• Iran struck the world’s largest LNG export facility in Qatar, causing what Doha described as “extensive damage.” Oil markets reacted sharply, with crude surging over 10% to $118 a barrel. Qatar is the world’s second-largest LNG exporter, accounting for nearly 20% of global supply. Doha condemned the attack as a “dangerous escalation”—yet even after Iran struck its most important asset, Qatar stopped short of expelling the Iranian ambassador, settling instead for the lower-ranking attachés beneath him.
• Iran's Revolutionary Guard issued evacuation warnings to oil facilities around the gulf before striking Saudi Aramco's SAMREF refinery—the only remaining export outlet for Gulf oil since the Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. An industry source said the impact was minimal.
• Three Palestinian women were killed and thirteen wounded when an Iranian missile struck a hair salon southwest of Hebron, in the first deadly Iranian strike on the West Bank since the war began—and the first to kill Palestinians.

While military commentators focus on flight paths and interception systems, historians will likely define the current campaign against Iran in entirely different terms: the first global energy war. This is not a war over territory, but over the ability of the West—and especially the Far East—to continue functioning.

At the center of the arena are oil prices. The spike in commodity market charts quickly translates into drama at gas stations in the United States and Europe. Those who thought natural gas would act as a brake to prevent economic escalation have discovered the opposite: gas is not moderating prices—it is becoming fuel that intensifies international pressure. This follows Qatar’s decision to halt liquefied natural gas production on the very first day of the war, a dramatic move for a country that holds a third of the world’s natural gas reserves.

The most significant pressure on the Trump administration is not coming from campus protesters, but from Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. These three technological powers have made it clear to the Americans: if the energy market does not stabilize, the global semiconductor industry will suffer a severe blow. When chips are hit, everything is hit—from the smartphone in your pocket to the most advanced weapons systems. This is a supply chain that begins in the Persian Gulf and ends in factories in Taipei, and any disruption in Hormuz echoes all the way to Silicon Valley—especially as Trump has made clear that the chip war with China is the most important global issue of his presidency, and everything is judged in relation to it.