Live: Donald Trump says Israel strikes on Iran were "very successful"
People gather outside a building that was hit by an Israeli strike in Tehran on 13 June, 2025.
Photo:
MEGHDAD MADADI / TASNIM NEWS / AFP
An Israeli military official says Israel is prepared to continue striking Iran for days, after launching a sustained attack on "dozens" of Iranian nuclear and military facilities on Friday.
Israel's air strikes killed Iran's three most senior military commanders and a number of its top nuclear scientists, and followed days of escalating tensions over Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weapons technology.
A barrage of 100 drones launched by Iran towards Israel in response appeared to have largely been intercepted by Israeli air defences, however the IDF says it is anticipating further retaliatory strikes - possibly with ballistic missiles - over the coming days.
Israeli authorities claim it acted out of self-defence, saying Iran is close to building a nuclear weapon.
US President Donald Trump said he was aware of Israel's plans beforehand but has made it clear his country's military was not involved.
He's also re-iterated his hopes that Iran will continue negotiations with the US this weekend on curbing its nuclear programme.
- ABC/AFP
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Iran launches waves of missiles at Israel in response to airstrikes
By Alexander Cornwell , Parisa Hafezi and Steve Holland, Reuters Israel and Iran have exchanged a series of volleys of attacks, like these traces seen over Jerusalem, since Israel launched strikes on Iran on Friday. Photo: Chen Junqing / Xinhua via AFP Iran and Israel targeted each other with missiles and airstrikes early on Saturday (local time) after Israel launched its biggest-ever air offensive against its longtime foe in a bid to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon. Air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Israel's two largest cities, sending residents rushing into shelters as successive waves of Iranian missiles streaked across the skies. The military said its air defence systems were operating. "In the last hour, dozens of missiles have been launched at the state of Israel from Iran, some of which were intercepted," the Israeli military said. It said rescue teams were working at a number of locations across the country where fallen projectiles were reported, without commenting on casualties. In Iran, several explosions were heard in the capital, Tehran, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. The Fars news agency said two projectiles hit Tehran's Mehrabad airport, and Iranian media said flames were reported there. Close to key Iranian leadership sites, the airport hosts an air force base with fighter jets and transport aircraft. Photo: - Israeli media said a suspected missile came down in Tel Aviv, and a Reuters witness heard a loud boom in Jerusalem. It was unclear whether Iranian strikes or Israeli defensive measures were behind the activity. The Fars news agency said Tehran launched waves of airstrikes on Saturday after two salvos on Friday night. One of the waves targeted Tel Aviv before dawn on Saturday, with explosions heard in the capital and Jerusalem, witnesses said. Those were in response to Israel's attacks on Iran early on Friday against commanders, nuclear scientists, military targets and nuclear sites. Iran denies that its uranium enrichment activities are part of a secret weapons programme. In central Tel Aviv, a high-rise building was hit, damaging the lower third of the structure in a densely populated urban area. An apartment block in nearby Ramat Gan was destroyed. Fire and smoke rise from a building, reportedly hit by a missile fired from Iran, in central Tel Aviv on 13 June 2025. Photo: Jack Guez / AFP Israel's ambulance service said 34 people were injured on Friday night in the Tel Aviv area, most with minor injuries. Police later said one person had died. The US military helped shoot down Iranian missiles headed for Israel on Friday, two US officials said. Israel's military said Iran fired fewer than 100 missiles on Friday and that most were intercepted or fell short. Several buildings in and around Tel Aviv were hit. Israeli first responders evacuate an injured resident from a site hit by a missile fired from Iran, in Ramat Gan on the outskirts of Tel Aviv on 13 June 2025. Photo: Gil Cohen-Magen / AFP The Israeli strikes on Iran throughout the day and the Iranian retaliation raised fears of a broader regional conflagration, although Iran's allies, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, have been decimated by Israel. Iran's state news agency IRNA said Tehran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel after Israel blasted Iran's huge Natanz underground nuclear site and killed its top military commanders. Iran said its nuclear programme is only for peaceful purposes. Members of the Israeli security forces inspect a site hit by a missile fired from Iran, in Ramat Gan on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Photo: AFP / Jack Guez Israeli officials said it may be some time before the extent of damage at Natanz was clear. Western countries have long accused Iran of refining uranium there to levels suitable for a bomb rather than civilian use. The above-ground pilot enrichment plant at Natanz has been destroyed, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council on Friday. He said the UN was still gathering information about Israeli attacks on two other facilities, the Fordow fuel enrichment plant and at Isfahan facility. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accused Israel of starting a war. A senior Iranian official said that nowhere in Israel would be safe, and revenge would be painful. Iran's UN envoy Amir Saeid Iravani said 78 people, including senior military officials, were killed in Israel's strikes on Iran, and more than 320 people were wounded, most of them civilians. He accused the US of being complicit in the attacks and said it shared full responsibility for the consequences. 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Tehran rejected the last US offer. The talks are due to resume in Oman on Sunday, but Iran signalled it might not join. "The other side (the US) acted in a way that makes dialogue meaningless," Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson said on Friday. "You cannot claim to negotiate and at the same time divide work by allowing the Zionist regime (Israel) to target Iran's territory." - Reuters
RNZ News
5 hours ago
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Live: Sirens heard across Tel Aviv as Iran launches fresh wave of missiles towards Israel
