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
Catch up with what happened overnight on our blog:
The Israeli military said it struck on Friday Iran's nuclear facility in Isfahan as it pressed on with its strikes on the Islamic republic.
"I can now confirm that we struck the nuclear facility in Isfahan. The operation is still ongoing," military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin told journalists.
Earlier an Israeli military official said Israel is prepared to continue striking Iran for days.
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.
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday (local time) that the Iranian people expected the European Union and the broader international community to condemn Israel's "criminal attack".
US President Donald Trump said he knew of the plan to attack, and he hopes that Iran will continue negotiations with the US this weekend on curbing its nuclear programme.
- ABC/AFP
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RNZ News
38 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Israel says attacks on Iran are nothing compared with what is coming
Missile attacks over Jerusalem launched by Iran in retaliation to Israeli bombing of nuclear sights in Iran. Photo: Chen Junqing / Xinhua via AFP By Maayan Lubell and Parisa Hafezi, Reuters Israel pounded Iran for a second day and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said its campaign would intensify, while Tehran called off nuclear talks that Washington had held out as the only way to halt the bombing. A day after Israel wiped out the top echelon of Iran's military command with a surprise attack on its old foe, it appeared to have hit Iran's oil and gas industry for the first time, with Iranian state media reporting a blaze at a gas field on Saturday (overnight New Zealand time). Netanyahu said Israel's strikes had set back Iran's nuclear programme possibly by years and rejected international calls for restraint. "We will hit every site and every target of the Ayatollahs' regime, and what they have felt so far is nothing compared with what they will be handed in the coming days," he said in a video message. In Tehran, Iranian authorities said around 60 people, including 29 children, were killed in an attack on a housing complex, with more strikes reported across the country. Israel said it had attacked more than 150 targets. Iran had launched its own retaliatory missile volley on Friday night, killing at least three people in Israel. Air raid sirens sent Israelis into shelters as waves of missiles streaked across the sky and interceptors rose to meet them. US President Donald Trump has lauded Israel's strikes and warned Iran of much worse to come. He said it was not too late to halt the Israeli campaign, but only if Tehran quickly accepted a sharp downgrading of its nuclear programme at talks with Washington which had been scheduled for Sunday. Host Oman confirmed on Saturday that the next round of talks had been scrapped. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said holding talks was unjustifiable while Israel's "barbarous" attacks were ongoing. In the first apparent attack to hit Iran's energy infrastructure, Iranian media reported a fire on Saturday after Israel bombed the South Pars gas field in southern Bushehr province. The semi-official Tasnim news agency said some gas production there was suspended following the attack. Worries about potential disruption to the region's oil exports had already boosted the price of crude oil by about seven percent on Friday, even though Israel had spared Iran's oil and gas industry on the campaign's first day. An Iranian general, Esmail Kosari, said Tehran was reviewing whether to close the Strait of Hormuz controlling access to the Gulf for tankers. With Israel saying its operation could last weeks, and urging Iran's people to rise up against their Islamic clerical rulers, fears have grown of a regional conflagration dragging in outside powers. "If (Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front, Tehran will burn," Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said. Tehran warned Israel's allies that their military bases in the region would come under fire too if they helped shoot down Iranian missiles. However, 20 months of war in Gaza and a conflict in Lebanon last year have decimated Tehran's strongest regional proxies, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, reducing its options for retaliation. