The first Qatar Airways flight to depart Doha since the start of the war has taken off, bound for London, according to flight tracking websites.

The airline has said it will also operate evacuation flights to Paris, Madrid, Rome and Frankfurt today with priority given to the elderly, those with families and those with "urgent medical and compassionate travel needs".

Elsewhere in the Gulf, in the last few minutes authorities in Dubai have said that air defence systems are responding to a missile threat.

Flight tracking sites show half a dozen planes trying to land at Dubai airport in holding patterns.

Ghoncheh Habibiazad
Senior reporter, BBC Persian

“I woke up at 02:00 when I heard the explosions. It was the second terrible night in a row,” says a woman in her 40s in Tehran.

It’s still very difficult to contact those inside Iran amid the internet outage, but some manage to connect momentarily.

Meanwhile, a friend whose elderly parents live in west Tehran near Mehrabad airport where it was hit last night, says that he is worried about them following explosions near Ekbatan complex.

He has received a text message from them saying “the windows of the block have shattered” and that his parents had to shelter in an underground parking.

Another person living in northwestern Tehran has said that he could smell smoke in the air in the morning.

At 04:00 local time, a man in his 20s in Tehran said “I still haven’t been able to sleep. They pounded Tehran tonight”.

Barbara Plett Usher
Reporting from Doha

Image source, Getty Images

Qatar has announced the resumption of limited flights for the first time since the war began one week ago.

The country’s aviation authority said the country’s airspace would partially reopen to allow only evacuation and essential cargo flights.

Hamad International Airport clarified that further flights in the coming days were subject to an ongoing assessment of the security situation.

Qatari officials said earlier this week the military had thwarted attempted Iranian attacks on the airport.

Qatar intercepted nine drones on Friday, the defence ministry reported. One landed in an uninhabited area without causing casualties

Authorities in Dubai say they have contained a "minor incident" caused by falling debris from an interception.

No injuries have been reported, they add.

More than half a dozen flights preparing to land at Dubai airport are in a holding pattern, flight tracking websites show.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Travelling with the president

I'm now in the Miami suburb of Doral, where President Trump is spending the night after arriving from Washington.

Trump did not come speak to us at all during the over two-hour flight from Washington DC.

He has not addressed Iran since an event earlier today, in which he briefly told the assembled crowd that the US is doing "phenomenally" in the military campaign. He added that Iran's navy and communications are "gone", along with their Air Force and two tiers of leadership.

Tomorrow promises to be a busy one for the US president. He is expected to meet with several Latin American leaders at the "Shield of the Americas" summit in Miami before heading to Dover, Delaware.

There, he will participate in what is known as a "dignified transfer" ceremony, in which the remains of the six American soldiers killed in an Iranian strike on a base in Kuwait are returned to the US.

The Israeli military says it has detected incoming missiles launched from Iran.

"Defensive systems are operating to intercept the threat," a statement says.

An alert is being sent to mobile phones and those receiving it are advised to enter a protected space.

Trump wants to pick Iran's new leader - will a hostile regime under fire agree?published at 02:39 GMT 7 March

02:39 GMT 7 March

Lyse Doucet
Chief international correspondent

Image source, EPA

The US president who likes to keep the world guessing about his endgame in Iran is now telling the world what he wants.

In a war widely described as his "war of choice", Donald Trump says he also wants to choose who will rule Iran now that its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and dozens of others clerics and commanders, have been assassinated.

That seems unthinkable for a clerical regime rooted in deep distrust of America - among its most ideological elements there is burning hostility towards the country they labelled long ago as the "great Satan".

Whether Iran's embattled leadership would be mindful of choosing a top cleric willing to work in a different way with Washington is not clear.

There has long been division between factions known as reformers and pragmatists, and the hardliners who call themselves Principlists in their defence of their revolution.

But they are united on one goal: the survival of the system which keeps them in power.

