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The measure would have restricted President Trump’s power to wage war against Iran without congressional authorization. U.S. officials said airstrikes were accelerating, and several nations sent reinforcements to the Middle East to protect their interests.

Here’s the latest.

Republican lawmakers blocked a measure Wednesday that would have limited President Trump’s power to continue waging war against Iran without congressional authorization, even as the conflict expanded into a wider international crisis.

Earlier in the day, NATO air defenses shot down an Iranian ballistic missile headed toward Turkey, the United States sank an Iranian navy ship in international waters, and several European nations deployed military assets to the region to protect their interests.

The Israeli military said late on Wednesday that the country’s Home Front Command has updated guidelines for the public, easing restrictions on gatherings and activities, starting on Thursday at noon. The transition, from only “essential” activities to a “limited” level of activity, was based on a “situational assessment,” the military said, but it provided no details. Gatherings of up to 50 people will be permitted, and workplaces may operate if protected spaces can be reached promptly, the authorities instructed.

The Senate thwarts a bid to curb Trump’s war powers on Iran.

Republicans on Wednesday blocked a measure that would limit President Trump’s power to continue waging war against Iran without congressional authorization, turning back a bid by Democrats to insist that Congress weigh in on a sweeping and open-ended military campaign.

The 53-to-47 vote against taking up the measure was almost completely along party lines, reflecting a deep partisan divide on the Iran war as the Senate delivered the first clear test of congressional resolve since the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes, Operation Epic Fury, began across Iran four days ago.

The Iranian and Turkish foreign ministers spoke on the phone, after NATO air defenses earlier shot down an Iranian missile headed toward Turkey’s air space, the Iranian ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, stressed that the country’s armed forces “will not rest until the complete repulsion of the enemies’ malevolence,” and defended Iran’s strikes as targeting bases used to “plan and execute aggressive operations against Iran,” the statement said. He also called for Iranian-Turkish cooperation against what he described as Israeli plots in the region. 

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said on Wednesday night that three people were killed and six people were injured in an airstrike near Beirut, the capital. Israel had previously announced new strikes in Lebanon on Wednesday night, including two targeted attacks on individuals near Beirut who were not named.

The Senate is voting on whether to bring a resolution to the floor that would restrict President Trump’s ability to continue military action in Iran, days after he began the campaign without consulting Congress.

A senior U.S. military official and a Western official said the Iranian ballistic missile that NATO air defenses shot down as it was headed toward Turkish air space had been targeting Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, a NATO member that hosts American troops and those from other allied countries. Both officials said the Iranian missile was shot down by an interceptor fired from a U.S. warship in the eastern Mediterranean. The senior U.S. official said it was shot down shortly before midnight Eastern time Tuesday by an SM-3 interceptor for ballistic missiles launched by a U.S. Navy ship.

Spain insists it is not cooperating with the U.S. on Iran war despite a White House claim.

The Spanish government on Wednesday categorically denied an assertion by the White House that the country had reversed its opposition to the war on Iran and was now cooperating with the U.S. military.

It was the latest twist in the back and forth between the United States and Spain’s left-wing government, which has been the Trump’s administration’s most vocal European critic and which has staked out an unequivocal antiwar position. In contrast, Britain, France, and Germany have issued a joint statement promising to help in defensive actions against Iran. 

The Israeli military said in a statement late on Wednesday that it “struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon,” completing “an additional wave of strikes” aimed at Hezbollah infrastructure across Lebanon.

Late in the night in Iran, American–Israeli strikes targeted the western part of the capital, Tehran, as fighter jets attacked the grounds of Mehrabad airport, several locations west of Azadi Square, as well as the Tehransar and Chitgar neighborhoods, according to Tasnim, a semiofficial Iranian news agency.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Hakan Fidan, the foreign minister of Turkey, about the U.S.-Israel military action that has enveloped the Middle East. The call came soon after the Turkish defense ministry said a NATO air defense system shot down a ballistic missile fired from Iran that was headed toward Turkish airspace.

“The secretary told the foreign minister that attacks on Turkey’s sovereign territory were unacceptable and pledged full support from the United States,” the State Department said

President Trump called President Emmanuel Macron of France to update him on the military campaign against Iran, according to an official in the French president’s office. Macron raised the issue of the widening conflict in Lebanon, which has been of special concern to the French. It is the first time that Trump and Macron are known to have spoken since the conflict in Iran began.

