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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Iran-Israel war: latest developments
Israel and Iran exchanged fire again on Friday, a week into the war between the longtime enemies. Here are the latest developments: - Iran meetings - European top diplomats are meeting with Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva on Friday to discuss Iran's nuclear programme. "I've received several phone calls reassuring me that the Zionist regime would not target" Araghchi en route to Geneva, his adviser Mohammad Reza Ranjbaran said on X. Foreign ministers from France, Germany, Britain and the EU are urging de-escalation, with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy saying the next two weeks are "a window... to achieve a diplomatic solution". Separately, the UN Security Council is also due to convene on Friday for a second session on the conflict, at Iran's request with support from Russia, China and Pakistan, a diplomat told AFP on Wednesday. - Overnight strikes - Israel's military said Friday it struck dozens of targets in Tehran overnight, including what it called a centre for the "research and development of Iran's nuclear weapons project." In an upscale neighbourhood of Tehran, some residents were looking out at the night sky from their rooftops, with red blasts lighting up the darkness, AFP journalists saw. In another area, an Iranian cried out through a loudspeaker, with music blasting in the background: "Death to Israel, death to America!" Iran's Revolutionary Guards said more than 100 "combat and suicide" drones were launched at Israel on Thursday. - Trump waiting to decide - US President Donald Trump said Thursday he will decide whether to join Israel's strikes on Iran within the next two weeks as there is still a "substantial" chance of negotiations to end the conflict. The Wall Street Journal reported Trump told aides he approved attack plans but is holding off to see if Iran will give up its nuclear programme. Tehran ally Moscow said any US military action "would be an extremely dangerous step", while pro-Iran groups in Iraq threatened retaliatory attacks. Dozens of US military aircraft were no longer visible at a US base in Qatar on Thursday, satellite images showed -- a possible move to shield them from potential Iranian strikes. - Iran's new intelligence chief - Iran appointed a new chief of intelligence at its Revolutionary Guards on Thursday, the official IRNA news agency said, after his predecessor was killed in an Israeli strike last week. Major General Mohammad Pakpour, the commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, appointed Brigadier General Majid Khadami as the new head of its intelligence division, IRNA said. He replaces Mohammed Kazemi, who was killed on Sunday alongside two other Revolutionary Guards officers -- Hassan Mohaghegh and Mohsen Bagheri -- in an Israeli strike. Ali Shamkhani, adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was in stable condition, state TV reported on Friday, after he was seriously injured last week. - Death toll - The body of a woman was recovered on Thursday from a building struck by an Iranian missile four days earlier, taking the overall death toll in Israel to 25 since the war began, according to Israeli authorities. Iran said Sunday that Israeli strikes had killed at least 224 people, including military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians. Authorities have not issued an updated toll since. - Arrests and blackout - Iranian police announced the arrest on Thursday of 24 people accused of spying for Israel. Authorities in both Israel and Iran have announced arrests for espionage and other charges since the war began on Friday. Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said at least 223 people have been arrested nationwide on charges related to collaboration with Israel, cautioning that the actual figure was likely higher. Iran imposed a "nationwide internet shutdown" on Thursday -- the most extensive blackout since widespread anti-government protests in 2019 -- internet watchdog NetBlocks said. The shutdown "impacts the public's ability to stay connected at a time when communications are vital", NetBlocks wrote on X. burs-dhw/ser/dcp
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Iran-Israel war: latest developments
Israel and Iran exchanged fire again on Friday, a week into the war between the longtime enemies. Here are the latest developments: - Iran meetings - European top diplomats are meeting with Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva on Friday to discuss Iran's nuclear programme. Foreign ministers from France, Germany, Britain and the EU are urging de-escalation, with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy saying the next two weeks are "a window... to achieve a diplomatic solution". Separately, the UN Security Council is also due to convene on Friday for a second session on the conflict, at Iran's request with support from Russia, China and Pakistan, a diplomat told AFP on Wednesday. - Trump waiting to decide - US President Donald Trump said Thursday he will decide whether to join Israel's strikes on Iran within the next two weeks as there is still a "substantial" chance of negotiations to end the conflict. The Wall Street Journal reported Trump told aides he approved attack plans but is holding off to see if Iran will give up its nuclear programme. Tehran ally Moscow said any US military action "would be an extremely dangerous step", while pro-Iran groups in Iraq