Thank you for joining us as we continue our coverage of the escalating conflict in the Middle East.
We’re moving over to a new blog for day eight of the conflagration, which you can find here.
Here’s a quick recap:
- The US-Israeli war has left at least 1332 people dead in Iran since it began on Saturday. Dozens of others have been killed in Lebanon and Israel.
Limited commercial flights will leave the UAE for Sydney and Melbourne from today, Etihad Airways has announced. Airlines remain hamstrung, with the number of cancelled flights to Middle East hubs passing 23,000 since the fighting began. Thousands of passengers remained stranded in the Gulf region.
- Israeli airstrikes pounded the capitals of Iran and Lebanon, and the US has apparently struck an Iranian drone carrier at sea, intensifying its campaign targeting the Islamic republic’s fleet of warships. In Beirut, 500,000 people fled the densely populated area the IDF attacked.
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has confirmed three Australian people were aboard a nuclear-powered US submarine that sank an Iranian frigate in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka.
- Albanese has also been trying to reassure voters that while there will be an economic hit from the war in Iran, Australia is in a relatively strong position to ride it out. He said the country’s fuel reserves were at their highest level in 15 years.
- The conflict has wiped more than $120 billion from Australia’s share market in a week. Meanwhile, Australia’s consumer watchdog has warned large petrol retailers that their fuel price movements would be closely monitored as markets respond to the conflict in Iran.
- Iran has not requested talks with the US to bring an end to the widening war, Iran’s ambassador to Egypt told Associated Press on Thursday.