Good morning and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• Top Iranian security official Ali Larijani and General Gholam Reza Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s all-volunteer Basij force, have been killed, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz reported. Iranian media later confirmed both deaths.
• Speaking in the Oval Office, US President Donald Trump said the US would be leaving Iran in the “very near future”.
• Trump lashed out at NATO and Indo-Pacific allies, stating he never needed their help in Iran. “We do not need the help of anyone,” he said on social media.
• Treasurer Jim Chalmers says he is not aware of any request from Trump for military support to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, and Australia is not considering sending support to the region for that purpose.
• The head of the US National Counterterrorism Centre, Joe Kent, resigned over the war, saying Iran had posed “no imminent threat to our nation”.
• The Israeli military said its strikes in Lebanon were continuing as it claims to be targeting Hezbollah infrastructure.
• Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei has rejected de-escalation proposals conveyed to Tehran by intermediaries, demanding Israel and the US first be “brought to their knees”, a senior Iranian official said.

• In a joint statement on the Middle East conflict, Australian and New Zealand foreign and defence ministers have “urged the protection of civilian life, resumption of dialogue and diplomacy and adherence to international law”.

Earlier this morning we brought you word that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would be convening the national cabinet tomorrow, as announced during his address to the Australian Automotive Dealer Association in Sydney.

In the same speech, Albanese flagged changes to come before the budget is delivered on May 13 to address “global uncertainty”.

“We want to make sure that we do everything we can to shield the Australian economy, households and businesses from the worst of global uncertainty. That will be a focus of the budget – but we won’t be waiting until the budget,” Albanese said.

“We will have more to say about the actions we are taking in the days ahead. This new global challenge demonstrates that we must keep building Australia’s self-reliance and our economic resilience.”

At least two strikes hit central Beirut early today, Lebanese media is reporting.

AP journalists heard loud booms, low-flying jets, and ambulance sirens over the capital.

Videos from one impact site showed two apartments stacked above one another hollowed out in a multistorey building.

Shortly after, two strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, sending flames and smoke into the sky. No injuries were immediately reported from either strike.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the country had effectively won its war with Iran, but gave no indication of when the conflict might end, saying only that the campaign would continue until its objectives were achieved.

Speaking at a news conference, Saar said Israel was seeking to remove “existential threats”, but he did not say how the government would determine when those goals had been met.

“One must be patient,” he said, speaking on the 18th day of a war that has killed more than 2000 people, most of them in Iran and Lebanon, but also in Israel, Iraq and across the Gulf.

Saar and other Israeli officials have said the aim is to significantly weaken Iran’s ability to carry out attacks against Israel over the long term, while creating conditions inside Iran that could ultimately enable Iranians to overthrow their rulers.

The Pentagon is planning to mass produce one-way LUCAS attack drones, which have been deployed by US forces in the current war in the Middle East after they were created by reverse-engineering Iran’s cheap and deadly Shahed system.

The LUCAS drone — or Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System — is a US version of Iran’s kamikaze drone, and is manufactured by the US company SpektreWorks. The Defence Department sent a unit operating the drones to the Middle East ahead of the start of Operation Epic Fury against Iran.

Pentagon leaders have described the system as indispensable in the conflict.

“The idea is to mass produce them in this country and have surge capacity,” Emil Michael, the Defence Department’s under secretary of defence for research and engineering, said at a defence industry conference in Washington overnight.

Anthony Albanese has announced a meeting of national cabinet in Tasmania tomorrow, in which fuel supply issues resulting from the Iran war are expected to be discussed.

The prime minister said the meeting would ensure coordination between federal and state governments to the benefit of business, farmers and communities across the country, particularly in the regions.

National cabinet meetings involve all state premiers and territory leaders, alongside the prime minister and relevant federal ministers. The announcement was made during an address to the Australian Automotive Dealer Association in Sydney.

National cabinet last met on January 30 in Sydney, where an agreement was struck on funding state and territory hospitals and the NDIS.

Veteran Iranian politician Ali Larijani was one of the most powerful figures in the Islamic Republic, an architect of its security policy, and a close adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei until the supreme leader’s death in an airstrike last month.

Larijani has been killed at the age of 67, Iranian media has confirmed. Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz earlier said he had been killed in an Israeli strike.

The scion of a leading clerical family with brothers who rose to high positions after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Larijani was seen as canny and pragmatic but always fiercely determined to uphold Iran’s theocratic system of government.

A Revolutionary Guards commander during the Iran-Iraq war, he became head of Iran’s national broadcaster before stints running the Supreme National Security Council before and after his membership of parliament, where he was speaker for 12 years.

Iran’s new supreme leader has rejected de-escalation proposals conveyed to Tehran by intermediaries, demanding Israel and the United States first be “brought to their knees”, a senior Iranian official has said.

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei held his first foreign policy session since being named supreme leader, and had taken a stance for revenge against the US and Israel that was “very tough and serious”, the official said, without clarifying whether the leader attended in person or remotely.

The senior official, who asked not to be identified, said two intermediary countries had conveyed proposals to Iran’s Foreign Ministry for “reducing tensions or ceasefire with the United States”. The official did not give further details of the proposals or the intermediaries.

The supreme leader had responded that it was not “the right time for peace until the United States and Israel are brought to their knees, accept defeat, and pay compensation.”

Iranian state media has confirmed Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Larijani has been killed.

The confirmation came after Israel earlier announced its airstrikes had killed Larijani along with the head of Basij, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ volunteer militia, General Gholam Reza Soleimani.

Larijani was secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and was considered one of the most powerful figures in the country since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in an airstrike on February 28.

“Soleimani was under US and EU sanctions for his role in repressing Iranians. Larijani was also under US sanctions with a $US10 million prize on his head. We did it for free,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said.

with AP

A projectile hit the area near Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear power plant on Tuesday, Iran’s Tansim news agency cited the country’s Atomic Energy Organisation as saying, adding no damage had been reported.

The projectile hit the vicinity of the nuclear power ‌plant in the port city of Bushehr at around 7pm local time, the news agency added.

Russian nuclear energy corporation Rosatom condemned the strike and called for de-escalation.

Reuters

The Trump administration is signalling Cuba is the next country after Iran, where the US can play out its desires.

“Cuba right now is in very bad shape,” US President Donald Trump said, a day after the nation’s third countrywide blackout in four months as it suffers under US sanctions.

“And we’ll be doing something with Cuba very soon,” he added.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the country had a “non-functional” economy and “have to get new people in charge”.