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Live updates: Pentagon seeks $200 billion in additional funding for the Iran war, AP source says 3%
By Bridget Brown0% Brian P. D. Hannon0% Sylvia Hui0%
3/19/2026, 12:45:00 AM
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Major developments we’re following:
* The Pentagon is seeking $200 billion in additional funds for the Iran war, a senior administration official says.
It’s an extraordinarily high number and comes on top of extra funding the Defense Department already received last year in Trump’s big tax cuts bill.
* Iran hit a Saudi refinery on the Red Sea and set Qatari liquefied natural gas facilities and two Kuwaiti oil refineries ablaze, sending international oil and gas prices soaring.
Brent crude oil is up more than 60% since the start of the war.
* U.S.
President Donald Trump pledged the U.S. would “massively blow up the entirety” of the world’s largest gas field if Iran attacks Qatar again.
Trump made his threat against Iran’s South Pars natural gas field after Iranian missiles hit Qatar Wednesday, following an Israeli attack on the same field.
* The Palestinian Red Crescent said at least four people were killed in the occupied West Bank town of Beit Awa as Iran fired missiles toward Israel.
At least 13 others were injured.
More than 1,300 people in Iran have been killed during the war.
Israeli strikes have displaced more than 1 million Lebanese, according to the Lebanese government, which says over 1,000 people have been killed.
In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missile fire.
At least 13 U.S. military members have been killed.
“In the coming days, we may un-sanction the Iranian oil that’s on the water.
It’s about 140 million barrels,” Scott Bessent said Thursday on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria.”
He said the move is a way to prevent only China from benefiting from the crude.
Bessent said it amounts to roughly “10 days to two weeks of supply that the Iranians had been pushing out that would have all gone to China,” and that “good actors” such as Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan and India should have access.
“In essence, we will be using the Iranian barrels against the Iranians to keep the price down for the next 10 or 14 days, as we continue this campaign,” he said.
The Trump administration also eased sanctions on certain Russian oil shipments for 30 days to boost global oil supplies while the Iran war continues.
Israeli military spokesman Lt.
Col.
Nadav Shoshani said Thursday that 200 of those killed were members of the elite Radwan unit.
He gave no further evidence.
The claim came as the death toll in Lebanon topped 1,000.
Asked about the strike on the South Pars gas field, Shoshani declined to comment, but said that in general the Israeli military had “great coordination” with the United States.
Among the 1,001 killed were 118 children and 79 women, and 2,584 people are wounded, according to the ministry’s daily casualty count released Thursday.
More than one million people in Lebanon have been displaced in the intense fighting, as Israel continues its daily strikes across large swaths of southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Hezbollah has fired rockets and drones across the border into northern Israel, as its militants have also clashed intensely in southern Lebanon with Israeli ground troops.
Israel has struck Iranian targets in the Caspian Sea for the first time, Israeli military spokesman Lt.
Col.
Nadav Shoshani said Thursday.
Shoshani said the strikes hit dozens of targets, including missile ships, a shipyard and a command and control center.
The Egyptian Red Crescent said Thursday it helped facilitate the entry of an aid convoy into the Gaza Strip and supported Palestinian patients crossing in and out of Egypt.
The Rafah border crossing with Gaza reopened Thursday for after Israel closed it from the Palestinian side when the Iran war began.
Teams on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing assisted people returning to the Gaza Strip, provided psychosocial support to children, and helped facilitate the entry of an aid convoy carrying 1,950 tons of food, flour, fuel and winter supplies.
It remains unclear whether the convoy entered Gaza after inspection at the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom Crossing.
The World Trade Organization issued the warning as it published a regular forecast that trade growth in goods — even before the energy market shocks due to the Mideast war — would drop to 1.9% this year, compared to 4.6% in 2025.
If crude oil and liquefied natural gas prices remain elevated throughout 2026, it said Thursday’s economic growth forecast would darken further, slashing another 0.5 percentage points off global trade and as much as 1 percentage point for regions dependent on energy imports.
