President Donald Trump issued a series of increasingly fiery threats to destroy Iran’s power plants starting Tuesday and bring “Hell” to the country after U.S. forces rescued an airman from Iran more than a day after his fighter jet was shot down.

Iran rejected Trump’s latest ultimatum to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, saying the strait would only reopen fully when damage from the war is compensated, as Tehran continued to strike energy targets in its Gulf neighbors, including Kuwait’s oil headquarters.

Trump, in renewing his threats to target Iran’s civilian infrastructure, used an expletive in a social media post and told Axios he will be “blowing up everything over there” if Iran doesn’t make a deal. He said he plans to hold a news conference at 1 p.m. on Monday and also posted about a Tuesday 8 p.m. deadline, without offering any details about what he meant.

On March 26, Trump gave Iran a 10-day deadline to reopen Hormuz, which would expire Monday evening. His threat to bomb civilian power plants, however, could constitute a war crime under international law.

Late Saturday, U.S. forces rescued an airman from Iran after his fighter jet was shot down on April 2 during a combat mission. Trump hailed the dramatic rescue operation, where the U.S. deployed dozens of aircraft to retrieve the injured crew member from a mountainous area, a day after a second person from the same F-15E jet was rescued.

The mission spanned two days and involved hundreds of special operations troops, with U.S. aircraft dropping bombs and firing on Iranian convoys to keep them away from the aviator’s hiding area, the New York Times reported.

House Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford, an Arkansas Republican, said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures that the U.S. didn’t sustain any casualties but had to destroy “a couple” of U.S. aircraft on the ground in Iran to avoid having them fall into enemy hands.

The downing of U.S. aircraft pierced the aura of invincibility Trump has sought to project, as the war with Iran enters a second month. Iran’s attacks have brought the Strait of Hormuz — through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas normally flows — close to a standstill, lifting energy prices and rattling global markets.

Mehdi Tabatabaei, a deputy for communications and information at the Iranian president’s office, said Sunday that Tehran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz only when damages from the war are “fully compensated from a portion of its transit toll revenues.”

Oil prices have been roiled by the conflict and soaring costs for products such as jet fuel and diesel are threatening a renewed wave of inflation. OPEC+ members raised their production quotas for May in a symbolic move as the war constrains production and shipments from several of the alliance’s largest members.

In the U.S., average national retail gasoline prices have topped $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022. Crossing that critical psychological threshold brings some political risk to the Trump administration and Republicans as consumers grow increasingly concerned over the cost of living in the months ahead of November’s midterms.

But it won’t be easy for any side to end the conflict. Both the U.S. and Iran have rejected each other’s demands, while Israel has made clear it wants to inflict further damage to Tehran’s military capabilities.

Israel assesses that Iran still has more than 1,000 missiles capable of reaching it, while Hezbollah’s arsenal in Lebanon includes as many as 10,000 shorter-range rockets, according to military briefings cited by Israeli media this weekend.

Israel said it struck a petrochemical complex in southwestern Iran, where Tehran said five people were killed and 170 others wounded.

Bahrain said a drone attack started a fire at storage facilities belonging to the state energy company Bapco Energies, though it was later extinguished without causing any casualties.

Kuwait’s oil sector faced a fresh barrage of attacks on Sunday with drone strikes causing fires at its refining arm and petrochemical facilities. Those came hours after Kuwait Petroleum Corp.’s headquarters, which also houses the country’s oil ministry, was set ablaze in a similar attack.

A separate strike on power and water desalination plants caused significant damage, putting two generation units out of service.

Borouge PLC suspended operations at a petrochemicals plant in Abu Dhabi after multiple fires broke out from falling debris following interceptions of Iranian attacks, the government media office said.

Israel said Sunday it struck more than 120 air defense and missile systems in central and western Iran over the past 24 hours. The country’s defense minister threatened further attacks on Iranian infrastructure.

An Iranian missile barrage targeted an industrial site in southern Israel, where shrapnel caused minor damage at a factory with no injuries reported, the country’s fire department said.

Oman’s Foreign Ministry said in a post on X on Sunday that it discussed with Iran possible options to ensure “smooth flow” through Hormuz.

Iran announced Saturday that Iraq would be exempt from its shipping restrictions in the strait, allowing for as much as 3 million barrels a day of Iraqi oil cargoes. An Iraqi official struck a cautious note, saying volumes would depend on whether shipping companies are willing to risk entering the strait.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, who met Iran’s ambassador on Sunday, said the two countries agreed on the need to continue their cooperation on allowing Iraqi oil to pass through Hormuz.

The Suezmax Ocean Thunder, an oil tanker that loaded its cargo at Iraq’s Basrah terminal in early March, exited the strait en route to Malaysia, according to tanker-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. Such vessels can carry about 1 million barrels of crude.

More than 5,000 people have been killed in the conflict, almost three-quarters of them in Iran, according to government organizations and the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. More than 1,460 people have been killed in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting a parallel war against Iran-allied Hezbollah.

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—With assistance from Arsalan Shahla, Sara Gharaibeh, Reshmi Basu, Khalid Al-Ansary, Omar Tamo and Millie Munshi.

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