Stocks plunge and oil prices soar as war rages with no end in sight

Saudi Arabia lashed out at Iran following what the kingdom said was a thwarted drone attack on its massive Shaybah oil field, saying Tehran would be the "biggest loser" if it continues to attack Arab states.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry said "further escalation ... will have grave impact on the relations, currently and in the future."

In addition, a fire broke out Monday at an oil facility that was attacked in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain's only oil refinery was apparently also hit.

Another attack appeared to have started a fire at Bahrain's only oil refinery, sending thick plumes of smoke into the air, with online video purportedly showing the blaze. Bahrain's government did not immediately identify the refinery itself as being hit, though it has been a target of repeated Iranian attacks since the war began.

Authorities in Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, said one person suffered minor injuries and another moderate injuries after debris fell in two locations in the emirate on Monday, as air defenses raced to shoot down incoming Iranian weapons.

CBS/AP

Israel's national Magen David Adom emergency medical service said Monday that at least one person was killed and another seriously wounded after another Iranian missile attack targeting central Israel. 

Israeli media reports suggested the strike could have included missiles carrying cluster munitions. It came after another warning from the Israeli military of an incoming Iranian missile salvo.

Among the locations impacted was a construction site in the city of Holon, where the MDA said at least one man was fatally struck by shrapnel.

"It was a difficult scene," the MDA cited paramedic Liz Goral, who was among those responding to the explosion on the construction site, as saying . "The two casualties were lying unconscious and suffering from severe shrapnel injuries to their bodies. After performing resuscitation efforts, we had to pronounce the death of a man, approximately 40 years old, and we evacuated the second casualty in serious condition by Mobile Intensive Care Unit to the hospital."

There were unconfirmed reports that the second victim died later of his injuries. 

As of Monday, Israel's independent Institute for National Security Studies said at least 15 people in the country had been killed since the war started, including two troops. That figure does not include the casualties from the strike on the construction site in Holon.

The skies over northern Israel lit up with a barrage of incoming Hezbollah rockets and missiles over the weekend, and Israel launched waves of airstrikes in retaliation. 

Hezbollah is still believed to have thousands of missiles and, along with its backers in Iran, poses the threat of overwhelming Israeli defenses, according to a local Israel Defense Forces colonel who spoke with CBS News on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.

"Most of the attacks from Iran and Hezbollah are coordinated or simultaneous. Once they have missiles firing up from Iran, missiles firing up from Lebanon, Iran's are more to the mainland in Israel, and the Hezbollah missiles are here for the north," the colonel said.

Hezbollah's diminished, but still significant capacity has implications for the U.S.

Iran knows neither the U.S. nor Israel have an unlimited supply of missile interceptors or air defenses. Hezbollah can, if it chooses to, unleash a wave of rocket fire on northern Israel to free up Iran's firepower to focus on U.S. targets and allies in the region.

Fresh airstrikes slammed into the southern suburbs of Lebanon's capital Beirut on Monday after Israel warned residents of some neighborhoods to flee for their safety as it continued its attacks against Hezbollah.

Lebanese Minister of Public Health Dr. Rakan Nasr al-Din said Sunday that the death toll since the beginning of the latest Israeli operations in the country, which began along with the joining U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, had reached at least 394, including 83 children and 42 women. He said more than 1,130 people had been injured including 254 children and 274 women.

Tens of thousands of people across southern Lebanon have been ordered by Israeli authorities to evacuate their towns and villages, fueling a humanitarian crisis in the country.

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut, March 9, 2026. AFP/Getty

Qatari authorities have arrested more than 300 people for sharing images and "misleading information" during days of attacks by Iran, the interior ministry said on Monday.

The people arrested "filmed and circulated video clips and published misleading information and rumours that could stir public opinion", a statement said.

Stock markets plunged Monday as oil and gas prices soared on fears about supplies from the Middle East with the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran continuing into a second week with no sign of letting up. Investors ran for the hills as crude rocketed to its highest level since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

President Trump has said only the "unconditional surrender" of Iran will end the war, and over the weekend he added that the spike in energy prices was a "small price to pay" to eliminate Iran's nuclear threat, reiterating the White House's insistence that the rise is temporary.

