US, Israeli strikes reportedly kill over 25 in Iran as regional escalation intensifies

Explosions rang out into the night in Tehran and low-flying jets could be heard for hours as the capital was pounded. Thick black smoke rose near the city’s Azadi Square after one airstrike hit the Sharif University of Technology grounds, News.Az reports, citing Associated Press.

Two people were found dead in the rubble of a residential building in Haifa, according to Israeli authorities. The search was ongoing for two more even as new Iranian missile attacks hit the northern Israel city early Monday.

Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates both activated their air defense systems to intercept incoming Iranian missiles and drones, as Tehran kept up the pressure on its Gulf neighbors. Iran’s regular attacks on regional energy infrastructure and its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped in peacetime, has sent global energy prices soaring.

Under pressure at home as consumers are growing increasingly concerned, Trump gave Tehran a deadline that expires Monday night, Washington time, saying if no deal was reached to reopen the strait the U.S. would hit Iran’s power plants and other infrastructure targets and set the country “back to the stone ages. "Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” he threatened in a social media post, adding that if Iran did not open the strait “you’ll be living in Hell.”