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US sending dozens of refueling aircraft to Israel ahead of potential attack on Iran Iran said to tell Hezbollah, allies to prepare for wider conflict 8 reported killed in overnight US strikes on Iran IRGC says it targeted US aircraft, radar systems in Jordan, Qatar; Kuwait says water plant hit, troops hurt in drone attacks.

DUBAI/TEHRAN/WASHINGTON - The US has reportedly notified Israel that it is sending dozens of additional refueling aircraft to Israel, as US President Donald Trump weighs launching another massive bombing offensive against Iran.

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US and Israeli officials tell the Axios news site that Trump could escalate the strikes against Iran in the coming days, following six consecutive nights of American bombing campaigns of targets across Iran, after the breakdown of last month's MOU.

There are currently 33 US aerial refueling tankers parked at Ben Gurion Airport, which has crowded out other planes used for commercial flights. Transportation Minister Miri Regev announced earlier this week that the number would drop to 20, as she tries to prevent summer flight disruptions - although a report suggested that Regev may seek in October to use them as an excuse to try and halt charter flights of Israeli returning to vote in the upcoming election.

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While Regev said the US military aircraft would be directed to land at Israeli military bases instead, CENTCOM reportedly prefers the access and infrastructure of Ben Gurion Airport.

The Axios news site first says the US "notified" Israel of the planned arrival of additional refuelers, suggesting Jerusalem doesn't have a say in the matter, but the report later says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have a final say on the issue.

An unsourced report from the Ynet news site says the additional planes in question heading for Israel are not expected to land at Ben Gurion Airport, and that five to eight planes are slated to arrive per day. The United States and Iran escalated their attacks across the Middle East on Friday, trading strikes aimed at infrastructure and military targets as their battle over the Strait of Hormuz intensified.

In response, Iran launched missiles into U.S.-allied nations in the Mideast, including Qatar, a mediator in the war, and Kuwait, where one of the desert nation's water desalination plants was damaged.

The region has endured days of back-and-forth attacks in a conflict increasingly focused on control of the strait, and the collapse of an interim ceasefire leaves no clear end in sight for the war that began more than four months ago.

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Iranian officials say recent U.S. strikes have killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds, with new casualties reported Friday, when the U.S. military also acknowledged more injured service members.

Iran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic after the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28. That sent the price of oil soaring and gave Iran significant leverage in negotiations. The price of oil rose Friday above $86 a barrel, close to its highest level in a month, as crossings through the strait fell to a three-week low, according to an international shipping tracker.

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In an address to the American public on Thursday evening, Trump insisted the war was going well. "We are likewise winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labor very, very shortly," he said.

The U.S. airstrikes hit bridges overnight into Friday in Iran's southern Hormozgan province, Iranian state television reported. The attacks hit Bandar Khamir, a city on Iran's coast on the Strait of Hormuz.

The highway and railway bridge strikes appeared aimed at cutting off Bandar Abbas, Iran's main port, from roads leading into the Islamic Republic's central region onward to Tehran, the capital.

Iran acknowledged "attacks on power infrastructure" during the U.S. airstrike campaign for the first time Friday when its Energy Ministry issued a call for people to use less power in southern provinces "experiencing extreme heat." The ministry did not specify what was hit.

Iranian authorities said at least 46 people have been killed and more than 400 wounded in recent U.S. strikes, including eight killed in a strike on a bridge Friday.

U.S. officials acknowledged 13 additional U.S. service members - 10 Army soldiers and three Navy sailors - had been injured since Monday, but offered no further details. Since the war began, 14 U.S. service members have been killed and 427 wounded.

Central Command said it hit dozens of military and military infrastructure targets in its latest airstrikes, which concluded at dawn Friday, after the sixth night in a row of American attacks.

The strikes collapsed a tower at Iran's Chabahar port on the Gulf of Oman, a key trade route for landlocked, neighboring Afghanistan, the state-run IRNA news agency reported and the U.S. military later confirmed.

Chabahar port, which Iran had been running with support from India, has been a repeated target of American airstrikes.

Iran said the tower oversees commercial traffic into the port. But Central Command said it was part of a maritime surveillance network used by Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard to "track and target" commercial vessels in the strait.

On Friday, Qatar twice warned the public to take shelter as a barrage of Iranian missiles targeted the nation. People heard explosions overhead as air defenses fired to intercept the missiles. Qatar's Interior Ministry said falling debris wounded a child.

Qatar, along with Pakistan, is a key mediator in trying to reach an end to the Iran war.

Iran also targeted Bahrain and Kuwait early Friday. In Kuwait, authorities said Iran attacked a power and water desalination plant, causing widespread damage to the station. About 90% of the country's drinking water comes from desalination.

Kuwait said it extinguished the blaze and was working to assess the damage and get the station working again.

Jordan's military said it intercepted three incoming missiles Friday morning launched by Iran.

Explosions also could be heard Friday morning in Irbil and Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region as air defenses targeted incoming fire. The attack apparently targeted the Iranian Kurdish dissident group Komala, killing at least nine people and wounding others, said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Iran did not immediately claim the attack but has targeted Komala in the past.

Iran's Tasnim news agency cites an informed source as saying that a Thai-flagged ship was targeted in the Strait of Hormuz after it allegedly ignored warnings and attempted to pass without permission from Iran's Revolutionary Guards navy.

The source says the vessel was confronted by the IRGC navy and targeted.