Trump-Iran latest: Israel’s military strikes in southern Lebanon while UN assesses nuclear facility damage
It comes as Iran’s supreme leader warned the country would not hesitate to bomb more US air bases if provoked
Israel’s military has struck at Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, days after a ceasefire deal with reached with Iran.
The Israeli air force said it was targeting the militant group’s underground defence assets in an intense barrage of strikes on Friday morning.
Meanwhile experts are still assessing the damage done to Iran’s nuclear facilities after Donald Trump claimed they were “obliterated” and his defence secretary said they were “destroyed” in US attacks on the weekend.
It comes after Iran’s increasingly isolated supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned in his first televised appearance since the US bombed Tehran’s nuclear facilities that Iran would not hesitate to bomb more US air bases in the Middle East if provoked.
Earlier, US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said Iran’s nuclear facilities have been decimated in a complex operation, while railing against the media for reporting on a leaked Defence Intelligence Agency assessment that found that Donald Trump's airstrikes had only set back the country's nuclear program by a matter of a few months.
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Iran's ayatollah says US 'gained no achievement'
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has claimed that the US "gained no achievement" after it attacked three Iranian nuclear sites.
Instead, the US entered the war to "save" Israel after Tehran's missiles broke through Israel's multi-layered defence system, the supreme leader said as he claimed victory in the 12-day war.
"The US directly entered the war as it felt that if it did not get involved, the Zionist regime (Israel) would be fully destroyed. It entered the war to save it," he said.
"The US attacked our nuclear facilities, but couldn't do any important deed... The US president did abnormal showmanship and needed to do so," he added.
Donald Trump said over the weekend that the US deployment of 30,000-pound bombs had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear programme.
However, this appeared to be contradicted by an initial assessment from one of his administration's intelligence agencies.
US ropes in Pakistan to promote peace between Israel and Iran
US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Pakistan prime minister Shehbaz Sharif discussed promoting "a durable peace between Israel and Iran" during a call yesterday.
"The two leaders acknowledged the importance of working together to promote a durable peace between Israel and Iran," the US state department said in a statement. "Secretary Rubio emphasised Iran can never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon."
President Donald Trump, earlier this week, announced a ceasefire between US ally Israel and its regional rival Iran to halt a war that began on 13 June when Israel attacked Iran.
Mr Trump met Pakistan's army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir at the White House last week where they discussed Iran, which Mr Trump said Pakistan knew about better than most other countries.
A section of Pakistan's embassy in Washington represents Iran's interests in the US, as Tehran does not have diplomatic relations with the US.
Trump calls for Netanyahu corruption trial to be scrapped
Donald Trump vowed to “save” Benjamin Netanyahu as he hit out at the Israeli prime minister’s “witch-hunt” corruption trial.
Trump claimed Israel’s prime minister was a “great hero” and “warrior” who faced politically motivated charges and called for the trial to be cancelled.
The president’s intervention comes as Netanyahu’s cross-examination, which began on 4 June, is set to resume on Monday. He faces charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust and denies all of them.
More here.
Trump calls for Netanyahu corruption trial to be scrapped branding it a ‘witch-hunt’
1,190 killed in Iran
At least 1,190 Iranians have been killed in Israel's 12-day-long offensive on Iran, according to a Washington-based human rights group.
The war between Israel and Iran left about 4,475 others wounded, HRANA said, according to Iranian media.
Israeli strike kills 18 Palestinians in central Gaza
An Israeli strike hit a street in central Gaza where witnesses said a crowd of people was getting bags of flour from a Palestinian police unit that had confiscated the goods from gangs looting aid convoys. Hospital officials said 18 people were killed.
The strike was the latest violence surrounding the distribution of food to Gaza's population, which has been thrown into turmoil over the past month. After blocking all food for almost three months, Israel has allowed only a trickle of supplies into the territory since mid-May.
Efforts by the UN to distribute the food have been plagued by armed gangs looting trucks and by crowds of desperate people offloading supplies from convoys.
The strike in the central town of Deir al-Balah yesterday appeared to target members of Sahm, a security unit tasked with stopping looters and cracking down on merchants who sell stolen aid at high prices.
The unit is part of Gaza's Hamas-led interior ministry, but includes members of other factions.
In pics: Protesters rally outside the JFK Federal Building
Macron says Trump pushing for Gaza ceasefire
French president Emmanuel Macron said Donald Trump is pushing hard for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“On Gaza, I felt that President Trump was very determined, very resolute, aware of the importance of a ceasefire, and I think his commitment is essential on this issue,” he told reporters in Brussels following a summit of European Union leaders.
“I know that his team is engaged in ongoing discussions.”
He added that the US strikes had a real impact on Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordo nuclear facilities in Iran.
“But the worst thing would be if this led to Iran withdrawing from the non-proliferation treaty, which would ultimately result in a collective drift and weakening.”
Experts working to find answers to two key questions about Iran's nuclear programme
Experts are still assessing the damage done to Iran’s nuclear facilities after Donald Trump claimed they were “obliterated” and his defence secretary said they were “destroyed” in US attacks on the weekend.
A preliminary report issued by the US Defence Intelligence Agency said the strikes did significant damage to the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan sites, but did not totally destroy the facilities.
On Thursday, defence secretary Pete Hegseth railed against media reporting of that leaked analysis, saying numerous officials and expert bodies said the sites had been wiped out.
But officials and experts are still working to find answers to two major questions: where Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium is and what is the state of the centrifuges that enrich the fuel.
The answer to the first is not clear, but the UN’s nuclear watchgod believes significant damage was done to centrifuges at the two enrichment facilities in Natanz and Fordo.
The International Atomic Energy Agency - and the world - want to know the state of both the uranium and centrifuges because if Iran chooses to make a nuclear weapon, then making the fuel required would be just a short, technical step away.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatens more attacks on US after week-long disappearance
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has claimed victory over Israel and the United States in his first public comments since a ceasefire was announced between the warring countries.
For the ayatollah, the pre-recorded message put out on Thursday may have done little to alleviate concerns about his future. He has been notably absent in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s attack, observers have noted.
Mr Khamenei, 86, has not been seen in public since taking shelter in a secret location after the outbreak of the war 13 June, when Israel attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed several top military commanders and nuclear scientists, including members of their families.
Foreign support Tehran may have expected from China and Russia never materialised. And Iran’s network of militant proxy groups – the “Axis of Resistance” – once wielded significant power across the Middle East. But now, those groups including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, are in disarray, having been badly damaged since the Hamas October 7 2023 attack on Israel.
Read the full report here:
Iran’s supreme leader threatens more attacks on US after week-long absence
‘You cheer against Trump so hard’: Hegseth scolds Iran nuclear strike reporting
White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg reports:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lashed into the Pentagon press corps Thursday morning, accusing reporters of deliberately trying to cast doubt on the success of last weekend’s U.S. airstrikes against Iranian nuclear sites in aid of what he painted as an underlying vendetta against President Donald Trump.
“You cheer against Trump so hard, it's like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump,” he scolded in an early morning briefing scheduled after Trump himself raged for the better part of 24 hours — including publicly at a NATO summit in the Netherlands — about a CNN report on leaked early assessments of the damage caused by Saturday’s B-2 bomber strikes against Iran.
He also accused the press of missing “historic moments” while trying to “find wedges and spin stories” before claiming the airstrikes aimed at Iran’s Esfahan, Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites on Saturday had been “the most complex and secretive military operation in history” and “a resounding success.”
Read the full report here:
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