There are reports that the Assembly of Experts - a grouping of some 88 senior clerics tasked with this responsibility - could chose a council of leaders rather than one person to preside in this perilous time.

However, it is not even clear that the successor will be announced, since Israel has made it clear that whoever emerges will also be an "unequivocal target".

The only person speaking often and openly about this highly sensitive choice is Trump, who has remarked: "Most of the people we had in mind are dead."

• You read more of BBC chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet's analysis here

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

We can bring you some developing news now on what appears to be a large attack on one of Tehran's main commercial airports.

A burning plane and large plumes of smoke are visible at the Mehrabad airport - Iran's busiest airport and main domestic hub - in footage shared by eyewitnesses on social media. Satellite imagery taken on Friday shows multiple aircraft were at the airport.

Iranian state media is also reporting some parts of the airport have been targeted.

It comes after the Israeli military said it was launching a "broad-scale new wave of strikes" in the country. It previously targeted the airport on 4 March, saying its strikes dismantled defence and detection systems that were a threat to the Israeli Air Force, which included the helicopter manufacturing section of the airport.

It is not yet clear which parts of the airport has been bombed in the fresh attack but witnesses say tonight's bombardment has been much more intense.

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

Saudi Arabia has intercepted six drones on their way to an oil field and a ballistic missile headed to an air base, the country's Ministry of Defence spokesperson says on X.

The drones were intercepted in the Empty Quarter, a vast desert in the south of the country. It is home to rich oil reserves including the Shaybah oil field which the Ministry of Defence says was the target of the attack.

The site produces a million barrels of oil a day, according to Saudi Arabian oil company Aramco.

The ballistic missile was on its way to the Prince Sultan Air Base, it added. In February, the base was used by a US Air Force aircraft as part of its build-up in the Middle East ahead of the strikes in Iran.

As the conflict sparked by US-Israeli attacks on Iran last Saturday hits the one week mark, with Iran's retaliation drawing the wider region into the crisis. Here's a recap of developments from Friday:

• US defence secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking to CBS News, says of reports that Russia aided Iran, "anything that shouldn't be happening" will be "confronted strongly" and that President Trump is "well aware of who's talking to who"
• Iran's ambassador to the UN says 1,332 civilians have been killed in his country since Saturday
• US defence manufacturers agreed to "quadruple production" of weapons, Trump says
• Fresh explosions have been heard in Tehran as Israel launches new strikes
• An Israeli strike hit the site of a United Nations peacekeeping force, Unifil, in southern Lebanon, injuring three Ghanaian soldiers there
• Schools in the Lebanese capital Beirut have been transformed into shelters as growing numbers of people are forced from their homes as a result of the Israeli strikes against Hezbollah
• In Israel, the IDF has warned civilians of multiple waves of Iranian strikes on Friday evening, however no injuries have yet been reported
• Our Middle East correspondent reports Iran has been described in Israel as an existential threat for decades and, among Israeli Jews, there’s near consensus in favour of taking military action

• In the US, there's been mixed messaging coming from the White House and the wider administration on how the war in Iran ends

• Trump's insistence on "unconditional surrender" from Iran signals he may have given up on negotiating a deal to end the war, the BBC's North America editor Sarah Smith writes

Image source, CBS 60 Minutes

Speaking to CBS News' 60 Minutes, US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth answered questions about reports that Russia has been informing Iran of US military movements in the region.

Hegseth says the US is "tracking everything" and incorporating it all into its battle plans.

"The American people can rest assured their commander-in-chief is well aware of who's talking to who," Hegseth told CBS. "And anything that shouldn't be happening, whether it's in public or back-channeled, is being confronted and confronted strongly."

Hegseth added: "We're putting the other guys in danger, and that's our job. So we're not concerned about that. … But the only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they're gonna live."

Earlier today, a senior US official told CBS News, the BBC's US partner, that Russia has been providing intelligence to Iran on US positions in the region.