And that scenario would in turn reduce growth in the volume of goods traded to 1.4%, the Geneva-based trade body said Thursday.
Net fuel-importing regions like Asia and Europe would face the biggest cuts, while net fuel exporters that can still export “would broadly enjoy more income and therefore more import growth.”
There is widespread anger over rising attacks on Jewish communities in the U.S., alongside deep internal divisions over whether to support or oppose Israel’s actions in the Middle East.
Rabbis nationwide also say soaring security costs are straining congregations, with some synagogues spending over $1 million annually as threats rise.
Last week, communities united in condemning an attempted attack at a Detroit-area synagogue.
A man whose family members were killed by an Israeli strike in Lebanon drove a pickup truck into a building hosting more than 100 preschool children; he later killed himself in a gunfight with police.
“No matter what Israel does, no matter how immoral or brutal or horrifying, it doesn’t justify attacking a synagogue or justifying attacking American Jews in any way,” said Peter Beinart, a Jewish author and commentator.
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The health of Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei remains uncertain, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Congress Thursday.
Testifying before the House Intelligence Committee, Gabbard said his exact condition, as well as the leadership structure in Iran, is not fully known to U.S. intelligence.
“It is unclear his status or his involvement.
He was injured very severely in one of the Israeli strikes,” Gabbard said.
“So the decision-making is unclear.”
Officials have said the new leader was wounded and possibly disfigured by the Israeli strike.
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei issued his first statement on the war last week, though he did not appear on camera and the speech was read by a news anchor.
He was chosen to succeed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a major attack by Israel and the United States at the start of the war.
The leaders of five European countries and Japan condemned “in the strongest terms” Iranian attacks on shipping and oil and gas facilities, and demanded Tehran reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued a joint statement Thursday with the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan, demanding Iran “cease immediately” its drone and missile attacks and other attempts to block the Strait to commercial shipping.
The countries said they are ready to contribute to “appropriate efforts” to ensure ships can pass safely through the strait, a key oil route.
British officials have acknowledged that planning for such action is at a very early stage.
The leaders also called for a “comprehensive moratorium” on attacks on oil and gas installations.
The United Arab Emirates said Thursday afternoon its air defense were engaging an incoming Iranian missile barrage.
Hegseth warned that Iran should stop targeting neighboring countries with drones and missiles as American forces continue to attack the Islamic Republic.
“The United States military controls the fate of that country,” Hegseth said Thursday from the Pentagon.
“Iran has the ability to make the right choices.
It should not, going forward, target Arab allies, Arab countries, trying to create pain, the pain that they created themselves.”
Gen.
Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added that U.S. forces continue to attack deeper into Iranian territory, with A-10 Warthog attack planes hunting Iranian boats in the Strait of Hormuz and Apache helicopters striking Iranian drones.
Caine said the U.S. military has also dropped 5,000-pound penetrator weapons into underground weapon-storage facilities.
The Pentagon is seeking $200 billion in additional funds for the Iran war, a senior administration official says.
The department sent the request to the White House, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private information.
It’s an extraordinarily high number and comes on top of extra funding the Defense Department already received last year in Trump’s big tax cuts bill.
Congress is bracing for a new spending request but it is not clear the White House has transmitted the request for consideration.
It is unclear whether the spending request would have support.
TEHRAN, Iran — The streets in Iran’s capital, Tehran, briefly returned to their normal traffic-jammed chaos Thursday ahead of the Persian New Year, Nowruz, despite the ongoing war.
People stood in line at nut shops, purchased flowers and bought new clothes for Nowruz, which typically sees families gather together.
Nowruz is Friday.
“It is a ritual once a year — we have to gather with our beloved in spite of the war situation in the country, “ said Mina Sabouri, a 37-year-old mother of two.
“I wish there was no war but I cannot forget our national traditions, too.”
The tempo of airstrikes in Tehran, which has been hard hit in the war, was noticeably lower Thursday.
Fatemeh Kamali, 29, stood mesmerized by colorful children’s clothes in one showroom.
“This Nowruz, I did not buy any dress for myself because of the war and high prices,” she said.