London's FTSE 100 share index dropped 1.4% in the first couple of minutes of trade on Monday as investors reacted to the surge in oil prices. Earlier, stock markets in Asia fell sharply, with Japan's Nikkei 225 index closing down by more than 5%.

In South Korea, the Kospi index sank by more than 8% at one point, triggering a 20-minute halt to trading before eventually closing down 6%.

West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude contracts both jumped around 30% to hit peaks just short of $120 a barrel. European gas prices also soared 30% Monday.

Since the beginning of the war, WTI has risen more than 75% and Brent more than 60%, though both eased on news that finance ministers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations will discuss tapping emergency reserves to ease the supply strain.

CBS/AFP

Global oil prices spiked near $120 per barrel before falling back Monday as the Iran war intensified, threatening production and shipping in the Middle East and pummeling financial markets. The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, surged to $119.50 per barrel early in the day but later was trading at $107.80 per barrel.

West Texas Intermediate, the light, sweet crude oil produced in the United States, spiked to $119.48 per barrel but fell back to $103 per barrel.

The last time Brent and U.S. crude futures traded near the current level was in 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Prices moderated on Monday after the Financial Times reported that some members of the Group of Seven industrial nations were considering releases of strategic oil reserves to alleviate pressure on the markets. The report was later confirmed by sources to other news outlets.

Roughly 15 million barrels of crude oil — about 20% of the world's oil — typically are shipped every day through the Strait of Hormuz, according to independent research firm Rystad Energy. The threat of Iranian missile and drone attacks has all but stopped tankers from traveling through the strait, which is bordered in the north by Iran, and carry oil and gas from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Iran.

Smoke and flames rise at the site of U.S. or Israeli airstrikes on an oil depot in Tehran, Iran, March 8, 2026.  Majid/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty

Iran, Israel and the United States also have attacked oil and gas facilities since the war started, exacerbating supply concerns.

CBS/AP

Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Sunday that the country was prepared and equipped to continue waging an intense war against the U.S. and Israel for at least six months.

"The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran are capable of continuing at least a 6-month intense war at the current pace of operations," the country's official Fars news agency cited IRGC spokesman Ali Mohammad Naini as saying.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that the "period of elevated energy prices" will be temporary, "but it will not be long," as the Iran war continued into a second week. 

Oil and gas prices "shouldn't go much higher than they are here because the world is very well supplied with oil," Wright said on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan." He insisted there is "no energy shortage at all," saying the U.S. is a large exporter of natural gas and although refineries in Europe and Asia are seeing "interruptions in their crude flows," there are "massive energy stores around the world." 

"What you want is emotional reactions and fear that this is a long-term war," Wright said. "This is not a long-term war; it's a temporary movement." 

Wright said the U.S. still has 400 million gallons of oil in its strategic oil reserve, and "we're more than happy to use that if it's needed." But he added that it's a "logistics issue" because refineries in Europe and Asia need oil. 

"We're just doing pragmatic things to get through a short period that will that will bring in an era of even lower energy prices because a major energy-producing region of the world, the Middle East, will no longer have a strong, powerful Iran that can threaten their neighbors, that can threaten the United States of America and that was not far away from a nuclear bomb," said Wright. 

President Trump echoed the sentiment in a post on his Truth social media platform on Sunday, saying: "Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for USA and World, Safety and Peace," adding: "ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!"

A U.S. service member has died from injuries received during Iran's initial retaliatory attacks, the U.S. Central Command said Sunday. 

The service member was seriously wounded during an attack in Saudi Arabia on Mar. 1, CENTCOM said. The identity of the service member will be released following the notification of the next of kin.

This is the seventh American service member to be killed in the Middle East since the war in Iran started on Feb. 28.

Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, the second son of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been named Iran's new supreme leader, Iranian state media confirmed Sunday. 

Mojtaba Khamenei has never held elected office. But for years he has operated quietly behind the scenes from within his father's office, cultivating influence across the security establishment, particularly within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Read more here.