logo
Israel under missile attack, Iran says all options open after US strikes

Israel under missile attack, Iran says all options open after US strikes

Dubai Eye8 hours ago

Israel faced a missile attack on Sunday as Iran said it reserved all options to defend itself after unprecedented US strikes that President Donald Trump said had "obliterated" its key nuclear facilities.
Hours after Trump dramatically escalated Middle East tensions by sending B-2 bombers to Iran, the Israeli military warned people to seek cover from a barrage that appeared heavier than the Iranian salvoes fired in the past few days.
"The events this morning are outrageous and will have everlasting consequences," said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas, calling the US strikes a "grave violation" of the UN charter, international law and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"Iran reserves all options to defend its sovereignty, interest, and people," Araqchi posted on X.
Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation said it would not allow development of its 'national industry' to be stopped, and an Iranian state television commentator said every US citizen or military member in the region would be legitimate targets.
Israel's ambulance service said at least 16 people were hurt in the morning barrage.
Air raid sirens sounded across most of the country, sending millions of people to safe rooms and bomb shelters as explosions rang out and missile interceptions were seen above Jerusalem and in other parts of the country.
It was not immediately clear how many missiles had pierced Israel's air defence systems, but police confirmed at least three impact sites in residential areas in central and northern Israel.
Video from Israel's commercial hub Tel Aviv and the port city of Haifa further north showed rescue teams combing through debris, apartments reduced to rubble, mangled cars along a street filled with debris and medics evacuating injured people from a row of blown out houses.
Most airlines continued to avoid large parts of the Middle East after the US strikes, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, with traffic already skirting airspace in the region due to recent missile exchanges.
DIPLOMATIC FAILURE
The UN nuclear watchdog said no increases in off-site radiation levels had been reported after the US strikes.
Hassan Abedini, deputy political head of Iran's state broadcaster, said Iran had evacuated the three sites some time ago. "The enriched uranium reserves had been transferred from the nuclear centres and there are no materials left there that, if targeted, would cause radiation and be harmful to our compatriots," he told the channel.
Israel and Iran have been engaged in more than a week of aerial combat that has resulted in deaths and injuries in both countries. Israel launched its attacks on June 13, saying Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons.
Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only. Israel is widely assumed to possess nuclear weapons, which it neither confirms nor denies.
Diplomatic efforts by Western nations to stop the hostilities have so far failed. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the US strikes a "dangerous escalation in a region already on the edge – and a direct threat to international peace and security".

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Trump the ‘peacemaker' becomes wartime president
Trump the ‘peacemaker' becomes wartime president

The National

time35 minutes ago

  • The National

Trump the ‘peacemaker' becomes wartime president

Pakistan has announced it will formally recommend US President Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize for his 'pivotal leadership' and role as 'peacemaker' during the recent Kashmir crisis. Setting aside India's denial that Mr Trump facilitated an end to the hostilities in the region, Islamabad's timing could hardly have been more awkward. It could not have known, of course, but by the time Pakistan had issued its Nobel recommendation, US B-2 stealth bombers were already en route from an airbase in Missouri to Iran. Mr Trump had ordered the Pentagon to attack three Iranian nuclear sites, taking a strategic gamble that four presidents (and he himself, during his first term) had shied away from. Mr Trump and his administration had repeatedly warned that Iran could never obtain a nuclear weapon, and he stressed that the strikes were calibrated to avoid a broader conflict with Iran. He said 'now is the time for peace', while his Vice President JD Vance said the US was 'not at war with Iran, we're at war with Iran's nuclear programme". But it could well be a distinction without a difference for Tehran, where supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will feel enormous pressure to retaliate, at least to some degree, after the US joined Israel's air campaign that had already blunted much of Iran's military capabilities. If Tehran were to try to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, or if one of its proxies were to attack any of the 40,000 US military personnel stationed across the region, a conflagration could easily be sparked that would make Mr Trump a wartime president whose military is dragged into another massively destructive regional quagmire. It was not supposed to be this way. The Republican bucked his party's hawkish tendencies during the election campaign, furiously denouncing America's 'stupid endless wars' and promising his legacy would be that of ' peacemaker and unifier". And just last month in Saudi Arabia, he attacked America's foreign policy record in the Middle East, saying the neocons who tried to 'nation build' had wrecked far more countries than they had constructed. Mr Trump, predictably, has come under criticism from Democrats, mainly because the US Congress was largely kept in the dark about the precise nature and timing of the strikes against Iran. Influential Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Mr Trump's 'disastrous decision' to bomb Iran without authorisation was a grave breach of the Constitution and Congress's war powers. 'He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations,' she said as she called for his impeachment. Republicans say the secrecy was necessary to avoid telegraphing an coming attack. There is another faction Mr Trump needs to pay attention to – his most loyal followers in the isolationist Make America Great Again, or Maga, movement. 'Every time America is on the verge of greatness, we get involved in another foreign war,' Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a passionate Trump supporter and prominent member of the Maga movement, wrote on X. But Marc Thiessen, a conservative author, wrote in The Washington Post on Sunday that too much has been made of any schism in the Maga movement, pointing to recent polling. He said large majorities of regular and Maga Republicans say they do not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and that they regard Israel's security as important to the US. A look on Mr Trump's Truth Social feed is instructive, too. When he demanded Iran's ' unconditional surrender ' last week, many of his followers expressed dismay that the US appeared set to get involved in a conflict in the Middle East again. But in posts since the American strikes, his Maga base now appears, for the most part, to be rallying around the flag and unifying in support of the decision to attack Iranian nuclear sites. Still, here we are. For all his talk of diplomacy and deal making, Mr Trump has become entangled in another Middle East conflict with consequences that are impossible to predict. "I won't get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do," Mr Trump said in a Truth Social post last week. "Including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that's all that matters to me."

