Israel strikes Iran after hospital attack, Israeli Foreign Minister exclusive and more

In this episode of News Today, the focus is on the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. Israel retaliated after an Iranian missile struck a hospital in South Israel, hitting multiple nuclear sites in Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that eliminating Iran's Supreme Leader is not ruled out, while Iran claims the hospital was not a target but felt shockwaves due to its proximity to military sites. Shashi Tharoor addresses rumours of a rift with Congress leadership, stating he has no desire to comment on internal party matters. He affirms his commitment to Congress values and support for party candidates in ongoing bypolls. Tharoor explains his absence from a Kerala bypoll campaign, citing prior commitments and lack of invitation.
Also on the show, watch Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar's exclusive interview on the Israel-Iran war and more.

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Business Standard

20 minutes ago

• Business Standard

PM Modi has mastered 'art of slogans', not solutions: Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi, the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, said Modi has "no new ideas" and has "surrendered" Press Trust of India New Delhi Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has mastered the "art of slogans" but offers no solutions, and claimed that India's manufacturing was at a record low despite the 'Make in India' initiative. "'Make in India' promised a factory boom. So why is manufacturing at record lows, youth unemployment at record highs, and why have imports from China more than doubled? "Modi ji has mastered the art of slogans, not solutions. Since 2014, manufacturing has fallen to 14 per cent of our economy," he said in a post on X. Gandhi, the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, said Modi has "no new ideas" and has "surrendered". "Even the much-hyped PLI scheme is now being quietly rolled back," he alleged. Gandhi said India needs a fundamental shift, one that empowers lakhs of producers through honest reforms and financial support. "We must stop being a market for others. If we don't build here, we'll keep buying from those who do. The clock is ticking," he said. Gandhi met mobile repair technicians at Nehru Place, Delhi and attached a video of the conversation to the post. "In Nehru Place, New Delhi, I met Shivam and Saif - bright, skilled, full of promise - yet denied the opportunity to fulfil it. Noting that there is a difference between 'Made in India' and 'Assembled in India', he said: "The truth is stark: we assemble, we import, but we don't build. China profits." "China is the world's electronic market. There is no other electronic market anywhere. Assembly as many iPhones as you want, all you are doing is giving money to the big oligopolies of India. Start making iPhones, it's a completely different ball game," he said in the video. The former Congress chief said to manufacture parts, whether it is a motherboard or "small pieces", you need a certain level of machining, a certain level of quality, a certain level of understanding of tolerances of working with small components. "That is a learnt skill. That is not something you can get in just two minutes. Until you start respecting the idea of physical labour, the man who is doing that we have no respect for that guy on the street who is sitting there, selling his things, for hours together... "And, at the centre of it, and people don't like it when I say it, and at the centre of it is the idea of caste. We need to make this transparent. We need to show exactly how Indian society distributes power, exactly how Indian society distributes respect," Gandhi observed. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress have raised the issue of conducting a nationwide caste census to ascertain if various castes in society have a proportionate "share" of power. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Time of India

24 minutes ago

• Time of India

Middle East conflict: Israel strikes Iran's Isfahan nuclear site again, centrifuge facilities targeted

Israel has launched a second wave of strikes on Iran's Isfahan nuclear facility, targeting two centrifuge production sites overnight, a senior Israeli military official confirmed on Saturday. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The renewed attack comes just days after the first round of airstrikes on June 13, which Israel said struck facilities linked to uranium metal production and enrichment infrastructure. 'Isfahan we targeted in the first 24 hours of our operation, but we carried out a second wave of strikes there overnight, deepening our achievements and advancing the damage to the facility,' the official told AFP. He added that the latest strikes were part of a broader campaign, noting that Israel had also hit 'a couple more centrifuge production sites' elsewhere in recent days. The repeated raids by the Israeli air force have "dealt a severe blow to Iran's centrifuge production capabilities,' he said. Centrifuges are critical to uranium enrichment, a process that can serve both civilian energy needs and, at higher levels of purity, military applications such as nuclear weapons. Isfahan, a central city in Iran's nuclear programme, houses a uranium conversion facility and a nuclear fuel fabrication plant, both key to Iran's civilian nuclear ambitions. The site was also earmarked for a new research reactor, announced in 2022. Despite the strikes, Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation has sought to downplay the damage. Following the first wave of attacks, it stated that there had been 'no extensive' impact and assured the public that there was no radiation threat. Alongside Isfahan, Israel has also recently targeted Iran's underground nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordo, both of which are believed to play a significant role in the country's uranium enrichment efforts. The latest developments mark a sharp escalation in the long-running shadow war between Israel and Iran, with growing concern over the implications for regional stability and the future of Iran's nuclear capabilities.

