US president Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he was aiming for a “real end” to the conflict between arch-rivals Israel and Iran, and not just a ceasefire, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Trump told reporters shortly after arriving back in the US from a G7 summit in Canada:
I’m not looking for a ceasefire, we’re looking at better than a ceasefire.
The president said he was looking for “an end, a real end, not a ceasefire,” adding that he wanted a “complete give-up” by Iran.
Trump also said on Truth Social that he had not reached out to Iran for peace talks in any “way, shape, or form”, adding that the country “should have taken the deal that was on the table”.
Qatar said on Tuesday its gas production at the South Pars field is steady and supply is proceeding normally, after the world’s largest gas field was struck by Israel on Saturday, prompting Iran to partially suspend its production, Reuters reports.
Qatar, the world’s third biggest liquefied natural gas exporter after the US and Australia, shares the South Pars gas field with Iran.
Iran partially suspended production at the field after an Israeli strike caused a fire on Saturday.
Qatar foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said during a weekly press briefing in Doha:
So far, gas supplies are proceeding normally. However, the ill-advised targeting raises concerns for everyone regarding gas supplies.
This is a reckless move … The companies operating in the fields are international, and there is a global presence, especially in the North Field.
The South Pars field is located offshore in Iran’s southern Bushehr province and is responsible for the bulk of gas production in Iran, the world’s third largest gas producer after the US and Russia.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Tuesday that it believes Israeli airstrikes on Iran’s Natanz enrichment site have had “direct impacts” on the facility’s underground centrifuge halls, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
The strikes are part of an air campaign Israel launched against its longtime foe five days ago, targeting Iran’s military and nuclear programme.
This marks the first time the UN nuclear watchdog has assessed damage from the strikes in the underground parts of Natanz, which is the main enrichment facility of Iran’s nuclear programme.
The agency said:
Based on continued analysis of high-resolution satellite imagery collected after Friday’s attacks, the IAEA has identified additional elements that indicate direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls at Natanz.
Already, an above-ground enrichment hall had been destroyed, as well as electrical equipment that powered the facility.
In videos seen by the Guardian, dozens of bodies can be seen lying on the streets of Khan Younis following Israeli tank shellfire, with some having been loaded on to trucks.
Pools of blood can be seen as individuals flee the scene while others carry bodies. Damaged vehicles, including vans and trucks, are also visibly parked on the street.
Dr Mohammed Saqer, head of nursing at Nasser hospital, said the videos had been taken on Tuesday after “tanks attacked the people who were waiting for food” near an aid distribution site in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
He said:
All of these murdered and wounded were brought to Nasser medical hospital.
You can’t imagine the situation. They treat us as animals. They shoot hundreds of people – women, men, children.
Dr Saqer previously said that nearly 700 casualties had been reported as being treated in hospitals across Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
He said over 300 casualties had arrived at Nasser hospital following the attacks, including 50 who had died.
The EU said on Tuesday that diplomacy was the best path to tackle Tehran’s nuclear programme, after emergency talks between its 27 foreign ministers on the conflict between Israel and Iran, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said following a video call:
We all agreed the urgent need for de-escalation. Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, and diplomacy is the solution to prevent this, and (the) EU will play its part.
Europe has been left largely on the sidelines in efforts to curb the violence between the two Middle East foes after Israel unleashed its initial strikes on Iran.
Europe played a key role in negotiating and overseeing a 2015 agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme that Trump tore up during his first term in office.
Trump’s administration had been trying to agree a new deal with Tehran before Israel kicked off the latest strikes, and talks are now on hold.
“As the Iran and US talks have run into some kind of standstill”, Europe “has more to say”, Kallas said, adding that she had spoken on Monday to Iran’s foreign minister and key European counterparts.
Kallas said European countries were coordinating efforts to evacuate citizens who wanted to leave the region.
“We have member states that have planes leaving, we have member states who don’t have planes, and we coordinate the efforts so that our citizens are safe,” she said.
The EU’s top diplomat said she had received reassurances from US counterpart Marco Rubio that Washington was not looking to join in Israel’s attacks on Iran, saying that it was in “nobody’s interest”.
Israel struck dozens of targets linked to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes overnight and has got Iran’s military leadership “on the run”, an Israeli military official said on Tuesday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the Israeli air force had not targeted Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear facility, but said that still might happen, Reuters reported.
He added that Israel was taking precautions to avoid triggering a nuclear disaster.
The official said Iran has so far launched about 400 ballistic missiles and hundreds of drones at Israel, targeting both civilian and military sites. He said an overnight fall-off in the number of missiles fired showed that Israel had succeeded in damaging Iran’s ability to launch missiles.
US intelligence assessments have found Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon and would have been up to three years away from being able to deliver one, CNN is reporting.
The assessments, sourced to four people familiar with them, are in stark contrast to the narrative being pushed by Israel that Iran was fast approaching a point of no return in acquiring nuclear weapons.
