Israel steps up pressure on Hamas, launches fresh military operation
Jerusalem | Israel said on Saturday (Sunday AEST) it launched a major military operation in the Gaza Strip to pressure Hamas to release remaining hostages, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a negotiating team to remain in Qatar for indirect talks with the militant group.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said Operation Gideon Chariots was being led with 'great force'. Netanyahu had vowed to escalate pressure with the aim of destroying the militant group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades.
AP
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News AU
28 minutes ago
- Sky News AU
Dow surges over 300 points, oil falls 1 per cent as Iran reportedly seeks talks to end Israel war
Stocks rallied on Monday on reports that Iran is seeking talk to end its war with Israel, easing fears that the conflict could spiral into a broader regional war. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 317 points, or 0.8%, to 42,515.09. The S&P 500 climbed 0.9% to 6,033, while the Nasdaq rose 1.5% to 19,701.21. The Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks added 1.1%. Volatility fell sharply, with the VIX index dropping 8.93% to 18.96. Oil prices tumbled on hopes of de-escalation in the Middle East. US crude slid 1.7% to $71.77 a barrel, and Brent crude also fell 1.4% to $73.23. Gasoline and diesel were also down, while natural gas bucked the trend, rising 2.49% to $3.67. The market moves followed a report that Iran is signaling a willingness to step back from confrontation and resume nuclear talks. According to the Wall Street Journal, Iranian officials have been urgently sending messages through Arab intermediaries to both Israel and the US, stating that Tehran is open to talks — provided the Americans don't join the fighting. 'The Iranians know the US is supporting Israel in its defense, and they are sure the US is supporting Israel logistically,' one Arab official told the Journal. 'But they want guarantees the US won't join the attacks.' Separately on Monday, President Trump joined the leaders of G-7 countries and others at a summit in Canada. Trading partners including Japan, Canada and Mexico were angling to meet with Trump in the hopes of persuading him to lower at least some of his tariffs. Despite heavy Israeli airstrikes that have decimated much of Iran's air force leadership, analysts believe Tehran sees an opening for diplomacy. Messages delivered to Israel reportedly emphasized that keeping the conflict contained is in both countries' interests. Iranian officials have also hinted that if negotiations resume, the nuclear program and broader military posture could be up for discussion again — though there is no sign they are ready to make new concessions. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue military operations until Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities are fully destroyed, rejecting any suggestion of a pause. But the potential for US involvement — and mounting international pressure — has made markets hopeful that backchannel diplomacy could prevent a wider war. President Trump, who has backed Israel's right to strike, told reporters Sunday: 'I think it's time for a deal, and we'll see what happens, but sometimes they have to fight it out.' The possibility of a diplomatic opening has also encouraged Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar to press the US to help broker a de-escalation, warning that a prolonged war could endanger key energy infrastructure in the region. For now, investors appear to be betting that the worst-case scenario — an uncontrollable regional conflict that would roil oil markets and global growth — can still be avoided. Originally published as Dow surges over 300 points, oil falls 1 per cent as Iran reportedly seeks talks to end Israel war
SBS Australia
29 minutes ago
- SBS Australia
Trump tells Iranians to 'immediately evacuate' Tehran after Israel hits state broadcaster
The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting building was struck in an Israeli attack. Source: Getty / Alexi J. Rosenfeld Israeli airstrikes have damaged Iran's main uranium enrichment plant and hit state media offices. Iran warned of its "largest and most intense" missile attack yet in response. Iran called on the US to pressure Israel into an immediate ceasefire. United States President Donald Trump urged residents of Tehran to leave, backing warnings from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has launched a massive attack on Iran. "Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social account during a G7 summit in Canada. Trump did not elaborate. Nearly 10 million people live in the Iranian capital. "Iran should have signed the 'deal' I told them to sign. What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon," Trump said. The warning comes as Israel ramps up attacks in Iran which it says are aimed at destroying the state's contested nuclear weapons. Trump has