World leaders call for restraint, de-escalation after Israeli strikes on Iran
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the attack as a "declaration of war"and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Israel would pay for its 'foolish mistake'.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation in Iran would continue for 'as long as it takes' while US President Donald Trump warned Tehran of "even more brutal" attacks if it does not make a deal on its nuclear programme".
"Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left ... JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE," Trump said in a post on social media.
Earlier the US President told Fox News that the US hoped to continue talks with Iran to end its escalating uranium enrichment programme. "Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb and we are hoping to get back to the negotiating table," he said.
'Maximum restraint'
French President Emmanuel Macron said Israel had the right to defend itself, but called for Israel and Iran to 'exercise maximum restraint and to de-escalate', and "avoid jeopardising the stability of the entire region".
Macron spoke on the phone with Netanyahu after Israel launched its attack on Iran, the French presidential palace said on Friday, without giving further details.
Macron also held a call on Friday with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to discuss the situation, their offices said.
"The leaders discussed the long-held grave concerns about Iran's nuclear programme, and called on all sides to refrain from further escalation that could further destabilise the region," said a statement from Starmer's office.
UN Chief Antonio Guterres also called for 'maximum restraint' from both sides to avoid "descent into deeper conflict, a situation that the regoin can hardly afford", his spokesperson said.
Russia urged its citizens in Israel to leave the country, as spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told state news agencies that the Israeli strikes were 'unprovoked'. 'Russia is concerned and condemns the sharp escalation of tensions,' he said.
China said it was 'deeply worried" about the "severe consequences" of Israel's actions, as it called on relevant parties to 'take actions that promote regional peace and stability".
'Dangerous escalation'
Countries neighbouring Israel and Iran roundly condemned the attacks.
Iraq said the Isreli stikes were a violation of international law and "a serious threat to international peace and security". It lodged a complaint with the United Nations Security Council over Israel's "violation' of its airspace during the attacks.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the attacks a 'clear provocation that disregards international law'. A vocal critic of Israel and a fervent advocate of the Palestinian cause, Erdogan urged the international community to "put an end to Israeli banditry".
Oman and Qatar said the attacks threatened stability in the region.
Meanwhile, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, long seen as the Iran-led axis's most powerful group said that Israel's "brutal" strike threatened to "ignite the region".
"This enemy adheres to no logic or laws and knows only the language of killing, fire, and destruction," the group said.
Yemen's Houthi rebels said they backed Iran's 'full and legitimate right to respond by all possible means" to the Israeli strike.
The Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose October 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war, said that Israel's 'aggression' constituted a 'dangerous escalation that threatens to destabilise the region'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
France 24
44 minutes ago
- France 24
Israel targets Iran's military capabilities
Israel's massive strikes on Iran, which it calls an existential threat, have hit nuclear and military facilities, killed top commanders and dozens of civilians, and sought to destroy the country's defence capabilities. Iran has hit back with volleys of missiles that lit up the night sky over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, killing three people and wounding dozens. Following decades of enmity and conflict by proxy, it is the first time that Israel and Iran have traded fire with such intensity, with fears of a prolonged conflict engulfing the region. Israel began striking Iran early Friday in an operation it has dubbed "Rising Lion", and has since killed several top Iranian generals including senior leaders of the Revolutionary Guards' air arm. On Saturday, Israel's military said it was striking dozens of missile launchers in Iran after announcing it had targeted air defences with a wave of strikes in the Tehran area. Two senior Iranian generals have been killed in Israeli strikes, Iranian state television reported Saturday, as Israel kept up its assault. Iran's ambassador to the United Nations said Friday that 78 people had been killed and 320 wounded in the first wave of strikes by Israel. Iran called on its citizens to unite in defence of the country as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged them to rise up against their government. Air raid sirens and explosions rang out across Israel through the night, with many residents holed up in bomb shelters until home defence commanders stood down alerts. 'Smoke, dust' Israel said dozens of missiles -- some intercepted -- had been fired in the latest salvos from Iran, with AFP images of the city of Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv showing blown-out buildings, destroyed vehicles and streets strewn with debris. Israeli rescuers said two people were killed and 19 wounded on Saturday by rocket fire on a residential area in the coastal plain. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had attacked dozens of targets in Israel. Israeli firefighters had worked for hours to free people trapped in a high-rise building in Tel Aviv on Friday. Resident Chen Gabizon told AFP he ran to an underground shelter after receiving an alert. "After a few minutes, we just heard a very big explosion, everything was shaking, smoke, dust, everything was all over the place," he said. Rescuers said 34 people were wounded in the Gush Dan area, including a woman who later died of her injuries, according to Israeli media reports. Speaking to CNN, Israel's ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, said Iran had fired three salvos of ballistic missiles on Friday, some 150 in total. "We expect that the Iranians, who have a considerable volume of ballistic missiles, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2,000, will continue to fire them," Leiter said. In Tehran, fire and heavy smoke billowed over Mehrabad airport early Saturday, an AFP journalist said, as Iranian media reported an explosion. Blasts were heard across the capital as Iran activated its air defences against the incoming fire. Dozens of Iranians took to the streets to cheer their country's military response, with some waving national flags and chanting anti-Israel slogans. 'Time to stop' The attacks prompted several countries in the region to temporarily ground air traffic, though on Saturday morning, Jordan reopened its airspace. Iran's airspace was closed until further notice, state media reported. As fears mounted of wider conflict, UN chief Antonio Guterres called on both sides to cease fire. "Enough escalation. Time to stop. Peace and diplomacy must prevail," he said on X late Friday. US officials said they were helping Israel defend against the missile attacks, even as Washington insisted it had nothing to do with Israel's strikes on Iran. US President Donald Trump agreed in a call with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer that "dialogue and diplomacy" were needed to calm the crisis, Starmer's office said. Trump also spoke with the Israeli prime minister, US officials said without elaborating. In a televised address, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed to bring Israel "to ruin". The conflict has thrown into doubt plans for a fresh round of nuclear talks between the United States and Iran in Oman on Sunday. After the first wave of strikes on Friday, Trump urged Iran to "make a deal", adding that Washington was "hoping to get back to the negotiating table". The United States and other Western governments have repeatedly accused Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon, an ambition it has consistently denied. Iran said on Saturday its participation in the Oman talks remained "unclear". "It is still unclear what decision we will make for Sunday," the official IRNA news agency reported, citing foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei. Baqaei had called the talks "meaningless" in view of the Israeli strikes, which he alleged were carried out with "US permission".
Euronews
an hour ago
- Euronews
What message has the Nice ocean summit sent to COP30 this year?
The ocean is essential to limiting global temperature rise. It captures about 30 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions, and 90 per cent of the excess heat generated by these, but has been overlooked in the conversation about how to curb climate change. This is increasingly concerning as oceans suffer from the results of excess carbon dioxide, including acidification and rising sea temperatures. These have significant impacts on ecosystems, the communities that rely on them, and the ocean's role as a climate regulator. 'The globe is burning. Our oceans are boiling. Scientists speak of effects that we're having, heatwaves even in our oceans, and as we have the rising sea levels, submersion threatens us,' said French President Emmanuel Macron at the opening plenary of the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) in Nice this week. The conference saw what Macron called 'unprecedented mobilisation' for oceans, with over 120 countries, 50 world leaders and 10,000 people in attendance. It also included a strong push to start including oceans in climate and biodiversity talks, including the COP30 climate conference to be held in Brazil in November. That would mark a big change from previous discussions. Even the Paris Agreement - the landmark treaty that aimed to keep global warming below 1.5C - has just one mention of the ocean, noting the importance of ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems. 'We're very, very late. We're at UNOC3 - the climate COPs are at COP30. Unfortunately, the climate COPs, much like other conferences of the like, have not really properly integrated the ocean. So on the science, we're picking up, but on the political side of things, it's still very, very much catching up,' says Louis Lambrechts from the Oceano Azul Foundation. Speaking at the beginning of the summit, Marcon pointed to the ocean's carbon capture potential and its role as a climate regulator, highlighting the need to act to protect this, particularly ahead of COP30. Lambrechts tells Euronews Green that it is crucial to create coherence between climate, biodiversity, and ocean silos. 'What should come out of this conference [...] should be very clear messages towards the next climate COP happening in Brazil later this year, about why it's so critical that the ocean should be properly addressed and considered in the debates,' he says. 'Any objective or action we're trying to have on climate would be completely unrealistic if the ocean wasn't there to play the game with us,' he adds. Isabella Lövin, former Swedish climate and environment minister and now Green member of the European Parliament described how, during her time in government, she fought to get oceans into the climate conversation, but said this shift has taken a long time. 