Iran missile strikes hit Israel and Gulf states

Iran fired another wave of missiles on Thursday at Israel and at Gulf Arab states hosting US forces, with air defences activated over Dubai and sirens sounding in Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet. The strikes came within minutes of President Donald Trump’s televised address claiming US objectives were “nearing completion” and that Iran was “really no longer a threat”, according to the Associated Press report carried by The Independent. Iran’s military spokesman, Lt Col Ebrahim Zolfaghari, responded by insisting Tehran still had hidden stockpiles and production sites beyond US and Israeli reach.

The tactical picture has shifted less than the political messaging. Iran’s most reliable lever has not been winning air battles but making normal commerce in the Gulf impossible to price. According to the AP report, Iranian attacks on roughly two dozen commercial ships and the threat of more have halted nearly all traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint that handles about a fifth of globally traded oil in peacetime. That is a small number of incidents for a large effect: shipping insurers and operators do not need hundreds of hits to reroute, they need a credible chance that the next one could be theirs.

The Gulf states are being pushed into a choice they have tried to avoid for years: rely on US protection and accept being a battlefield, or prioritise economic continuity and accept that Washington may not underwrite it. Trump’s message to oil-dependent countries—“go take it” in reference to reopening Hormuz—signals a limit to US willingness to do the costly part, even as US forces remain central to the region’s security architecture. Britain, meanwhile, is convening a call with about 35 countries on how to reopen the strait, including all G7 members except the US, a coalition that looks more like risk management than a war plan.

Israel’s objectives also diverge from Washington’s. Israel’s campaign has increasingly targeted senior Iranian security figures and infrastructure, suggesting an appetite for strategic degradation and possibly regime destabilisation. The White House is simultaneously selling an “exit” narrative—objectives nearly met—while Tehran demonstrates it can still impose costs across multiple capitals. In that gap, the actors who actually internalise the price are not the speechwriters but airlines cancelling routes, ports tightening security, and energy traders repricing cargoes.

On Thursday, the war’s most concrete metric was not a front line but a siren: Bahrain’s warning system sounded again, and commercial shipping through Hormuz remained effectively frozen.