The Middle East plunged into open warfare on Saturday (February 28, 2026) as the United States and Israel launched coordinated missile strikes on Iranian targets—including the Supreme Leader’s office in Tehran—prompting immediate retaliatory strikes from Iran that sent missiles flying across the region and left US embassy staff in Israel scrambling for outbound flights.
Israel and the US struck Iran with missiles, targeting the Iranian Supreme Leader’s office in Tehran, and military sites all over the West Asian nation.
While the Pentagon named the first wave of strikes “Operation Epic Fury”, Israel code-named it “Operation Lion’s Roar”.
Saturday’s strikes sought to target the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian, Defence Minister Amir Nasirzadeh, Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammed Pakpour, armed forces Chief of Staff Sayyid Abdolrahim Mousavi, Defence Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani, and National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani.
Iran responded with retaliatory strikes all over the West Asian region, with damage noticed inside Israel, Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait. Videos emerged from Bahrain of an Iranian missile flight targeting a US naval base there.
Huckabee’s email to the US mission staff, sent a day before the strikes, said those who wanted to leave “should do so TODAY” and advised them to secure seats on outbound flights from Ben-Gurion Airport as soon as possible. The embassy had also shifted to an “authorised departure” status, allowing non-essential personnel and their family members to leave at government expense, he wrote.
The ambassador said the move was due to “an abundance of caution” after consultations with the State Department, and assured that there was no need to panic. He added that employees should leave sooner rather than later as tensions rose over the prospect of a US strike on Iran.
The latest Israel-US military operations and the Iranian retaliation came amidst a negotiation in Geneva. Despite the two sides expressing “significant progress” in their Geneva talks, the Saturday (February 28) military actions by the Israel-US combine, and the retaliation by Iran have taken the world by surprise.
Tensions between the US and Iran have been simmering after American President Donald Trump and Iranian leadership exchanged hot words over Tehran’s nuclear capabilities, warning each other of military strikes in case their Geneva negotiations failed.
The US has been building on its military assets in the West Asian region, including deploying an aircraft carrier-led battle group there to shore up its capabilities for military operations against Iran in case the situation came to such a pass.
On Friday (February 27), Iran had asked the US to drop its “excessive demands” on its nuclear programme, including asking Tehran to shut down its three nuclear sites and to hand over all enriched uranium to the US.
Meanwhile, the US, which had refrained from deploying combat aircraft for offensive operations in West Asia for years, sent its F-22 fifth-generation fighter jets to the region for the first time.
The US officials described the F-22 move as a potential wartime contingency involving Iran, amid growing military tensions between the two sides.
While US Central Command declined public comment and the Pentagon has not formally announced the move, videos showing F-22 stealth jets arriving in Israel began circulating on social media earlier this week.
The F-22, operated by the US Air Force, is capable of air-to-air dominance, precision strikes, and escort missions for bombers.
The timing of the F-22 deployment is significant, as Trump increased pressure on Tehran over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
Iran’s leadership had previously warned that any strike on its territory would trigger massive retaliation from it on the US and Israeli military assets in West Asia.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared that military bases in the region supporting US operations would be considered legitimate targets.
Complicating matters in the region, the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had conveyed that Iran had not allowed it to access its nuclear facilities for verifying its claims on enriched uranium and ballistic missiles development.
An IAEA confidential report in this regard began circulating earlier this week, accessed by global media houses.
The IAEA report is said to have noted that it “cannot verify whether Iran has suspended all enrichment-related activities,” or the “size of Iran’s uranium stockpile at the affected nuclear facilities.”
The IAEA report warned that due to the continued lack of access to any of Iran’s four declared enrichment facilities, the agency “cannot provide any information on the current size, composition, or whereabouts of the stockpile of enriched uranium in Iran.”
The unaccessed facility included Iran’s Isfahan Fuel Enrichment Plant, announced only eight months ago.
The IAEA report said it did not know whether this facility “contains nuclear material or is operational.”