Mojtaba Khamenei chosen as Iran's next supreme leader, Iranian state media reports

Air defenses in the United Arab Emirates have intercepted at least 109 drones and nine ballistic missiles on Friday, the Ministry of Defense said in a post on X.

Three drones made it through air defense Friday, officials said.

"Since the start of the brazen Iranian aggression, 205 ballistic missiles have been detected, with 190 ballistic missiles destroyed, while 13 of them fell in the sea, and 2 missiles fell within the country's territory," the statement said.

"Additionally, 1,184 Iranian drones were detected and 1,110 of them were intercepted, while 74 drones fell within the country's territory. Eight cruise missiles were also detected and destroyed," the statement continued.

-ABC News' Othon Leyva

Ukrainian interceptor drone specialists will be deployed to the Middle East "in the coming days" to assist in the defense of U.S. bases, a Ukrainian official told ABC News.

The Ukrainian official said the deployment will include interceptor drone pilots and electronic warfare specialists.

The source refrained from naming specific countries for operational security reasons but stressed that the support provided by Ukraine will be focused on defending U.S. military bases in the region.

-ABC News' Oleksiy Pshemyskiy

France's Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier strike group will enter the Mediterranean Sea Saturday, France's Defense Minister Catherine Vautrin said on French TV Thursday night.

Vautrin said the Charles de Gaulle had left its previous location in northern Europe and would pass through the Straight of Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean late Friday and into Saturday.

On Tuesday, President Emmanuel Macron announced that France's only aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, would be deployed to the Mediterranean to support Cyprus and France's gulf Arab allies.

France insists its operations in the Middle East are and will remain "strictly defensive" in nature and that France is playing no role in assisting the U.S.-Israeli offensive operations against Iran.

-ABC News' Tom Soufi Burridge

The Israeli Defense Forces say that they are conducting "a broad-scale wave of 26 strikes in the Dahieh area of Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure," according to a statement released Friday morning.

Among the targets were an executive council’s command center and a facility storing UAVs used for attacks against Israel, according to the IDF.

"Prior to the strikes, measures were taken to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians," the IDF said.