Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that overthrowing Iran's government is "within reach," describing the Iranian system as weaker than ever before. He told military leaders that Israel has the capacity to "remove" the Iranian threat permanently. The Revolutionary Guards commander Ahmad Vahidi vowed retaliation for four people killed during a wedding in southern Iran, an attack Tehran blamed on the United States.
The U.S. Air Force acknowledged Iranian reports of casualties at the wedding but said it does not target civilians. Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that Washington is investigating the reports of deaths at the ceremony in Kohstak, a coastal city on the Strait of Hormuz. He said the military, if it made mistakes, works to learn from them and avoid repetition.
Iran's state television reported Thursday that a 22-year-old woman died of her wounds in hospital, bringing the death toll from the strike on a house at the wedding to five, with roughly 70 people wounded according to Iranian officials. One of the dead was a four-year-old boy named Amir Mohammad Karimi, according to Iran's Mehr news agency.
Iran launched attacks on Kuwait on Thursday, announcing it was targeting "American interests" after rounds of exchanges this week described as the most intense since July. The Kuwaiti military said its air defenses were intercepting missiles and drones early Thursday. Iran's military said in a statement carried by state television that missiles and drones hit satellite communications systems, equipment warehouses and fighter hangars at Ahmed al-Jaber airbase in Kuwait, and also struck U.S. positions and radar systems at Al-Dhafra airbase in the United Arab Emirates.
After the Iranian attacks on Kuwait, the largest escalation in the conflict since July appeared to be subsiding, with no major further attacks recorded from either side as Thursday progressed, according to Reuters. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons "certainly not during the Trump administration" and that Iran has lost total control of the Strait of Hormuz. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow will continue supporting Iran and developing relations with it.
The sudden military escalation drove Brent crude futures above $96 a barrel on Thursday for the fourth consecutive day, reaching levels not seen since July. The latest strikes followed more than a month of relative calm in the conflict that erupted with a U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran in February.
