Iran’s supreme leader vowed Wednesday his nation will continue to support anti-Israeli forces in the Mideast.

The message from Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, like others since he was named Iran’s new supreme leader, came in a statement read on air by a state television anchor.

World shares were higher and oil fell briefly below $100 per barrel on Wednesday after U.S. stocks soared to their best day in almost a year on renewed hopes that the Iran war could soon end.

The renewed optimism over a possible de-escalation of the Iran war, which is in its fifth week, came after U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the United States will be done attacking Iran probably in two to three weeks, and that the U.S. "will not have anything to do with" what happens next in the Strait of Hormuz.

Should the U.S. decide to send in military forces to secure Iran's uranium stockpile, it would be a complex, risky and lengthy operation, fraught with radiation and chemical dangers, according to experts and former government officials.

U.S. President Donald Trump has offered shifting reasons for the war in Iran but has consistently said a primary objective is ensuring the country will "never have a nuclear weapon." Less clear is how far he is willing to go to seize Iran's nuclear material.

Iran hit an oil tanker off the coast of Qatar and Kuwait's airport on Wednesday while airstrikes battered Tehran — an unrelenting tempo hours after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was nearly ready to wind down the war.

Trump, who is scheduled to address the nation later in the day, said he could walk away from the war in two to three weeks once he felt confident Iran would not be able to build a nuclear weapon — even if Tehran does not agree to a ceasefire.

The Lebanese army said its forces have largely withdrawn from some border towns as Israeli troops continue to push a ground invasion into the country.

The Lebanese military said in a statement that troops had to reposition to prevent being dispersed and cut off from support lines.

Beirut is bursting.

It's been a month since Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel after the U.S.-Israeli attack on its patron, Iran, triggering Israeli bombardment of Lebanon and a ground invasion. Since then, more than 1 million people from southern and eastern Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs have fled. Many have crammed into the ever-tighter spaces of the country's capital where the bombs have not yet fallen.

Yemen's Houthis on Wednesday claimed a missile attack targeting Israel that they said was launched jointly with their backer Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah group -- the third such attack by the Houthis since they entered the Middle East war.

The Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen said Wednesday they fired a barrage of ballistic missiles toward Israel.

UN’s refugee agency said more than 200,000 people crossed from Lebanon into Syria in March after the Israeli war.

The vast majority – nearly 180,000 – were Syrians returning to their war-battered country, in addition to more than 28,000 Lebanese.

The Russian vessel Anatoly Kolodkin docked Tuesday at the Cuban port of Matanzas laden with 730,000 barrels of oil, marking the first time in three months that an oil tanker reached the island.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had allowed the shipment to proceed despite its ongoing energy blockade.

Satellite images are beginning to be released giving a glimpse into the toll of the Iran war, with ships ablaze in an Iranian port and destroyed buildings at American bases in the region.

Information has so far been scarce about the damage being done across the Middle East, particularly when it's inside closed military facilities, since the war started on Feb. 28.