The face-off between the US and Israel on one hand and Iran on the other has spread beyond the Middle East after a US submarine sank an Iranian warship in international waters. About 180 sailors are thought to have been on board the Iris Dena – 32 were rescued and Sri Lankan authorities say 80 bodies have so far been found.

This marks the first time that a warship has been sunk by a torpedo since the end of the Second World War in 1945. The US Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, who announced this yesterday, also said more forces will be arriving in the Middle East, adding that the US “will take all the time we need to make sure that we succeed.” At the same briefing, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Dan Caine said the US will strike “progressively deeper into Iranian territory”.

Also yesterday, Israel hit dozens of military targets across Tehran, the Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF) Arabiclanguage spokesman Avichay Adraee announced. The strikes targeted Basij headquarters – a paramilitary force linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards – in addition to missile launch pads and defence systems, as well as “the supply and logistics directorate affiliated with the regime’s ground forces”. He said that the IDF will continue to “intensify their strikes” on the Iranian regime’s infrastructure.

Also yesterday, Israel confirmed its first combat casualties of the war after two soldiers were wounded in Lebanon. The Israeli military said the two were wounded yesterday by anti-tank fire while operating in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah said its fighters attacked Israeli troops advancing toward the village of Khiyam and released video showing a missile striking a tank. In the meantime, it appears the increased Israeli air assault has prompted the postponement of the funeral ceremony for Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on Saturday.

The three-day ceremony was to have began yesterday in Teheran. The New York Times reports, citing Iranian officials, that Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has emerged as the front runner to become new supreme leader – with the decision potentially coming soon. However, Israel Defence Minister Israel Katz has announced that any successor that continues “the plan to destroy Israel, to threaten the United States” and “suppress the Iranian people” will be an “an unequivocal target for elimination”. Israel is also hitting Lebanon, and has again warned people in southern Beirut to evacuate, reports the BBC.

Lebanon’s health ministry said yesterday that 72 people have been killed and 437 wounded in Israeli strikes since the latest escalation with Hezbollah began three days ago. More than 83,000 people have been displaced, Social Affairs Minister Haneed Sayed said. Iran-allied Hezbollah entered the conflict Monday, firing missiles and drones into Israel for the first time in more than a year.

Israel has responded with widespread strikes and warned residents to evacuate parts of southern Lebanon. According to reports, a merchant ship, MV Safeen Prestige, which flies the Maltese flag and owned by an Egyptian company, was hit by two missiles yesterday afternoon while passing through the Strait of Hormuz. That’s according to Malta’s minister for transport, infrastructure and public works, Chris Bonett, speaking in Parliament.

He said that the ship caught fire, primarily in the engine room, and that the vessel suffered relatively heavy damage. However, the 24 seafarers aboard — 21 Egyptians and 3 Ukrainians — did not suffer injuries and were rescued by Oman’s navy, he said. Earlier yesterday, a British military agency, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, announced that the vessel was heading east through the Strait of Hormuz when it was hit by an unknown projectile, and that the ship had a fire in its engine room, reports The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has said his country Iran had “no choice” but to respond to the US and Israel’s joint operation. So far at least 1,097 civilians have been killed in Iran since the US-Israeli attacks began on Saturday, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency says. On Tuesday, an Iranian drone hit the US consulate in Dubai, while an Iranian missile hit a US base in Qatar.

Images authenticated by BBC Verify show the US consulate building in Dubai in flames after being hit by a drone on Tuesday evening. And in another development, Qatar has been targeted by two Iranian ballistic missiles, says its defence ministry. One of these missiles was intercepted by Qatar’s air defence systems, and the other struck the US air base at Al Udaid – the biggest American base in the region. There have been no casualties, says Qatar. And yesterday the White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said US operations in Iran are aimed at “permanently extinguishing their nuclear ambitions”.