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke for 50 minutes on Saturday, the Kremlin said, with Putin condemning Israel's operation and Trump describing events in the Middle East as "very alarming". But both leaders said they do not rule out a return to negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme. Iran's overnight fusillade included hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones, an Israeli official said. At least three people were reported killed and 174 injured, mostly lightly, in 17 strikes, including on Tel Aviv, that evaded interceptors. In Tel Aviv, uncertainty lingered on Saturday over the possibility of another Iranian barrage after air raid sirens sent residents across the country rushing into shelters overnight as missiles and interceptors streaked across the sky. Israeli-Canadian Jordan Falkenstein, 39, said he spent the previous night in his building's shelter with all his neighbours. "You can see that people have a sense of precaution this weekend. We're not sure. We're still trying to anticipate what will happen this evening. It's better to play it safe," he said. Israeli military spokesperson Brigadier General Effie Defrin cautioned as night fell on Saturday that Iranian attacks were not over, urging the public to follow public safety guidelines. In Iran, Israel's two days of strikes destroyed residential apartment buildings, killing families and neighbours as apparent collateral damage in strikes targeting scientists and senior officials in their beds. Iran said 78 people were killed on the first day and scores more on the second, including 60 when a missile brought down a 14-storey apartment block in Tehran, where 29 of the dead were children. State TV broadcast pictures of a building flattened into debris and the facade of several upper storeys lying sideways in the street, while slabs of concrete dangled from a neighbouring building. "Smoke and dust were filling all the house and we couldn't breathe," 45-year-old Tehran resident Mohsen Salehi told Iranian news agency WANA after an overnight air strike woke his family. Israel sees Iran's nuclear programme as a threat to its existence, and said the bombardment was designed to avert the last steps to production of a nuclear weapon. A military official on Saturday said Israel had caused significant damage to Iran's nuclear facilities at Natanz and Isfahan, but had not so far taken on another uranium enrichment site, Fordow, dug into a mountain. The official said Israel had "eliminated the highest commanders of their military leadership" and had killed nine nuclear scientists who were "main sources of knowledge, main forces driving forward the (nuclear) programme". Tehran insists the programme is entirely civilian and that it does not seek an atomic bomb. However the UN nuclear watchdog reported it this week as violating obligations under the global non-proliferation treaty.
RNZ News
11 hours ago
- RNZ News
Israel's attacks on Iran hint at bigger goal
By Crispian Balmer, Michael Martina and Matt Spetalnick , Reuters Iranian worshippers chant slogans during an anti-Israeli gathering after Friday prayers in Tehran, Iran, 2024. File photo. Photo: AP / Vahid Salemi Analysis - Israel's surprise attack on Iran had an obvious goal of sharply disrupting Tehran's nuclear programme and lengthening the time it would need to develop an atomic weapon. The scale of the attacks, Israel's choice of targets and its politicians' own words suggest another, longer-term objective - toppling the regime itself. The strikes early on Friday (local time) hit, not just Iran's nuclear facilities and missile factories, but also key figures in the country's military chain of command and its nuclear scientists, blows that appear aimed at diminishing Iran's credibility, both at home and among its allies in the region - factors that could destabilise the Iranian leadership, experts said. "One assumes that one of the reasons Israel is doing that is they're hoping to see regime change," said Michael Singh of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former senior official under President George W Bush. "It would like to see the people of Iran rise up," he said, adding that the limited civilian casualties in the initial round of attacks also spoke to a broader aim. In a video address shortly after Israeli fighter jets began striking Iranian nuclear facilities and air defence systems, Israel Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu appealed to the Iranian people directly. Photo: - Israel's actions against Iran's ally Hezbollah led to a new government in Lebanon and the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, he said. The Iranian people had an opportunity too. "I believe that the day of your liberation is near and when that happens, the great friendship between our two ancient peoples will flourish once again," said Netanyahu Despite the damage inflicted by the unprecedented Israeli attack, decades of enmity toward Israel - not only among Iran's rulers, but its majority-Shi'ite population - raised questions about the prospect for fomenting enough public support to oust an entrenched theocratic leadership in Tehran, backed by loyal security forces. Singh cautioned that no-one knew what conditions would be required for an opposition to coalesce in Iran. Friday's assault was the first phase of what Israel said would be a prolonged operation. Experts said they expected Israel would continue to go after key Iranian nuclear infrastructure to delay Tehran's march to a nuclear bomb, even if Israel - on its own - did not have the capability to eliminate Iran's nuclear programme. Iran said its nuclear programme was for civilian purposes only. The UN nuclear watchdog concluded this week that it violated its obligations under the global non-proliferation treaty. Israel's first salvoes targeted senior figures in Iran's military and scientific establishment, took out much of the country's air defence