The Kremlin says President Vladimir Putin spoke with Iran's president today to offer condolences and voice Russia's stance that hostilities need to end. Both parties agreed to continue their communications, according to a statement from Putin's office.

US Central Command, which directs the country's military operations, says it has hit more than 3,000 targets in Iran.

Some 43 ships have also been damaged or destroyed as part of Operation Epic Fury, it announced in a post on X.

The strikes are being prioritised according to "locations that pose an imminent threat" with the goal to "dismantle the Iranian regime's security apparatus".

BBC Verify analysis of satellite images and videos has shown that Iranian schools, a hospital and landmarks are among the civilian sites that have been hit by US and Israeli strikes.

Image source, Reuters

Speaking at a White House roundtable event focused on college sports, US President Donald Trump is asked about the conflict in Iran.

He says the US military is doing "phenomenally" in destroying Iran's military forces, telling reporters, "their army is gone".

"Their navy is gone. Their communications are gone. Two sets of their leaders are gone. They're down to their third set. Their air force is wiped out entirely," he says.

"They have 32 ships. All 32 are at the bottom of the ocean."

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), a peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon, is condemning the Friday attack on its base that left three Ghanaian soldiers injured.

"It is unacceptable that peacekeepers performing Security Council-mandated tasks are targeted," UNIFIL says, adding that it is launching an investigation into the attack.

"Any attack on UNIFIL peacekeepers constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law and of the Security Council Resolution 1701 and may amount to a war crime," UNIFIL adds.

UNIFIL said the most seriously injured soldier has been transferred to a hospital in Beirut, while the two others are being treated at a UNIFIL facility.

This isn't the first time in recent months the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon has been targeted. In November, the IDF fired heavy artillery just a few metres away from a UNIFIL foot patrol, though no one was injured, according to the UN, external.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says a new wave of missiles is approaching Israel from Iran.

In its latest update on Telegram, the IDF says "defensive systems are operating to intercept the threat" and a "precautionary directive" has been issued to residents in relevant areas.

"Upon receiving an alert, the public is instructed to enter a protected space and remain there until further notice," the force adds.

Our colleagues from BBC Persian report that explosions have resumed in the Iranian capital.

Writing on Telegram, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it "has begun a broad-scale wave of strikes on the Iranian terror regime infrastructure in Tehran".

Earlier, a young woman in Tehran told us that "every few hours there are strikes again, almost every day".

A fire has broken out at an oil facility in Basra in southern Iraq following a drone strike.

Security sources have told Reuters and AFP news agencies Iran targeted the oil complex housing foreign energy companies, with the latter reporting that while two drones were intercepted, a third got through.

Iranian ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, says 1,332 civilians have been killed as a result of US-Israeli strikes on the country since Saturday.

Speaking to reporters at the UN headquarters in New York, Iravani said that according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, women and children were among the dead.

"Thousands more have been injured, and the numbers continue to rise," he said, adding that schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure had been "deliberately" targeted.

The US has denied targeting civilian infrastructure though is investigating a deadly strike on a girls' school in Iran, while Israel has accused Iran of targeting its civilians.

Image source, Getty

Image source, Getty Images

Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the UK stands ready to help defend Saudi Arabia should it be needed.

Starmer made the pledge to the country's de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman on Friday evening, according to a Downing Street read-out of a phone call between the two.

"Additional British fighter jets, helicopters and a destroyer were being sent to the region, and the UK stood ready to support the defence of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia should it be needed," a spokeswoman quoted the prime minister as having said.

"The leaders also discussed stepping up intelligence cooperation to support defensive operations and protect civilians."

The deputy foreign minister of Iran said European nations have been warned they'll become legitimate targets if they become involved in the war.

If any country "joins America and Israel in the aggression against Iran, they will be also legitimate targets for Iran's retaliation," Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi told media outlet France 24.

He noted that Iranian officials have been "negotiating in good faith" with the US.