AP journalists in the Middle East break down their coverage of the Iran War

[0:01] At the end of February 2026, the United States launched its first attacks on Iran, [0:06] killing its supreme leader at the time, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. [0:10] Since then, other Gulf countries have been roped into the conflict, [0:13] global markets have fluctuated, key oil production facilities and passages have been affected, [0:18] and dozens have been killed in the crossfire. [0:21] I'm Haya Panjwani. On this episode of the story behind the AP story, [0:24] we hear from the reporters on the ground covering the Iran war. [0:28] The conflict is ongoing and rapidly developing, so some circumstances may have changed. [0:34] Hi, my name is Joe Fetterman. I am the AP's news director here in Jerusalem. [0:45] I have been based in the city for over 20 years and been through a number of wars. [0:52] My name is Basim Amroui. I'm an Associated Press reporter based in Beirut. [0:57] I'm currently in the Iranian capital of Tehran. [1:00] The country is affected in many ways. You can probably see the streets are quite quiet. [1:05] Many things have come to a standstill. Schools have been closed for over a month. [1:09] Many people are either not working or working from homes. There's a lot less [1:14] traffic on the streets and public gatherings have been banned. [1:19] Since we arrived in early April, there have been almost daily airstrikes on the capital, [1:25] as well as other parts of the country, while Iran had been firing rockets and missiles into [1:32] Persian Gulf nations, as well as into Israel. The airstrikes by the United States and Israel [1:38] happen almost every day until the ceasefire went into effect. And we could hear the thuds. [1:45] We could hear planes flying at low altitude over the city. [1:49] This one, of course, does feel different in many ways. [1:53] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been building up Iran or has mentioned and looked at Iran as the [2:00] number one existential threat to Israel for years, for decades. And we have been building up toward [2:07] this war for a long time, for many years. And now it is finally upon us. [2:12] Now, because Israel has been dealing with these threats for so long, there are many shelters, [2:17] either public shelters nearby here in our building, in our bureau here in Jerusalem. [2:21] We run downstairs to the basement and there is a public shelter for the building. [2:26] So, for example, in my apartment, I have something like that. I can run in, [2:29] even if it's the alarms at three in the morning, we can run inside and huddle in there for a few [2:36] minutes. But not everybody is lucky enough to have those in their homes. So many people have to run [2:41] outdoors to public shelters. We have seen scenes of people even moving into shelters in Tel Aviv, [2:47] you see people sleeping in tents and sleeping bags inside some of these shelters. And there's almost [2:52] this whole underground lifestyle that that has come around in Tel Aviv. [2:59] And John Gambrell is based in the United Arab Emirates. [3:02] I'm in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. And this is where I typically work out of as the news [3:07] director for the Gulf and Iran for the Associated Press. And this war has really changed a lot. And [3:13] one thing that really stands out is the fact that Dubai has always been viewed as sort of a [3:18] safe corner of the Middle East through the US invasion of Iraq, the war in Afghanistan. It was [3:24] viewed as a safe haven, tax free environment for people from all over the world to take advantage [3:30] of and to live and make money and also help these state backed industries in the UAE. Now, since the war [3:38] began, we have seen a flux of people go out of the country. Some people have remained. The streets [3:45] are a lot emptier than normal. Schools have basically closed up. We've had all the students go to distance [3:51] learning. They're at home. Now, it remains unclear sort of for the wider UAE what the future holds, [3:57] because just in the last little bit, we've seen more and more attacks by the Iranians target [4:02] oil infrastructure, petrochemical plants, even businesses. Right here in Media City, where I am, [4:08] about 500 meters away, there was either an Iranian drone strike or an interception or something that [4:14] damaged the headquarters of Oracle, that American tech company. And it blew a hole through part of the [4:20] building. Iran fought a war against the United States and Israel for 12 days in June last year. And the war [4:28] that started on February 28 is the second war within less than a year. We see that the streets are not [4:36] as full as usually they are. You could cut through the city without passing through road jams. We didn't [4:45] see panic within the population. We didn't see any rush to the market. So people are used to war. [4:52] They fought a war against Iraq for eight years from 1980 to 1988. And then again, as I said before, [4:59] the 12-day war before and the current war. So people are not panicking. [5:07] We have been at war really since October 7, 23, two and a half years of war. Now, there was a ceasefire [5:14] that's mostly in Gaza as well as Lebanon. But things had slowed down since the ceasefire was reached between [5:20] Israel and Hamas back in October. So there had been kind of low-grade fighting. And we [5:26] were under the impression that the worst was behind us. Then sirens went off on that Saturday morning, [5:32] February 28th. And we felt that like we were back in the fall of 23. Here we are back in a full-fledged [5:41] war. Now, the feeling in the country at the beginning, there was a lot of support [5:45] for this war. People have been have felt threatened by Iran. Remember all of these conflicts, whether it's [5:52] Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon. Everything goes back to Iran. Iran is the one that funded and armed [6:02] these groups. The first day of war, Israelis tend to line up behind the government. There's a lot of [6:08] adrenaline and there's a lot of patriotism, I think, at play. But the longer these wars drag on, [6:15] the more divided the country becomes, the more fatigued people become, and they start to ask [6:22] questions. Now, the polls still show some solid support for this war. People do think the war is [6:27] justified. They do think that Iran is a serious threat. But you do see that support is softening [6:36] in some of these polls. And the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that those numbers will [6:43] continue to drop. So since the