The Hindu

29 minutes ago

• The Hindu

Israel hits Iranian nuclear research facility as war continues into second week

Israel's military said Saturday (June 21, 2025) it struck an Iranian nuclear research facility overnight and killed three senior Iranian commanders in targeted attacks as the war between the two nations continued into a second week. Early Saturday, smoke could be seen rising from an area near a mountain in Isfahan, where a local official said Israel had attacked the nuclear research facility in two waves. The target was two centrifuge production sites, and the attacks came on top of strikes on other centrifuge production sites elsewhere in recent days, according to an Israeli military official speaking on condition of anonymity under army guidelines to brief reporters. It was the second attack on Isfahan, which was hit in the first 24 hours of the war as part of Israel's goal to destroy the Iranian nuclear program. Israel-Iran conflict LIVE updates Akbar Salehi, Isfahan province's deputy governor for security affairs, confirmed the Israeli strikes had caused damage to the facility but said there had been no human casualties. Iran launched a new wave of drones and missiles at Israel but there were no immediate reports of significant damage, and the Israeli official called it a 'small barrage' that was largely intercepted by Israel's defenses. The official said part of the reason that Iran's overnight attack had been relatively small was that the military had been targeting its launchers, and estimates it has now taken out more than 50% of them. 'We've been able to take out a large amount of their launchers, creating a bottleneck — we're making it harder for them to fire toward Israel,' he said. 'Having said all that, I want to say the Iranian regime obviously still has capabilities.' Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service said Saturday an Iranian drone hit a two-story building in northern Israel, but there were no casualties. The ongoing fighting comes after talks in Geneva on Friday failed to produce a diplomatic breakthrough. European officials expressed hope for future discussions, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he was open to further dialogue while emphasizing that Tehran had no interest in negotiating with the U.S. while Israel continued attacking. 'Iran is ready to consider diplomacy if aggression ceases and the aggressor is held accountable for its committed crimes,' he told reporters. No date was set for the next round of talks. U.S. President Donald Trump is weighing active U.S. military involvement in the conflict, which Araghchi said Saturday 'would be very unfortunate.' 'I think that it would be very, very dangerous for everyone,' he said in Istanbul, speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The war between Israel and Iran erupted June 13, with Israeli airstrikes targeting nuclear and military sites, top generals and nuclear scientists. At least 657 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 2,000 wounded, according to a Washington-based Iranian human rights group. Iran has retaliated by firing more than 450 missiles and 1,000 drones at Israel, according to Israeli army estimates. Most have been shot down by Israel's multitiered air defenses, but at least 24 people in Israel have been killed and hundreds wounded. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel's military operation in Iran would continue 'for as long as it takes' to eliminate what he called the existential threat of Iran's nuclear program and arsenal of ballistic missiles. But Netanyahu's goal could be out of reach without U.S. help. Barring a commando raid or even a nuclear strike, Iran's underground Fordo uranium enrichment facility is considered to be out of reach to all but America's 'bunker-buster' bombs. Trump said he would put off deciding whether to join Israel's air campaign against Iran for up to two weeks. In Israel's opening attack, it killed three of Iran's top military leaders: one who oversaw the entire armed forces, Gen. Mohammad Bagheri; one who led the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Hossein Salami; and the head of the Guard's ballistic missile program, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh. The targeted killings of senior commanders continued, with Israel's defense minister saying Saturday that the military had killed a commander in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard who financed and armed Hamas in preparation for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that sparked the 20-month long war in Gaza. Israel said Saeed Izadi was commander of the Palestine Corps for the Iranian Quds Force, an elite arm of the Guard that conducts military and intelligence operations outside Iran, and that he was killed in an apartment in the city of Qom. Iranian officials did not immediately confirm the death, but the Qom governor's office did say there had been an attack on a four-story apartment building and local media reported two people had been killed. Israel also said it had killed the commander of the Quds Force's weapons transfer unit, who it said was responsible for providing weapons to Hezbollah and Hamas. Behnam Shahriyari was killed in his car while traveling in western Iran, the military said. A commander of Iran's drone force was also killed overnight, the Israeli official who briefed reporters said. On Friday, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog warned at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council against attacks on Iran's nuclear reactors, particularly its only commercial nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr. 'I want to make it absolutely and completely clear: In case of an attack on the Bushehr nuclear power plant, a direct hit would result in a very high release of radioactivity to the environment,' said Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. 'This is the nuclear site in Iran where the consequences could be most serious.' Israel has not targeted Iran's nuclear reactors, instead focusing its strikes on the main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, centrifuge workshops near Tehran, laboratories in Isfahan and the country's Arak heavy water reactor southwest of the capital. Iran previously agreed to limit its uranium enrichment and allow international inspectors access to its nuclear sites under a 2015 deal with the U.S., France, China, Russia, Britain and Germany in exchange for sanctions relief. But after Trump pulled the U.S. unilaterally out of the deal during his first term, Iran began enriching uranium up to 60% — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90% — and restricting access to its nuclear facilities. Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but it is the only non-nuclear-weapon state to enrich uranium up to 60%. Israel is widely believed to be the only Middle Eastern country with a nuclear weapons program but has never acknowledged it. Leaders in Iran have blamed Grossi's statements about the status of Iran's nuclear program for prompting Israel's attack. On Saturday, a senior adviser for Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei, Ali Larijani, said in a brief social media post without elaboration that Iran would make Grossi 'pay' once the war with Israel is over..