CNN reported:
When Israel launched its series of strikes against Iran last week, it also issued a number of dire warnings about the country’s nuclear program, suggesting Iran was fast approaching a point of no return in its quest to obtain nuclear weapons and that the strikes were necessary to preempt that outcome.
But US intelligence assessments had reached a different conclusion – not only was Iran not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, it was also up to three years away from being able to produce and deliver one to a target of its choosing, according to four people familiar with the assessment.
Another senior US official told CNN that Iran is “about as close as you can get before building (a nuclear weapon). If Iran wanted one, they have all the things they need.”
Meanwhile, after days of Israeli airstrikes, US intelligence officials believe that so far, Israel may have set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a matter of months.
Donald Trump has previously dismissed congressional testimony from the National Intelligence Director of the US, Tulsi Gabbard, who told lawmakers in March that US spy agencies did not believe Iran was building a nuclear weapon (see post 12.08).
The US president, Donald Trump, said he was aiming for a ‘real end’ to the conflict between Israel and Iran, and not just a ceasefire.
He told reporters shortly after arriving back in the US from a G7 summit: “I’m not looking for a ceasefire, we’re looking at better than a ceasefire.”
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could face the same fate as Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in a US-led invasion and was eventually hanged after a trial.
“I warn the Iranian dictator against continuing to commit war crimes and fire missiles at Israeli citizens,” Katz told top Israeli military officials.
Donald Trump has also dismissed congressional testimony from the National Intelligence Director of the US, Tulsi Gabbard, who told lawmakers in March that US spy agencies did not believe Iran was building a nuclear weapon, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
The US president said:
I don’t care what she said,
I think they were very close to having it.
Gabbard told the Senate intelligence committee on 25 March that the American intelligence community had assessed that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon.
Israel’s attacks on Iran have broadened its conflicts in the region to a level that poses a global threat, Jordan’s King Abdullah said in a speech in European parliament on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
The Jordanian monarch said:
With Israel’s expansion of its offensive to include Iran, there is no telling where the boundaries of this battleground will end,
And that is a threat to people everywhere. Ultimately, this conflict must end.
Two oil tankers collided and caught fire on Tuesday near the strait of Hormuz, where electronic interference has surged during conflict between Iran and Israel, Reuters reports.
The agency added that there were no injuries to crew or spillage reported.
With Iran and Israel firing missiles at each other since Friday, interference has disrupted navigation systems near the vital sea route between Iran and Oman, which handles about a fifth of the world’s oil.
The strait of Hormuz links the Gulf to the north-west with the Gulf of Oman to the south-east and the Arabian Sea beyond.
Between the start of 2022 and last month, roughly 17.8m to 20.8m barrels of crude, condensate and fuels flowed through daily, according to data from Vortexa.
Tehran has in the past threatened to close the strait to traffic in retaliation for Western pressure.
The multinational, US-led Combined Maritime Force’s JMIC information centre said in an advisory this week that it had received reports of electronic interference stemming from the vicinity of Iran’s Port of Bandar Abbas and other areas in the Gulf region.
Iran has not commented about Tuesday’s collision or reports of electronic interference.
Here are some pictures of foreign nationals gathering to leave Israel coming through on the wires:
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they struck a centre of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
In a statement aired on state television, the Guards said they “struck the military intelligence centre of the Zionist regime’s army, Aman, and the Zionist regime’s terrorist operations planning centre, the Mossad, in Tel Aviv”.
The Guards added that the centre was “currently on fire”.
A cyber-attack on Tuesday crippled Sepah Bank, one of Iran’s main state-owned banks, according to Fars news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
The agency said:
A cyberattack targeted the infrastructure of Sepah Bank, causing disruptions to the institution’s online services.
It added that the issue was expected to be resolved within the next few hours.
US president Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he was aiming for a “real end” to the conflict between arch-rivals Israel and Iran, and not just a ceasefire, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Trump told reporters shortly after arriving back in the US from a G7 summit in Canada:
I’m not looking for a ceasefire, we’re looking at better than a ceasefire.
The president said he was looking for “an end, a real end, not a ceasefire,” adding that he wanted a “complete give-up” by Iran.
Trump also said on Truth Social that he had not reached out to Iran for peace talks in any “way, shape, or form”, adding that the country “should have taken the deal that was on the table”.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that more than 600 foreign nationals have crossed from Iran into neighbouring Azerbaijan since Israel began striking the country last Friday, a government official in Baku said.
The government source told AFP on Tuesday:
Since the start of the military escalation between Israel and Iran, more than 600 citizens of 17 countries have been evacuated from Iran via Azerbaijan.
Evacuees are transported from the border to Baku International Airport and flown to their home countries on international flights.
The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip while waiting for UN and commercial trucks to enter the territory has since risen to 51 according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and a local hospital, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
The agency added that over 200 people had been wounded.
Palestinian witnesses told the AP that Israeli forces carried out an airstrike on a nearby home before opening fire toward the crowd in the southern city of Khan Younis.
The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