repeatedly declined to say if the US would participate in Israeli military action, although he has said it was not involved in the initial strikes. He earlier told reporters at the G7 summit: "As soon as I leave here, we're going to be doing something. But I have to leave here." Later, the White House said Trump will leave the summit on Monday night, a day early, due to the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict. "Because of what's going on in the Middle East, President Trump will be leaving tonight after dinner with Heads of State," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X. An Iranian state television reporter had to stop a live broadcast on Monday when an explosion occurred an hour after Israel issued a warning to leave a part of Tehran where the TV studios are located. Presenter Sahar Emami of the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network rushed off-camera as the screen behind her cut out, and people were heard saying "Allahu Akbar", the Arabic phrase for God is great. The broadcast quickly switched to pre-recorded programs. Soon, Emami came back live from another studio and was seen speaking with another anchor. Emami said "bodies of reporters" were at the site of the initial broadcast, and images showed smoke and flames in the sky. Israeli defence minister Israel Katz took responsibility for the attack. "The Iranian regime's propaganda and incitement broadcasting authority was attacked by the IDF after a widespread evacuation of the area's residents," Katz said in a statement. The strike on the offices of the broadcaster was a "wicked act" and a "war crime", said Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei. "The UNSC must act now to stop the genocidal aggressor from committing further atrocities against our people," he said. As tensions escalated, Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said on X: "If President Trump is genuine about diplomacy and interested in stopping this war, next steps are consequential." "Israel must halt its aggression, and absent a total cessation of military aggression against us, our responses will continue. It takes one phone call from Washington to muzzle someone like Netanyahu," he wrote. Sources told Reuters news agency Iran had asked Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman to press Trump to use his influence on Netanyahu and push for an immediate ceasefire. In return, Iran would show flexibility in nuclear negotiations, said the two Iranian and three regional sources. Netanyahu told troops at an air base Israel was on its way to achieving its two main aims: wiping out Iran's nuclear program and destroying its missiles. "We are on the path to victory," he said. "We are telling the citizens of Tehran: 'Evacuate' — and we are taking action." Iranian media said Iran was preparing for the "largest and most intense missile attack" yet against Israel, including against military and intelligence targets. Israel launched its air strikes with a surprise attack that killed nearly the entire top echelon of Iran's military commanders and its leading nuclear scientists. It said it now has control of Iranian airspace and intends to escalate the campaign in the coming days. Israel said it hit Iranian F-14 fighter planes at Tehran airport, and its airstrikes have also put at least two of Iran's three operating uranium enrichment plants out of action. Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the BBC it was very likely all the roughly 15,000 centrifuges operating at Iran's biggest uranium enrichment plant in Natanz were badly damaged or destroyed because of a power cut caused by an Israeli strike. There had been very limited or no damage at the separate Fordow plant, he said. Iran's retaliation is the first time in decades of proxy conflict that missiles fired from Iran have pierced Israeli defences in significant numbers and killed Israelis in their homes. Iran says more than 224 Iranians have been killed, most of them civilians. The media published images of wounded children, women, and the elderly from cities across the country. State TV broadcast scenes of collapsed presidential buildings, burned-out cars, and shattered streets in Tehran. Many residents were trying to flee the capital, describing queues for petrol and bank machines that were out of cash. "I am desperate. My two children are scared and cannot sleep at night because of the sound of air defence and attacks, explosions. But we have nowhere to go. We hid under our dining table," Gholamreza Mohammadi, 48, a civil servant, told Reuters by phone from Tehran. In Israel, 24 people have been killed so far in Iran's missile attacks, all of them civilians. Round-the-clock television images showed rescuers working in the ruins of flattened homes. "It's terrifying because it's so unknown," said Guydo Tetelbaum, 31, a chef in Tel Aviv who was in his apartment when the alerts came in.
West Australian
41 minutes ago
- West Australian
THE ECONOMIST: Is Iran's hated regime ready to implode amid its war with Israel?
