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Israel and Iran launch new attacks as Tehran says it will not negotiate nuclear programme while under threat Israel says it has killed two al-Quds officials as Iran warns US against joining war
(about 2 hours later)
Israel’s foreign minister says its strikes have delayed Iran’s potential to develop a nuclear weapon by ‘at least two or three years’ Iran foreign minister says it would be ‘very dangerous’ for US to join Israel in strikes, which targeted senior Quds Force officials overnight
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Iran and Israel exchanged fresh strikes early on Saturday, after Tehran said it would not negotiate over its nuclear programme while under threat and Israel claimed its attacks had delayed Iran’s potential to develop a nuclear weapon by “at least two or three years”. Israel’s military has said it killed two top Iranian military officials in overnight strikes as Iran warned it would be “very dangerous for everyone” if the US intervened in the conflict.
Shortly after 2.30am the Israeli military warned of an incoming missile barrage from Iran, triggering air raid sirens across parts of central Israel, including Tel Aviv, as well as in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. An Israeli military official said on Saturday that Saeed Izadi, the head of the Palestine Corps of al-Quds, the foreign branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp, had been killed in a strike on a flat in the city of Qom, central Iran.
Interceptions were visible in the sky over Tel Aviv, with explosions echoing across the metropolitan area as Israel’s air defence systems responded. An Israeli military official said Iran had fired five ballistic missiles and that there were no immediate indications of any missile impacts. There were no initial reports of casualties. The Israeli military said Izadi had played a key role in the financing and arming of Hamas before its attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
At the same time, Israel launched a new wave of attacks against missile storage and launch infrastructure sites in Iran, the Israeli military said. The official said Behnam Shahriyari, another senior official in al-Quds force responsible for helping finance the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, had also been killed in a strike.
Iran’s Fars news agency said the Isfahan nuclear facility – one of the nation’s biggest – had been targeted but there was no leakage of hazardous materials. Iranian media also said Israel had attacked a building in the city of Qom, with initial reports of a 16-year-old killed and two people injured. After talks between the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and European counterparts in Geneva ended on Friday evening with no breakthrough, Iran launched a salvo of missiles at Israel in the early hours of Saturday morning. A building in central Israel caught fire after being hit by the shrapnel of an intercepted Iranian missile. Later on Saturday a drone strike hit a residential building in north Israel, damaging the building. No casualties were reported from the missile barrage or the drone strike.
The war started when Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes on Iran last Friday morning, in what it said was an operation aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Iran quickly responded with a barrage of missiles and drones, triggering a tit-for-tat cycle of bombing between the two countries. Speaking in Istanbul on Saturday, Araghchi said it would be “very, very dangerous for everyone” if the US intervened militarily in Israel’s war with Iran. Donald Trump has said that he will decide within two weeks whether or not the US will join Israel in its bombing of Iran, saying he is waiting to give diplomacy a chance.
Israel knocked out much of Iran’s air defences in its initial wave of attacks and Israeli jets have operated with relative freedom over Iran. Iran has sent a steadily diminishing number of ballistic missiles into Israel and managed to get some past air defences, hitting a hospital in southern Israel on Thursday and injuring about 80 people. The war began on 13 June after Israel launched a wave of pre-dawn strikes on Iran in what it said was an operation aimed at preventing the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Iran quickly responded with missile and drone attacks, kicking off an escalating cycle of tit-for-tat bombings that has now entered its ninth day.
Israeli bombing has killed at least 639 people and wounded 1,326, according to Iranian media, while Iranian missiles have killed at least 25 people and wounded hundreds in Israel. In Iran, at least 430 people had been killed and 3,500 wounded by Israeli strikes since fighting began, state media said. At least 25 people had been killed and hundreds injured by Iranian strikes in Israel.
As fighting continues to escalate, the Israeli military chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, said Israelis must prepare for “difficult days” ahead. Araghchi’s meeting in Geneva had been aimed at reviving nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran in an attempt to reach a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. The foreign ministers of the UK, Germany and France, along with the EU’s high representative, set out a proposal which included Iran moving to zero uranium enrichment, restrictions on its missile programme and ending Tehran’s financing of proxy groups.
He said on Friday: “To remove a threat of such magnitude, against such an enemy, we must be ready for a prolonged campaign. Day by day, our freedom to operate is expanding and the enemy’s is narrowing.” The talks appeared to have made little progress, as Iran said it would not negotiate with the US unless Israel stopped its bombings – something that neither Israel nor its key backer seemed likely to consider.