Oil to open higher as US strikes on Iran boost supply risk premium
Oil to open higher as US strikes on Iran boost supply risk premium

Zawya

timean hour ago

  • Zawya

Oil to open higher as US strikes on Iran boost supply risk premium

LONDON: Oil is likely to rise by $3-5 per barrel when trading resumes on Sunday evening after the U.S. attacked Iran at the weekend, market analysts said, with gains expected to accelerate only if Iran retaliates hard and causes a major oil supply disruption. U.S. President Donald Trump said he had "obliterated" Iran's main nuclear sites in strikes overnight, joining an Israeli assault in an escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself. Iran is OPEC's third-largest crude producer. "An oil price jump is expected," said Jorge Leon, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad and a former OPEC official. "Even in the absence of immediate retaliation, markets are likely to price in a higher geopolitical risk premium." Global oil benchmark Brent crude could gain $3 to $5 per barrel when markets open, SEB analyst Ole Hvalbye said in a note. Brent settled at $77.01 a barrel on Friday and U.S. West Texas Intermediate at $73.84. Ole Hansen, analyst at Saxo Bank, said crude could open $4 to $5 dollars higher, with potential for some long positioning being unwound. Crude had settled down on Friday after the U.S. imposed fresh Iran-related sanctions, including on two entities based in Hong Kong, and counter-terrorism-related sanctions, according to a notice on the U.S. Treasury Department website. Brent has risen 11% while WTI has gained around 10% since the conflict began on June 13 with Israel targeting Iran's nuclear sites and Iranian missiles hitting buildings in Tel Aviv. Currently stable supply conditions and the availability of spare production capacity among other OPEC members have limited oil's gains. Risk premiums have typically faded when no supply disruptions occurred, said Giovanni Staunovo, analyst at UBS. "The direction of oil prices from here will depend on whether there are supply disruptions - which would likely result in higher prices - or if there is a de-escalation in the conflict, resulting in a fading risk premium," he said. A senior Iranian lawmaker said on June 19 that the country could shut the Strait of Hormuz as a way of hitting back against its enemies, though a second member of parliament said this would only happen if Tehran's vital interests were endangered. About a fifth of the world's total oil consumption passes through the strait. SEB said any closure of the strait or spillover into other regional producers would "significantly lift" oil prices, but they saw this scenario as a tail risk rather than a base case given China's reliance on Gulf crude. Ajay Parmar, oil and energy transition analytics director at consultancy ICIS, said it was unlikely Iran would be able to enforce a blockage of the strait for too long. "Most of Iran's oil exports to China pass through this strait and Trump is unlikely to tolerate the inevitable subsequent oil price spike for too long - the diplomatic pressure from the world's two largest economies would also be significant," he said. (Reporting by Anna Hirtenstein, Ahmad Ghaddar, Robert Harvey and Seher Dareen in London, Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru, editing by Alex Lawler, Clelia Oziel and Giles Elgood)

South Africa urges dialogue to end Israel-Iran conflict
South Africa urges dialogue to end Israel-Iran conflict

Zawya

timean hour ago

  • Zawya

South Africa urges dialogue to end Israel-Iran conflict

President Cyril Ramaphosa and the South African government have noted with a great deal of anxiety the entry by the United States of America into the Israel-Iran war. It was South Africa's sincerest hope that President Donald Trump would use his influence and that of the US government to prevail on the parties to pursue a dialogue path in resolving their issues of dispute. South Africa calls on the United States, Israel, and Iran to give the United Nations the opportunity and space to lead on the peaceful resolution of the matters of dispute, including the inspection and verification of Iran's status of uranium enrichment, as well as its broader nuclear capacity. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store