Israel ordena evacuaciones en Beirut mientras intensifica ataques en sexto día de guerra con Irán

By Thursday morning, the war that had begun four days earlier had spread across three countries and the sea between them. Israeli warplanes were dropping ordnance on Beirut. American submarines were sinking Iranian ships in the Indian Ocean. Iranian missiles were flying toward Kuwait. And in the capitals of Europe, diplomats were scrambling to figure out which side they were actually on.

The immediate trigger was clear enough: on Saturday, the United States and Israel had launched what they called Operation Epic Fury—a coordinated assault aimed at dismantling Iran's military capacity and, increasingly, at removing the Iranian government itself. The operation had killed Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a strike on his compound. By Thursday, the campaign had entered its sixth day, and the scale of the violence was accelerating rather than subsiding.

In Beirut, Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued an urgent warning to residents of the southern suburbs. Four neighborhoods near Rafik Hariri International Airport were being targeted, he said. Residents should evacuate immediately, moving north and east, staying at least 300 meters from any building. It was the first time Israel had ordered the evacuation of entire districts in this Hezbollah-controlled zone. The bombardment had been relentless since Monday, when the Iranian-backed militia opened fire across the border. Hospitals in Lebanon were receiving casualties continuously, though officials warned that casualty figures were still changing as new victims arrived.

In Tehran, the twelfth wave of Israeli strikes had hit forty targets. Among them were the headquarters of a special Iranian Army unit in Alborz province, north of the capital, and a facility belonging to the Basij paramilitary force. The Iranian government, meanwhile, was trying to manage a succession crisis. With Khamenei dead, the Assembly of Experts—a body of eighty-eight clerics responsible for choosing the next supreme leader—was supposed to convene. But Israeli warplanes had struck the building in Qom where they were meant to meet. The regime was insisting the process would move quickly, but the constant bombardment made any orderly transition difficult. The name of Mojtaba Khamenei, the dead leader's son, had begun circulating as a possible successor.

Iran was hitting back. On Thursday morning, the Iranian Navy announced it had attacked an American military base in Kuwait with drones. Kuwait's foreign minister condemned the strike as a flagrant violation of his country's sovereignty and international law. Earlier, in what the Pentagon called the first sinking of an enemy ship by torpedo since World War II, an American submarine had sent to the bottom the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka. The ship was carrying roughly 130 sailors. More than eighty bodies had been recovered. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, called it an atrocity and warned that the United States would deeply regret the precedent it had set. "Take note of my words," he said on social media. "The United States will bitterly regret the precedent it has established."

The war was pulling in countries that had tried to stay out. Italy announced it would send naval vessels to Cyprus and air-defense systems to Gulf states that requested them. France confirmed it would allow American aircraft to operate from French bases in the Middle East. Spain, by contrast, was caught in a bind. The government had refused to allow American warplanes to use the bases at Rota and Morón for strikes on Iran. President Donald Trump had responded with threats of commercial retaliation—cutting off all trade with Spain. But by Thursday, the White House was claiming Spain had reversed course and agreed to cooperate with the American military. Spain's foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, denied this flatly. He reaffirmed Spain's sovereign position and said the country would not participate in offensive operations. Yet Spain was sending the frigate Cristóbal Colón to Cyprus, alongside the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and Greek naval vessels, for what officials called defensive and escort missions.

Meanwhile, roughly thirty thousand Spanish citizens were trapped in the Persian Gulf region. One woman living in the United Arab Emirates called the Spanish embassy to ask if it was true that a military transport plane had been sent to evacuate people through Oman. The embassy's response was essentially: if the media says so, maybe it's true. Later, officials told her they had no idea what the embassy in Oman was doing. By Thursday morning, one Airbus A330 had landed at the base in Torrejón, near Madrid, carrying 171 evacuees. The foreign minister promised more flights would follow. He acknowledged the operations were complex. What he did not say was that the government's own diplomatic missions seemed to have no clear information about what was happening.

In Washington, the Senate had voted to reject a resolution that would have halted the military campaign. Forty-seven senators voted to stop it; fifty-three voted to continue. The Republican leadership had held. NATO's secretary general, Mark Rutte, said there was "massive" support among allied nations for what Trump was doing, though several European leaders—including Spain's prime minister—had publicly opposed the war. China was calling for a ceasefire and dialogue. The stock markets were nervous. Oil and gas prices were climbing. The Spanish stock exchange opened nearly flat, up just 0.05 percent, as investors waited to see what would happen next.