US-Iran war live updates: Etihad resumes flights to Australia; UK police arrest four men on suspicion of Iranian spying

Emirati airlines resumed some flights to key global cities from the United Arab Emirates on Friday, but tensions remained high after a government-chartered Air France repatriation flight was forced to turn back on Thursday due to missile fire in the area.

The outbreak of the U.S.-Israel war against Iran has led to flight cancellations across the Middle East, leaving airlines and governments scrambling to support stranded passengers.

Shares in airlines have slid as the conflict drives up fuel prices.

Passengers have been forking out huge sums to get out of the Middle East, with some who managed to travel back by commercial flight on Thursday from Oman saying it had been “absolute chaos” to find their way home from Dubai.

With most airspace in the region still closed over missile and drone concerns, authorities have been arranging charter flights and securing seats on limited commercial services to evacuate tens of thousands of travellers.

Combined, Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad normally fly about one-third of passengers from Europe to Asia and more than half of all passengers from Europe to Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands.

Abu Dhabi-based Etihad said on Friday it would resume a limited flight schedule through March 19, with flights operating to and from Abu Dhabi and around 70 destinations including Sydney and Melbourne.

Dubai-based Emirates said it was operating a reduced flight schedule to 82 destinations including London, Sydney, Singapore and New York until further notice, with customers transiting in Dubai only accepted if their connecting flight was operating.

Reuters

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is calling on the international community to help Lebanon amid the ongoing Israel-Hezbollah war.

“A humanitarian disaster is looming” because of huge displacements of people, Salam said.

Salam criticised both Israel and Hezbollah over the current crisis saying that the Lebanese state and people “did not choose this war.”

Speaking to heads of diplomatic missions in Beirut, Salam appealed to the friends of Lebanon to support “us in this endeavour” and called on the international community to help stop Israel’s attacks and spare the country’s infrastructure

AP

The Campaign Against Antisemitism says it’s grateful to police “for foiling this alleged plot” after four men were arrested in and around London on suspicion of aiding Iran by spying on the Jewish community.

But the group accused the UK government of not taking the threat from Iran seriously enough.

“The UK may not be acting against Iran, but Iran is acting against us,” it said in a statement.

“The government’s failure to keep its promise to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — the main instrument that the Islamic Republic uses to foment antisemitic violence worldwide — has sent the message that support for the brutal Iranian regime and its Jew-hating and West-hating ideology is perfectly acceptable in Britain,” the statement said.

AP

The World Health Organization said earlier this week that operations were on hold because of insecurity, airspace closures and restrictions of the Strait of Hormuz.

But WHO’s eastern Mediterranean chief, Dr Hanan Balkhy, said Friday that after the “temporary pause,” they are resuming as airspace reopens.

Balkhy said that more than 50 emergency supply requests regarding 25 countries and meant to benefit more than 1.5 million people had been hit by the enforced pause.

Those included shipments destined for Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen and Somalia.

She said that “what we’ll be doing over the next few days is to identify now the urgent shipments that need to go out quicker than others”.

AP

We’re hearing reports that Israel’s armed forces have ordered four towns in the Bekaa area of eastern Lebanon to evacuate.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera is reporting fresh Israeli air strikes have occurred near the towns of Marwanieh and Yahmar al-Shaqif.

The new developments come after the armed forces conducted dozens of attacks in southern Lebanon across Thursday and Friday, and another earlier this evening, which it said was aimed at Hezbollah infrastructure.

Israel ordered hundreds of thousands of people to leave Beirut’s southern suburbs prior to the earlier strikes on Thursday and Friday.

Our correspondent David Crowe has since reported that as a result of the vast numbers fleeing the attacks, people are sleeping rough and streets have been blocked by cars in the Lebanese capital.

The UN’s human rights chief said has since said these orders raise serious concerns under international law.

The United Nations human rights chief will travel to Washington this month, he said on Friday, but expressed doubt he could influence the development of the Middle East crisis amid mounting concerns.

“I hope to go to Washington D.C. later this month, and we will see what this will bring,” UN human rights chief Volker Turk told reporters in Geneva.

“We have obviously been in touch, but to be honest, I don’t think it’s in any way meaningful in terms of influencing the current trajectory,” he added.

