Live Updates: Oil and Gas Prices Jump as Iran War’s Economic Cost Climbs

 

Live Updates: Oil and Gas Prices Jump as Iran War’s Economic Cost Climbs

 

The price of oil surged to more than $90 a barrel and U.S. gasoline prices rose again. Israeli airstrikes pummeled Tehran and Lebanon, and President Trump’s demand for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” raised the prospect of an extended war.

 

Emmett Lindner David E. Sanger Adam Rasgon Euan Ward and Richard Pérez-Peña

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03/06/world/iran-war-trump-israel-lebanon

 

Here’s the latest.

Oil and gasoline prices jumped again on Friday, a sign of how the world, including the United States, will feel the economic pain of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, as bombing in Iran and Lebanon continued unabated.

 

Futures of the domestic benchmark crude, which traded around $67 a week ago, topped $90 on Friday for the first time in more than two years, and are now more than 30 percent above their prewar level. The average price of unleaded gasoline in the United States reached $3.32 per gallon, up 11 percent since the war began. The concurrent increases, which showed no sign of easing, could be a serious shock to an already-slowing world economy.

 

Israeli officials on Friday said their forces had destroyed an underground bunker that had been used by Iran’s supreme leader before he died last week, part a fresh wave of heavy strikes on Tehran. And President Trump demanded “unconditional surrender” by Iran, the most uncompromising goal he has set so far for the war, and one that could portend a much longer conflict in the Middle East.

 

The Israeli military also pounded the southern outskirts of Beirut and issued more evacuation warnings in Lebanon as it intensified its campaign there against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. About 300,000 people in Lebanon have fled their homes since the bombing began, the Norwegian Refugee Council estimated.

 

“We civilians are paying for the price of war,” said Mohamed Hjoula, 35, who had taken refuge with about 40 family members on Beirut’s waterfront promenade after leaving their homes.

 

Mr. Trump’s post on Truth Social that there “will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” highlighted his shifting war aims. Days earlier, Mr. Trump had told The Atlantic, “They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them.”

 

The president made the post ruling out compromise after Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian president, said earlier that some countries had begun what he called “mediation efforts,” without elaborating on who was involved. Iran’s intelligence ministry has reached out to the C.I.A. through intermediaries to discuss terms for ending the war, according to officials briefed on the outreach.

 

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps launched a wave of drones and missiles at Israel, according to a statement from the force reported by IRNA, the country’s state news agency. Air-raid sirens went off in Tel Aviv, and the Israeli military said that it had detected missile launches from Iran, though there were no immediate reports of major damage.

 

Here’s what else we’re covering:

 

New attacks: The Israeli military said it had struck more than 400 targets in western Iran on Friday, including missile launchers and drone storage sites.

 

Bunker strike: Iranian state television reported attacks on a compound in Tehran where the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Israel published video showing a series of airstrikes in roughly the same area, saying that its military had destroyed an underground bunker in the compound. The New York Times reviewed satellite imagery showing fresh damage to buildings at the site.

 

Gulf nations: As Iran’s retaliatory strikes hit U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf, Qatar’s foreign ministry said Tehran had carried out an attack on buildings in neighboring Bahrain where members of the Qatari Navy were, but reported no injuries. Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry said that it had intercepted and destroyed three ballistic missiles launched toward a military complex south of the capital, Riyadh, while the United Arab Emirates said it had intercepted nine ballistic missiles and more than 100 drones on Friday.

 

Oil and the economy: Stocks fell sharply as trading opened in New York as the surge in oil and gas prices driven by the conflict set off fears of resurgent inflation. A senior official in Qatar warned in a Financial Times interview of lengthy disruptions to energy production, and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remained effectively closed because of attacks.

 

Evacuations: The State Department is battling accusations from diplomats and travelers who say the Trump administration endangered U.S. citizens by beginning a war without adequate plans for helping Americans leave the Middle East.

 

Death toll: Hundreds of people have been killed in Iran since the start of the U.S.-Israeli attacks, according to the Red Crescent Society, Iran’s main humanitarian relief organization, including at least 175, many of them children, who died in the bombing of a girls’ elementary school. More than 200 people in Lebanon have been killed, according to the Lebanese health ministry.