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including the UNESCO-listed Golestan Palace -- sometimes likened to Versailles.

Iran’s foreign minister branded a deadly strike on an Iranian school on the first day of the Middle East war as a “calculated” US assault.

The February 28 strike on an elementary school in Minab, in which “more than 175 students and teachers were slaughtered in cold blood”, was a “calculated, phased assault”, Abbas Araghchi said.

‘HOSTAGE’

Markets have been upended by Iranian attacks on trade and energy targets in the Gulf, with Kuwait saying its main commercial port was damaged in a drone attack at dawn.

The Shuwaikh port was targeted “by enemy drones; preliminary reports revealed material damage but no human casualties”, the Kuwait port authority said in a statement on X.

A top Iranian official threatened to attack Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Yanbu, home to the Samref oil refinery, as well as the coastal Fujairah oil complex in the United Arab Emirates, should a ground invasion take place.

“Step onto Iranian soil, and $150 becomes the floor for oil,” Vice President Esmael Saghab Esfahani wrote on X. “Destruction of Fujairah and Yanbu are just our entry tickets.”

Iran’s message on Hormuz was just as defiant, with the Guards saying the strait was “closed” to vessels travelling to and from ports linked to its “enemies” and that they had turned back three ships seeking to cross.

Oil prices rose and stocks fell yesterday as initial optimism over Trump’s decision to again delay his deadline for strikes on Iran’s energy assets faded.

With America’s top diplomat Marco Rubio in France for G7 talks, counterparts pressed him for clarity on American plans for Iran.

Iran has reportedly replied to a 15-point US plan and is awaiting a response, having made its own demands, including war reparations and recognition of its sovereignty over Hormuz.

‘HEAVY PRICE’

The Tasnim news agency said Tehran also called for an end to US and Israeli attacks on its territory and on aligned regional groups -- a reference to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, among others.

But analysts at the Soufan Center warned the United States cannot “make any guarantees on behalf of Israel”.

And in spite of the push for diplomacy, America’s Israeli ally showed no sign of wavering, with Defence Minister Israel Katz vowing to “intensify and expand” strikes on Iran in response to missile attacks on its soil.

“They will pay a heavy price, an increasingly heavy one, for this war crime,” Katz said in a video message.

The escalation threat came despite opposition leader Yair Lapid warning its military was “stretched to the limit and beyond”, especially on the front with Lebanon -- drawn into the war after Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel.

Lebanese media reported an Israeli strike hit Beirut’s southern suburbs early yesterday, as AFP correspondents heard several explosions from the Hezbollah stronghold that Israel has repeatedly struck since war erupted this month.

More than 370,000 children have been forced from their homes in Lebanon in just three weeks, one of the fastest and largest population displacements in the country’s history, UN officials said yesterday.

The Saudi defence ministry said it had “intercepted and destroyed” four drones over the kingdom’s east.

Ukraine and Saudi Arabia have signed an air defence agreement during President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the kingdom facing Iranian drone attacks, two senior officials told AFP.