system and destroyed the above-ground enrichment plant at Iran's nuclear site. "As a democratic country, the State of Israel believes that it is up to the people of a country to shape their national politics and choose their government," the Israeli embassy in Washington told Reuters. "The future of Iran can only be determined by the Iranian people." Netanyahu has called for a change in Iran's government, including in September. US President Donald Trump's administration, while acquiescing to Israel's strikes and helping its close ally fend off Iran's retaliatory missile barrage, has given no indication that it seeks regime change in Tehran. The White House and Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York also did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the matter. Israel has much further to go if it is to dismantle Iran's nuclear facilities and military analysts have always said it might be impossible to totally disable the well-fortified sites dotted around Iran. The Israeli government has also cautioned that Iran's nuclear programme could not be entirely destroyed by means of a military campaign. "There's no way to destroy a nuclear programme by military means," Israel's National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told Israel's Channel 13 TV . The military campaign could, however, create conditions for a deal with the US that would thwart the nuclear programme. Analysts also remain sceptical that Israel will have the munitions needed to obliterate Iran's nuclear project on its own. "Israel probably cannot take out completely the nuclear project on its own, without the American participation," Sima Shine, a former chief Mossad analyst and now a researcher at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, told reporters on Friday. While setting back Tehran's nuclear programme would have value for Israel, the hope for regime change could explain why Israel went after so many senior military figures, potentially throwing the Iranian security establishment into confusion and chaos. "These people were very vital, very knowledgeable, many years in their jobs and they were a very important component of the stability of the regime, specifically the security stability of the regime," Shine said. "In the ideal world, Israel would prefer to see a change of regime, no question about that." Such a change would come with risk, said Jonathan Panikoff, a former US deputy national intelligence officer for the Middle East, who is now at the Atlantic Council. If Israel succeeds in removing Iran's leadership, there is no guarantee that the successor that emerges would not be even more hardline in pursuit of conflict with Israel. "For years, many in Israel have insisted that regime change in Iran would prompt a new and better day - that nothing could be worse than the current theocratic regime," Panikoff said. "History tells us it can always be worse." -Reuters
1News
12 hours ago
- 1News
Marines in LA while cities across US prep for 'No Kings' rallies
After a week of protests over federal immigration raids, about 200 Marines have moved into Los Angeles to guard a federal building in the city while communities across the country prepped for what's anticipated to be a nationwide wave of large-scale demonstrations against President Donald Trump's polices this weekend. The Marine troops with rifles, combat gear and walkie-talkies took over some posts from National Guard members who were deployed to the city after the protests erupted last week. Those protests sparked dozens more over several days around the country, with some leading to clashes with police and hundreds of arrests. The Marines had not been seen on Los Angeles city streets until Friday (local time). They finished training on civil disturbance and have started to replace Guard members protecting the federal building west of downtown, so the Guard soldiers can be assigned to protect law enforcement officers on raids, the commander in charge of 4700 troops deployed to the LA protests said. The Marines moved into Los Angeles before Saturday's planned "No Kings" demonstrations nationally against Trump's policies, which will also happen the same day as a military parade in Washington, DC, when troops will march and tanks will rumble through the streets of the nation's capital. The Marines' arrival also came a day after the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked a federal judge's order that had directed Trump to return control of Guard troops to California. The judge had ruled the Guard deployment was illegal, violated the Tenth Amendment, which defines the power between state and federal governments, and exceeded Trump's statutory authority. The judge did not rule on the presence of the Marines. ADVERTISEMENT US Marines work next to members of the California National Guard outside of a federal building. (Source: Associated Press) Military mission Some 2000 National Guard troops were deployed to Los Angeles this week. Hundreds have provided protection to immigration agents making arrests. Another 2000 Guard members were notified of deployment earlier this week. None of the military troops will be detaining anyone, Major General Scott Sherman, the commander