Iran live updates: 7th killed service member is identified

Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington, 26, was killed in Saudi Arabia.

ByDavid Brennan, Jon Haworth, Kevin Shalvey, Leah Sarnoff, Meredith Deliso, Nadine El-Bawab, and Bill Hutchinson ABCNews logo
Last updated: Monday, March 9, 2026 3:00PM GMT
ABC News Live

President Donald Trump announced "major combat operations" against Iran on Feb. 28, with massive joint U.S.-Israel strikes attack targeting military and government sites, officials said.

Iranian state television confirmed that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was among those killed in Tehran on the first day of strikes. His son Mojtaba Khamenei was chosen on Sunday to succeed him.

Iran is responding to the operation with missile and drone attacks targeting Israel, regional U.S. bases and multiple Gulf nations. Israel is also intensifying its long-running strike campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

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Feb 28, 2026, 1:50 PM GMT

Iran says death toll in strike on elementary school rises to 57

The toll from a strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, has risen to 57 students dead and 60 others injured, according to Iran's semiofficial Tasnim News Agency, which cited the local governor.

Iran claims the school was struck during the U.S.-Israeli military operation on Saturday.

It was unclear whether any teachers had been killed or injured, the Tasnim News Agency reported, citing the Minab governor.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted a photo on X purportedly showing the aftermath of a strike on a girls' elementary school in the south of Iran on Saturday.

Araghchi said the school was "bombed in broad daylight, when packed with young pupils."

"Dozens of innocent children have been murdered at this site alone," he added. "These crimes against the Iranian People will not go unanswered."

-ABC News' Somayeh Malekian

Feb 28, 2026, 1:50 PM GMT

Senate should return to Washington and vote on war powers resolution, Sen. Tim Kaine says

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is calling on the Senate to return to Washington immediately to vote on a war powers resolution to check the president's authority to wage war with Iran, calling the military action "idiotic."

"Has President Trump learned nothing from decades of U.S. meddling in Iran and forever wars in the Middle East? Is he too mentally incapacitated to realize that we had a diplomatic agreement with Iran that was keeping its nuclear program in check, until he ripped it up during his first term?," Kaine said in a statement Saturday.

"For months, I have raised hell about the fact that the American people want lower prices, not more war-especially wars that aren't authorized by Congress, as required by the Constitution, and don't have a clear objective. These strikes are a colossal mistake, and I pray they do not cost our sons and daughters in uniform and at embassies throughout the region their lives," he added.

Feb 28, 2026, 1:28 PM GMT

Iran says Trump has turned 'America First' into 'Israel First'

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the U.S.-Israel strikes were "wholly unprovoked, illegal, and illegitimate."

"Trump has turned 'America First' into 'Israel First'-which always means 'America Last,' Araghchi wrote in a post on X Saturday. "Our Powerful Armed Forces are prepared for this day and will teach the aggressors the lesson they deserve."

Araghchi shared a screenshot of an October 2012 social media post from President Donald Trump.

"Now that Obama's poll numbers are in tailspin - watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate," Trump wrote in the post on X.

-ABC News' Somayeh Malekian

Feb 28, 2026, 1:02 PM GMT

Oman foreign minister: 'I urge the United States not to get sucked in further'

The Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi, who had been mediating U.S.-Iran talks and had traveled to Washington, D.C., on Friday, posted on X saying, "I am dismayed" and that "Active and serious negotiations have yet again been undermined."

"I urge the United States not to get sucked in further. This is not your war," he said.

-ABC News' Lama Hasan