'People have so much to think about - what's happening on land and with the forests and the atmosphere and the cryosphere and so on, but the oceans are really one of the two major climate regulators, so we need to have much more conversations on how we can preserve the ocean in order to stay below 1.5C,' she explains. Similarly, Ana Vasconcelos, a member of the European Parliament with centrist group Renew Europe, warned that, politically, ignoring the ocean in climate and economic negotiations is a failure. 'Europe must go to COP30 with a clear message: the ocean is not a backdrop - it's a frontline climate actor. I want the UNOC to produce real and concrete commitments that reflect the scale of the crisis and the ocean's role in solving it,' she says. That includes establishing clear and actionable guidelines for global ocean governance, recognising that the ocean is a common resource that needs to be safeguarded through global cooperation, she adds. Ahead of COP30, France and Brazil also launched the Blue NDC Challenge, calling on countries to place the ocean at the centre of their plans to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement. Countries need to submit updated versions of these plans by September ahead of COP30. The ocean's role as a climate regulator is increasingly being chipped away. At the start of the conference, on 8 June, scientists released the first Starfish Barometer - an assessment of ocean health aimed at providing reliable evidence to inform policymakers and track the restoration of ocean health. It warned of rising sea levels, record temperatures, and rapid acidification. This is worrying given the climate disaster the ocean has, so far, held back. 'If the ocean wasn't there, it could be 50C warmer on land, but you don't get anything for free in this world, and the ocean is changing as a result of all of that excess heat going into it, and its capacity to continue absorbing heat is not something we can count on into the future,' says Robert Blasiak, Associate Professor at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Lambrechts likens the ocean warming to a kettle boiling: taking a long time to warm up - much longer than the air - but staying hot for a long time. The world is heading towards that boiling point, he says, creating dead zones where marine life cannot survive, hindering ecosystems' ability to store carbon, as well as affecting fish populations and impacting those communities who rely on them. While some damage to the ocean may take centuries to recover from, there are measures we could take today to help prevent further harm. Banning bottom trawling and deep sea mining would be decisions with immediate results, says Lévy. These damage ocean ecosystems and, in the case of deep sea mining, a lot of the potential impacts are still unknown. The EU's 2023 Marine Action Plan called on member states to phase out bottom trawling in all marine protected areas by 2030, due to the importance of the seabed for healthy marine ecosystems and climate change mitigation. While 37 countries, including 15 EU nations and the UK, have signed a pause on deep sea mining as part of a political effort to prevent the practice until the implications of it are understood. According to Lövin, the most important thing to consider when protecting the ocean is the precautionary principle - the idea of avoiding activities that might cause harm that is not yet known. 'We need to really take the precautionary approach seriously because we are the decision makers. We are the ones that are going to be held accountable. We have the responsibility for future generations,' she tells Euronews Green. Vasconcelos also called on the EU to take a 'central and credible role' in International Seabed Authority (ISA) negotiations in July to ensure that ocean governance aligns with its climate and geopolitical priorities. Ahead of UNOC, the European Union released its Ocean Pact, pledging €1 billion to support ocean conservation, science and sustainable fishing. It also announced that it will propose an Ocean Act in 2027 aimed at strengthening and modernising maritime spatial planning to help achieve the pact's priorities, like restoring ocean health, building a blue economy, and advancing research and knowledge. While it was not as ambitious as some would have liked, with Vasconcelos saying it is unclear where the €1 billion will come from and leading ocean NGOs saying it lacks concrete protection measures, it has been widely welcomed as a way of bringing oceans back into the conversation and linking different ocean policies. However, not everyone is on board. One of the notable absences from the conference was the US government, which under President Trump has pulled out of the Paris Agreement and is unilaterally trying to push ahead with deep sea mining. Lövin called the lack of US presence a scandal, contrasting it with the efforts of the EU and other world leaders to work against planetary collapse and pointing to the need to work together to protect the world for future generations.
Euronews
an hour ago
- Euronews
Israel launches fresh wave of rockets on Iran on day two of conflict
More than 24 hours after Israel's initial strike on Iranian targets which killed three Iranian military commanders, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claims to be continuing airstrikes on targets in Iran on Saturday. "The [Israeli Air Force] continues to strike targets to remove threats in Iran," the IDF posted on Telegram on Saturday morning alongside footage of aerial strikes. The development followed Iran's launch of a wave of retaliatory missile strikes into Israel overnight and into Saturday morning in response to Israel's attacks on its nuclear facilities and missile sites. Retaliatory strikes by Iran have killed three people and injured dozens of others in Israel, while Iran's ambassador to the UN said 78 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Iran. Follow the dramatic escalation of tension in the Middle East live on Euronews as developments unfold.
