Iran and Israel trade attacks as conflict enters fourth day – live updates

Leading Iranian activists and filmmakers on Monday called for an end to hostilities between Iran and Israel, urging Tehran to stop the conflict by halting its enrichment of uranium, AFP reports.

“We demand the immediate halt of uranium enrichment by the Islamic Republic, the cessation of military hostilities, an end to attacks on vital infrastructure in both Iran and Israel, and the stopping of massacres of civilians in both countries,” said the activists in an op-ed in French newspaper Le Monde.

The signatories included Nobel peace prize winners Shirin Ebadi and Narges Mohammadi, as well as the winner of the top prize at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival Jafar Panahi and his fellow director Mohammad Rassoulof.

Reuters is reporting comments coming from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has said: “We are on the path to victory”.

He also said the Israeli air force is “in control” of the skies over Tehran.

Netanyahu added: “We are on our way to achieve our two main objectives, eliminating the nuclear threat and eliminating the missile threat.

“We are telling the citizens of Tehran: ‘Evacuate’, and we are taking action.”

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli troops killed 20 people waiting to collect food on Monday, the latest deadly incident near a US-backed aid centre in the Palestinian territory’s south, AFP reports.

Civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said that “the (Israeli) occupation forces opened fire” near the Al-Alam roundabout in the southern city of Rafah, where many were waiting to reach an aid distribution site.

Bassal said that “20 martyrs and more than 200 wounded by occupation gunfire” were taken to nearby hospitals.

AFP added that the Israeli military said it was looking into the report.

Downing Street would not be drawn on whether the UK was aware of an Israeli plan to kill Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

US president Donald Trump is reported to have vetoed the plan.

Asked if the UK was aware, a No 10 spokesperson said: “We wouldn’t comment on private conversations or intelligence matters.

“We are concerned by further escalation, which is in no one’s interest, and we’re working closely with our allies to press for a return to diplomacy.”

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.

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.

• 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.

• 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

• 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 dayasking 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.

• 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.

• 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.

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.

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.