45 million could face acute hunger due to Iran war, warns UN

Gholamreza Soleimani, the commander of Iran's paramilitary Basij force was killed in US-Israel attacks, Iran's state media said on Tuesday. Israel had earlier on Tuesday said it killed Soliemani. [Reuters]

Iran's security chief Ali Larijani has been killed, Iranian media confirmed on Tuesday. [Reuters]

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Tuesday the country had effectively won its war with Iran, but gave no indication of when the conflict might end, saying only that the campaign would continue until its objectives were achieved.

Speaking at a news conference, Saar said Israel was seeking to remove "existential threats", but did not say how the government would determine when those goals had been met.

"One must be patient," he said, speaking on the 18th day of a war that has killed more than 2,000 people, most of them in Iran and Lebanon, but also in Israel, Iraq and across the Gulf. [Reuters]

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the United States had been informed by most of its NATO allies that they did not want to get involved with the country's military operation in Iran, a move he described as a "very foolish mistake."

But Trump gave no indication that he plans to punish NATO allies for their stances, as he took questions from reporters in the Oval Office during the St Patrick's Day visit of Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin.

Trump said NATO countries were supportive of the joint US-Israeli war, which has now entered its third week, even as they did not want to get involved.

"I think NATO is making a very foolish mistake," Trump said. "Everyone agrees with us, but they don't want to help. And we, you know, we as the United States have to remember that because we think it's pretty shocking," he added. [Reuters]

President Emmanuel Macron said France will never take part in operations to unblock the Strait of Hormuz, and that France is carrying on with work to prepare a coalition that could provide freedom of navigation once hostilities end.

“We are not party to the conflict, and therefore France will never take part in operations to open or liberate the Strait of Hormuz in the current context,” Macron said at the start of a cabinet meeting to discuss the conflicts in the Middle East. [Al Jazeera]

The UN Human Rights Office on Tuesday said that Israeli killing of healthcare workers and air strikes on the displaced could amount to war crimes under international law.

It cites a couple of examples, including one overnight air strike on 12 March on the Beirut seafront that killed 12 people who had been camping there after being displaced from elsewhere in Beirut. [Al Jazeera]

Since 2 March, Israeli attacks have killed 912 people in Lebanon and wounded 2,221 more, the country’s Ministry of Public Health has said in its latest update.

The death toll was previously tallied at 886 people as of Monday. [Al Jazeera]

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency says Sardar Mousavi, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Aerospace Force, has announced a “new phase of effective and heavy strikes across the region against the American-Zionist enemy”.

“The backbone of arrogance will be broken in the streets and squares”, he added.

We reported earlier on an IRGC announcement that it had been carrying out an intense wave of attacks on US and Israeli positions throughout the region since dawn, using missiles as well as drones. [Al Jazeera]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the killing of Tehran’s national security chief Ali Larijani was part of efforts to give Iranians a chance to remove their rulers.

“This morning, we eliminated Ali Larijani, the boss of the Revolutionary Guards, which is the gang of gangsters that actually runs Iran,” Netanyahu said in a televised statement.

He said the overthrow of the clerical authorities by Iranians “will not happen all at once, it will not happen easily. But if we persist in this, we will give them a chance to take their fate into their own hands.” [Al Jazeera]

Israel has said that Iran's security chief Ali Larijani and the commander of Iran's Basij unit Gholamreza Soleimani had been killed in overnight Israeli strikes on Monday and early Tuesday.

At the time of the strike, he was with his son in an “apartment hideout,” it added.

There was no confirmation from Iran.

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A US Navy warship believed to be carrying thousands of Marines and sailors to the Middle East is nearing the Malacca Strait off Singapore as it makes its way to the region, maritime tracking data showed Tuesday.

The amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli was approaching Singapore, at the southwestern edge of the South China Sea, Tuesday morning, according to AIS tracking data seen by CNN.

The Tripoli is believed to be carrying a rapid-response force of 2,200 personnel, after the Pentagon ordered the unit to deploy, according to three officials familiar with the plans.

It also carries F-35 stealth fighter jets as well as transport aircrafts and landing crafts.

Officials told CNN the unit was being sent to the Middle East, without revealing exactly where it would be deployed or what it would be used for. [CNN]

European leaders have said they are not willing to put their forces in harm's way in the middle of a war that they did not start, even though Trump has warned their reluctance could have negative consequences for the NATO alliance.

"Nobody is ready to put their people in harm's way in the Strait of Hormuz," said European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.

"We have to find ... diplomatic ways to keep this open so that we don't have a ... food crisis, fertilisers crisis, energy crisis in the world."

Kallas has floated the idea of replicating a UN-brokered deal that gets grain out of Ukraine during wartime. It allows Ukraine to export grain, foodstuffs and fertilizers through the Black Sea, without civilian vessels coming under attack by Russia.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has rejected proposals for reducing tensions or for a ceasefire with the United States that were conveyed to Tehran by two intermediary countries, a senior Iranian official said on Tuesday.

The supreme leader had said it was not "the right time for peace until the United States and Israel are brought to their knees, accept defeat, and pay compensation”.

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European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called on the United States and Israel on Tuesday to end their war with Iran, as she spoke in an interview with Reuters in Brussels.

Asked if it was time to bring the war to an end, Kallas said, "Absolutely. I think ... it would be in the interest of everybody if this war stops. The problem with wars is that it's easier to start than to stop them, and it always gets out of hand."

"We have been consulting with regional countries like the Gulf countries, Jordan, Egypt, (about) whether we could also bring forward proposals for Iran, Israel and the US to get out of this situation so that everybody saves face."

"The main concern of the European countries is that we were not consulted with (before) starting this war – actually the opposite. There were many Europeans who were trying to convince the US and Israel not to start this war," Kallas said. [Reuters]

The head of the United States' National Counterterrorism Center, Joseph Kent, has resigned over the US-Israel war in Iran, saying in a letter to President Donald Trump posted on X that "Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation."

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Should the Iran war continue till June, an extra 45 million are projected to be pushed into acute hunger because of rises in food, oil and shipping costs, pushing the global tally above its current record level of 319 million, World Food Programme Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday.

"This would take global hunger levels to an all-time record and it's a terrible, terrible prospect," he said. "Already, before this war, we were in a perfect storm where hunger has never been as severe as now, in terms of numbers and how deep that hunger is," he added.

Skau said its shipping costs are up 18% since the US-Israeli attacks on Iran began and that some have had to be rerouted. The extra costs come on top of deep spending cuts by the WFP, as donors focus more on defence, he added. [Reuters]