Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: On the eighth day of the ongoing fierce conflict in West Asia, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian rejected US President Donald Trump’s demand for surrender and apologized for Iran’s continuing attacks on regional countries, the media reported on Saturday.
Rejecting the US demand for an unconditional surrender as a “dream that they should take to their grave.” President Pezeshkian made the statement in a prerecorded address aired by state television.
He also apologised for Iran’s ongoing attacks on neiighbouring countries, insisting that Tehran would halt them and suggesting they were caused by ‘miscommunication’ in the ranks.
His comments came as intense Iranian fire targeted the Gulf Arab states early on Saturday also, while Israel and the United States kept up their relentless airstrikes targeting the Islamic Republic. Teheran repeatedly attacked Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Saturday morning.
There was no foreseeable end to the fighting. The US President’s administration approved a new USD 151 million arms sale to Israel after Trump said he would not negotiate with Iran without its “unconditional surrender”, and US officials warned of a forthcoming bombing campaign they said would be the most intense yet in the weeklong conflict.
Iran’s UN ambassador Amir-Saeid Iravani said his country would “take all necessary measures” to defend itself.
Videos showed explosions flashing and smoke rising over western Tehran as Israel said it resumed a broad wave of strikes. Also, early Saturday, loud booms sounded in Jerusalem, and incoming missiles from Iran had people heading to bomb shelters across Israel.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from Israel’s emergency services.
The US and Israel have battered Iran with relentless strikes, targeting its military capabilities, leadership and nuclear programme. The stated goals and timelines for the war have repeatedly shifted, as the US has at times suggested it seeks to topple Iran’s government or elevate new leadership from within.
Iran strikes Neighbours
In a sign of the widening nature of the conflict, sirens sounded early on Saturday in Bahrain as Iranian attacks targeted the island kingdom. And Saudi Arabia said it destroyed drones headed toward its vast Shaybah oil field and shot down a ballistic missile launched toward Prince Sultan Air Base, which hosts US forces.
In Dubai, several blasts were heard Saturday morning, and the government said it had activated air defences. Passengers waiting for flights out at Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, found themselves ushered down into train tunnels at the sprawling airfield after the alert sounded.
Long-haul carrier Emirates said that “all flights to and from Dubai have been suspended until further notice.”
Qatar’s energy minister, Saad al-Kaabi, warned the war could “bring down the economies of the world,” predicting a widespread shutdown of Gulf energy exports that could shoot oil price to USD 150 a barrel. The price for a barrel of benchmark US crude rose above USD 90 on Friday for the first time in more than two years.
On Saturday, Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman al Saud and Pakistan’s Army Chief General Asim Munir met to discuss ways to stop the attacks coming from Iran, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported. The two countries had, in September 2025, signed a mutual defence pact that defines any attack on either nation as an attack on both.
Russia has provided Iran with crucial information that could help Tehran strike American warships, aircraft and other assets in the region, according to two unnamed officials familiar with US intelligence on the matter, the media reported.
Trump on Iran
In a social media post on Friday, Trump said: “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” After a surrender, “and the selection of a GREAT and ACCEPTABLE Leader(s),” he wrote, the US and its allies will help rebuild Iran, making it “economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”
The fighting has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 200 in Lebanon and around a dozen in Israel, according to officials in those countries. Six US troops have also been killed.
Iranian President Pezeshkian wrote on social media that “some countries” had begun mediation efforts, without elaborating.
Iranian state television reported Friday that a leadership council had started discussing how to convene the country’s Assembly of Experts, which will select the new supreme leader.
Meanwhile, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a television interview on Friday that the “biggest bombing campaign” of the war was still to come.
Israel has said that over the past week, it has heavily bombed an extensive underground bunker that Iranian leaders had planned to use during the hostilities.
New information surfaced suggesting that a deadly February 28 explosion at a school in the Iranian city of Minab, some 1,100 kilometres (680 miles) southeast of Tehran, was likely caused by US airstrikes.
Iranian state media has said more than 165 people were killed in the blast, most of them children. It blamed Israel and the US for the explosion. Neither country has accepted responsibility, though Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the US is investigating.
Eastern Lebanon
Iran-backed Shia terrorist group Hezbollah said its fighters clashed with an Israeli force that landed late Friday in the mountains of eastern Lebanon.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said Saturday that at least 16 people were killed in subsequent Israeli strikes and another 35 were wounded.
Israel has carried out waves of airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hezbollah has a large presence, but which is also home to hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said over 200 people have been killed by Israeli strikes since Monday and over 800 wounded.