field was "targeted by two drones, one hit a telecommunication tower," oil ministry spokesperson Saheb Bazoun said, adding that there had been no damage.
Hezbollah said it launched an attack on Monday targeting the northern Israeli city of Nahariya, where Israeli first responders reported a man was wounded.
Trump said that he does not know whether Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei is still alive, adding that Washington was unclear whom it could negotiate with in Tehran.
"We don't know... if he's dead or not," Trump told reporters at the White House.
Lebanese authorities said more than one million people had registered as displaced since war erupted on March 2 between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israeli police said they found missile and interceptor fragments at holy sites in Jerusalem's Old City, including areas near the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
"During the recent missile salvo fired from Iran toward Jerusalem, several intercepts occurred over the city," the police said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that an Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon was an "error" which would "further exacerbate the already highly tense humanitarian situation" in the country.
"We urgently call on our Israeli friends: Do not take this path -- it would be an error," Merz said.
The UAE's state-owned energy giant ADNOC halted the loading of oil into storage tanks at their Fujairah facility, a source with knowledge of the operations told AFP, following repeated strikes on the installation.
Fujairah is home to a major port where Iranian attacks have already targeted oil storage tanks.
AFP