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Hezbollah and Iran launched a coordinated strike strategy Tuesday, a national security expert claimed, as reports emerged that deadly cluster munitions were hitting Israel in synchronized attacks.

The developments unfolded on day 11 of Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion, the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign targeting Iran, marking a potential escalation in the widening regional conflict.

“Hezbollah has fully joined the war, and it looks like they are now very well coordinated with Iran,” Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute, told Fox News Digital while speaking from his bomb shelter near Tel Aviv.

“Most of Hezbollah’s rockets and drones are launched simultaneously with the Iranian missiles,” he said.

IRAN’S SENIOR CLERICS ‘EXPOSED’ AFTER BUILDING STRIKE IN QOM, SUCCESSION CHOICE LOOMS

Tel Aviv

Explosions from projectile interceptions by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system over Tel Aviv. (JACK GUEZ / AFP via Getty Images)

Israel confirmed Tuesday that Iran had been firing cluster munitions — adding a complicated and deadly challenge to Israel’s stretched air defenses, The Associated Press reported.

The warheads burst open at high altitudes, scattering dozens of smaller bomblets across a wide area. The smaller bombs, which at night can resemble orange fireballs, are difficult to intercept and have proven lethal.

Fox News correspondent Nate Foy also said despite Israel’s strong air defense, half of the missiles are hard to defend against because half of the missiles are cluster munitions.

“The Iranian use of cluster missiles and the idea that they deliberately target civilians and civil facilities must be considered as a use of non-conventional weapons, and the American-Israeli response must be appropriate,” Michael urged.

Banned by more than 120 nations under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, the weapons are widely condemned for their broad-area, indiscriminate effects that often result in catastrophic civilian harm.

IRAN PROXIES WAGE WAR ON ISRAEL, THREATEN US INTERESTS AS IRAQ SLAMMED FOR NOT DISARMING THEM

Beirut

Smoke and dust rise after an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, following an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, Lebanon. (Mohamed Azakir/Reuters)

Michael spoke as Reuters reported Hezbollah was applying lessons from its last war with Israel as it prepares for a possible full-scale Israeli invasion and protracted conflict.

It said sources claimed the group was returning to its roots in guerrilla warfare in south Lebanon.

“Operating in small units, fighters from the Iran-backed group are avoiding the use of communication devices that could be at risk of Israeli tapping and are rationing the use of key anti-tank rockets as they engage Israeli troops,” said the sources, familiar with Hezbollah military activities.

Michael also said that the “north of the country, toward the Haifa area, is under heavy bombing.”

IRAN’S ‘STUNNING STRATEGIC MISCALCULATION’ COULD ACCELERATE GULF TIES TO ISRAEL, EX-CENTCOM DIRECTOR PREDICTS

Hezbollah terrorists

Hezbollah terrorists are taking part in cross-border raids, part of a large-scale military exercise, in Aaramta, bordering Israel, on May 21, 2023 ahead of the anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. (Fadel Itani/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“Israeli citizens have to spend most of the time in the shelter rooms as Hezbollah and Iran deliberately target civilians and civilian facilities,” he said.

“Tel Aviv is still under an emergency routine, with sirens continuing and many people spending a lot of time in the bomb shelter rooms,” he added before highlighting that “Israel is a small country and will not be able to continue containing such asymmetry and this type of attrition war.”

As of Tuesday night local time, the IDF said it had launched a wave of airstrikes against Hezbollah infrastructure in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

This came after the military reiterated its warning to evacuate the area, a Hezbollah stronghold known as the Dahiyeh.

HEGSETH BLASTS BRITS, SAYS IRAN’S CHAOTIC RETALIATION HAS DRIVEN ITS OWN ALLIES ‘INTO THE AMERICAN ORBIT’

In a post shared on X, the IDF said: “This is what we’re operating against.”

Reuters sources also claimed much of Hezbollah’s fighting on the ground had been focused so far near the town of Khiyam, near the intersection of Lebanon’s border with Israel and Syria.

This is one area where Hezbollah believes any Israeli land invasion could begin. Hezbollah’s elite Radwan fighters, who withdrew from the south following the 2024 ceasefire, had also returned to the area, it said.

TRUMP SAYS IRAN IS ‘RUNNING OUT OF LAUNCHERS’ AS REGIME IS ‘BEING DECIMATED’

A man carrying shoes while standing in the ruins of a destroyed house.

A man carries shoes from his destroyed house that was hit by Israeli airstrikes hit several houses in Sir al-Gharbiyeh village south Lebanon, Sunday, March, 8, 2026. (Mohammed Zaatari/AP Photo)

“Israel will no doubt take control over a wide territory in south Lebanon, from the international border to the Litani River, in order to establish a security buffer zone,” Michael said.