war's begun, there have been a series of escalating moments. And [6:51] one of the most important has been the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians have continued to basically [6:56] attack ships, tankers, other vessels in the Persian Gulf, in the Gulf of Oman, and in the strait [7:03] itself. That strait is the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through, in peacetime, about 20% of [7:09] all oil and natural gas traded passes. Now, it's also really important for urea and fertilizer and [7:16] other things that really make the global economy tick, make crops grow, and make sure that cargo gets [7:23] from China to other places in the world. So that's just been shut off. On Friday, April 17th, U.S. [7:29] President Donald Trump and Iran's foreign minister said that the Strait of Hormuz is now fully open [7:34] to commercial vessels. The United States and Israel have been demanding that Iran [7:40] does not enrich uranium at all and that it gets rid of its stockpiles of enriched uranium. Iran is [7:47] insisting on enriching uranium to low levels. And Iran has hinted in previous negotiations that came [7:55] before the war that it's ready to to give the enriched uranium it has the stockpiles to a third [8:01] country, most likely Russia. The war that started on February 28th did not only affect the region, [8:08] it affected the whole world economy. The war started with attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran. [8:15] Iran retaliated by closing the Strait of Hormuz, which is the narrow passage on the tip of the Persian Gulf. [8:23] And before the war started, nearly 20 percent of the world's oil supply used to pass through this [8:30] passage. And the passage had been closed since then. Now it's supposed to open any time because of the [8:37] because of the two-week truce. The longer this war goes on, the worse things get, not only for Israel, [8:43] but for the entire region. Those trends that I talked about with the the fatigue, the people questioning, [8:49] you know, how long can this go on? How much can the army keep on fighting after two and a half years of [8:55] this? Political leaders, military leaders have said that the army already is stretched thin. Do they have [9:01] enough air defenses to keep shooting down all of these missiles? So there are lots of questions and [9:06] there will be more and more questions and more and more of a debate here inside of Israel. And if the [9:11] fighting continues, it has rippled already across the region. We have seen Iran turn its missiles, [9:19] not only at Israel, but also at U.S. allies, at the UAE, at Qatar, other countries, Bahrain in the region. [9:28] And the more the fighting goes on, the worse it gets. Overall, economically, this has had a major [9:34] impact on the global economy. Oil, natural gas infrastructure has been attacked and shipments [9:40] that are needed to basically, you know, put gasoline in pumps or in Asia or get jet fuel into aircraft. [9:48] Those those supply lines are starting to be affected. We're starting to see some countries [9:52] begin to hoard, begin to ask people not to buy so much gasoline or diesel fuel. And we've seen prices [9:58] really shoot up. And those higher fuel prices will have a knock on effect for consumer prices because [10:05] every good that's in a store has to get there somehow, whether that's flown on an airplane or [10:09] driven by a truck powered by a diesel engine. So this will have a knock on effect for people. [10:14] And in the United States, particularly gasoline prices have long been associated with political [10:19] turmoil. The Trump administration knows this. It keeps trying to say that it's working to keep the [10:23] gasoline prices down by pumping oil in America. American oil production is up, but the global [10:31] market still determines sort of the overall price. So that still has a major impact. And even if the [10:37] war stopped right now, you would still need to rebuild all of this broken and damaged natural gas [10:44] infrastructure, especially in Qatar, as well as oil facilities, refineries, petrochemical plants, [10:50] all these things would have a long tail of needing to get repaired and then get back into service. So [10:55] these economic disruptions could last for a long time. Any war that happens in this part of the world [11:01] affects the whole world. There are huge oil reserves in this region. And as it's known, Iran retaliated not [11:14] only by closing the Strait of Hormuz, Iran fired rockets and missiles and drones into oil rich countries such as the [11:22] United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar. So it's a very, very dangerous conflict. And God forbid, if the war [11:36] breaks out again and the ceasefire collapses, we're going to feel it more and more and inflation is expected [11:45] to rise. So the repercussions are massive to the whole international community, to the whole world, [11:52] not only to the region. The last thing is what I've learned in over two decades here is you should [11:59] always take a look at the Israeli domestic sphere as well. What does this all mean for Netanyahu? Now, [12:06] if things had worked out the way that he wanted, this most likely this would have been a very quick, [12:15] decisive victory for Israel that would have cleared the way for him to declare victory over Iran and [12:21] and hold a new election where he might be positioned to win another term in office. His ratings have gone [12:30] down since those October 7th attacks. A decisive victory over Iran would clear the way or improve [12:38] the chances of Netanyahu winning another term in office. But again, that hasn't happened so far. [12:46] He's running out of time because his term currently ends in October. Now he has the option of declaring [12:53] early elections, but he would only do so if he feels that he has a chance of victory. So if there's a [13:00] decisive victory, if there's a quick victory over Iran, that improves the chances of an early election [13:05] and another term for Netanyahu. But the longer this drags on, those odds go down for him. And then he is [13:12] forced to go into an election when not only are the memories or the images of this recent war still [13:21] fresh in people's heads, but it will also be close to the anniversary of that October 7th disaster. So [13:28] that could also work against Netanyahu. This has been the story behind the AP story. For more on our [13:33] coverage of the Iran war, visit apnews.com. For more episodes of this show, visit our website, [13:40] AP News' YouTube channel, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.