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This is the end of Dawn.com’s live blog for the Israel-Iran war.
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Iran has expanded access to its airspace for international overflights following a ceasefire with Israel, though flight restrictions remain in place across much of the country, AFP reports quoting an official.
“In addition to the eastern half of the country’s airspace being available for domestic, international and overflight operations, the airspace over the central and western parts of the country has now also been opened only for international overflights,” Majid Akhavan, a spokesman for the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, said in a statement carried by the IRNA state news agency.
Flights to and from airports in the north, south and west of the country, including Tehran’s Mehrabad and Imam Khomeini international airports, remained suspended, according to Akhavan.
Iran has reopened its central and western airspace to international transit flights, state-run Nour News said, Reuters reports.
Emirates has extended its cancellation of flights to and from Iran’s capital Tehran until July 5 due to the “regional situation”, Reuters reports, quoting an Emirates statement.
The Dubai-based airline said it will recommence operations to Baghdad on July 1 and Basra on July 2.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said that his compatriots had given their “blood” during a 12-day war with Israel but “not honour”, AFP reports.
“Iranians gave blood, not land; gave their loved ones, not honour; they withstood a thousand-ton rain of bombs, but did not surrender,” Abbas Araghchi said on his Instagram account, adding that Iran does not recognise the word “surrender”.
Hamid Reza Haji Babaei, vice speaker of the Iranian parliament has announced that Iran will no longer allow Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), or the installation of surveillance cameras at its nuclear facilities, Iranian news outlet Mehr news agency reports.
Speaking at a ceremony honouring slain judicial officials, he stated that Iran’s decision stems from the discovery of sensitive facility data within documents obtained from the Israeli regime.
Read more here.
According to Iranian health ministry figures, 610 people were killed on the Iranian side in the 12-day war, 13 of them children and 49 women, before a ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday.
More than 4,700 were injured, it added, according to AFP. Activist news agency HRANA put the number of killed at 974, including 387 civilians.
A senior Israeli military official said yesterday that Israel killed more than 30 Iranian senior security officials and 11 senior nuclear scientists during the war.
Meanwhile, Israel’s health ministry said 28 were killed in Israel and 3,238 were injured.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has condemned the “disrespectful and unacceptable” comments from Donald Trump, after the US president claimed to have saved Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from an “ugly and ignominious death”, AFP reports.
“If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran’s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, and stop hurting his millions of heartfelt supporters,” Araghchi posted on his account on social media platform X.
“The great and powerful Iranian people, who showed the world that the Israeli regime had no choice but to run to ‘Daddy’ to avoid being flattened by our missiles, do not take kindly to threats and insults,” the foreign minister said.
US President Donald Trump has said he had saved Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from assassination and lashed out at the supreme leader for ingratitude, declaring he would order more bombing if the country tried to pursue nuclear weapons, AFP reports.
In an extraordinary outburst on his Truth Social platform, Trump accused the Iranian leader of ingratitude after Khamenei said in a defiant message that reports of damage to nuclear facilities were exaggerated and that Tehran had dealt Washington a “slap” in the face.
“I knew exactly where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the US Armed Forces, by far the greatest and most powerful in the world, terminate his life,” Trump posted.
“I saved him from a very ugly and ignominious death, and he does not have to say, ‘Thank you, President Trump!’”
“But no, instead I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust, and immediately dropped all work on sanction relief, and more,” Trump added, exhorting Iran to return to the negotiating table.
Iran has begun a state funeral service for around 60 people, including its military commanders, killed in its war with Israel, AFP reports.
The proceedings in Tehran for the nuclear scientists and military commanders killed in Israeli strikes began at 8am local time (9:30am PKT).
“The ceremony to honour the martyrs has officially started,” state TV said, showing footage of people donning black clothes, waving Iranian flags and holding pictures of the slain military commanders.
The US military did not use bunker buster bombs on one of Iran’s largest nuclear sites last weekend, because it is so deep that the bombs likely would not have been effective, according to US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, CNN reports.
Caine’s comment is the first known explanation given for why the US military did not use the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb against the Isfahan site in central Iran.
US officials believe Isfahan’s underground structures house nearly 60pc of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, which Iran would need in order to ever produce a nuclear weapon.
B-2 bombers dropped over a dozen bunker-buster bombs on Iran’s Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites. But Isfahan was only struck by Tomahawk missiles launched from a US submarine.
Read more here.
US President Donald Trump has said he would “absolutely” bomb Iran again if intelligence indicated the country was still able to enrich uranium to nuclear-weapons grade, AFP reports.
Asked in a White House press conference whether he would consider fresh air strikes if last week’s sorties were not successful in ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he said: “Without question. Absolutely.”
Trump said Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “got beat to hell” in the hostilities involving the United States and Israel and that “it was a great time to end it.”
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has instructed the military to prepare an enforcement plan against Iran following their 12-day air war, Reuters reports quoting a statement.
The plan “includes maintaining Israel’s air superiority, preventing nuclear advancement and missile production, and responses to Iran for supporting terrorist activities against Israel”, Katz added.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has indicated that Tehran may reject any request by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency for visits to Iranian nuclear sites, Reuters reports.
“The IAEA and its Director-General are fully responsible for this sordid state of affairs,” Araghchi wrote on X. “[IAEA chief] Rafael Grossi’s insistence on visiting the bombed sites under the pretext of safeguards is meaningless and possibly even malign in intent.
