The US Navy’s newest supercarrier, USS Gerald R. Ford, has unleashed a blistering barrage on Iranian targets, combining waves of airstrikes with US Marine HIMARS rocket launches in the most aggressive phase yet of the US‑Israel war with Iran, defence officials say.

Sailing in the northern Arabian Sea, the Ford turned into a floating war machine: F‑35C and F/A‑18 jets roared off the deck in rapid succession, striking Iranian radar sites, drone hubs and coastal missile batteries. At the same time, HIMARS launchers flown in by C‑130s and staged at a nearby expeditionary sea base and coastal sites fired salvos of GPS‑guided rockets deep into Iran’s southeastern military corridor.

Night‑vision footage shows rockets streaking inland as carrier‑borne aircraft drop precision bombs almost simultaneously, creating what US commanders describe as a “steel curtain” against Iran’s long‑range missile and drone network. Secondary explosions lit up suspected ammunition depots and fuel farms, with satellite imagery revealing scorched compounds and cratered runways.

Tehran slammed the operation as “total aggression,” claiming most incoming munitions were intercepted and vowing to answer with new barrages on US bases and Israeli cities. Yet social media clips from inside Iran show fireballs on the horizon, shattered windows and panicked civilians fleeing blast zones.

Israeli officials hail the Ford–HIMARS tandem as a “game‑changer,” arguing that Iran’s launch infrastructure is being chewed up faster than it can reload. But diplomats across Europe and the Gulf are sounding alarms: if this is what escalation looks like now, what happens when Tehran fires back with everything it has left?