Gas prices climbed higher Friday as the conflict with Iran continued to roil global energy markets, pushing crude oil sharply upward and raising concerns about fuel supplies. The national average price for regular gasoline rose to $3.32 per gallon Friday, up from $3.25 Thursday and $2.98 a week ago, according to AAA. Analysts say the increase reflects a surge in crude oil prices as geopolitical tensions intensify in the Middle East.

The price of oil surged higher and showed no signs of halting its rapid climb a week after the U.S. and Israel launched major attacks on Iran that escalated into a war in the Middle East. The conflict, in which nearly every country in the Middle East has sustained damage from missiles or drone strikes, has left ships that carry roughly 20 million barrels of oil a day stranded in the Persian Gulf, unable to safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Gulf that is bordered on its north side by Iran.

Gas prices have soared to their highest level since President Donald Trump returned to the White House last January, highlighting the early domestic impacts of his Iran operation on American motorists. The current national average cost for regular gas stands at $3.32, according to AAA, up from last week's average of $2.98 and $3.11 this time last year. And GasBuddy data, based on live user-reported estimates, shows that the average price of regular unleaded gas has increased 31.8 cents over the past week and sits at $3.32 per-gallon, a level not seen since September 2024.

Iran's president apologized Saturday for attacks on "neighboring countries" even as its missiles and drones flew toward Gulf Arab states and U.S. President Donald Trump threatened that the country would be "hit very hard." President Masoud Pezeshkian, a member of the three-man leadership council overseeing Iran since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a Feb. 28 airstrike that started the war, delivered the message a week into the conflict that has rattled global markets and left Iran's own leadership weakened by hundreds of Israeli and American airstrikes.

Iran said it struck a U.S. air base in the United Arab Emirates on Saturday, shortly after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his country would stop attacking neighboring countries. Iran's Tasnim News agency said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' navy drone unit attacked the Al Dhafra air base south of the capital Abu Dhabi.