Iranian drones heavily damaged a passenger terminal at Kuwait International Airport on Wednesday, killing one person and wounding 63, and authorities briefly shut the airport, officials said.
The U.S. said its ceasefire with Iran was still holding despite continued violence, with both sides trading fire overnight, and the exchanges were among the most intense since the ceasefire was announced nearly two months ago.
Brig. Gen. Saud Abdulaziz Al-Otaibi, a spokesperson for Kuwait's Defense Ministry, said "a number of hostile drones" targeted a passenger building at the airport, which had reopened only Monday after a months-long closure tied to the war that began on Feb. 28, officials said.
India's embassy said the person killed was an Indian national, and authorities said the 63 wounded included passengers and workers, with some suffering serious injuries.
Kuwait's Defense Ministry said it destroyed over a dozen missiles and a similar number of drones fired from Iran, while the U.S. military said two Iranian missiles fell apart en route to Kuwait and that it "downed multiple drones" targeting American forces; Bahrain's Defense Ministry said it intercepted and destroyed three missiles and a number of drones.
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard acknowledged targeting the headquarters of the 5th Fleet and U.S. military facilities in another country, but the Guard did not name Kuwait, the statements said.
Iranian officials said the strikes on the region were carried out in retaliation for recent U.S. strikes on Iranian military targets.
Kuwait's Foreign Ministry said the country would "neither accept nor tolerate" the attacks and announced it was expelling two Iranian diplomats.
The U.S. military said it launched strikes on an Iranian military ground control station on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran's Foreign Ministry condemned the strikes, saying a telecommunications tower was struck and calling the actions "acts of aggression" that violated the ceasefire.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, identified as Iran's chief negotiator, said Tehran would meet any attack with a strong response, with local media quoting him: "Today, the Iranian nation, in its battle with America and the Zionist regime, showed that the era of free-of-charge Iran threats is over and that any aggression will be met with a decisive, regrettable, and proportionate response."
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the fate of Iran's highly enriched uranium stockpiles was at the center of talks and that, "I think now, in some of the papers that have been exchanged back and forth, it's clearly addressed, but we … still don't have final sign off from their system as of this morning." Rubio also said, "We're no longer conducting sustained strikes inside of Iran to degrade their military, because Epic Fury is over."
Central Command said it had redirected 125 commercial vessels as part of a blockade on Iranian ports and disabled another six "to ensure compliance," and the U.S. military said it had carried out its own "self-defense strikes" against Iran.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report Wednesday that a prolonged disruption of energy supplies from the Middle East would deal a severe blow to the global economy, saying, "Hardest hit would be Asian economies that depend on crude oil, fuel and natural gas from the Persian Gulf, and poorer countries where people spend more of their incomes on fuel and food."
Markets reacted to the flare-up: oil prices crept back toward $100 per barrel Wednesday, with Brent crude rising 1.6% to $97.51; the S&P 500 slipped 0.2%, the Dow fell 122 points and the Nasdaq was 0.3% lower as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time.
Diplomatic efforts showed strain as mediators seek a broader truce: Iranian state-linked news agencies reported negotiators had stopped communicating with ceasefire mediators as tensions flared in Lebanon, and a regional official said Iran wanted a separate ceasefire in Lebanon enforced before returning to talks.
President Donald Trump confirmed in a podcast interview that he had called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "f---ing crazy" during a phone call and said he was "a little bit perturbed" that Israel's fight with Hezbollah in Lebanon was holding back talks with Iran; Netanyahu said the leaders sometimes have "tactical disagreements" but "we always find a way to work out our differences."
Kuwait's civil aviation authorities and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said flights resumed at two terminals after teams completed damage assessments and implemented safety measures, with Kuwait Airways operating from a different terminal and Jazeera Airways resuming flights to and from Terminal 5 following the earlier suspension and damage to Terminal 1.