threatened retaliatory attacks. Dozens of US military aircraft were no longer visible at a US base in Qatar on Thursday, satellite images showed -- a possible move to shield them from potential Iranian strikes. - Iran's new intelligence chief - Iran appointed a new chief of intelligence at its Revolutionary Guards on Thursday, the official Irna news agency said, after his predecessor was killed in an Israeli strike last week. Major General Mohammad Pakpour, the commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), appointed Brigadier General Majid Khadami as the new head of its intelligence division, Irna said. He replaces Mohammed Kazemi, who was killed on Sunday alongside two other Revolutionary Guards officers -- Hassan Mohaghegh and Mohsen Bagheri -- in an Israeli strike. - Hospital strike - A hospital in southern Israel was hit as Iran fired "dozens" of missiles at the country, officials said. The Soroka Hospital in Beersheba was left in flames, and its director Shlomi Codish said 40 people had sustained injuries. Iran said the main target of its missile attack was not the hospital but a nearby military and intelligence base. UN rights chief Volker Turk urged restraint from both Iran and Israel, saying it is "appalling to see how civilians are treated as collateral damage in the conduct of hostilities". Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tehran would pay a "heavy price". - Nuclear sites, missile launchers - The Israeli military said it struck an "inactive nuclear reactor" in Arak in overnight raids on Iran that also saw the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz targeted again. It said the strike on the Arak site was carried out "to prevent the reactor from being restored". Iranian atomic energy chief Mohammed Eslami condemned the "barbaric and unlawful attack" on Arak, asking the UN nuclear watchdog to intervene. Netanyahu told Israeli public broadcaster Kan that Israel had destroyed "more than half" of Iran's missile launchers since Friday. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said more than 100 "combat and suicide" drones were launched at Israel on Thursday, while Iranian media reported blasts in Tehran. - Death toll - The body of a woman was recovered on Thursday from a building struck by an Iranian missile four days earlier, taking the overall death toll in Israel to 25 since the war began, according to Israeli authorities. Iran said Sunday that Israeli strikes had killed at least 224 people, including military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians. Authorities have not issued an updated toll since. - Arrests and blackout - Iranian police announced the arrest on Thursday of 24 people accused of spying for Israel. Authorities in both Israel and Iran have announced arrests for espionage and other charges since the war began on Friday. Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said at least 223 people have been arrested nationwide on charges related to collaboration with Israel, cautioning that the actual figure was likely higher. Iran imposed a "nationwide internet shutdown" on Thursday -- the most extensive blackout since widespread anti-government protests in 2019 -- internet watchdog NetBlocks said. The shutdown "impacts the public's ability to stay connected at a time when communications are vital", NetBlocks wrote on X. burs-dhw/ach
Khaleej Times
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Khaleej Times
Iran-Israel conflict: Strikes continue for 8th day; here are latest developments
[Editor's Note: Follow the KT live blog for live updates on the Israel-Iran conflict.] Israel and Iran exchanged fire again on Friday, a week into the conflict between the longtime enemies. Here are the latest developments: Iran meetings European top diplomats are meeting with Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva on Friday to discuss Iran's nuclear programme. Foreign ministers from France, Germany, Britain and the EU are urging de-escalation, with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy saying the next two weeks are "a window... to achieve a diplomatic solution". Separately, the UN Security Council is also due to convene on Friday for a second session on the conflict, at Iran's request with support from Russia, China and Pakistan, a diplomat told AFP on Wednesday. Trump waiting to decide US President Donald Trump said Thursday he will decide whether to join Israel's strikes on Iran within the next two weeks as there is still a "substantial" chance of negotiations to end the conflict. The Wall Street Journal reported Trump told aides he approved attack plans but is holding off to see if Iran will give up its nuclear programme. Tehran ally Moscow said any US military action "would be an extremely dangerous step", while pro-Iran groups in Iraq threatened retaliatory attacks. Dozens of US military aircraft were no longer visible at a US base in Qatar on Thursday, satellite images showed -- a possible move to shield them from potential Iranian strikes. Iran's new intelligence chief Iran appointed a new chief of intelligence at its Revolutionary Guards on Thursday, the official Irna news agency said, after his predecessor was killed in an Israeli strike last week. Major General Mohammad Pakpour, the commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), appointed Brigadier General Majid Khadami as the new head of its intelligence division, Irna said. He replaces Mohammed Kazemi, who was killed on Sunday alongside two other Revolutionary Guards officers — Hassan Mohaghegh and Mohsen Bagheri — in an Israeli strike. Hospital strike A hospital in southern Israel was hit as Iran fired "dozens" of missiles at the country, officials said. The Soroka Hospital in Beersheba was left in flames, and its director Shlomi Codish said 40 people had sustained injuries. Iran said the main target of its missile attack was not the hospital but a nearby military and intelligence base. UN rights chief Volker Turk urged restraint from both Iran and Israel, saying it is "appalling to see how civilians are treated as collateral damage in the conduct of hostilities". Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tehran would pay a "heavy price". Nuclear sites, missile launchers The Israeli military said it struck an "inactive nuclear reactor" in Arak in overnight raids on Iran that also saw the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz targeted again. It said the strike on the Arak site was carried out "to prevent the reactor from being restored". Iranian atomic energy chief Mohammed Eslami condemned the "barbaric and unlawful attack" on Arak, asking the UN nuclear watchdog to intervene. Netanyahu told Israeli public broadcaster Kan that Israel had destroyed "more than half" of Iran's missile launchers since Friday. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said more than 100 "combat and suicide" drones were launched at Israel on Thursday, while Iranian media reported blasts in Tehran. Death toll The body of a woman was recovered on Thursday from a building struck by an Iranian missile four days earlier, taking the overall death toll in Israel to 25 since the war began, according to Israeli authorities. Iran said Sunday that Israeli strikes had killed at least 224 people, including military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians. Authorities have not issued an updated toll since. Arrests and blackout Iranian police announced the arrest on Thursday of 24 people accused of spying for Israel. Authorities in both Israel and Iran have announced arrests for espionage and other charges since the war began on Friday. Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said at least 223 people have been arrested nationwide on charges related to collaboration with Israel, cautioning that the actual figure was likely higher. Iran imposed a "nationwide internet shutdown" on Thursday — the most extensive blackout since widespread anti-government protests in 2019 — internet watchdog NetBlocks said. The shutdown "impacts the public's ability to stay connected at a time when communications are vital", NetBlocks wrote on X.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Escalate to de-escalate? What options does Iran have to end Israel war?
Iran has no clear off-ramps to end its war with Israel, which could soon drag in the United States and lead to a new quagmire in the Middle East, analysts told Al Jazeera. Since June 13, Israel has killed at least 240 Iranians, many of them civilians. Top Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists have been among the dead. Israel has struck Iran's state television station, hit a hospital, targeted apartment blocks, and damaged the country's air defences. In response, Iran has fired barrages of ballistic missiles at Israel, targeting military and security installations, and hitting the Haifa oil refinery, residential buildings, and a hospital. At least 24 people have been killed in Israel as a result of the attacks. Israel aims to destroy Iran's nuclear programme and potentially go as far as bringing about regime change, analysts say. These goals make it difficult for Iran to navigate a quick end to the conflict. Iran's official position is that it will not negotiate while under attack, fearing it will be forced to fully surrender to US and Israeli terms. Iran may instead have to hope that US President Donald Trump can be persuaded to rein in Israel, which may be in his interest to avoid getting entangled in a far-away war, even if the US leader has recently appeared to favour striking Iran, and has reiterated that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. 'If the United States recognises the urgency of de-escalation and manages to persuade Israel to halt its military campaign, then – given the mounting costs of war for Iran and the fact that Iran's primary goal is to stop, not expand, the conflict – it is highly likely that Iran would agree to a ceasefire or political resolution,' said Hamidreza Aziz, an expert on Iran for the Middle East Council for Global Affairs think theory, Iran could return to the negotiating table and sign a deal while under fire. However, Iran would be forced to entirely give up its nuclear programme, enabling its enemies to then aggressively pursue regime change without fear of consequence, analysts previously told Al Jazeera. This is an unlikely scenario, according to Reza H Akbari, an analyst on Iran and the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia Program Manager at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. '[Iran's nuclear] program continues to remain a leverage for Iran, which enables them to even engage with the US. Giving it up would be a shocking development which I don't foresee for the time being,' he told Al Jazeera. The US and Iran had already engaged in five rounds of negotiations before Israel instigated the conflict. The two sides had reached an impasse when Trump demanded that Iran give up its entire nuclear programme, which every country has an 'inalienable right' to use for peaceful purposes, according to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which Iran is a signatory to. Trump has since warned Iran to quickly surrender to a deal or face even more dire repercussions, hinting at regime change. Iran has few good options, said Negar Mortazavi, an expert on Iran with the Center for International Policy (CIP). She believes Iran has little to lose by retaliating against Israel, but also notes that the strategy would not necessarily give Tehran a way out of the conflict. 