President Donald Trump announced "major combat operations" against Iran on Feb. 28, with massive joint U.S.-Israel strikes attack targeting military and government sites, officials said.
Iranian state television confirmed that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was among those killed by airstrikes in Tehran on the first day of strikes. His successor is yet to be named.
Iran is responding to the operation with missile and drone attacks targeting Israel, regional U.S. bases and multiple Gulf nations. Israel is also intensifying its long-running strike campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.
Iran’s president says there’ll be no unconditional surrender
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in televised remarks in Farsi on Saturday morning that the United States and Israel “will take their dreams of us surrendering unconditionally to the grave,” according to Iranian state media -- apparently referring to President Donald Trump’s social media post the previous day that there “will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.”
Pezeshkian also apologized to Iran’s neighbors, saying: “We have no intention of invading other countries” and that “there will be no more attacks on neighboring countries and no missile launches, unless attacks originate from those countries against Iran,” according to Iranian state-owned Press TV.
-ABC News' Morgan Winsor
Mar 06, 2026, 5:52 PM EST
27,000 Americans have returned to US from Middle East
The State Department says it's aware of 27,000 Americans who have safely returned to the U.S. from the Middle East since Saturday.
The State Department said it is working to proactively call Americans to offer charter flights or ground transportation.
A stranded passenger sleeps on the floor outside Dubai International Airport terminal as the airport resumes limited operations in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, March 5, 2026.
Altaf Qadri/AP
-ABC News’ Shannon Kingston
Mar 06, 2026, 5:29 PM EST
3 UN peacekeepers injured at base in Lebanon amid 'heavy firing': UNIFIL
Three United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon peacekeepers were injured inside their base in southwestern Lebanon amid heavy firing on Friday, the peacekeeping mission said.
Two of the wounded were treated at an internal medical facility and the third, who was the most severely injured, had to be transferred to a hospital in Beirut for treatment, according to UNIFIL. A fire at the base had to be extinguished, it said.
UNIFIL said it "will investigate the circumstances of this terrible event," noting it's "unacceptable that peacekeepers performing Security Council-mandated tasks are targeted."
-ABC News' Morgan Winsor
Mar 06, 2026, 5:04 PM EST
US was operating in area of elementary school ahead of deadly strike: Sources
The U.S. military was striking targets in Iran on Saturday in an area where an elementary school was hit and dozens of children were killed, according to two people familiar with the initial findings.
Sources say that while the U.S. investigation into the incident remains ongoing, officials believe it is possible American forces are responsible for the attack, because they were conducting strikes in the vicinity of the school and the Israelis were not.
Rescue workers and residents search through the rubble in the aftermath of an Israeli-U.S. strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Feb. 28, 2026.
Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP
Reuters reported Thursday that military investigators believed it was “likely" that U.S. forces were responsible.
Iran's Education Ministry says 168 people were killed in the attack, which destroyed a girls’ elementary school in Minab.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Friday referred questions about the strike to the Pentagon. Both Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and U.S. Central Command have declined to provide specifics on the probe, saying the investigation is ongoing.
Coffins are assembled as funerals are held for students and staff from a girls' school, who authorities said were killed in a US-Israeli strike on February 28, on March 3, 2026, in Minab, Iran. Iranian authorities said that over 160 people were killed in the blast, which occurred on the first day of the joint US-Israeli attack on sites across Iran.
Handout via Getty Images
An analysis of satellite imagery by ABC News suggests the school was near an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps compound, but had been separated more than decade ago. A comparison of Google Earth images from 2013 and 2016 shows a wall has been built sometime in those three years, effectively separating the school that had been part of a cluster of IRGC buildings.
-ABC News’ Anne Flaherty, Shannon Kingston and Ben Siegel
