War returns to Iran with Israel, US strikes

Iran will target the Israeli nuclear site of Dimona if Israel and the US seek regime change in the Islamic Republic, semi-official ISNA news agency reported, citing an Iranian military official, according to Reuters.

A majority of the US Senate has backed President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran, voting to block a bipartisan resolution aiming to stop the air war and require that any hostilities against Iran be authorised by Congress, Reuters reports.

As voting continued, the tally in the 100-member chamber was 52-47 not to advance the war powers resolution.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he discussed the Middle East conflict with the king of Bahrain and the crown prince of Kuwait, Reuters reports.

Zelenskiy also said that his administration was in daily contact with the US and once the security situation around Iran permitted it, trilateral talks with Moscow and Washington on a settlement of the war with Moscow would resume.

The Israeli military said it struck several Hezbollah targets across Lebanon, including rocket and missile launch sites south of the Litani river, AFP reports.

“Among the targets struck were numerous Hezbollah rocket and missile launch sites south of the Litani River… including a drone production facility,” the military said, hours after issuing an evacuation order for residents living in the targeted area.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and discussed the threats from Iran to regional stability and other developments in the region, the US State Department said, according to Reuters.

“The secretary expressed gratitude to the foreign minister for Saudi Arabia’s response to the attack on US Embassy Riyadh,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement.

“They also discussed the continued threats the Iranian regime poses to regional stability, as well as other developments in the region,” Pigott added.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt has outlined what she says were the offers made by Trump’s negotiators to Iran, before the US decided to attack the country, Al Jazeera reports.

She claims that Washington had engaged in “good faith negotiations” with Iran and that Tehran had not.

According to Leavitt, Iran rejected all of the US proposals. US negotiators offered to lift crippling sanctions on Iran, provide nuclear fuel to Iran for peaceful purposes and a joint civil nuclear programme with American investment.

In return, Iran would need to permanently dismantle its enrichment infrastructure.

“They refused to say yes to peace,” Leavitt has said. “And now they are reaping the consequences of that.”

Iran’s Tasnim news agency reports that areas of the capital Tehran have been hit by airstrikes carried out by the “aggressor enemy’s fighter jets”.

The outlet adds that the Mehrabad Airport grounds, several points west of Azadi Square, Tehranpars and Chitgar were among the affected areas.

US President Donald Trump says the United States and Israel are in a strong position in their war with Iran, AFP reports.

“We’re in a very strong position now, and their leadership is just rapidly going. Everybody that seems to want to be a leader, they end up dead,” Trump has told a gathering of tech bosses at the White House.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has spoken with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and pledged Washington’s full support following missile attacks from Iran, Reuters reports quoting a statement from the US State Department.

Rubio told Fidan, “The attacks on Turkiye’s sovereign territory were unacceptable and pledged full support from the United States,” the statement reads.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency reports that a “projectile” launched by the “American-Zionist (Israeli) enemy” impacted an area around the city of Qom.

US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron have spoken about American military operations in its conflict with Iran, Reuters reports citing a source close to Macron.

Macron also raised in the call the issue of Lebanon, which has been drawn into the spillover of the crisis, the French source adds.

The US has hit more than 2,000 targets in Iran, “destroying hundreds and hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones,” White House Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt has told reporters, Al Jazeera reports.

The US, she says, destroyed 20 Iranian naval vessels, including the submarine that was sunk off the coast of Sri Lanka.

The Israeli military has announced it launched a new wave of strikes in Tehran, claiming they were targeting military infrastructure belonging to the “Iranian regime”, AFP reports.

“The IDF has begun an additional wave of strikes targeting military infrastructure belonging to the Iranian regime across Tehran,” the military said in a statement.

A powerful explosion has shaken Tehran, AFP journalists report, while state media reported multiple blasts in the west of the capital.

Iranian media also reported explosions in several other cities, including the southern port of Bandar Abbas on the Gulf and Tabriz in the northwest.

The Israeli military claims that its strikes on Iran’s missile launchers have led to a daily decline in the number of missiles fired at Israel, AFP reports.

“We’ve neutralised around 300 ballistic missile launchers. We believe our operations against those missile launchers and against those stockpiles are an integral part of the fact that we’re seeing the amounts of missiles fired every day diminish,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani has told journalists.

AFP reports that White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said, “We expect to have complete and total dominance over Iranian airspace in the coming hours.”

The Spanish foreign minister has denied that Madrid dropped its opposition to Washington’s use of its bases against Iran, after the White House said Spain agreed to “cooperate with the US military”, AFP reports.

“I categorically deny any change … our position on the use of the bases, on the war in the Middle East, on the bombardment of Iran, has not changed at all,” Jose Manuel Albares told Cadena SER radio.

Iran’s regime is being “absolutely crushed” by joint US-Israeli strikes, AFP reports citing the White House.

“Under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, the rogue Iranian terrorist regime is being absolutely crushed,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has told a news conference.

US President Donald Trump believes Americans support military strikes on Iran, Reuters reports quoting White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“The president is smart enough to read past many of the fake news headlines produced by people in this room that his action was unjustifiable,” Leavitt has told a news briefing.

“This is a rogue terrorist regime that has been threatening the United States, our allies and our people for 47 years and the American people are smart enough to know that.”

The Pentagon and the US Energy Department are working on plans to secure the Strait of Hormuz to ensure safety for oil tankers amid the war with Iran, Reuters reports citing White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, who declined to offer details on timing.

The US has seen reports that Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Iran’s assassinated supreme leader, has emerged as a frontrunner to succeed him, and US intelligence agencies are closely monitoring this, Reuters reports citing White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says Spain has agreed to cooperate with the US military, a day after President Donald Trump threatened to cut trade with Madrid over its stance against the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Reuters reports.

“I think they heard the president’s message yesterday loud and clear. It is my understanding over the past several hours they’ve agreed to cooperate with the US military,” Leavitt told a news briefing.