Iran maintained attacks on energy assets around the Middle East even after U.S. President Donald Trump called for restraint, with strikes on key oil and gas infrastructure triggering a fresh surge in prices.

Tehran’s response to Israel’s assault on the giant South Pars gas field “is underway and not yet complete,” the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency cited a military spokesman as saying on Thursday. The targeting of energy facilities escalated the conflict as it nears the end of its third week, with no sign of an imminent ceasefire.

Saudi Arabia said a drone hit its Samref refinery on the Red Sea, a vital exit route for the world’s biggest oil exporter with the Strait of Hormuz still effectively shut.

Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City — home to the world’s largest export plant for liquefied natural gas — suffered “extensive damage” after an Iranian missile strike sparked a fire. The United Arab Emirates shut a major gas facility due to falling debris from missiles.

Iran’s strikes ‌on Qatar have damaged facilities that produce 17% ​of the company’s LNG export capacity ⁠and it will ​take as many as five years ​to repair them, Reuters reported, citing QatarEnergy CEO Saad al-Kaabi.

The latest attacks increased the potential for other countries to join the U.S. and Israel in the conflict. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud warned overnight that the kingdom’s restraint isn’t “unlimited” and it reserves the right to take military action if necessary.

“It could be a day, two days, or a week,” he told reporters in Riyadh, adding that the relationship between the kingdom and Tehran has “completely shattered.”

Trump said in a social media post late Wednesday that neither the U.S. nor Qatar, which shares South Pars, was involved in the Israeli operation targeting the field, and Washington “knew nothing about this particular attack.”

That contradicted a person familiar with the administration’s knowledge of the operation, who said earlier that the U.S. was aware of the strike but didn’t participate.

“NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL,” Trump said on Truth Social, calling on the Islamic Republic to act with restraint.

If Iran continues its strikes on Qatari assets, the U.S. “will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before,” he said.

Brent crude rose more than 10% to as high as $119 a barrel on Thursday, bringing its advance since the start of the war to more than 67%. European natural gas rose as much as 35% to more than double pre-war levels.

Global equities extended losses and bonds tumbled amid widening fears that the war will stoke inflation and hurt economic growth.

Saudi Arabia said it shot down ballistic missiles fired toward the capital, Riyadh. Two oil refineries in Kuwait were struck by drones that caused fires, according to Kuwait Petroleum Corp. Iraq reported a loss of power generation after Iran halted gas supplies from South Pars in the wake of the Israeli attack.

The strike on South Pars signals a shift toward degrading Iran’s economic infrastructure and curbing its ability to fight, according to Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin.

“South Pars is central to Iran’s gas supply and, by extension, to electricity generation and industrial activity,” Azizi said by email. “Even limited or temporary disruptions can translate into power shortages, industrial slowdowns, and broader economic strain.”

Now in its 20th day, the war has claimed more than 4,100 lives across the region, with about three quarters of them in Iran.

The risk of lasting damage to energy infrastructure and supply is increasing. Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz — a chokepoint for about a fifth of global oil and LNG flows — have so far been unsuccessful, pushing prices higher. The fallout is spreading globally, with fuel, shipping and household costs already rising.

U.S. gasoline prices have soared in recent weeks, rising to around $3.88 a gallon on Thursday, according to the American Automobile Association. That’s the highest level in more than two years and is piling pressure on the Trump administration before the November midterm elections.

“Gas prices are up and we know they’re up, and we know that people are hurting because of it and we’re doing everything that we can to ensure that they stay lower,” Vice President JD Vance said on Wednesday, calling the spike “a temporary blip.”

Trump temporarily waived a century-old shipping mandate to lower the cost of transporting energy goods around the U.S. in a bid to curb price rises. Vance and other top administration officials plan to meet with oil executives Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter.

Countries continue to vie for access and control in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. said it dropped 5,000-pound bunker-buster munitions on Iranian missile sites near the waterway late Tuesday.

Iran has meanwhile been moving its own oil through the strait at close to prewar levels. Members of Tehran’s parliament are working on a bill that would require ships to pay Iran for safe transit, the Iranian Students’ News Agency reported.

In parallel with the war in Iran, Israel has stepped up an offensive in Lebanon, where it’s fighting Tehran-backed Hezbollah. Israeli strikes in the country have killed 968 people, according to the Lebanese government.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency says at least 3,134 people have died in Iran. Dozens of others have been killed in the rest of the Middle East, while the U.S. has lost 13 military personnel.

The war began with the joint U.S.-Israeli bombing of Iran on Feb. 28. Trump has since said that he started the operation to disarm a potent nuclear threat, claiming Tehran was just two weeks away from acquiring a weapon. Iran has denied pursuing atomic weapons, and nuclear experts mostly disagree it could have built weapons that quickly.

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—With assistance from Omar Tamo.

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