Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has confirmed the five Iranian women footballers who fled their handlers in Australia are welcome to remain in Australia.

Speaking this morning from Queensland, he said he had approved their application for humanitarian visas overnight.

"During the course of yesterday, it was made clear there were five women who wanted to stay in Australia.

"They were moved to a safe location by the Australian Federal Police and last night I met with them at that location. I signed off last night for their applications to ... be here."

He says the offer to remain in Australia is open to other team members.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke will soon be speaking from Queensland about the five Iranian women footballers who are under police protection in Australia.

The women fear persecution if they return home after being labelled traitors for not singing the national anthem at the Asian Cup in Queensland.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said his country will deploy eight frigates, two amphibious helicopter carriers and the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea as a defensive measure.

"Our objective is to maintain a strictly defensive posture, standing alongside all countries attacked by Iran in its retaliation, to ensure our credibility, and to contribute to regional de-escalation," Macron said in Cyprus.

Speaking later to troops aboard the Charles de Gaulle, the president said France would also work to preserve freedom of navigation and potentially restore movement in the Strait of Hormuz.

Macron said France would not be participating in the Iran war.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned Iran against any further "provocative steps" after an Iranian ballistic missile entered Turkish airspace.

He urged Iran to refrain from any actions that "cast a shadow over our thousand-year neighborly and brotherly ties," saying it was continuing to take "extremely wrong and provocative steps" despite "sincere warnings" from Turkey.

His remarks, reported by state news agency Anadolu, came after a ballistic missile fired from Iran entered Turkish airspace before being neutralised by NATO air and missile defence assets in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Turkey's defence ministry said on X that debris from the missile fell on vacant land in Gaziantep in south-central Turkey, and that there were no casualties or injuries.

The US military has overnight identified the seventh soldier killed in the Iran war as 26-year-old Army Sergeant Benjamin Pennington.

Pennington, from Kentucky, died on Sunday after he was injured a week prior at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia.

The military announced Pennington's death on Sunday. He was assigned to the 1st Space Brigade, a unit within the US Army Space and Missile Defence Command.

He is being posthumously promoted to staff sergeant, the Army said.

As of Sunday, there were nine other US service members seriously wounded, a US official said — a specific category of injury meaning they are at risk of dying.

British fighter jets took out an unmanned aerial vehicle in defense of Jordan and intercepted another drone heading toward Bahrain overnight, the British Ministry of Defence said Monday.

The UK has also started conducting defensive flights in support of the United Arab Emirates, the ministry added.

The moves come after the UK announced it would deploy additional military resources to the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean to help defend its allies and bases.

The ministry said additional Wildcat helicopters have arrived in Cyprus after a British airbase on the Mediterranean island was hit by a drone attack last week.

Five players from Iran's women's football team have escaped from their handlers at a Gold Coast hotel, as US President Donald Trump joined the voices urging Australia to grant the whole team asylum.

The women, who are now under police protection, fear persecution if they return home after being labelled traitors for not singing the national anthem at the Asian Cup in Queensland.

Whilst only five of the team's players had been able to escape, it was hoped more would join them, Iranian Society of Queensland vice president Hadi Karimi told 9news.com.au.

"It was amazing, mate," Karimi said after it emerged that the five women were free.

"I cried, this is amazing, amazing news."

Karimi could not say how the five women had escaped from their hotel last night but it was hoped more of the players would be able to join them in the coming hours.

Oil prices have surged and stock markets slid overnight after hard-line Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei was chosen to succeed his late father as Iran's supreme leader. His appointment, and new strikes on regional oil infrastructure, signalled that Iran was digging in 10 days into the war launched by the United States and Israel.

The war has choked off major supplies of oil and gas to world markets, led foreigners to flee from business hubs and prompted millions to seek shelter as bombs hit sites like military bases, government buildings, oil and water installations, hotels and at least one school.

Khamenei, a secretive 56-year-old cleric, is only the third supreme leader in the history of the Islamic Republic. He has close ties to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which has been firing missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf Arab states since his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had ruled since 1989, was killed during the war's opening salvo.

The appointment suggests Tehran is not close to giving up on what it considers a fight for the Islamic theocracy's survival.