Turk urged international actors to rapidly de-escalate the regional conflict, now into its seventh day after US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

Israel said on Friday it launched “broad-scale” air strikes on Iran’s infrastructure. It also continued strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which are under an evacuation order.

Large booms rang out across Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel as Israeli defence systems attempted to intercept an Iranian rocket volley on Friday morning.

Reuters

People in the United Arab Emirates, including a prominent businessman, are beginning to criticise the US as Iran’s barrage of missiles and drones on Gulf states continues, roiling the region’s financial markets and economies.

The UAE has been among US President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies, pledging about $1.4 trillion in investments and cultivating commercial ties with his family. That relationship appears to have given Abu Dhabi little influence over the conflict.

“Who gave you the authority to drag our region into a war with Iran? And on what basis did you make this dangerous decision?” Khalaf Al Habtoor, a Dubai billionaire and hotel tycoon, said in a post on X on March 5.

“You have placed the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab countries at the heart of a danger they did not choose.”

The UAE has faced the brunt of Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone attacks in the Gulf region. While the armed forces have intercepted almost all of the projectiles, the conflict undermines the stability premium that has been a critical part of the Gulf’s appeal for global investors and financiers.

In Dubai and Abu Dhabi, shops and restaurants are open and delivery services are running. Offices are offering work-from-home options, and taxis and public transport are operating, though roads are far less crowded than usual.

Bloomberg

Azerbaijan is evacuating its diplomats from Iran for their own safety, Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said on Friday, a day after the nation to the north of Iran said four Iranian drones had crossed its border and injured four people in the Nakhchivan exclave.

He said Azerbaijan was evacuating employees from its embassy in Tehran and its consulate general in Tabriz.

Reuters

An Iranian warship that was hit by a US submarine and sunk on Wednesday in the Indian Ocean was “unarmed” and “unloaded”, a top official said.

The vessel had recently participated in an international naval exercise hosted by India, Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, said Friday in New Delhi.

“That vessel was by invitation of our Indian friends, attending an international exercise. It was ceremonial. It was unloaded. It was unarmed,” he said.

“Many of the young Iranian sailors who were attending these exercises lost their lives. It cannot go with impunity for those who actually did that.”

A US submarine torpedoed the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena off the coast of Sri Lanka earlier this week, with 32 sailors rescued and more than 100 missing or dead.

The episode was the first time since World War II that an American submarine had attacked a surface vessel. Iran vowed to retaliate, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi calling the attack an “atrocity” that the US “will come to bitterly regret”.

The strike complicates Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to remain neutral in the widening Middle East crisis, bringing the conflict closer to India’s doorstep.

It has also been confirmed three Australians were on the submarine that fire on the Iranian frigate.

On Friday, the opposition said it supported the Australians being there, while the Greens angrily claimed it made Australia “part of an illegal war”.

AP with Alexander Darling

Denmark-based logistics company Maersk will suspend two of its container services due to security risks in the Middle East and the Gulf region, the latest sign of how the conflict is upending global supply lines.

Maersk controls about one-sixth off the global shipping container fleet.

Transport through the Strait of Hormuz remains at a near standstill as the Middle East war disrupts the vital waterway. France said 52 of its ships are currently blocked in the Persian Gulf and another eight in the Red Sea.

A review of shipping signals has confirmed only two commercial transits in the past 24 hours, the Joint Maritime Information Centre said on Friday.

Maersk will temporarily halt its FM1 Service, which connects the Far East to the Middle East, and its ME11 Service, which links the Middle East to Europe, according to a notice to customers on Friday.

Maersk had already interrupted bookings from a number of Gulf and Middle East states as attacks on Iran and its counterattacks on US and allied assets disrupt commerce in one of the world’s key transport hubs.

The company said that suspensions were a “precautionary measure” to protect its staff amid an “escalating conflict” and followed a risk assessment.

The logistics disruptions come as a major blow to the region, where business hubs such as Dubai rely on trade, tourism, transport and finance along with a reputation as a haven in a troubled neighbourhood. Protracted snarls could reverberate across global supply chains, analysts warn.

Bloomberg, Reuters