'If Iran does not retaliate after each attack, [Iranian officials] think [the Israeli attacks] will get harder and I think they're correct,' Mortazavi told Al Jazeera. 'But every time [Iran] retaliates, they give Israel the excuse to attack them again.'Over the last year, Iran's regional influence has suffered major setbacks, leaving it geopolitically vulnerable. Iran had long relied on its ally, the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, to provide deterrence from direct Israeli attacks, but Hezbollah was significantly weakened after fighting an all-out war against Israel last year. In addition, Iran lost another ally when Syria's former President Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December 2024. Iran could still direct attacks against US bases and personnel through a web of Iranian-backed armed groups in the region, particularly in Iraq, said Barbara Slavin, an expert on Iran and a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Centre think tank. She believes Iranian-backed groups in Iraq could fire 'warning shots' to try and exploit US public opinion. Trump's nationalist 'America First' base remains staunchly opposed to any US involvement in wars abroad, which they view as unrelated to their domestic concerns. And anti-interventionist sentiments are likely to increase if US troops are put in harm's way as a result of any attacks related to the conflict with Iran. 'The thought of Americans dying in this would make it even more controversial for [the US] than it already is,' Slavin told Al Jazeera. Iran could also make Americans feel the impact of the war economically. It has threatened to attack commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, which would affect global trade and increase oil prices. But Slavin said this move would badly hurt Iran's economy, too. Slavin added that Iran also relies on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which lies between Iran and Oman and is one of the most important shipping routes in the world, to export oil. Instead, Slavin said that Iran's best option was to contain the war with Israel and wait out the conflict, arguing that any manoeuvre to escalate against US personnel, even as a warning, is a risky gambit. Trump's administration, which includes many war hawks, has explicitly warned Iran against targeting its assets or soldiers. Iran is also wary of giving the US any easy pretext to directly enter the war on behalf of Israel, Akbari said. 'Iran's leadership knows that drawing the US further into the war could be catastrophic for both the regime and in terms of industrial damage. [It would risk destroying] everything Iran has built over the last 40-plus years,' Akbari formal position is to inflict significant political, military and material cost on Israel for instigating the war. This position was echoed by Hassan Ahmadian, an assistant professor at Tehran University, who suggested Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may stop the war if Israelis feel the impact of a crisis he instigated. 'Iranians are quite confident that they can inflict enough retaliatory pain to make Israel stop [its attacks],' Ahmadian told Al Jazeera. It is unclear how much damage Iran is doing to Israel's military infrastructure since the latter bars the media from reporting such information. Furthermore, it's hard to assess how long Iran can sustain a war against Israel. But Israel itself may struggle to attack for a protracted period without the US, said Slavin. She referenced media reports that Israel is running low on defensive interceptors, which could make it more vulnerable to long-range strikes by Iran. The challenges facing both foes could prompt them to end the fighting sooner rather than later – at least that appears to be what Iran is betting on. 'Right now, Iran is trying to hunker down and somehow get through this,' Slavin said. 'No outside power will save Iran. It's up to them [to save themselves],' she told Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
LIVE: Israel, Iran trade missile fire; Iran's FM to meet European officials
The White House says, due to 'chance of negotiation', the president will decide within the next two weeks whether the US will join the Israel-Iran foreign minister is scheduled to meet today in Geneva with counterparts from France, Germany and the United Kingdom for talks on Tehran's nuclear programme and ending Israel's than 200 injured in Israel, including four in critical condition, following an Iranian missile attack on Secretary-General Naim Qassem said the threatened assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is an 'aggression' against all the people of the region. Update: Date: 3m ago (00:04 GMT) Title: A recap of recent developments Content: Update: Date: 7m ago (00:00 GMT) Title: Welcome to our live coverage Content: Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the conflict between Israel and Iran, as well as Israel's war on Gaza. Stay with us for the latest developments, reactions and analyses. You can find all our updates from Thursday, June 19, here.