“I only bought some clothing for my 8-year-old daughter to keep her a bit happy.”
The two journalists were lightly wounded in a strike while reporting in southern Lebanon near the coastal city of Tyre.
Correspondent of state-run Russia Today Steven Sweeney was giving a broadcast on Israel’s targeting of infrastructure during its war against the Hezbollah militant group.
Cameraman Ali Reda Sbeiti was also wounded.
In a video widely circulated on social media, the strike falls apparently just meters away from Sweeney while he was speaking on camera.
He was taken to a hospital in Tyre for shrapnel wounds in his arm, and Sbeiti also was treated for light injuries.
The circumstances of the strike were unclear, though Sbeiti said other television crews had been reporting from the area, near where the Israeli military has been targeting bridges across the strategic Litani River.
Russia Today did not issue an immediate statement.
Italy is cutting a tax on gas by 25 cents in an effort to keep prices under control amid the energy crisis sparked by the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Premier Giorgia Meloni also announced other measures to help Italians combat rising fuel prices and speculation at the gas pumps.
A government decree approved late Wednesday includes a tax credit for truckers equal to the increase in diesel prices.
Without giving details, the defense secretary said the U.S. was working “to ensure that messaging is delivered, not just to the Iranian people writ large, but to the right audiences, certain audiences that need to hear certain things about what their fate might look like or what their choices are.”
An internet blackout imposed by the government in Tehran has stifled almost all communications from the country, making it nearly impossible to reliably survey Iranian perspectives on the escalating conflict.
“Their own people can barely receive a lot of those messages and communicate because of the blackout that they’ve imposed upon them,” Hegseth said.
“But we work around that for sure.”
Gen.
Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that American forces struck more than 90 targets on Kharg Island, which is vital to Iran’s oil network.
Caine said the U.S. targets included all of the island’s military-only infrastructure, such as air defenses, a naval base and mine storage facilities.
Trump said a few days ago that the U.S. military had “totally obliterated” the island’s military assets.
He has warned that if Iran or anyone else interferes with ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, he will reconsider his decision not to target oil infrastructure.
Saying that Iran’s “surface fleet is no longer a factor,” Hegseth also said that “their submarines — they once had 11 — are gone.”
The crafts Hegseth referenced are “midget” submarines designed to work in shallow waters in the Persian Gulf and its narrow mouth, the Strait of Hormuz.
The small vessels are designed to evade sonar as they lay mines and fire torpedoes.
As more top Iranian military leaders are confirmed dead, Hegseth said anyone appointed to replace them would be in the position temporarily.
“The last job anyone in the world wants right now: senior leader for the IRGC or Basij,” Hegseth said.
“Temp jobs, all of them.”
Israel said Tuesday that it had killed Ali Larijani, a top security official who was widely believed to be running Iran as it reels from the killing of its supreme leader and a widening war.
Israel’s military also said it killed Iranian Gen.
Gholam Reza Soleimani, who led Iran’s paramilitary Basij, an all-volunteer force fiercely loyal to the Islamic Republic.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said earlier that three women were killed and three others, including a child, were wounded in the overnight attack.
It says a fourth person, a 32-year-old pregnant woman, has died.
The fatalities were the first in the occupied West Bank during the Iran war.
Hegseth said the war in Iran is not like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which “foolish politicians” such as presidents George W.
Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden squandered American credibility.
“This is not those wars,” Hegseth said during a Thursday briefing from the Pentagon.
“President Trump knows better.
Epic Fury is different.
It’s laser focused.
It’s decisive.”
Hegseth also laid out what he says are the war’s objectives, including destroying Iran’s missiles and making sure the Islamic Republic never develops a nuclear weapon.
Speaking to reporters at a briefing Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says he told families of service members killed in the Iran war that U.S. forces “will finish this.”
Hegseth said they told him “through tears, through hugs, through strength and through unbreakable resolve” that they wanted the U.S. military to “finish this.
Honor their sacrifice.
Do not waver.
Do not stop until the job is done.”
