Seventh Night of US Strikes on Iran as Jets Mass in Israel
CENTCOM has confirmed a seventh straight night of US bombing of Iran, while Washington moves dozens of refueling aircraft into Israel and Tehran hits bases across the Gulf.
- CENTCOM has confirmed a seventh consecutive night of US bombing of Iranian infrastructure.
- The US is moving dozens of refueling aircraft into Israel, and 33 have already landed at Ben Gurion airport.
- Since talks opened in Switzerland on June 22, Iran reports 38 dead and more than 400 wounded.
- Tehran has retaliated against targets in Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and bases in Syria.
For Serbia, which draws its energy and foreign-policy calculations far from the Persian Gulf, this war is no abstraction: every fresh night of strikes lifts the price of oil on world markets and threatens to spill over onto pumps in Belgrade, while several thousand Serbian workers and engineers in the Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia now live in a region crossed by Iranian projectiles. The seventh straight night of US bombing of Iran, confirmed by the US Central Command, is therefore followed in Belgrade not as news from the other side of the world, but as a threat measured in the cost of every liter of diesel.
According to CENTCOM, Washington again struck Iranian infrastructure over the past 24 hours, including bridges, a rail hub and facilities in the south of the country. At the same time, the US military is moving dozens of additional tanker aircraft into Israel, the machines for aerial refueling without which a prolonged air campaign cannot be waged. Thirty-three of them have already landed at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv, a sign that the operation is not winding down but widening.
Why is the buildup of tankers the most important signal?
In military logic, refueling aircraft carry a clearer message than any statement: they mean fighters and bombers are meant to stay airborne longer and fly farther. Their transfer to Israel, rather than solely to US bases in the Gulf, is read as preparation for a scenario in which the Israeli air force would shoulder a larger share of the operation, or even open a phase of its own. Since the start of talks in Switzerland on June 22, Iran says 38 people have been killed and more than 400 wounded in the US strikes.
Tehran has not stayed passive. In its latest wave of retaliation, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard struck targets across several Gulf states at once: Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Jordan, as well as a military base in Saudi Arabia and a US base in Syria. Some projectiles were intercepted over Qatar and Bahrain, and in Qatar a child was wounded by falling shrapnel. It is a pattern that turns the region into a single battlefield and directly touches the countries where Serbian nationals live and work.
The fracture between Washington and Tel Aviv
What makes this escalation most politically sensitive is the growing strain between the two allied capitals. US Vice President JD Vance has accused parts of the Israeli government of wanting to continue the military campaign and of trying to pull Washington away from the diplomatic track. The remark exposes a current within the administration that would halt the war, set against an Israeli partner not ready for that, so the question of who is actually running the campaign becomes the central dispute.
For European chancelleries, including that of the EU High Representative, this is a scenario that closes the diplomatic channel just as it had opened in Switzerland. For Serbia, which carefully balances its ties with Washington, its energy dependence and its own neutrality, every day of prolonged war narrows the room to maneuver. If an Israeli entry into a full operation is confirmed, how long can Belgrade stay outside a conflict that is already raising the price of fuel and endangering its citizens in the Gulf?
