Here is a summary of events so far
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Israeli officials say eight people have reportedly been killed overnight in the latest round of Iranian strikes, as the conflict between the two regional rivals enters a fourth day. The total number of people killed since Friday stands at 24, according to the Israeli PM’s office and media reports.
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Iran says more than 200 people have been killed there since the start of the conflict on Friday.
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Iran’s foreign ministry has challenged Israel’s characterisation of what it has described as ‘surgical’ strikes in Tehran, saying that many women and children have been killed in residential areas.
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Iranian media said that a hospital in the country’s west has been “seriously damaged” after an Israeli strike in the area on Monday, AFP reports citing the Tasnim news agency.
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Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz on Monday had to row back on his warning that Tehran’s residents would “pay the price” for Iranian strikes on Israeli civilians. He later said Israel has “no intention to physically harm the residents of Tehran”.
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Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons but will pursue its right to nuclear energy and research, president Masoud Pezeshkian said on Monday, as reported by Reuters.
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An Israeli military spokesperson has said Israel has “achieved aerial superiority over Iran”, AFP reports.
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Israel’s military says it has destroyed “one-third” of Iran’s surface-to-surface missile launchers, AFP reports.
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UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi provided an update on Monday on the situation at Iran’s nuclear facilities after Israel launched military strikes and said there was no sign of further damage at the Natanz or Fordow enrichment sites
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Tensions between Iran and Israel are escalating as leaders of G7 nations prepare meet on Monday in the Canadian Rockies, where they plan to spend the opening day asking Trump to justify his confidence that Israel and Iran will make a deal that will mean “peace soon”.
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Iran has urged the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency to condemn Israeli attacks on nuclear sites in the Islamic republic during an emergency meeting on Monday, AFP reports.
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China has urged Iran and Israel to “immediately take measures to cool down the tensions”.
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Iran has executed a man who was found guilty of spying for Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Monday, as reported by Reuters.
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Israel’s military says it has attacked Iran’s Quds force headquarters in Tehran.
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Iran’s chief justice, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, on Monday said there would be swift trials for people arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Israel, Reuters reports.
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Iran on Monday urged Britain, France and Germany to pressure Israel to stop its attacks on Iran, AFP reports.
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Israel said on Monday that it deported the last three remaining activists from an aid flotilla that attempted to reach the war-torn Gaza Strip last week.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian in a phone call on Monday that his country was ready to play a facilitator role to return to nuclear negotiations and end the conflict with Israel.
Key events
Russian president Vladimir Putin and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned Israel’s “act of force” against Iran and called for an immediate cessation of hostilities when they spoke by phone on Monday, the Kremlin said.
“Both sides expressed the most serious concern about the ongoing escalation of the Iran-Israel conflict, which has already led to a large number of casualties and is fraught with serious long-term consequences for the entire region,” a Kremlin statement said.
“The leaders spoke in favour of an immediate cessation of hostilities and the settlement of contentious issues, including those related to the Iranian nuclear programme, exclusively by political and diplomatic means.”
The two sides agreed to remain in close cooperation, the statement said.
France on Monday blocked access to the stands of five Israeli arms manufacturers at the Paris Air show for displaying “offensive weapons”, according to a French government source, AFP reports.
The stands were blocked off by black tarps for showing “offensive weapons”, including those used in Gaza, which allegedly violated terms made with Israel, said the source. The Israeli government condemned the “scandalous” decision in a statement, calling it a form of “segregation” against the Israeli companies.
UK declines to say if it backs US negotiating demand
Patrick Wintour
The UK has declined to say if it supported the US negotiating demand that Iran must lose its right to enrich uranium inside Iran, the issue on which the bilateral Iran-US talks were stalled, but had not yet aborted.
A sixth round of talks scheduled for Sunday were cancelled after Israel mounted its pre-emptive military strike.