“My response, along with that of the president, was simple: Of course we will finish this.
We will honor their sacrifice,” Hegseth said.
“Their sacrifice only steels our commitment.”
Hegseth, along with President Donald Trump, paid respects Wednesday at a Delaware military base where the remains of six U.S. service members killed in the crash of a refueling aircraft were returned to their families.
Since the start of the war, sirens have been sounded and alerts have been issued many times a day in most Gulf cities ahead of anticipated Iranian aerial attacks.
The head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom has urged the U.S. and Israel to make sure they don’t hit Iran’s Russia-built nuclear power plant.
Alexei Likhachev warned that “not a single party to the conflict will escape the impact of radiation if there is a serious accident.”
He previously reported that a strike on Tuesday hit close to the operating nuclear reactor, causing no injuries or damage.
Likhachev said that Rosatom had evacuated some of its personnel in Bushehr and is planning to pull out most of 480 people left there, leaving just a few dozen to operate the plant.
Iran intensified its attacks on its Gulf Arab neighbors’ energy infrastructure Thursday, setting Qatari liquefied natural gas facilities and a Kuwaiti oil refinery ablaze as it hit back following an Israeli attack on its main natural gas field, a major escalation in the Mideast war that has sent global fuel prices soaring.
The Italian foreign ministry said a flight carrying 30 tons of supplies, including kitchen sets, blankets, hygiene kits and jerry cans, landed in Beirut on Thursday to help ease the plight of families displaced by Israeli strikes.
The cargo is being delivered to the local office of the U.N. refugee agency, to be distributed to some 1,500 families and Lebanese communities.
Energy firm Shell PLC says it is assessing the damage after Iran launched attacks on Qatar.
Shell said it was looking at the damage at the Pearl gas-to-liquids plant at the Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas facility after it was hit by Iranian missiles.
It said all staff on site are safe after the attack.
“We are currently assessing any potential damage to Pearl GTL and working with Qatar Energy and the relevant authorities to understand the damage to the wider Ras Laffan Industrial City facilities,” it said.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the escalating war in the Middle East has led to “extreme destabilization” across the entire region.
Asked Thursday to comment on soaring oil prices, Peskov noted that the entire world has felt the impact of the widening conflict and unsettled energy markets.
Russia’s economy relies on energy earnings and already has earned billions of dollars from the surge in global oil prices.
Emmanuel Macron has also called for a truce as the Middle East enters a religious holiday at the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
“The fighting should stop for a few days to try to give negotiations another chance,” Macron said in Brussels ahead of a meeting of European Union leaders.
He said France is pushing for a moratorium on attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz is underlining his insistence that the war must end before his country can help with matters such as keeping shipping lanes clear.
Merz said Thursday that “we can and will commit ourselves only when the weapons fall silent.”
He added that “we can then do a great deal, as far as opening sea lanes and keeping them clear, but we’re not doing it during ongoing combat operations.”
He said an international mandate that doesn’t yet exist also would be needed, and “there are still many steps ahead of us before we can even consider such an issue.”
Two separate Israeli strikes have killed four Palestinians early Thursday in Gaza City, a health official in the Shifa medical complex told the AP.
A first strike in the Zeitoun area followed by a second in the Tuffah area each killed two people, according to Rami Mhanna, managing director of Shifa hospital, where the casualties arrived.
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Gaza Strip has seen near daily Israeli fire and strikes since the start of the latest war in the Middle East nearly three weeks ago.
More than 72,200 Palestinians have been killed in the war sparked by the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in Israel, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit has condemned what he described as a “flagrant” Iranian attack on a major gas facility in Ras Laffan Industrial City in Qatar.
He also condemned Iranian attacks Wednesday on Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates and warned in a statement against the “dangerous escalation” caused by targeting oil and gas facilities in the Gulf.
The Arab League chief reiterated his full support to Gulf nations in “all measures they undertake to confront these malicious Iranian attacks, and their right to safeguard the security of their citizens and the integrity of their facilities.”
For the second time in an hour, Israel warned of an incoming attack from Iran.
