The US and Israel are bombing Iran, which has responded with missiles and drones against Gulf countries and as far as Cyprus. How long will the war last, and what effects will it have?
For the past few days, the international scene has been shaken by a new war involving a plurality of actors. First, on the morning of 28 February, came the joint attack by the United States and Israel against Iran, which led among other things to the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Then, in quick succession, came Iran's response: it launched missiles and drones against Israel and the US military bases — or bases used by the United States — across a vast number of Gulf countries and even European ones, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Cyprus.
As the price of oil rises due to Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz and thousands of people — Italians included — remain stranded in Gulf countries because of airspace closures, the bombardment of Iran continues and there is no clarity on the duration of the Israeli-American operation. In Tehran and on streets across Iran, many have celebrated the death of Khamenei, but there have also been widespread protests against the Israeli-American intervention, which have spread beyond Iran's borders to countries such as Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan and even the United States, where a quarter of the population opposes the military operation.
Iran's supreme authority since 1989 was Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He had assumed the role of Supreme Leader following the death of his predecessor, Ruhollah Khomeini, who had seized power in the country through the 1979 revolution. This was the pivotal event in Iran's contemporary history, the one that marked the transition from the secular regime of the Shahs — allies of the United States — to the religious regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran, hostile to Washington.
From that moment on, Iran transformed into a theocracy founded on the Quran, committed itself to the progressive dismantling of all Western influence, and sidelined the less radical factions that had taken part in the revolution, including the communists. The regime imposed strict codes of conduct and customs, severely curtailed the scope of rights and freedoms — particularly for women — and harshly repressed the various popular uprisings, as illustrated in recent times by the protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 and, in early 2026, the massacre with thousands of deaths during protests against the economic crisis.
Iran's relations with the United States, regarded as the Shahs' allies, deteriorated sharply from 1979 onwards, further compounded by severe diplomatic crises such as the seizure of US embassy staff in Tehran. In recent years it has been above all the nuclear issue that has dominated, with the United States challenging Iran's nuclear programme and accusing the country of seeking to develop an atomic bomb, imposing sanctions punctuated, from time to time, by negotiations and agreements, the last of which came in 2015. Relations with Israel have also always been extremely difficult for many reasons: Iran's closeness to the Palestinian people, and in particular to the organisation Hamas, the political-military competition between the two main powers in the Middle East, and the close ties between Israel and the Western world, above all the United States.
Relations between Iran and the Western world have deteriorated in recent years. As far back as 2018, during his first term, Donald Trump had halted the nuclear agreement signed three years earlier by the two countries. Then from 2023 onwards, with the start of the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip and partly also in Lebanon, things deteriorated rapidly. Beyond Hamas, Iran is also an ally of the Lebanese group Hezbollah and of the Houthis of Yemen, two entities that have launched multiple attacks against Israel over the past two years. Adding to this were the collapse of new nuclear negotiating rounds and the violent repression of the protests of early 2026, which led Donald Trump to repeatedly raise the prospect of military intervention against the regime.
In fact, a first military offensive had already taken place the previous June. Hundreds of Israeli and American military aircraft had bombed military and nuclear sites in Iran, also killing senior military figures. Tehran had responded with a dense barrage of missiles against Israel, most of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome shield. After less than two weeks, a ceasefire had been reached — but it was only a prelude to what would happen today. For weeks, in fact, the United States had been massing military assets at bases across the Middle East, reaching an airpower level comparable to that of the 2003 Iraq intervention. In the meantime, threats from the US president had also intensified, as he demanded a halt to the nuclear programme, a reduction in the arsenal and range of ballistic missiles, and an end to support for Hamas, Hezbollah and its other regional allies.
All of this, together with the recent experience of the US military intervention in Venezuela to end Nicolás Maduro's presidency, had suggested that a military operation against Iran was only a matter of days away. And so it proved.
On the morning of 28 February, the Israeli and American air forces launched their attack against Iran. The offensive began at a moment that was far from coincidental — namely when several of the country's leading authorities were gathered together for a meeting. Among them was Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed.
The Israeli-American bombardments continued in the hours and days that followed and have not stopped as of today. Military and nuclear programme sites across the country have been struck. The raids have effectively destroyed Iran's naval fleet, and a number of senior religious, military and political figures have been killed. Trump spoke of 49 Iranian leaders eliminated. The bombardments have also hit civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and schools. According to Iranian authorities, at least 165 people — mostly children — were killed in a raid on a primary school in the south of the country, in Minab. After the first four days of attacks, the death toll in Iran surpassed 500 people.
Iran's response, in recent days, has been characterised by a relentless barrage of missiles and drones against Israel and the Gulf countries hosting American military bases. Israel's Iron Dome shield was unable to intercept all the attacks, and one of them struck a synagogue in Beit Shemesh, killing nine people. Drones struck hotels and other buildings and infrastructure in Dubai, Doha and other major cities in the region, and even reached Europe, hitting a British base in Cyprus. An Iranian attack in Kuwait killed four American soldiers. Meanwhile, Israel has opened a new war front, attacking Lebanon and in particular Hezbollah, Iran's ally. The raids reached as far as the capital Beirut, and the toll from the first day of bombardments stands at over 50 dead and hundreds wounded.
The Israeli-American offensive on Iran has stirred conflicting feelings within the country. On the evening of 28 February, following the announcement of the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei, large numbers of people took to the streets in Tehran and other cities across the country to celebrate, with singing, dancing and chanting. At the same time, a sense of fear also pervades the country over a military operation with no clear end in sight, one that has already caused numerous civilian casualties; there have also been demonstrations against the United States and funeral vigils for the death of Khamenei. In recent days, in various parts of the world — from Turkey to Pakistan, from India to Iraq, and as far as the United States — there have been street protests against the military offensive in Iran. According to polls, only a quarter of the American population supports the military intervention in the country.
Donald Trump has stated that the operation in Iran could last approximately four to five weeks, but added that the United States has the means to go further. On the ultimate objective of the operation, he initially spoke of regime change, calling for a popular uprising within the country; then, at a White House press conference on 2 March, he did not touch on the subject, speaking instead of dismantling Iran's missile and nuclear capabilities and severing its ties with Hamas, Hezbollah and other allied militias in the region. In general, Trump has made clear that the offensive against Iran will continue until the country no longer poses a threat.
The effects of the war are meanwhile being felt around the world. The closure of airspace over the Gulf countries — struck and traversed by the missiles and drones launched by Iran to hit American bases, but also with the aim of increasing pressure on US allies to call for an end to the war — has led to the cancellation of over 5,000 flights, leaving thousands of people, including Italians, stranded in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and other countries in the region with no immediate prospect of returning home. Another consequence of the war concerns the price of oil, which has surged — partly due to Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which passes one fifth of the world's seaborne crude oil and over 30 per cent of its liquefied natural gas. This will lead to substantial increases in energy bills, particularly electricity bills, not least because Europe — Italy included — following the outbreak of war in Ukraine, had replaced its gas supplies primarily with imports from Qatar.