President Trump made some new comments on the war in Iran during an afternoon appearance at the White House just now. He still doesn’t seem to have an idea for who should run Iran’s government after the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“Their leadership is just rapidly going,” he says. “Everybody that seems to want to be a leader, they end up dead. It’s an amazing, an amazing thing that’s taking place before your eyes.”

He said that on a scale of 1 to 10, he would rate the American war effort a 15.

The Israeli military said in a statement late Wednesday that it had launched another “wave of strikes” on Tehran. Earlier, an Israeli military spokesman said the country had struck more than 200 targets in the Iranian capital in nearly five days of fighting.

Hegseth plans to join a campaign rally in the home district of a soldier killed in the Iran war.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is scheduled to headline a “Top Gun”-themed political fundraiser next week for a Republican congressman whose constituent was among the four American soldiers killed in the opening hours of the war with Iran. All four service members had been stationed in the district before deployment.

The event, on behalf of Representative Zach Nunn, who is facing a potentially competitive re-election race, comes as the secretary has signaled he expects more U.S. casualties in the broadening regional conflict.

President Emanuel Macron of France said on Wednesday that he had spoken with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, and its prime minister, Nawaf Salam, to discuss the situation in Lebanon, which he called very concerning. Macron said that he had reaffirmed the need for Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, to immediately cease its attacks against Israel, calling its strategy “a major error that endangers the entire region.” Similarly, he said, he called on Netanyahu to preserve Lebanon’s territorial integrity and “to refrain from a ground offensive.”

“It is important for the parties to return to the cease-fire agreement,” Macron said, referring to a fragile truce brokered late in 2024 and ruptured in recent days. France will continue to support the Lebanese Armed Forces, so that they can “put an end to the threat posed by Hezbollah,” he said, and he pledged to support people in southern Lebanon displaced in the renewed conflict.

Naim Qassem, the head of Hezbollah, said: “we will fight to the death and will not surrender.” He said Hezbollah’s fight “is not linked to any other battle,” indicating Hezbollah’s grievances with Israel were not solely tied to its military actions in Iran or the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and could continue even after that conflict.

Naim Qassem, the head of Hezbollah, said in a speech on Wednesday evening that the Lebanese militant group has repeatedly reiterated that “patience has limits.” Qassem said that Hezbollah adhered to the cease-fire agreement that Israel and Lebanon reached late in 2024 but charged that “Israel did not abide by any of its provisions.”

Qassem said that Hezbollah had not previously responded to Israeli attacks “so as not to be accused of obstructing diplomacy.” He also said that “the state must be effective,” in reference to the Lebanese government, calling Israeli violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty “significant.”

A U.N. panel condemns the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran.

A United Nations human rights panel on Wednesday strongly condemned the attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran as a violation of the U.N. Charter.

The panel, which has been investigating abuses by the Iranian authorities in their crackdown on anti-government protests, said the recent U.S.-Israeli strikes left Iranians caught between large-scale military operations and a government with a long record of gross human rights violations.

American ground troops are not a part of the U.S. military’s current plans for Iran, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said. But she added that she would not rule out any option for President Trump that is currently “on the table.”

“They’re not part of the plan for this operation at this time, but I certainly will never take away military options on behalf of the president of the United States or the commander in chief, and he wisely does not do the same for himself,” she said. President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have similarly declined to rule out any military option in recent days.

Leavitt was pressed on why no administration official had been able to articulate what imminent threat the United States faced from Iran that required them to attack it. She took exception to the question and said that President Trump “does not make these decisions in a vacuum,” and that his “decision to launch this operation was based on a cumulative effect of various direct threats that Iran posed to the United States of America.”

On Tuesday, during an Oval Office appearance with Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, Trump suggested that he was guided by instinct. “We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first,” Trump said. “If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, defended the Trump administration against criticism that it did not do enough to evacuate Americans in the Middle East ahead of the strikes on Iran, telling reporters that the State Department had put out “many signs” and was “all hands on deck” in advising Americans in the region to exercise extreme caution and not travel to certain countries. But even after the State Department announced on Tuesday that it would arrange for military and charter flights, Americans who called a department hotline for help were told for hours not to rely on the U.S. government for assistance. The recorded message on the hotline has since been corrected, Leavitt said. Leavitt said at her briefing that the White House had seen “reports” that the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has emerged as the person likely to succeed his father as Iran’s supreme leader, and that it was something “our intelligence agencies are closely monitoring and looking at.” Iranian officials told The New York Times that the clerics responsible for selecting Iran’s next leader wanted to announce him as early as Wednesday, but some had expressed reservations that it could make him a target for the United States and Israel.

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Clearing Rubble in Tehran

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https://www.nytimes.com

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