Summary

• Oil prices surge after no mention of ceasefire while vowing to keep hitting Iran 'extremely hard' in Wed. night Trump speech. Surge in tit-for-tat overnight strikes.

• US intelligence assessments say Iran is not ready to negotiate given it believes it has the strategic upper-hand, and doesn't believe Trump is 'serious' about talks: NYT

• Highest bridge in Iran, connecting Tehran and Karaj, destroyed - amid reports of expanding attacks on civilian infrastructure

• UK's Starmer chairs virtual summit of over 30 countries to discuss methods of how to reopen Hormuz Strait

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Tit-For-Tat Escalation of Strikes in Overnight Hours

By many accounts the overnight hours saw one of the largest Iranian missile attacks on Israel, with multiple salvos sent since midnight and many cluster munitions. Several Israelis were wounded, including reports of children and infants.

One particularly alarming escalation is that the Houthis have now joined in on Iran's ballistic missile attacks, with the Yemeni group said to be coordinating the strike waves with Tehran, and alongside Hezbollah in the north. At least 50 rockets were fired out of southern Lebanon alone on northern Israel and Haifa, resulting in some injuries but no reports of fatalities. Israel has hit back, bombing at least 40 Hezbollah infrastructure targets in Lebanon in the past 24 hours, killing 10 operatives - per regional military reports.

Among overnight Iranian targets included a Ground Forces base, ballistic missile storage, and sites near Isfahan, international reports say. There have also been reports of recent strikes on Jordan, northern Iraq, as well as the Gulf states, with Qatar demanding that Tehran pay compensation for its immense losses and damage.

Oil Prices Surge After Trump Vows To Hit Iran 'Extremely Hard' In Speech

"Tonight, Iran’s navy is gone, their air force is in ruins, their leaders, most of them… are now dead. Their command and control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is being decimated as we speak," President Trump stated in his address from the White House last night. "Their ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed, and their weapons factories and rocket launchers are being blown to pieces, very few of them left." Trump said further that the United States is "on the cusp of ending Iran's sinister threat to America and the world."

He declared that Israel and the United States are nearing their main goals in the war against Iran and that the conflict would end soon, though he gave no clear timeline. He repeatedly emphasized the war was close to finishing in his address, but didn't define what 'mission accomplished' would look like exactly. The key thing is that no concrete timeline was given.

In the speech, Trump highlighted the "swift, decisive and overwhelming" blows delivered to Iran over the past four weeks, calling them "victories like few people have ever seen before." He did not specify when operations would end but said the US would strike Iran "extremely hard" over the next two-three weeks while negotiations continue. There was more talk of sending Iran "back to the stone age" - after in the past declaring that the US would "help" them:

"We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong."

The result of all this was to send oil prices back near the highs since war started...

Iran is continuing to target US bases and assets across the region - even in Jordan and Israel (tech companies):

NYT: US Intelligence Contradicts Trump, Says Tehran Not Ready to Negotiate

The New York Times has meanwhile reported that several US intelligence agencies believe Iran is currently unwilling to engage in serious negotiations. "The assessments say the Iranian government believes it is in a strong position in the war and does not have to accede to America’s diplomatic demands, the officials said. And while Iran is willing to keep channels open, they said, it does not trust the United States and does not think President Trump is serious about negotiations," NYT says.

However, there's a glimmer of hope, per the report: "The Iranian government could engage diplomatically under the right conditions, said two Iranian officials and a Pakistani official. Tehran wants to see that Washington is willing to talk seriously about ending the war and not just negotiate a temporary cease-fire, they said. They added that the language in public statements from Iran has been harsher than that of private messages it has passed to the United States."

More shifting war aims and objectives...

'Highest Bridge in Middle East' Hit by Airstrikes

There's more evidence of US-Israeli attacks on Iran civilian infrastructure, as it's being reported Thursday that fresh airstrikes hit a highway bridge connecting Tehran and Karaj, according to Fars News Agency. Several people were injured, and multiple areas of Karaj were also struck. The bridge was actually just constructed, having been inaugurated earlier this year.

Fars identified it as the B1 bridge, dubbed the highest bridge in the Middle East. Tehran also continues to get pummeled hard, amid reports that the prior 24 hours saw the biggest wave of Iranian missiles and cluster munitions on Tel Aviv to date.

Operation Epic Fury seems to now be going after buildings and centers which play a vital role in terms of civilian infrastructure and maintaining day-to-day life in the country...

UK Gathers Over 30 Countries to Discuss How to Open Strait of Hormuz

Nearly three dozen countries are holding virtual meeting Thursday to coordinate diplomatic and political pressure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But notably the United States will not be represented in the virtual summit.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the meeting, chaired by Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, "will assess all viable diplomatic and political measures we can take to restore freedom of navigation, guarantee the safety of trapped ships and seafarers and to resume the movement of vital commodities."

Iranian attacks on commercial vessels and continued threats have halted nearly all traffic (there have been some exceptions) through the waterway linking the Persian Gulf to global oceans, cutting off a critical oil route and driving petroleum prices sharply higher - with some 16 or more tankers having been directly attacked so far, per Bloomberg estimates.

Aftermath of Wednesday drone strike on oil warehouse in the Kani Qirzhala area on the outskirts of Erbil, northern Iraq:

Meanwhile Qatar has submitted another letter to the UN demanding that Iran "provide compensation for all damages" and to cease its attacks on Gulf countries.