From Singapore: The image travelled around the world in seconds. A 9News camera rolling in Eilat, on the southern tip of Israel, captured a missile launch behind correspondent Mimi Becker as she readied herself to go to air. "We've just seen a missile launched here as we're standing here on the balcony," Becker told viewers on Sunday morning. "It was incredibly close and incredibly loud."
Becker, reporting for the Today show, noted that no warning system had sounded in the area before the launch. Her position near the Jordanian border, roughly a ten-minute stretch from Jordan, placed her at a vantage point from which the smoke trail was visible across the sky. It was a visceral, unscripted moment that illustrated how broadly the violence had spread since Saturday's opening strikes.
Operation Epic Fury: What happened and where things stand
The joint US-Israeli operation, codenamed "Roaring Lion" by Israel and "Operation Epic Fury" by the Pentagon, launched on Saturday 28 February after sunrise in Tehran. According to 9News and multiple international outlets, the first day of strikes killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, who had held power since 1989. Iranian state media confirmed his death; Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian described the killing as "an open declaration of war against Muslims."
US Central Command says over 1,000 targets have been struck. B-2 stealth bombers armed with 2,000-pound bombs hit Iran's ballistic missile facilities on Saturday night, according to NPR. CENTCOM also confirmed it struck an Iranian naval corvette, which was left sinking at a pier on the Gulf of Oman. President Trump told CNBC that the operation was "ahead of schedule," adding that nine Iranian naval ships had been destroyed, though CENTCOM declined to confirm that specific claim.
The human cost is mounting on both sides. Three US service members were killed and at least five seriously wounded in Iranian retaliatory strikes on a base in Kuwait, confirmed by US Central Command as the first American casualties of the campaign. In Israel, nine people were killed in an Iranian missile attack on the town of Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem, according to reporting by Al Jazeera and Fox News. Iran's retaliatory strikes have also targeted US military installations in Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Jordan, as well as the Saudi capital Riyadh and Dubai.
Khamenei's death and the succession crisis
The killing of Khamenei, confirmed by Iranian state media, sets in motion a constitutional succession process under which an interim leadership council assumes power while the 88-member Assembly of Experts, comprising senior Islamic clerics, selects a new supreme leader. Iran has declared 40 days of national mourning. Senior official Ali Larijani, one of Khamenei's closest advisers and a former parliamentary speaker, has emerged as the most visible civilian figure still operating, according to Axios, and has vowed Iran will deliver an "unforgettable lesson."
The strikes also claimed numerous senior military commanders. The US Central Command said targets included Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command facilities, missile and drone launch sites, air defence capabilities and military airfields. The IDF confirmed 40 senior Iranian commanders had been killed since the operation began, including the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, Abdolrahim Mousavi.
Australia backs the action, with caveats
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese backed the operation in a joint statement with Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, telling reporters that Khamenei "will not be mourned." Albanese cited Iran's decades of destabilising conduct, including what he described as at least two Iran-directed attacks on Australian soil in 2024 targeting the Jewish community. He also convened a meeting of the National Security Committee on Sunday, as reported by SBS News.
The government updated travel advice for Israel and Lebanon to "Do Not Travel" and urged Australians in Iran to leave as soon as safely possible. Foreign Minister Wong, when asked whether the strikes were consistent with international law, said she would "leave it for the United States and Israel to speak of the legal basis for the attacks," a position that drew sharp criticism from Greens senator David Shoebridge, who called it "a comprehensive failure from our own government."
A divided international response
The global reaction has been deeply split. Canada, the UK, and Ukraine expressed support for US and Israeli objectives, with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney saying Iran "must never be allowed" to develop a nuclear weapon. By contrast, France, Spain, and China were critical. French President Emmanuel Macron warned of "grave consequences for international peace and security," while Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez flatly rejected what he called "unilateral military action." China called for an "immediate stop" to the strikes and insisted Iran's sovereignty "should be respected." United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said he "deeply regrets" that diplomacy had been "squandered" and warned of "a chain of events that nobody can control."
Those critical voices carry real weight, and the legal questions are serious. The strikes came just a day after Oman's Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi announced a diplomatic "breakthrough" in which Iran had reportedly agreed to never stockpile enriched uranium and to full verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Norway's foreign minister argued the attack was "not in line with international law," noting that preventive strikes require an immediately imminent threat. Whether that threshold was met will be debated long after the shooting stops.
The regional and strategic picture
Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Israel, Bahrain and Qatar have all closed their airspaces, with Iran's closure extended until at least 3 March. Multiple Gulf aviation hubs have suspended or diverted flights, disrupting east-west air routes through Dubai and Doha that are critical to Australian travellers and freight. Oil markets are on edge, with OPEC meeting to consider an emergency production increase to counter any supply disruptions from the Gulf.
For Australia, the strategic stakes are significant beyond the immediate human drama. The Albanese government has made a clear and public bet on a swift resolution, aligning itself firmly with Washington at a moment when China and Russia have sided with Tehran. The question that military analysts are already raising is whether air power alone can achieve the political transformation that Trump has openly called for, with NPR noting "there's no sign the US will send ground troops into Iran." A protracted campaign, or one that draws in Iran's regional proxies more deeply, would put pressure on Canberra to move beyond verbal solidarity. The woman standing on a balcony in Eilat as missiles flew overhead was, in a sense, a proxy for all of us watching a conflict whose endpoint remains genuinely uncertain.