In an interview published on Saturday, Israel’s foreign minister said the strikes on Iran had delayed Tehran’s potential to develop a nuclear weapon by “at least two or three years”. “It is obvious that I can’t go to negotiations with the US when our people are under bombardments under the support of the US,” Araghchi told reporters in Istanbul where he was attending a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
Israel’s offensive – which has hit hundreds of nuclear and military sites, killing top commanders and nuclear scientists – has produced “very significant” results, Gideon Saar told German newspaper Bild. On Friday, Trump said: “Israel is doing well, in terms of war, and Iran … is doing less well. It’s a little bit hard to get somebody to stop.” He added that the US was “ready, willing and able” to negotiate and that it had been speaking to Iran.
“We already achieved a lot, but we will do whatever we can do. We will not stop until we will do everything that we can do there in order to remove this threat,” he said. European politicians have urged the use of diplomacy to reach a ceasefire, stressing that an expanded Israeli-US-Iran war could spiral out of control.
Speaking in Geneva, where he was meeting his counterparts from the UK, France and Germany, the Iranian foreign minster, Abbas Araghchi, said Iran was determined to defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty “with all force”. Vladimir Putin has said he is willing to mediate between Israel and Iran, the latter of which is a close ally of the Kremlin. In an interview with Sky News Arabia on Saturday, the Russian president said Moscow was opposed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons but there was no evidence that Iran aimed to build any.
But there was no sign of any breakthrough, and Araghchi said Iran would only consider a resumption of diplomacy with Washington if Israel halted its bombardment. “We believe Iran has the right to use nuclear energy peacefully, and we are ready to help,” Putin said, echoing Iran’s insistence that its nuclear programme was meant for civilian purposes.
Late on Friday, Donald Trump said it was unlikely he would pressure Israel to scale back its offensive to allow negotiations, telling reporters: “I think it’s very hard to make that request right now. If somebody is winning, it’s a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing, but we’re ready, willing and able, and we’ve been speaking to Iran.” In a 31 May report, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran had produced enriched uranium to a level of 60%, which the nuclear watchdog said was of “serious concern”. US intelligence said Iran was up to three years away from producing a nuclear weapon.
The US president reiterated that he would take as long as two weeks to decide whether the US should enter the conflict on Israel’s side, enough time “to see whether or not people come to their senses”. He doubted negotiations with European officials would be able to secure a ceasefire, he added. Israel deployed 50 aircraft over Iran overnight, hitting the Isfahan nuclear site for the second time.
“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe, they want to speak to us,” Trump said. “Europe is not going to be able to help in this one.” Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said in an interview on Saturday that its attacks had delayed Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb for at least “two or three years”, and that the Israeli military campaign would continue.
Israel is keen for the US to jump into the fray, as only the US possesses the capacity to strike Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear facility, the Fordow uranium enrichment site, which lies up to 100 metres under a mountain near Qom. The IAEA director general, Rafael Grossi, has warned against attacks on nuclear sites in Iran, which he said have caused a “sharp degradation in nuclear safety and security”, though no radiological leaks had occurred yet. He warned specifically against an attack on the Bushehr nuclear power plant on the south-west coast which he said could result in a “very high release of radioactivity to the environment”.
On Friday, Trump said his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had been wrong in suggesting there was no evidence Iran is building a nuclear weapon. Israel’s strikes have also been aimed at Iran’s ballistic missile programme. An Israeli military official estimated it had destroyed or damaged more than 50% of Iran’s missile launchers, which they said would limit the ability to use remaining ballistic missile stock.
In March, Gabbard testified to Congress that the US intelligence community continued to believe that Tehran was not building a nuclear weapon. Israeli attacks have displaced tens of thousands of city residents, particularly those in Tehran. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, said on Friday that three aid workers had been killed, and six ambulances and four healthcare centres hit by Israel.
Trump began to publicly contest that assessment after the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed he launched the war because Iran was on the threshold of obtaining a nuclear bomb. “The intentional attack on a Red Crescent ambulance in Tehran is a clear example of a war crime and a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law,” Baghaei said.
On Friday, Gabbard said in a post on social media that the media had taken her March testimony “out of context” and was trying to “manufacture division”, adding: “America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalise the assembly. President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree.” Israel has said it is only targeting Iranian government sites, which have included the internal security forces headquarters in Tehran. An Iranian missile hit Soroka hospital in southern Israel on Wednesday, injuring at least 76 and damaging the facility.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse