Following the latest round of strikes, Iran's Mehr news agency said four locations around the city of Ahvaz came under attack, just inland from the northern end of the Gulf, as did Bandar Abbas, Iran's principal port city on the Strait of Hormuz. In neither case were casualties reported, Mehr said. Iran's Tasnim news agency said explosions were heard in Konarak city, at the southern end of Iran.
U.S. projectiles also hit near Sirik and Qeshm in southern Iran, according to Iran's semi-official media.
Iranian state broadcaster IRIB, however, reported that the U.S. attacks struck near a hospital in Ahvaz that houses a pediatric cancer center, forcing the temporary evacuation of the hospital. Families have come out to the streets around the hospital to care for their children, IRIB said.
After the first wave, which Iran said hit a location on its Hengam Island in the strait, Tehran's top negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf issued a statement declaring that Iranian security depended on maintaining what he called "Iranian arrangements" in the strait.
"We are in an essential and existential war with America," Qalibaf said.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Wednesday it had struck U.S. military targets in the region, including in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.
Kuwait said its armed forces intercepted four missiles and 21 drones from Iran on Wednesday in an attack that caused material damage but no injuries.
"The enemy should not assume it can sustain the current course of the conflict and turn it into a war of attrition," Revolutionary Guards spokesman Hossein Mohebbi said, according to Iran's Press TV. "Iran's operations are currently focused on destroying US offensive military infrastructure in the region. The next phase will begin afterward."
The war has killed thousands of people and displaced millions, mainly in Iran and Lebanon, where conflict restarted between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. In July alone, U.S. attacks have killed 35 people, Tasnim reported, citing a health ministry official.
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