The 2026 Iran War began on February 28 when the United States and \u2018Israel\u2019 launched an operation dubbed Epic Fury by the US and Lion’s Roar by \u2018Israel\u2019, unleashing nearly 900 airstrikes in 12 hours on Iranian missile systems, air defenses, nuclear facilities, military bases, and leadership targets.<\/p>\n
Yemen\u2019s Houthi movement entered the war early, launching missile and drone attacks toward \u2018Israel\u2019 and expanding the war beyond the Gulf and Levant theaters.<\/p>\n
This direct assault followed years of shadow war, including the first-ever Iran-\u2018Israel\u2019 missile exchanges in April and October 2024 and a limited 12-day war in June 2025 that damaged Tehran\u2019s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.<\/p>\n
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of top officials were killed in the opening salvo, while a US Tomahawk strike on a school adjacent to a naval base near Bandar Abbas killed about 170 civilians, mostly children.<\/p>\n
Iran responded within hours by firing hundreds of ballistic missiles and launching thousands of drones at \u2018Israel\u2019, US bases in the Gulf, and targets in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait.<\/p>\n
Tehran restricted passage through the Strait of Hormuz\u2014through which 20% of global oil flows\u2014disrupting shipping and spiking oil prices.<\/p>\n
The retaliation reignited fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon, prompting \u2018Israeli\u2019 strikes there and spreading the conflict regionally while hitting civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, airports, and heritage sites.<\/p>\n
Over the next five weeks, US-\u2018Israeli\u2019 forces conducted sustained air campaigns that destroyed much of Iran\u2019s air-defense network, missile production sites and navy assets.<\/p>\n
Iran appointed Mojtaba Khamenei as the new supreme leader, but pragmatic senior official Ali Larijani was assassinated in an \u2018Israeli\u2019 strike on March 17.<\/p>\n
More than 80,000 civilian sites were hit, including 260 medical facilities and UNESCO-listed buildings, causing widespread blackouts, fuel shortages, toxic pollution, and over 2,000 total deaths across Iran, \u2018Israel\u2019, Lebanon, and Gulf states.<\/p>\n
The war remained active in its fifth week with ongoing US-\u2018Israeli\u2019 airstrikes on remaining Iranian targets and Iranian retaliatory barrages, including recent cluster-munition attacks on \u2018Israel\u2019 and a failed long-range missile attempt at Diego Garcia.<\/p>\n
Trump has threatened to destroy Iran\u2019s power plants unless the Strait of Hormuz reopens fully but has signaled possible winding down or deals, which Tehran denies pursuing.<\/p>\n
Democratic Party shows growing criticism of Israel ahead of 2028 presidential race.
\nYouth and progressive base increasingly support Palestinians; poll shows 67% pro-Palestinian vs 17% pro-‘Israel’.
\nAn analysis in the Washington Post highlights a notable shift within the US Democratic Party, with some potential 2028 presidential candidates adopting sharper criticism of ‘Israel’ amid ongoing US-‘Israel’ operations in Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 2026 Iran War began on February 28 when the United States and \u2018Israel\u2019 launched an operation dubbed Epic Fury by the US and Lion’s Roar by \u2018Israel\u2019, unleashing nearly 900 airstrikes in 12 hours on Iranian missile systems, air defenses, nuclear facilities, military bases, and leadership targets. Yemen\u2019s Houthi movement entered the war early, launching missile and drone attacks toward \u2018Israel\u2019 and expanding the war beyond the Gulf and Levant theaters. This direct assault followed years of shadow war, including the first-ever Iran-\u2018Israel\u2019 missile exchanges in April and October<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23597,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23596\/revisions\/23597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}