Following a few days of respite, fears of a wider war have grown, with renewed fighting threatening to engulf even more countries.
Jordan on Thursday said it intercepted Iranian missiles for the second consecutive day, while Kuwait said a strike in the northern part of the country killed one person.
Also this week, drones caused fires on ships at an Egyptian port, and Saudi Arabia said it came under fire from Iran-backed militias in Iraq.
The recent pause in fighting, which began over the weekend and spurred hopes among mediators of diplomatic progress, ended with increasing missile and drone attacks across many countries in the Middle East.
An Iranian strike hit a Chinese firm's building in Kuwait on Thursday, severely damaging the structure and killing a worker, Kuwait's military said, hours after Jordan's air defences shot down five missiles launched from Iran.
No injuries were reported from Jordan's interception, the country's state-run Petra news agency said, quoting the spokesman for the country's armed forces. Both Jordan and Kuwait host American troops.
The attacks came after the US military said it completed "a heavy wave of strikes against Iran" in response to an earlier Iranian missile attack on a US base in Jordan.
US Central Command said US forces struck dozens of targets belonging to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, including military command centres, missile and drone facilities, and coastal surveillance and defence sites.
Iran's official IRNA news agency said three people were killed and two were wounded in a strike on the island of Qeshm, which lies off the Iranian mainland in the Strait of Hormuz — a crucial waterway for the world's energy supplies that has been at the centre of the conflict.
The latest barrage came after the US partnered with Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to strike Iran-backed militias in Iraq, killing at least 20 fighters and six Iranian advisers.
Also on Wednesday, British maritime security firm Ambrey said drone strikes ignited fires on two natural gas vessels at the Egyptian port of Damietta. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the strikes on a US-owned floating storage facility and a Greek-owned tanker. No injuries were reported.
The office of the Egyptian prime minister said initial investigations showed the fires had been caused by a drone. In a cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly said investigators were able to recover traces of the drone and will try to determine where it came from.
The already limited traffic through the strait has plunged to wartime lows during the recent exchange of strikes, from 82 ships during the week of July 13-19 to just 39 from July 20-26, Lloyd's List Intelligence, a shipping data and analysis firm, said in an webinar.
Saudi Arabia has accused Iraqi militias of firing drones against its oil facilities over the past days. An umbrella group of Iraqi militias initially denied the allegations, while the Houthi rebels said they had attacked Saudi energy facilities as part of a separate but related conflict.
The Houthis have also declared a blockade of Saudi shipping and threatened to choke off another crucial Middle East trade route, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait from the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden. That route became even more important during the war, as Saudi Arabia used it to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman met on Wednesday with Trump and US Vice President JD Vance, according to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorised to comment publicly about the private meetings.
They said the Saudi decision to join the US attacks against the Iraqi militias was meant to send a message to Iran that the kingdom would not tolerate Iran or its proxies targeting the Saudi oil industry and other critical infrastructure.
At the same time, the defence minister underscored to Trump and Vance that the Saudis want to see a de-escalation in the war and for Washington and Tehran to return to negotiations.
with Reuters
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