4h ago
15.48 BST
Summary
of the day so far
It is
approaching 6pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv, and 6.30pm in Tehran. Here is a
summary of the key developments so far on today’s blog:
Iranian
foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said it would be “very, very dangerous for
everyone” if the United States becomes actively involved in the war with
Israel. He spoke to reporters in Istanbul on his way home from talks in Geneva.
Araghchi said American military involvement “would be very unfortunate”.
Israel’s
military said on Saturday it had killed two top Iranian military officials in
overnight strikes. An Israeli military official said on Saturday that Saeed
Izadi, the head of the Palestine Corps of al-Quds, the foreign branch of the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, had been killed in a strike on a flat in the
city of Qom, central Iran. The official said Behnam Shahriyari, another senior
official in al-Quds responsible for helping finance the Lebanese militia
Hezbollah, had also been killed in a strike.
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.
Several
“powerful explosions” were heard on Saturday afternoon in south-western Iran’s
Ahvaz, the daily Shargh reported. The Israeli military had previously announced
it was striking “military infrastructure” in the south-west.
Four
members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed in an Israeli
attack on a training centre in north-west Iran, the ISNA news agency reported.
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian media reported that five Iranian Revolutionary
Guards were killed in Israeli strikes in the city of Khorramabad.
Turkey’s
president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi that
a resumption of negotiations is the only solution to the nuclear dispute.
According to the Turkish presidency, Erdoğan also told Araghchi that Turkey is
ready to be a facilitator and that direct talks are needed between US and
Iranian officials as soon as possible to pave the way for diplomacy.
Erdoğan
also said on Saturday that Israel’s attacks on Iran right before a new round of
nuclear talks with the US aimed to sabotage the negotiations, and it showed
Israel did not want to resolve issues through diplomacy. Speaking at a foreign
ministers’ meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Istanbul,
Erdoğan urged countries with influence over Israel not to listen to its
“poison” and to seek a solution to the fighting via dialogue without allowing a
wider conflict.
French
president Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday that he had received a call from his
Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian and that they had agreed to accelerate
negotiations between European powers and Iran over its contested nuclear
programme. The French president said he expressed his “deep concern” to
Pezeshkian about the country’s nuclear programme.
However,
the discussions and proposals made by the European powers to Iran over its
nuclear programme in Geneva were unrealistic and insisting on them will not
bring both sides closer to an agreement, a senior Iranian official told
Reuters.“In any case, Iran will review the European proposals in Tehran and
present its responses in the next meeting,” the official said. He added that
zero enrichment was a dead end and that Iran would not negotiate over its
defensive capabilities, including its missile programme.
Turkish
foreign minister Hakan Fidan told his counterparts from Muslim countries that
Israel was dragging the region into “total disaster” with its attacks on Iran.
Speaking at a foreign ministers’ meeting of the Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation in Istanbul, Fidan called on Muslim countries to stand with Iran
against Israel, and said the region had an “Israel problem” after its assault
on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran.
In Iran,
at least 430 people have been killed and 3,500 injured by Israeli strikes since
fighting began, state media said. At least 25 people have been killed and
hundreds injured by Iranian strikes in Israel.
Israel
deployed 50 aircraft over Iran overnight, hitting the Isfahan nuclear site for
the second time. 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.
The UN
nuclear agency confirmed on Saturday that a centrifuge manufacturing workshop
at Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site had been hit. “There was no nuclear material at
this site and therefore the attack on it will have no radiological
consequences,” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a
statement quoting its chief Rafael Grossi.
The UNHCR
said on Saturday that the intensity of the attacks is already triggering
population movements in Israel and Iran. “This region has already endured more
than its share of war, loss, and displacement – we cannot allow another refugee
crisis to take root,” the UN high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi,
said.
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.
Gulf
Cooperation Council ambassadors have expressed concerns to UN nuclear watchdog
chief Rafael Grossi about the safety of nuclear facilities close to their
countries amid the Israeli-Iranian crisis, Qatar state news agency reported on
Saturday. Reuters reported that the ambassadors warned Grossi during a meeting
in Vienna about the “dangerous repercussions” of targeting nuclear facilities.
Police in
Iran’s Qom province said on Saturday that 22 people “linked to Israeli spy
services” had been arrested since 13 June, Fars news agency reported. “Twenty
two people were identified and arrested on charges of being linked to the
Zionist regime’s spy services, disturbing public opinion and supporting the
criminal regime,” the agency said, citing the head of police intelligence in
Iran’s Qom province.
Israel’s
military said its navy hit a Hezbollah “infrastructure site” near the southern
Lebanese city of Naqoura, a day after Israel’s foreign minister warned the
Lebanese armed group against entering the Iran-Israel war. The military claimed
the site was used by Hezbollah’s Radwan Force “to advance terror attacks
against Israeli civilians”.
Germany
has temporarily relocated the staff of its embassy in Tehran abroad due to the
current threat situation, a foreign ministry official said on Saturday. The
embassy remains operational and can be contacted via phone by Germans who are
still in Iran, the official said.
A senior
United Arab Emirates (UAE) official has urged a quick end to the Iran-Israel
conflict, warning of a “difficult aftermath” if the conflict is prolonged.
Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE’s president Sheikh Mohamed bin
Zayed Al Nahyan, said the war was “setting back” the wealthy Gulf region.
Internet-access
advocacy group NetBlocks.org reported on Saturday that the limited internet
access that had come back in Iran has once again “collapsed”. The group said on
X that the disconnect came after “a brief period when residents could exchange
messages with the outside world”.
Thousands
of protesters marched towards Whitehall from Russell Square in central London
on Saturday. Protesters waved Palestinian flags and chanted “free, free
Palestine”, “occupation no more, Israel is a terrorist state” and “stop bombing
Iran”. Many chanted “shame on you” as they walked past dozens of
counter-protesters, organised by pro-Israeli group Stop The Hate, near Waterloo
Bridge.
The
United Nations high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, has urged more
international support for Syria to speed up reconstruction and enable further
refugee returns after 14 years of civil war.
Syria’s
security forces have detained Wassim al-Assad, a cousin of toppled leader
Bashar al-Assad, state news agency Sana said on Saturday. Wassim al-Assad was
sanctioned by the US in 2023 for leading a paramilitary force backing Assad’s
army and for trafficking drugs including the amphetamine-like drug captagon.
The
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican) has described the
escalating conflict between Israel and Iran as a “terrifying reminder of how
close the world remains to nuclear disaster”, arguing Australia should condemn
illegal military attacks and ratify the global treaty banning nuclear weapons.
Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities violate international law, Ican
has alleged, and could cause radioactive contamination with long-term
consequences for human health and the environment.
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