Israel-Iran battle escalates, civilians urged to evacuate target areas
BAT YAM, Israel/DUBAI/WASHINGTON — Israel and Iran launched fresh attacks on Sunday, killing and wounding civilians and raising concerns of a broader regional conflict, with both militaries urging civilians on the opposing side to take precautions against further strikes.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he hoped a meeting of the Group of Seven leaders in Canada on Sunday would reach an agreement to help resolve the conflict and keep it from escalating.
Iran has told mediators Qatar and Oman that it is not open to negotiating a ceasefire with the US while it is under Israeli attack, an official briefed on the communications told Reuters on Sunday.
Israel's military, which launched the attacks on Friday with the stated aim of wiping out Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, warned Iranians living near weapons facilities to evacuate. Early on Monday, it said Israel's air force attacked surface-to-surface missile sites in central Iran.
"Iran will pay a heavy price for the murder of civilians, women and children," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said from a balcony overlooking blown-out apartments where six people were killed in Bat Yam, a town south of Tel Aviv.
Iran's armed forces told residents of Israel to leave the vicinity of "vital areas" for their safety.
Oil prices rise
Images from Tehran showed the night sky lit up by a huge blaze at a fuel depot after Israel began strikes against Iran's oil and gas sector - raising the stakes for the global economy and the functioning of the Iranian state.
Brent crude futuresLCOc1 were up $2.14, or 2.9%, to $76.37 a barrel by 2225 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures CLc1 climbed $2.03, or 2.8%, to $75.01. They surged more than $4 earlier in the session.
An Iranian health ministry spokesperson, Hossein Kermanpour, said the toll since the start of Israeli strikes had risen to 224 dead and more than 1,200 injured, 90% of whom he said were civilians. Those killed included 60 on Saturday, half of them children, in a 14-storey apartment block flattened in the Iranian capital.
Explosions rattled Tel Aviv in the afternoon as Iran launched its first daylight missile raid since Israel attacked on Friday. At least 10 people, including children, have been killed so far, according to Israeli authorities.
Hours later, shortly after nightfall, Iran launched a second wave of missiles, which struck a residential street in Haifa, a mixed Jewish-Arab city in northern Israel. The national emergency service reported nine people were injured in the strike, along with two others following a missile impact in the south.
In Bat Yam on Sunday evening, shocked residents surveyed the damage of an overnight strike, while many across Israel braced for another sleepless night, unsure of what may come next.
"It's very dreadful. It's not fun. People are losing their lives and their homes," said Shem, 29, whose home was shaken overnight when a missile struck a nearby apartment tower.
Trump vetoes plan to target Khamenei, officials say
In Washington, two US officials told Reuters that US President Donald Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan in recent days to kill Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"Have the Iranians killed an American yet? No. Until they do we're not even talking about going after the political leadership," said one of the sources, a senior US administration official.
When asked about the Reuters report, Netanyahu told Fox News on Sunday: "There's so many false reports of conversations that never happened, and I'm not going to get into that."
"We do what we need to do," he told Fox's "Special Report With Bret Baier."
Regime change in Iran could be a result of Israel's military attacks, Netanyahu said in the interview, adding that Israel would do what it takes to remove what he called the "existential threat" posed by Tehran.
Israel's military spokesperson has said the current goal of the campaign is not regime change, but the dismantling of Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and removing its capabilities "to annihilate us".
Israel launched a surprise attack on Friday morning that wiped out the top echelon of Iran's military command and damaged its nuclear sites, and says the campaign will escalate in coming days.
The intelligence chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Kazemi, and his deputy were killed in Israeli attacks on Tehran on Sunday, Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency said.
Iran has vowed to "open the gates of hell" in retaliation in what has emerged as the biggest-ever confrontation between old enemies.
Trump warns Iran not to attack
Trump has lauded Israel's offensive while denying Iranian allegations that the US has taken part.
"If we are attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the US Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before," he said in a message on the Truth Social platform. "However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict."
Trump had earlier said the US had no role in Israel's attack and warned Tehran not to widen its retaliation to include US targets. The US military has helped shoot down Iranian missiles that were headed toward Israel, two US officials said on Friday.
The US president has repeatedly said Iran could end the war by agreeing to tough restrictions on its nuclear program, which Iran says is for peaceful purposes but Western countries say could be used to make an atomic bomb.
The latest round of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the US, due on Sunday, was scrapped after Tehran said it would not negotiate while under Israeli attack.
Talking to reporters as he left for the G7 summit in Canada, Trump said on Sunday he hopes Israel and Iran can broker a ceasefire but said sometimes countries have to fight it out first. — Reuters
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"I was dealing with them a little bit and I said, 'Why you guys fighting?' Then I said, 'I'm not going to do a trade deal if you guys are going to fight. It's crazy.'" The two countries had committed to a ceasefire in 2023. In March they said they had agreed on the text of a draft peace agreement, but that deal has not been signed. The White House-brokered declaration falls short of a formal peace treaty that would place legally binding obligations on both sides. One snag is over whether an agreement requires Armenia to revise its constitution. The leaders also struck economic agreements with Washington that granted the U.S. development rights to a strategic transit corridor through southern Armenia. The Trump administration said this would allow for greater exports of energy. In documents released at the time, the corridor was named after Trump. Cambodia and Thailand Trump helped bring Thailand to the table for talks after long-simmering tensions with Cambodia spilled over in July into a five-day military conflict, the deadliest fighting there in over a decade. The U.S. president reached out to acting Thai Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai two days after fighting erupted along a 200-km-long (125 mile) stretch of the border. Trump withheld deals on tariffs with both countries until the conflict ended. Up to that point, Bangkok had rejected third-party mediation and had not responded to offers of help from Malaysia and China, Reuters reporting showed. Trump's intervention helped get Thailand to the table, according to Lim Menghour, a Cambodian government official working on foreign policy. Subsequent talks yielded a fragile agreement to end hostilities, resume direct communications and create a mechanism to implement the ceasefire. Trump went on to impose a 19% tariff on both countries' U.S.-bound exports, lower than he had initially floated. Israel, Iran and The Palestinian Territories Trump has maintained strong U.S. backing for Israel as it pummels Gaza and tries to uproot Hamas. He has also supported its efforts to disable other Iran-backed groups, including Hezbollah and the Houthi movement, and Tehran itself. The U.S. president is working to expand the Abraham Accords, an initiative from his first term that aims to normalize diplomatic ties between Israel and Arab nations. But a solution to Israeli-Palestinian and Iranian conflicts has eluded Trump, just as it has all U.S. presidents for decades. Washington provides weapons and diplomatic cover to Israel as its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed international condemnation of the humanitarian toll of his military campaign in Gaza. Israel and Hamas agreed to a deal to halt fighting in Gaza in January, after Trump's election but before his inauguration. The deal had been mediated by Egypt and Qatar and also involved personnel from the outgoing Biden and incoming Trump administrations. Israel abandoned the ceasefire in March. Talks toward a new ceasefire collapsed in July. Mediators are trying to revive a U.S.-backed ceasefire plan but Israel is also planning a new, expanded military operation in Gaza. Trump has blamed Hamas for not seeking a reasonable settlement of the conflict and pressured them to do so. Trump initially pursued talks with Tehran over its nuclear program. Israel launched an aerial war on Iran on June 13 and pressed Trump join in. He did on June 22, bombing Iranian nuclear sites. He then pressed Israel and Iran to join a ceasefire that Qatar mediated. The situation remains bitter and unstable. Iran continues to reject U.S. demands that it stop enriching uranium for its nuclear program. 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