LIVE UPDATES: Middle East Tensions Mount After Strikes on Iran – Day 8

"If Mr. Trump seeks escalation, it is precisely what our Powerful Armed Forces have long been prepared for, and what he will get. Responsibility for any intensification of Iran's exercise of self-defense will lie squarely on the US Administration," Araghchi said in a statement on X.

"Members of the Assembly of Experts are eagerly awaiting the conditions to be met for holding the meeting, discussing, and electing a new supreme leader and successor of the martyr-Imam... We hope that, with God's help, this will happen in the next 24 hours," Mozaffari was quoted as saying by Fars news agency.

"The defense policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran are consistent, based on the guidelines of our martyred Imam. As long as the presence of U.S. bases in the region continue, the countries will not enjoy peace," he said on X.

"Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) announces that in light of the ongoing aggression by the Islamic Republic of Iran against the State of Kuwait, including Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, KPC has implemented a precautionary reduction in crude oil production and refining throughput as part of its risk management and business continuity strategy," the statement read.

"We've knocked out 42 Navy ships, some of them very large, in three days," Trump stated.

"This afternoon, a drone strike was carried out on the Louise P tanker sailing under the Marshall Islands flag in the Persian Gulf," the IRGC said in a statement quoted by Iran's state-run broadcaster.

"As a result of an airstrike by enemy Israeli aircraft on the settlement of Chmistar in the Baalbek district, six people were killed, including four children and one woman," the statement read.

"Continuing powerful attacks on US bases in the region over the past 24 hours, a large number of soldiers and commanders of the US aggressor army have been killed or wounded, with significant damage inflicted on their infrastructure and interests... Twenty-one people have been killed and many wounded in the US Navy's Fifth Fleet in the region. Approximately 200 people were killed or wounded at the US Al-Dhafra base [in the UAE]," the statement, carried by Iranian state broadcaster, said.

"Iran extremely welcomes statements about the presence of US forces to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. By the way, we are waiting for them," Ali Mohammad Naini was quoted as saying by the Iranian state broadcaster.

"In a combined operation that used missiles and UAVs to target military centers and military support centers of the US-Zionist enemy, the 25th stage of Operation True Promise 4 was carried out," the IRGC statement, quoted by Iranian state radio and television, read.

"Israeli planes bombed a clinic in Maamoura, leaving only a burnt-out shell of the building," one of the eyewitnesses said.