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LAST UPDATE | 6 Mar
ISRAEL HAS SAID it hit more than 400 “targets” in Iran today and has also pressed ahead with strikes on Lebanon.
“Over 400 targets were struck in several areas in Iran, including ballistic missile launchers and Iranian UAVs (drone) storage facilities,” the army said in a statement.
The rate is broadly consistent with the level of strikes Israel says it has carried out in recent days, indicating a sustained campaign in the areas it is targeting.
It is approaching a week since the conflict began and a reported 1,000 people have been killed inside Iran.
Israel’s military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir earlier remarked in a televised statement that Israel is “now moving to the next phase of the operation”.
“We have additional surprises ahead which I do not intend to disclose,” he added.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth also announced that “firepower over Iran and over Tehran is about to surge dramatically”.
“When we say there’s more to come, it’s more fighter squadrons, it’s more capabilities, it’s more bomber pulses more frequently. The amount of firepower over Iran and over Tehran is about to surge dramatically,” he said.
The threats from Hegseth come as two separate investigations from Reuters and the New York Times both concluded that the girls school that was bombed in southern Iran at the beginning of the war last Saturday was likely carried out by the US.
The Pentagon has neither confirmed nor denied its responsibility for the strike, which Iran says killed more than 150 people, many of them children.
Speaking on Wednesday, Hegseth would only say that the US was “investigating” the incident.
Iran’s health ministry said 926 people had been killed in the US and Israeli strikes which hit military sites as well as residential areas and other infrastructure.
AFP and other news providers have not been able to independently verify the toll but the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency has also put civilian deaths at about 1,000 people.
Iran’s state-run Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs yesterday put the death toll even higher at 1,230.
Donald Trump meanwhile has said it would be a “waste of time” to send ground troops into the country.
Writing on his Truth Social platform this afternoon, the US president said there would be no deal with Iran “except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”.
“After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before,” he wrote.
In a play-on words with his own ‘MAGA’ slogan, he added: “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA)!”.
Trump has insisted he would “have to be involved” in choosing Iran’s next leader.
The threats of escalation from the US come as its military said that it struck an Iranian drone carrier, setting it ablaze.
U.S. forces aren't holding back on the mission to sink the entire Iranian Navy. Today, an Iranian drone carrier, roughly the size of a WWII aircraft carrier, was struck and is now on fire. pic.twitter.com/WyA4fniZck
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 6, 2026
The US military’s Central Command released black-and-white footage of the burning carrier. The Iranian military did not immediately acknowledge the attack.
The drone carrier, the IRIS Shahid Bagheri, is a converted container ship with a 180-metre runway for drones.
The vessel can travel up to 22,000 nautical miles without needing to refuel in ports, reports said at the time of its 2005 inauguration.
Admiral Brad Cooper, head of US Central Command, described the carrier as “roughly the size of a World War II aircraft carrier”.
“As we speak, it’s on fire,” Cooper told reporters.
Elsewhere, Israeli air strikes battered Lebanon today, sending the death toll since Monday to at least 217.
A live broadcast by AFP showed plumes of smoke rising above buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a typically densely populated area where Hezbollah holds sway.
Speaking today to foreign ambassadors, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said “the consequences of this displacement, at the humanitarian and political level, may well be unprecedented”.
According to Lebanese authorities, at least 217 people have been killed and 798 wounded since Israel’s expanded attacks on Monday, with more than 95,000 people displaced.
“Our country has been drawn into a devastating war that we did not seek and did not choose,” Salam said.
“Those who were forced to leave their homes are not and should not be held responsible for the suffering inflicted on them,” he added.
On Monday, the Lebanese government banned Hezbollah’s military activities after it launched rockets on Israel to “avenge” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, pulling Lebanon into the Middle East war.
Today, in a message posted in Hebrew on the group’s Telegram channels, Hezbollah told Israelis to evacuate all localities “located within 5 kilometres of the border”.
Israel has continued to strike dozens of areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, including Sidon, where five people were killed according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
An AFP photographer at the scene saw extensive damage in the targeted apartment and shattered glass on the street.
Rescue workers meanwhile recovered a body from under the rubble and collected body parts scattered around the area.
Further south in Tyre, home to a UNESCO World Heritage site, the NNA reported a major strike.
- With reporting by © – AFP 2026
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