Iran's regime is often described as decaying, corrupt, bankrupt and despised by its citizens. Is it about to collapse? Israel's shock-and-awe campaign continues relentlessly: On June 16 it said it had 'full air supremacy over Tehran'. Cars have streamed out of the city in recent days. Its shops are shuttered. On social media some Iranians have celebrated the assasination of their generals with emojis of barbequed meat The humiliation illuminates the failure of the regime's military strategy and, some hope, may trigger an uprising or a coup d'état, in turn creating chaos or national renewal. Yet Iran's default is to defy its aggressors, not to capitulate. And an extended war with large civilian casualties could act to rally public opinion in an intensely nationalistic country, allowing the regime to survive and redouble its efforts to race for a bomb. Iran's internal weakness has encouraged attacks before. Some 45 years ago, amid its post-revolutionary disarray, Saddam Hussein, Iraq's president, started the Iran-Iraq war. It lasted eight years and killed hundreds of thousands. Far from weakening the Iranian regime it strengthened its leadership and the grip of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the regime's political militia. Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, wants Iranians to rise up. 'The time has come for the Iranian people to unite around its flag,' he has proclaimed. His operation, 'Rising Lion', has evoked the pre-revolutionary flag of the Shah and the Persian symbol of kingship in its centre. Iran International, a satellite channel in London, beamed his appeal into people's homes. The chasm between Iran's rulers and ruled is as great now as it was when Iranians toppled the Shah in 1979. Israel's dazzling assault has left Iran's leaders reeling and exposed their incompetence. Despite warnings, they were not prepared—'a paper cat', mocks a stockbroker. In Israel missile attacks are met with sirens and instructions for people to seek shelter. Iranians get no such warnings. Israel's success in assassinating the regime's commanders in their bedrooms could only have happened with the help of insiders at the highest level, revealing the extent of disloyalty. Cronyism and paranoia course through the regime's core. Some liken the stench of decay to that of the effete Qajars, who were unseated when Reza Pahlavi, then an army officer, staged a coup, founded a new dynasty and set Iran on a course of modernisation exactly a century ago. The authorities are trying to calm nerves with a business-as-usual approach. Street parades to mark the feast of Eid al-Ghadeer, which began on June 14th, have taken place as usual. Yet there are plenty of signs of dissent. After the initial strikes a few people draped themselves in the Israeli flag, passing around celebratory cakes. Young Iranians have derided the dead generals as 'enemies of the people' for killing some 500 protesters who in 2022 called for freedom from their rulers' religious constraints. Israel's killing on June 13th of Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the air-force chief, prompted cheers online; he never apologised for his role in shooting down a passenger jet full of Iranian students in 2020. Reflecting its desperation, the government has restricted access to social media countrywide. Mr Netanyahu seems to be following the template used to cripple Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon, in 2024. After eliminating Iran's military command, he may now turn to its political leadership. The resulting power vacuum, some Israelis hope, could lead to an internal struggle among competing factions of regime insiders, spiralling regional fragmentation or even a popular revolt in Iran's big cities, the scene of periodic large-scale protests, most recently in 2023. The trouble with this prognosis is that after the initial shock of what one observer called Iran's 'Pearl Harbour moment', the regime has recovered some of its poise. Within 18 hours of the first strikes, a new tier of commanders had fired hundreds of missiles at Israel's cities, though the numbers have been decreasing each day. To ordinary people the appeal of an uprising has limits. Several times in the past two decades Iranians have tried, only to be beaten back: the regime might be weak, but its people are weaker. The protest movement lacks a leader or a common agenda. Older generations cling to the mantras of death to enemies and the Shia ideology of martyrdom in the face of external aggression. If Israel's strikes inflict a greater humanitarian toll by, say, cutting off Tehran's water or power in the stifling summer, the mood among younger rebels could turn. A rising civilian death toll may trigger patriotism. 'Iran's independence should not be sacrificed because of hatred of the Islamic Republic,' Ali Afshari, a student who led protests against the regime, said after a second day of attacks. If the protesters lack coherence, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, has recently tried to shore up his own ranks. Rivalries between hardliners and reformists had threatened to split his regime, but a year ago he orchestrated the election of Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist physician, as president. Decisions to relax the veil, embrace negotiations with America and seek investment from it brought some reformists back on board. This month one of the most ardent, Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, the daughter of an ex-president and political prisoner, endorsed Mr Khamenei's son, Mojtaba, as his successor. She likened him to Saudi Arabia's autocratic moderniser Muhammad bin Salman. Mr Khamanei's recent sermons have been chilling. 'We will show them no mercy,' he said of Israel on June 13th, referring to the 'evil, despicable, terrorist Zionist identity'. But he also has hinted that whoever or whatever might replace him could make things worse. His successors might abandon his fatwa against nuclear weapons that has prevented Iran from breakout, warn his advisers. A different leader, a military commander or a monarch, might rush to a bomb and wave the nationalist card. After all, it was the Shah who pushed forward Iran's nuclear programme in the 1970s. Mr Khamanei suggests that his exit could spark violent struggles between the regime's competing clusters of clerics, democratic reformists and the armed forces. Separatists might resurface in Kurdish and Azeri provinces, as after the fall of the Shah. A civil war is possible, as in Syria and Iraq, a prospect that terrifies many Iranians. All this means that the mockery of the regime that followed Israel's opening salvo is turning to fear for the country. Iranians share anonymous maps online of Tehran's neighbourhoods slated for evacuation ahead of an Israeli attack. 'It feels like we're the only ones left,' says a carer after Israel struck the state broadcasting station close to her home. The authorities have begun rationing petrol. With no clear alternative leadership and ever more fearful, Iranians increasingly wonder if they are better off sticking with what they have. Yet an entrenched regime with nothing to lose could pose an even greater threat to its foes, neighbours and citizens.