“This will prevent Hezbollah from attacking the Israeli villages and towns in the north of the country and will intensify the attacks against Hezbollah all over Lebanon,” Michael added.

“We hope that President Trump will not stop or use the formula he used with the Houthis, declaring victory and leaving the wounded lion incapable of revenge and/or reconstituting itself.”

Meanwhile, an Israeli military official, speaking anonymously under army briefing rules, said Tuesday that roughly half of the projectiles Iran was launching toward Israel were now cluster bombs, The Associated Press said.


US president, in phone interview, clarifies that he’ll make final call to end operation ‘at right time’; says he and PM ‘worked together’ against Islamic Republic: ‘We’ve destroyed a country that would have destroyed Israel’

Jacob Magid
US President Donald Trump, right, shakes hands with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, December 29, 2025. (Alex Brandon/AP)

US President Donald Trump, right, shakes hands with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, December 29, 2025. (Alex Brandon/AP)

US President Donald Trump told The Times of Israel on Sunday that a decision on when to end the war with Iran will be a “mutual” one that he’ll make together with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump also asserted in the brief telephone interview that the Islamic Republic would have destroyed Israel if he and Netanyahu had not been around. “Iran was going to destroy Israel and everything else around it… We’ve worked together. We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel.”

The US president was asked whether he alone would decide when the war with Iran ends or if Netanyahu would also have a say.

“I think it’s mutual… a little bit. We’ve been talking. I’ll make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account,” he responded, indicating that while Netanyahu will have input, the US president will have the final say.

Asked whether Israel could continue the war against Iran even after the US decides to halt its strikes, Trump declined to entertain the theoretical possibility before adding: “I don’t think it’s going to be necessary.”

Trump’s answers to The Times of Israel pointed to the significant degree of influence Netanyahu would appear to have over Trump’s decision-making in the war, which the US and Israel launched jointly on February 28 with a strike that killed Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

FILE: Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, attends the annual anti-Israeli Al-Quds, Jerusalem, Day rally in Tehran, Iran, May 31, 2019. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Trump held the phone interview shortly after Iran’s state media announced that the Islamic Republic’s Assembly of Experts had named Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, as the country’s next supreme leader.

Hours earlier, Trump told ABC News that the next leader of Iran won’t “last long” if he doesn’t have approval from the White House.

Trump declined to comment to ToI on Mojtaba’s election, sufficing by declaring: “We’ll see what happens.”

Give Netanyahu that pardon

The US president made headlines in Israel last week by calling President Isaac Herzog a “disgrace” for not heeding his call to pardon Netanyahu, who is standing trial for alleged bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

The next day, though, Trump’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, met with Herzog and hailed the latter’s leadership.

Asked if this was part of a “good cop-bad cop” strategy to sway Herzog, Trump avoided answering directly, but again chided the Israeli president.

US President Donald Trump (right) poses for a photo with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before he boards Air Force One at Ben Gurion International Airport, October 13, 2025, near Tel Aviv, as President Isaac Herzog (left) watches. (AP/Evan Vucci)

“Bibi Netanyahu should be given that pardon immediately. I think [Herzog is] doing a terrible thing by not giving it. We want Bibi to be focused on the war, not on a ridiculous pardon,” Trump told ToI, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname.

Herzog’s office said last week that it’s his prerogative to decide for himself whether to grant Netanyahu a pardon.

“President Herzog greatly respects and appreciates the tremendous contribution of Donald Trump to Israel’s security,” his office said, while stressing that Israel “is a sovereign state governed by the rule of law,” and as such, the pardon request is currently being dealt with by the Justice Ministry, which will offer its legal opinion, as per the law. No timeline has been announced for when that legal opinion will be issued.

Trump’s relationship with Netanyahu has improved dramatically since the 2024 US presidential election season, after the pair seemed to have had a falling out four years earlier when the Israeli premier congratulated Joe Biden for defeating Trump.

In a 2021 interview with Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, Trump blasted Netanyahu for calling Biden to congratulate him on the 2020 election win and went on to assert that the Israeli premier had never been interested in making peace with the Palestinians.

Asked during the Sunday phone interview whether his feelings about Netanyahu have evolved since his previous tenure, Trump responded: “We’ve done a great job together, like what we’ve done with Iran.”

A thick plume of smoke rises from an oil storage facility hit by an Israeli strike late Saturday in Tehran, Iran, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

‘Now we have Iran being destroyed’

The US president then made a new assertion regarding Iran’s intentions, in an apparent attempt to further justify the decision to launch the war against the Islamic Republic eight days earlier.

“Iran was going to destroy Israel and everything else around it… and now look what we have — we have them being destroyed,” Trump said of Iran.