The issue still matters since the possibility of a return to diplomacy rests in part on whether there is still any scope for manoeuvre about a limited Iranian right to enrich, or whether European countries was always backing the Trump administration policy, and will not press for the issue to be reopened.
Iran has said it will only consider returning to talks if the Israeli attacks cease, and it is continuing to insist on its right to enrich as a matter of national sovereignty.
Britain, France, and Germany last week played a central role in passing a motion censuring Iran for failing to cooperate with the UN nuclear inspectorate the IAEA, but the British government has not yet said in public that it now believes Iran had permanently forfeited the right to enrich.
Iran negotiated a right to enrich in the 2015 nuclear deal, a multilateral agreement from which the UK France and Germany have never withdrawn, unlike the US which withdrew in 2018.
The Foreign Office in response to a question on whether the UK continued to support Iran’s right to enrich said simply that “the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not provide states with a right to enrich uranium; it also does not prohibit uranium enrichment”.
Officials added the UK was clear that Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon and have long called for Iran to de-escalate its deeply concerning nuclear activities.
Here is a summary of events so far
-
Israeli officials say eight people have reportedly been killed overnight in the latest round of Iranian strikes, as the conflict between the two regional rivals enters a fourth day. The total number of people killed since Friday stands at 24, according to the Israeli PM’s office and media reports.
-
Iran says more than 200 people have been killed there since the start of the conflict on Friday.
-
Iran’s foreign ministry has challenged Israel’s characterisation of what it has described as ‘surgical’ strikes in Tehran, saying that many women and children have been killed in residential areas.
-
Iranian media said that a hospital in the country’s west has been “seriously damaged” after an Israeli strike in the area on Monday, AFP reports citing the Tasnim news agency.
-
Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz on Monday had to row back on his warning that Tehran’s residents would “pay the price” for Iranian strikes on Israeli civilians. He later said Israel has “no intention to physically harm the residents of Tehran”.
-
Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons but will pursue its right to nuclear energy and research, president Masoud Pezeshkian said on Monday, as reported by Reuters.
-
An Israeli military spokesperson has said Israel has “achieved aerial superiority over Iran”, AFP reports.
-
Israel’s military says it has destroyed “one-third” of Iran’s surface-to-surface missile launchers, AFP reports.
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UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi provided an update on Monday on the situation at Iran’s nuclear facilities after Israel launched military strikes and said there was no sign of further damage at the Natanz or Fordow enrichment sites
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Tensions between Iran and Israel are escalating as leaders of G7 nations prepare meet on Monday in the Canadian Rockies, where they plan to spend the opening day asking Trump to justify his confidence that Israel and Iran will make a deal that will mean “peace soon”.
-
Iran has urged the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency to condemn Israeli attacks on nuclear sites in the Islamic republic during an emergency meeting on Monday, AFP reports.
-
China has urged Iran and Israel to “immediately take measures to cool down the tensions”.
-
Iran has executed a man who was found guilty of spying for Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Monday, as reported by Reuters.
-
Israel’s military says it has attacked Iran’s Quds force headquarters in Tehran.
-
Iran’s chief justice, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, on Monday said there would be swift trials for people arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Israel, Reuters reports.
-
Iran on Monday urged Britain, France and Germany to pressure Israel to stop its attacks on Iran, AFP reports.
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Israel said on Monday that it deported the last three remaining activists from an aid flotilla that attempted to reach the war-torn Gaza Strip last week.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian in a phone call on Monday that his country was ready to play a facilitator role to return to nuclear negotiations and end the conflict with Israel.
Turkey willing to facilitate nuclear talks, Erdoğan tells Pazeshkian
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian in a phone call on Monday that his country was ready to play a facilitator role to return to nuclear negotiations and end the conflict with Israel, the Turkish presidency said.
Russia remains ready to act as a mediator in the conflict between Israel and Iran, and Moscow’s previous proposals to store Iranian uranium in Russia remain on the table, the Kremlin said on Monday, AFP reports.
