Oil prices surge 5% to more than $108 a barrel, pushing up cost of gasoline around world.

BY Jon Gambrell, Samy Magdy, and Jamey Keaten | The Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Israel killed another top Iranian official - the intelligence minister - in its campaign against the Islamic Republic's leadership, and reportedly attacked an Iranian offshore natural gas field Wednesday amid the war's escalating pressure on the region's economic lifeblood: energy.

Iran has been striking its Persian Gulf neighbors' energy facilities since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28, and has made the Strait of Hormuz shipping channel - through which one-fifth of the world's oil travels - nearly impassable. On Wednesday, an Iranian missile hit a major natural gas facility in Qatar.

The price of oil surged another 5% to over $108 a barrel on international markets, increasing the price of gasoline and other goods, and squeezing the global economy. The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil, is now up close to 50% since the start of the war.

As the Trump administration looks for ways to boost oil supplies and lower prices, the Treasury Department on Wednesday eased sanctions on Venezuela, saying U.S. companies will be allowed to do business with the country's state-owned oil and gas company.

After Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib was killed in an overnight strike, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz promised "significant surprises" to come. A day earlier, Israel killed top Iranian security official Ali Larijani and the head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard's Basij force, Gen. Gholam Reza Soleimani.

Iran retaliated Wednesday by unleashing attacks against Israel, where two people were killed near Tel Aviv. Iran also attacked Saudi Arabia's vast Eastern Province, home to many of its oil fields, as well as Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

The United States was informed about Israel's plans to strike Iran's massive South Pars natural gas field, but did not take part in it, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, would not say if the U.S. administration agreed with the Israeli decision to attack the gas field - part of the world's largest such resource and a pillar of lran's energy supplies.

Iran - and even some Gulf neighbors who have absorbed its energy-related strikes - condemned the attack.

"This will complicate the situation and could have uncontrollable consequences, the scope of which could engulf the entire world," Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian's wrote on X.

The United Arab Emirates Foreign Ministry called it "a dangerous escalation," and Oman called it a threat to regional security and energy supplies.

Iran has been targeting the energy infrastructure of its Gulf Arab neighbors, as well as military bases, as part of a strategy to drive up oil prices and put pressure on the U.S. and Israel to back down.

Qatar Energy said on X that a missile hit its massive Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas facility, sparking a fire that caused "extensive" damage. The company had already halted production there because of Iranian attacks.

Iran has vowed to continue to crimp shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which leads from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean. Since the war started, a few ships have gotten through - some Iranian, but also vessels from India, Turkey and elsewhere. Iran insists the waterway is open, just not to the U.S. or many of its allies.

U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed growing frustration that no allies have offered to help open the strait. On Tuesday, he posted on social media: "WE DON'T NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!"

A top British military official, Armed Forces Minister Al Carns, said Wednesday that any reopening of the strait is a long way off because of "asymmetric threats" to shipping that include mines, attack boats and drones.

Iraq, which paused operations at its main oil terminal on the Persian Gulf last week, said Wednesday it had reached a deal with the autonomous northern Iraqi Kurdish administration to begin exporting 250,000 barrels of crude oil daily via pipeline to a port in Turkey.

Saudi Arabia is also bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, sending some oil by pipeline across the country to be shipped from a Red Sea port.

Responding to the killing of Larijani, the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said Wednesday it had attacked central Israel with multiple-warhead missiles that have a better chance of evading defense systems. Footage filmed by The Associated Press showed at least one such missile releasing a cluster of munitions over Israel.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei expressed condolences for the slaying of Larijani, according to a written statement published in Iranian media. "Undoubtedly, the assassination of such a person shows the extent of his importance and the hatred of the enemies of Islam towards him," the statement said.

The Iranian judiciary's Mizan news agency said an airstrike hit a courthouse complex in Larestan, a county in southern Iran, and that at least eight people were killed. More than 1,300 people have been killed in Iran since the conflict started, according to the Iranian Red Crescent.

In Lebanon, Israel kept up intense pressure on Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, hitting multiple apartment buildings in Beirut and killing at least a dozen people. Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel after the war in Iran had begun.

Ten people were killed in Israeli airstrikes in central Beirut, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. Another two people were killed in an airstrike in Lebanon's western Bekaa Valley, it said.