The US president said he wasn’t surprised by how widespread support for the Iran war is in Israel, joking that the only thing more popular there is his own favorables.

He then reiterated his praise for Netanyahu and their partnership against the Islamic Republic: “Bibi’s done a great job. He’s been a wartime prime minister. We’ve worked together. We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel. Would have destroyed Israel if I wasn’t around.

“And [if] Bibi wasn’t around, Israel would not exist today,” he added.

In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, third right, leads a prayer over the coffins of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard who were killed in an Israeli operation, during their funeral ceremony at the Tehran University campus, in Tehran, Iran, August 1, 2024. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

Will Iran war lead to Hamas disarmament?

The Iran war appears to have pushed off discussions the US and fellow Gaza mediating countries Egypt, Qatar and Turkey are slated to hold with Palestinian terror group Hamas on its disarmament.

Given Iran’s longstanding financial support for Hamas, Trump was asked whether Tehran’s weakening in the ongoing war would make it easier to coax the Gaza-based terror group to give up its weapons.

“Many people will disarm because of [the war against Iran],” he responded. “Because right now, Iran is in a position that it’s never known before, and it’s only going to get worse for them.”

Before ending the call, Trump said again: “Tell this president to give him the pardon right now.”


NY Times says US intelligence believes there’s a ‘very narrow access point’ through which uranium at Isfahan could be moved; Trump doesn’t rule out ground op to secure stockpiles

This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows Iran's Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center outside of Isfahan, Iran, on Jan. 28, 2026. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)

This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows Iran’s Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center outside of Isfahan, Iran, on Jan. 28, 2026. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)

Iran may be able to access and move highly enriched uranium that had been previously thought to have been buried underground by US strikes on the Isfahan nuclear facility last June, according to a New York Times report.

The Saturday report said US intelligence agencies have determined that there is now a “very narrow access point” through which the uranium could potentially be retrieved.

The newspaper, writing based on anonymous interviews with US officials, said that American spy agencies are constantly surveilling the Isfahan facility and believe they will know of any Iranian attempts to relocate the enriched uranium. US officials have reportedly been debating options of how to secure the uranium for several weeks.

Since the US and Israeli bombings last June, Iran has refused to show what happened to its stockpile of highly enriched uranium or allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors access to sites where enrichment took place.

US President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would not rule out the idea of sending ground troops into Iran to secure the country’s stockpiles of enriched uranium.

US President Donald Trump speaks with the media aboard Air Force One during a flight from Dover, Delaware, to Miami, Florida, on March 7, 2026. (SAUL LOEB / AFP)

Some critics of the US-Israeli war on Iran launched last Saturday have said airstrikes alone are unlikely to achieve the stated goals of destroying Iran’s military capacity and preventing it from developing a nuclear bomb.

Asked about the use of ground troops in general, Trump did not rule it out, saying: “Could there be? Possibly, for a very good reason — it’d have to be a very good reason.”

“And I would say if we ever did that, they would be so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight at the ground level,” he said.

A senior US official told The Times of Israel last week that Washington’s objectives in talks with Tehran included Iran handing over all of its highly enriched uranium and ensuring that the three nuclear facilities hit by the US last year — Natanz, Fordo and Isfahan — would be decommissioned forever.

US envoy Steve Witkoff, who was a key negotiator during the recent round of talks, said last week that Iran’s top negotiators boasted of having enough highly enriched uranium to build 11 nuclear bombs.

In this handout photo released by the Omani Ministry of Foreign Affairs on February 26, 2026, US special envoy Steve Witkoff (center) and Jared Kushner hold a meeting with Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi (right) in Geneva. (Omani Foreign Ministry / AFP)

A report in the Axios news site on Saturday said that the US and Israel have discussed sending special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium at a later stage of the war, citing four sources with knowledge of the discussions.

Following strikes in Isfahan last week, the IAEA said Wednesday that while damage was visible at two buildings near the city’s nuclear site, there was no damage to facilities containing nuclear material and no risk of radiological release at that time.

An IAEA report issued in late February, a day before the US and Israel launched renewed strikes on Iran, provided new details about activity at Isfahan, where diplomats have said much of the Islamic Republic’s most highly enriched uranium has been stored in a tunnel complex.

For the first time, the report confirmed that material enriched to up to 20% and 60% had been kept there.

In satellite imagery, the IAEA had observed “regular vehicular activity around the entrance to the tunnel complex at Isfahan in which (uranium) enriched up to 20% and 60% U-235… was stored,” it said.

February report from the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security based on satellite images showed that all the tunnel entrances to the Isfahan nuclear site had been buried under soil, which “would help dampen any potential airstrike and also make ground access in a special forces raid to seize or destroy any highly enriched uranium that may be housed inside difficult.”