As the Iran war intensifies, President Donald Trump has prioritized efforts to calm the financial markets — trying to keep oil prices from exploding upward, stocks from cratering and interest rates from surging.

When the markets have flashed danger, Trump has been quick with a social media post or a remark to claim the war he launched last month could soon end. He's publicly declared that the markets are doing better than he expected, even with the S&P 500 stock index declining over the past five weeks and the global oil benchmark up roughly 60%.

Europe's inflation rate rose to 2.5% in March, according to official figures released Tuesday, as the Iran war sent fuel prices sharply higher.

The annual rate for the 21 countries using the euro currency compared to 1.9% for February before the war started and blocked supplies of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf.

Top European diplomats visited Ukraine on Tuesday to mark the anniversary of atrocities committed in a town near Kyiv by Russia's invading forces four years ago.

With U.S.-led efforts to end the war on hold and Washington's attention gripped by the conflict in the Middle East, European governments are keen to keep a spotlight on the continent's biggest land war in decades, now in its fifth year.

Gulf allies of the United States, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are urging President Donald Trump to continue prosecuting the war against Iran, arguing that Tehran hasn't been weakened enough by the monthlong U.S.-led bombing campaign, according to U.S., Gulf and Israeli officials.

After private grumbling at the start of the war that they were not given adequate advance notice of the U.S.-Israeli attack and complaining the U.S. had ignored their warnings that the war would have devastating consequences for the entire region, some of the regional allies are making the case to the White House that the moment offers a historic opportunity to cripple Tehran's clerical rule once and for all.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets across the embattled Palestinian territories Tuesday in outrage after Israel's parliament passed a measure establishing the death penalty by hanging for Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis.

Palestinians young and old held sit-ins and marches in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the territory where the new law is most sweeping. It orders West Bank military courts — which try only Palestinians — to make the death penalty the default sentence for those convicted, except in special circumstances.

Oil steadied and Asian stocks were mostly lower Tuesday as signs of a de-escalation of the Iran war remained mixed.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 was down 1.6% to 51,063.72. Losses after the Iran war began on Feb. 28 have been wiping out the gains it made from the beginning of the year.

The United States hit the central Iranian city of Isfahan early Tuesday, sending a massive fireball into the sky, and Tehran struck a fully loaded Kuwaiti oil tanker in the Persian Gulf.

The attacks were testament to the intensity of the monthlong war the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran, which has maintained its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, closing off the vital waterway for global energy shipments, sending oil prices skyrocketing and roiling world markets.

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese displaced by the escalating war between Israel and Hezbollah have poured into Beirut, seeking refuge wherever space is available.

Families from southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of the capital known as Dahieh, where Hezbollah has its main operations and support base, are now living in makeshift tents along the Beirut corniche, in classrooms turned into shelters, a sports stadium and even inside hospitals.

Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the United Nations’ peacekeeping chief, told reporters Monday that it looks like Israel is expanding a buffer zone in southern Lebanon.

He said that given Israeli military statements and actions, "it certainly looks like we might end up with, I would call it, an expanded buffer zone in southern Lebanon."

Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaer, the U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon, issued a scathing statement Monday, saying that the humanitarian impact in southern Lebanon as Israel trades fire with Hezbollah has reached devastating levels.

The envoy detailed the three U.N. peacekeepers and nine Lebanese paramedics killed in just the last few days as a snapshot of the death toll that now stands at more than 1,240.