It is the eighth salvo of missiles launched on Israel so far on Thursday in one of the most intense days of Iranian fire on the country.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš has called Israel’s attack Wednesday on Iran’s South Pars natural gas field “incomprehensible.”
“This move has been totally damaging the markets,” Babis said.
“The price of gas is exploding and the price of oil as well.”
The Czech Republic is one of Israel’s biggest allies within the European Union.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty has called for Iran to end attacks in the region.
During a meeting of foreign ministers Thursday, Abdelatty and his regional and Arab counterparts expressed solidarity with countries impacted by Iran’s “threats.”
They condemned Iranian attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure in Gulf nations, calling them “unjustifiable violations” that immediately need to stop.
Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said Europe will not be “blackmailed” into the U.S. and Israeli military campaign in the Middle East.
“Europe, and Austria as well, will not allow itself to be blackmailed,” he said Thursday in Brussels.
“Intervention in the Strait of Hormuz is not an option for Austria anyway.”
Stocker called for the stabilization of the supply and prices of energy following the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz.
China says it is shocked at reports that Israel authorized the killing of senior Iranian and Hezbollah figures without case-by-case approval, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Thursday in Beijing.
“We have been opposed to the use of force in international relations, and the killing of Iran’s national leaders and attacks on civilian targets are even more unacceptable,” spokesperson Lin Jian said.
China urges all parties involved to immediately cease military operations and prevent the regional conflict from spiraling out of control, he said.
Cathay Pacific says it is further suspending its flights to Dubai and the Saudi capital Riyadh until the end of April.
The Hong Kong-based airline attributed the suspensions to “the developing situation in the Middle East.”
It is one of several long-haul carriers outside the Middle East that have temporarily stopped serving the region due to the conflict.
Global oil and natural gas prices soared Wednesday after Iran attacked a key natural gas facility in Qatar that can supply one-fifth of the world’s gas and two oil refineries in Kuwait.
The attacks raised fears that the global energy crisis trigged by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic would be longer and more extensive than feared, with lasting damage to oil and gas productions.
International benchmark Brent crude rose to near $114 per barrel, up from under $73 per barrel on the eve of the war.
The European TTF benchmark for natural gas prices traded 24% higher on Thursday.
Saudi Arabia said a drone hit the country’s SAMREF refinery in the port city of Yanbu on the Red Sea on Thursday.
The Saudi Defense Ministry announced the news, saying without elaborating that “damage assessment in underway.”
The strike comes as drones also hit two oil refineries in Kuwait.
Overnight, Iranian attacks hit natural gas sites in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, spiking global prices.
Iran is retaliating over an Israeli strike Wednesday on its South Pars natural gas field in the Persian Gulf that it shares with Qatar.
SAMREF is a joint venture between the kingdom’s oil giant Saudi Aramco and ExxonMobil that processes more than 400,000 barrels per day of Arabian Light crude oil.
The attack on the Red Sea now reaches into Saudi Arabia’s assets there, where it has been trying to lift crude oil out to the global market via pipeline to avoid the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, which remains under Iranian attack.
Thailand’s Labor Minister Treenuch Thienthong said Thursday that a Thai agricultural worker was killed by cluster munitions in Israel late Wednesday.
The worker was identified as 30-year-old Chaiwat Waewnil.
The minister said Chaiwat registered his employment last year with a potato farm in Adanim, central Israel.
His body is expected to be returned to his family in Thailand after authorities complete an autopsy process.
Kuwait said a drone attack set a second oil refinery ablaze in the small, oil-rich nation on Thursday.
The blaze hit the Mina Abdullah refinery.
The nearby Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery earlier caught fire after a drone attack.
Kuwait said Thursday a drone attack sparked a fire at an oil refinery in the small, oil-rich nation.
The state-run KUNA news agency cited the Kuwait Petroleum Corp. for the announcement.
It said the drone attack sparked a fire at the Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery but caused no injuries.
The refinery is one of the biggest in the Middle East, with a petroleum production capacity of 730,000 barrels per day.
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