of Task Force 51 who is overseeing the 4700 combined troops, said. "I would like to emphasise that the soldiers will not participate in law enforcement activities," Sherman said. "Rather, they'll be focused on protecting federal law enforcement personnel." Roughly 500 National Guard members have been used to provide security on immigration raids after undergoing expanded instruction, legal training and rehearsals with the agents doing the enforcement before they go on those missions. By mid-afternoon Friday, more than a dozen Marines were stationed outside the 17-storey Wilshire Federal Building, replacing some members of the National Guard at various entrances. They mostly appeared to be checking tickets from members of the public who were there to renew their passports. ADVERTISEMENT US Senator Alex Padilla is pushed out of the room as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem holds a news conference regarding the recent protests in Los Angeles. (Source: Associated Press) The building is the same place Democratic US Senator Alex Padilla on Thursday was forcefully removed from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's news conference and handcuffed by officers as he tried to speak up about the immigration raids. There were no protesters around the building. Occasionally, a passing driver shouted from their window, registering a mix of anger and support for the military presence. Sherman said the US Marine Corps is responsible for guarding US embassies overseas, so they are well-trained on how to defend a federal building. California vs Trump California Govenor Gavin Newsom has called the troop deployment a "serious breach of state sovereignty" and a power grab by Trump, and he has gone to court to stop it. The president has cited a legal provision that allows him to mobilise federal service members when there is "a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States". A federal judge said in a ruling late Thursday that what is happening in Los Angeles does not meet the definition of a rebellion and issued an order to return control of the Guard to California before the appeals court stopped it from going into effect Friday. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump thanked the appeals court Friday morning. ADVERTISEMENT "If I didn't send the Military into Los Angeles, that city would be burning to the ground right now," he said. The court will hold a hearing on the matter Tuesday. Under federal law, active-duty forces are prohibited by law from conducting law enforcement. The Trump administration has characterised the city as a "war zone," which local authorities dispute. Recent protesters have drawn a few hundred attendees who marched through downtown chanting, dancing and poking fun at the Trump administration's characterisation of the city. There have been about 500 arrests since Saturday, mostly for failing to leave the area at the request of law enforcement, according to the police. There have been a handful of more serious charges, including for assault against officers and for possession of a Molotov cocktail and a gun. Nine officers have been hurt, mostly with minor injuries. An 8pm curfew has been in place in a 2.5-square-kilometre section of downtown. The city of Los Angeles encompasses roughly 1295-square-kilometres. Protests have ended after a few hours with arrests this week largely for failure to disperse. A protesters waves a flag standing by California National Guard parked along a street in Santa Ana (Source: Associated Press) ADVERTISEMENT 'No Kings' The "No Kings" demonstrations are planned in nearly 2000 locations around the country, according to the movement's website. A flagship march and rally are planned for Philadelphia, but no protests are scheduled to take place in Washington, DC, where the military parade will be held. Participants are expected to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation, organisers say. In Florida, state Attorney General James Uthmeier warned that any protesters who become violent will be dealt with harshly. States face questions on deploying troops Texas Govenor Greg Abbott, a Republican, has put 5000 National Guard members on standby in cities where demonstrations are planned. In other Republican-controlled states, governors have not said when or how they may deploy troops. A group of Democratic governors in a statement called Trump's deployments "an alarming abuse of power". ADVERTISEMENT Washington state Govenor Bob Ferguson took to social media Friday to call for peaceful protests over the weekend, to ensure the military is not sent to the state. "Don't give him an excuse to try and federalise the National Guard like he did in California," he said. Military parade The military parade in Washington which Trump had unsuccessfully pushed for during his first term — will also feature concerts, fireworks, NFL players, fitness competitions and displays all over the National Mall for daylong festivities. The celebration Saturday also happens to be Trump's birthday. The Army expects as many as 200,000 people could attend and says putting on the celebration will cost an estimated US$25 million (NZ$41.6 million) to US$45 million (NZ$74.9 million).