An Israeli first responder evacuates an injured resident from a site hit by a missile fired from Iran, in Ramat Gan on the outskirts of Tel Aviv on 13 June 2025. Photo: Gil Cohen-Magen / AFP The Israeli military says it identified missiles launched from Iran towards Israel, and says it is operating to intercept "the threat". Israel launched a huge wave of airstrikes across Iran , blasting Iran's huge underground nuclear site, wiping out its entire top echelon of military commanders and killing nuclear scientists in the biggest ever direct attack between the foes. Iran said "the gates of hell will open" in retaliation, while Israel said the strikes were only the start of its campaign. US President Donald Trump said it was not too late for Iran to halt the Israeli attacks by reaching a deal to curb its nuclear programme. As evening fell on Friday (local time), Iranian media reported a number of explosions in what appeared to be a second wave of strikes. "Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early on Friday in a televised address that invoked the failure of the world to prevent the Holocaust in World War Two. Israel's operation "will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat," he said. "Generations from now, history will record our generation stood its ground, acted in time and secured our common future." Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Israel had "unleashed its wicked and bloody" hand, and would suffer "a bitter fate". Israel said that Iran had launched around 100 drones towards Israeli territory in retaliation on Friday, but Iran denied this and there were no reports of any drones reaching Israeli targets. - Reuters
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5 hours ago
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Rogue States And Thought Crimes: Israel Strikes Iran
Pre-emptive attacks in international law are rarely justified. The threat must evince itself through an obvious intent to inflict injury, evidence preparations that show the threat to be what Michael Walzer calls a 'supreme emergency', and arise in a situation where risk of defeat would be dramatically increased if force is not used. Reaching an assessment on that matter is almost impossible. Evidence of such a threat by the aggressor state is bound to be speculative, concealing other strategic objectives that make that action amount to illegal, preventive war. Israel's ongoing attacks on Iran's nuclear infrastructure are taking place in the absence of nuclear weapons, motivated by the hypothetical scenario that such weapons would be irretrievably developed and used against the Jewish state. Iran, in other words, was being punished for a thought crime. The Israeli Defense Forces released a statement expressing the rationale: 'Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the Iranian regime are a threat to the State of Israel and a significant threat to the entire world. The State of Israel will not allow a regime whose goal is the destruction of the State of Israel to possess weapons of mass destruction.' There is even a concession on the part of IDF officials that triumphant success in the operation is not assured; Israelis needed to brace themselves before the inevitable reaction. 'I can't promise absolute success,' declared Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir. Tehran 'will attempt to attack us in response, the expected toll will be different to what we are used to.' The Defence Minister Israel Katz offers some wishful thinking in justifying the attack. 'We are now at a critical juncture. If we miss it, we will have no way to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons that will endanger our very own existence.' Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu preferred lashings of hyperbole. 'If we don't attack, then it's 100% that we will die,' he declared in a video statement to the nation. This is the language of self-denial, both on the issue of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear option indefinitely – an unsustainable policy in the absence of peaceful dissuasion – and the belief that such operations will result in some form of contained, well-behaved retaliation. With typical perversity, these attacks are taking place in step with demands by US President Donald Trump that Tehran resort to meek diplomacy, an effort that is bound to have been extinguished by these attacks. And what of the threat posed by Iran? In March this year, the US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the assessment was 'that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.' But Netanyahu had already given a directive in November 2024 to thwart alleged efforts by Tehran to build a nuclear device. 'The directive,' he confirms, 'came shortly after the assassination of [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah'. The broader Israeli logic here is less the coherence of the nuclear threat than one of settling scores and crippling a rival it has long accused of directing operations against its interests, if not directly than through its proxy militias. As for the logic of non-acquisition, not much can be made of it. The advent of the Colt 45 revolver in the late 1800s arguably calmed the American West by granting those with less power and influence a means of asserting their will against the powerful and landed. It became 'the Peacemaker', sometimes described as 'the Great Equalizer.' As part of that same logic, the late international relations theorist Kenneth N. Waltz proposed that nuclear weapons made war less likely, believing that 'the gradual spread of nuclear weapons is to be more welcomed than feared.' He even went so far as to argue in 2012 that Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons would 'most likely […] restore stability to the Middle East.' It was Israel's durable nuclear monopoly in the Middle East that 'long fueled instability' in the region. The invention of nuclear weaponry was a statement of intent that possessing such a weapon would be akin to acquiring the shielding protection of a patron deity. This is a lesson the Israelis should know better than most, having themselves stealthily acquired an undeclared nuclear inventory. To not have it would weaken you, diminish international standing, making the non-possessor vulnerable to attack. North Korea learned this salutary lesson, motivated by two supreme examples: the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the US-led 'Coalition of the Willing', and the collective attack on Libya in 2011, ostensibly under the doctrine of responsibility to protect. The disarmament efforts made by Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi's Libya rendered them vulnerable to attack. Lacking a terrifying deterrent, they were contemptuously rolled. Attempts to control proliferation have been imperfect, largely because the nuclear option has never been entirely demystified. Despite the admirable strides made in international law to stigmatise nuclear weapons, best reflected in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, not to mention the tireless labours of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the nuclear weapons club remains a permanent provocation and incitement to non-nuclear weapons states. It is the red rag to the bull. These attacks will do little to weaken the resolve of the mullahs in Teheran. They are roguish undertakings, murderous in their scope (the killing of scientists and their families stands out), and sneering of international law. Netanyahu's absurd lecturing to the Iranian populace – we are bombing you to free you – will fall flat. Most consequential will be confirmation on the part of the Islamic State that acquiring a nuclear weapon is more imperative than ever.