Russia’s previous proposals to resolve the conflict are still on the table, but the outbreak of hostilities has complicated the situation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, AFP reports.
Israeli strike on Iran’s west damages hospital – media reports
Iranian media said that a hospital in the country’s west has been seriously damaged after an Israeli strike in the area on Monday, AFP reports citing the Tasnim news agency.
The semi-official Fars news agency carried a video of the hospital showing shattered glass, collapsed ceilings, and extensive damage in patient rooms.
We have more from Rafael Grossi, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog (see earlier post).
Grossi said on Monday there was “no indication of a physical attack” on the underground section of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment site following Israeli strikes that destroyed the plant’s above-ground section.
“There has been no indication of a physical attack on the underground cascade hall containing part of the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant and the main Fuel Enrichment Plant,” Grossi said in a statement to an extraordinary board session.
“However, the loss of power to the cascade hall may have damaged the centrifuges there,” he added.
Israel’s military says it has destroyed “one-third” of Iran’s surface-to-surface missile launchers, AFP reports.
“More than 50 fighter jets and aircraft carried out strikes and destroyed over 120 surface-to-surface missile launchers. This amounts to one-third of the surface-to-surface missile launchers possessed by the Iranian regime,” military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said in a televised statement.
Israel has “no intention” of deliberately harming the residents of Tehran, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said, walking back earlier comments he had made on Monday, Reuters reports.
In a statement, Katz said:
I wish to clarify the obvious: there is no intention to physically harm the residents of Tehran as the murderous dictator does to the residents of Israel.
The residents of Tehran will have to pay the price of dictatorship and evacuate their homes from areas where it will be necessary to attack regime targets and security infrastructures in Tehran.
Israeli military spokesperson: ‘We have achieved aerial superiority over Iran’
An Israeli military spokesperson has said Israel has “achieved aerial superiority over Iran”, AFP reports.
UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi provided an update on Monday on the situation at Iran’s nuclear facilities after Israel launched military strikes and said there was no sign of further damage at the Natanz or Fordow enrichment sites.
In a statement to his agency’s board of governors, he said:
The (International Atomic Energy) Agency is and will remain present in Iran. Safeguards inspections in Iran will continue as soon as safety conditions allow, as is required under Iran’s NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) safeguards obligations.
Iran urges IAEA to condemn Israeli strikes on nuclear sites at urgent meeting
Iran has urged the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency to condemn Israeli attacks on nuclear sites in the Islamic republic during an emergency meeting on Monday, AFP reports.
“We expect the (IAEA) Board of Governors and the Director General to take a firm position in condemning this act (attacking nuclear facilities) and holding the regime (Israel) accountable,” said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei during a weekly press briefing.
Iranian media has reported a new Israeli strike on western Iran on Monday, AFP reports.
“The Zionist regime has brutally attacked the fire department building at the Musiyan municipality” in the western province of Ilam, the Tasnim news agency reported, publishing a video of smoke rising from the site.
Here are some images coming to us over the wires:
Remaining aid boat activists deported, says Israel
Israel said on Monday that it deported the last three remaining activists from an aid flotilla that attempted to reach the war-torn Gaza Strip last week, AFP reports.
“The last three participants remaining from the “Selfie Yacht” (flotilla) were transferred this morning to Jordan via the Allenby Crossing,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding they included one Dutch and two French nationals.
Poland is ready to start evacuating around 200 of its citizens who were on visits to Israel via Jordan’s capital Amman, a deputy foreign minister said on Monday, Reuters reports.
“We assume we will be ready in the next few dozen hours, [the evacuation] will concern those who are stuck as tourists and those staying for a short stay,” Henryka Moscicka-Dendys told reporters.
Tehran remains opposed to weapons of mass destruction – Iran foreign ministry
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday that the Iranian parliament is preparing a bill to leave the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), adding that Tehran remains opposed to the development of weapons of mass destruction, Reuters reports.