“Iran reserves the right to take any steps in defence of its interests, its people, and its sovereignty.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said that if Iran had not responded to Israeli strikes this month, the situation could have escalated into a “full-scale and uncontrollable war in the region”, CNN reports.
In a video message to a conference in Belarus, he said, “The attacks carried out by the United States and the Zionist regime constitute a grave violation of all international norms and an irreparable blow to the integrity of the nuclear non-proliferation regime.”
“The Israeli assault occurred in the midst of indirect negotiations between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s nuclear program — a deliberate attempt to sabotage the diplomatic process,” Pezeshkian said.
He said that Israel had “killed outside of the norms of war”.
“They targeted university students and civilians. Many civilians were killed during this war. They hit residential buildings, hospitals, and places of work.”
Iran will hold what it described as “historic” funeral proceedings in Tehran on Saturday for 60 killed in its 12-day war with Israel, including top military commanders and nuclear scientists, AFP reports.
The commemorations will begin at 8am local time (01:00pm PKT) at Enghelab (Revolution) Square in central Tehran, followed by a funeral procession to Azadi (Freedom) Square, about 11 kilometres away.
“A brief ceremony will be held there, then the processions of the martyrs will go toward Azadi Square,” said Mohsen Mahmoudi, head of Tehran’s Islamic Development Coordination Council, in a televised interview.
“Tomorrow will be a historic day for Islamic Iran and the revolution,” he added.
After Israeli and American forces struck Iranian nuclear targets, officials in both countries sounded the alarm over potentially disruptive cyberattacks carried out by the Islamic Republic’s hackers.
But as a fragile ceasefire holds, cyber defenders in the United States and Israel say they have so far seen little out of the ordinary — a potential sign that the threat from Iran’s cyber capabilities, like its battered military, has been overestimated.
There has been no indication of the disruptive cyberattacks often invoked during discussions of Iran’s digital capabilities, such as its alleged sabotage of tens of thousands of computers at major oil company Saudi Aramco in 2012, or subsequent break-ins at US casinos or water facilities.
“The volume of attacks appears to be relatively low,” said Nicole Fishbein, a senior security researcher with the Israeli company Intezer. “The techniques used are not particularly sophisticated.”
Read the full Reuters story more here.
Iran’s Shia Muslims gathered around mosques across the country, as they ushered in the beginning of Muharram, just three days after a ceasefire with Israel was declared, Al Jazeera reports.
In Qom, one of the holiest sites in the country, devotees witnessed the flag-changing ceremony at the Hazrat Masoumeh’s shrine on Friday to mark the start of the month, according to the images posted by Iran’s broadcaster Press TV.
A police spokesman has said that authorities in Iran’s Hormozgan province have arrested two people for alleged espionage during the 12-day war with Israel, Al Jazeera reports citing the Islamic Students’ News Agency (ISNA).
The suspects were arrested by intelligence officials from Hormozgan for allegedly communicating with foreign entities about specific locations of potential targets within the country, ISNA quoted the police spokesman as saying.
The male and female suspects allegedly concealed their activities under the guise of importing cosmetics and repairing satellite phones, the report said, adding that they had received “huge sums of money” for their work.
A search of their reported “hideout” resulted in the discovery of telecommunications equipment, as well as GPS and satellite phones, ISNA reported.
No statements were immediately available from the accused, and the authorities’ statement could not be independently verified.
After what Netanyahu has described as a resounding victory against Iran, he is now looking at bigger steps spanning the region, Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh reports from Amman.
“Not just to release the Israeli captives from Gaza, not just ‘destroy Hamas’ — but something more grandiose. Something that, with the help of the US president, Netanyahu hopes will bolster his legacy and standing among right-wing circles in Israel,” she said.
“What is being talked about are more normalisation deals with neighbouring countries in the region — deals that would make ending the war in Gaza a component rather than a central issue in efforts moving forward.
“We’ve even heard from Trump stepping in, criticising the ongoing corruption charges against Netanyahu, asking that those trials be done with,” Odeh said.
“Right now, the momentum is building, not just by protests to demand an end to the war in Gaza, but from Netanyahu to try to find a deal that is bigger than Gaza, one that will keep his right-wing coalition intact.”
The leader of Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement has congratulated Iran on its glorious victory over the Israeli regime and its backers in the recent war of aggression against the Islamic Republic, “ Iranian Mehr news agency reports.
In a televised speech from the Yemeni capital Sana’a, Sayyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said Iran’s victory marks a triumph for the entire Muslim world, stressing that Iranian missiles were “an absolute nightmare for the Zionist entity.
During his speech, he praised Pakistan’s condemnation of Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear, military and residential sites as “an insightful and excellent reaction” compared to other Muslim governments and countries.
He also commended Turkey’s strong denunciation of the Israeli airstrikes as “a clear, obvious and well-versed behavior.”
“The defeat of the Israeli enemy was a loss for the Zionist regime itself, the US, and all of its Western sponsors,” the Ansarullah leader said.
Read full story here.
Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesperson Ministry of Foreign Affairs has lashed out at Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz for “solidifying his position on the wrong side of history by positioning himself as a staunch supporter and apologist of a genocidal aggressor”, Iranian news outlet Mehr news agency quotes his post X.
“When the leader of a country like Germany, with the legacy of Berlin in 1945, ignores the warning ‘Never again war’ and supports Israeli aggression, war crimes, and genocide, he not only distances himself from the moral compass of history but also violates the collective conscience of the German people,” the Iranian spokesman said.
His comments came after German Chancellor Merz claimed in a statement that the Israeli regime “has a right to defend its existence and the safety of its citizens” against Iran.
