Israel and Iran trade strikes for a third day as hundreds reported dead
Planned talks on Iran's nuclear programme, which could provide an off-ramp, were called off.
Israel's strikes have killed at least 406 people in Iran and wounded another 654, according to a human rights group that has long tracked the country, Washington-based Human Rights Activists. Iran's government has not offered overall casualty figures.
The region braced for a protracted conflict after Israel's surprise bombardment of Iran's nuclear and military sites on Friday killed several top generals and nuclear scientists, and neither side showed any sign of backing down.
Iran said Israel struck two oil refineries, raising the prospect of a broader assault on Iran's heavily sanctioned energy industry that could affect global markets.
The Israeli military, in a social media post, warned Iranians to evacuate arms factories, signalling what could be a further widening of the campaign.
At around noon local time, explosions were heard again in the Iranian capital Tehran.
US President Donald Trump has expressed full support for Israel's actions while warning Iran that it can only avoid further destruction by agreeing to a new nuclear deal.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday that if the Israeli strikes on Iran stop, then 'our responses will also stop'.
He said the United States 'is a partner in these attacks and must take responsibility'.
New explosions echoed across Tehran and were reported elsewhere in the country early on Sunday, but there was no update to a death toll put out the day before by Iran's UN ambassador, who said 78 people had been killed and more than 320 wounded.
In Israel, at least 10 people were killed in Iranian strikes overnight and into Sunday, according to Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service, bringing the country's total death toll to 13.
Israeli security forces inspect destroyed buildings near Tel Aviv that were hit by a missile fired from Iran (Ohad Zwigenberg/AP)
The country's main international airport and airspace remained closed for a third day.
Israeli strikes targeted Iran's Defence Ministry early on Sunday after hitting air defences, military bases and sites associated with its nuclear programme.
The killing of several top generals and nuclear scientists in targeted strikes indicated that Israeli intelligence has penetrated Iran at the highest levels.
In a sign that Iran expects the Israeli strikes to continue, state television reported that metro stations and mosques would be made available as bomb shelters for the public beginning on Sunday night.
In Israel, at least six people, including a 10-year-old and a nine-year-old, were killed when a missile hit an apartment building in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv.
Daniel Hadad, a local police commander, said 180 people were wounded and seven are still missing.
An Associated Press (AP) reporter saw streets lined with damaged and destroyed buildings, bombed out cars and shards of glass.
Responders used a drone at points to look for survivors.
Some people could be seen leaving the area with suitcases.
The Israeli Iron Dome air defence system fires to intercept missiles over Tel Aviv, Israel (Ohad Zwigenberg/AP)
Another four people, including a 13-year-old, were killed and 24 wounded when a missile struck a building in the Arab town of Tamra in northern Israel.
A strike on the central city of Rehovot wounded 42.
The Weizmann Institute of Science, an important centre for research in Rehovot, said 'there were a number of hits to buildings on the campus'.
It said no-one was harmed.
Israel has sophisticated multi-tiered air defences that are able to detect and intercept missiles fired at populated areas or key infrastructure, but officials acknowledge it is imperfect.
World leaders made urgent calls to de-escalate.
The attack on nuclear sites sets a 'dangerous precedent', China's foreign minister said.
The region is already on edge as Israel seeks to annihilate Hamas, an Iranian ally, in the Gaza Strip, where the war is still raging after Hamas's October 7 2023 attack.
Flames rise from an oil storage facility in Tehran, Iran, after it appeared to have been hit by an Israeli strike (Vahid Salemi/AP)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed off such calls, saying Israel's strikes so far are 'nothing compared to what they will feel under the sway of our forces in the coming days'.
Israel, the sole though undeclared nuclear-armed state in the Middle East – said it launched the attack to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
The two countries have been regional adversaries for decades.
Iran has always said its nuclear programme was peaceful, and the US and others have assessed it has not pursued a weapon since 2003.
But it has enriched ever larger stockpiles of uranium to near weapons-grade levels in recent years and was believed to have been able to develop multiple weapons within months if it chose to do so.
The UN's atomic watchdog censured Iran last week for not complying with its obligations.
Mr Araghchi said Israel had targeted an oil refinery near Tehran and another in the country's Bushehr province on the Persian Gulf.
Smoke rises up from an oil facility after a Saturday explosion in southern Tehran, Iran (Vahid Salemi/AP)
He said Iran had also targeted 'economic' sites in Israel, without elaborating.
Mr Araghchi was speaking to diplomats in his first public appearance since the initial Israeli strikes.
Semi-official Iranian news agencies reported that an Israeli drone strike had caused a 'strong explosion' at an Iranian natural-gas processing plant.
Israel's military did not immediately comment.
The extent of damage at the South Pars natural gas field was not immediately clear.
Such sites have air defence systems around them, which Israel has been targeting.
An oil refinery was also damaged in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, according to the firm operating it.
Bazan Group said pipelines and transmission lines between facilities were damaged, forcing some downstream facilities to be shut down.
It said no-one was wounded.
The Arab Gulf country of Oman, which has been mediating indirect talks between the US and Iran over Tehran's nuclear programme, said a sixth round planned for Sunday would not take place.
'We remain committed to talks and hope the Iranians will come to the table soon,' a senior US official said.
Mr Araghchi said on Saturday that the nuclear talks were 'unjustifiable' after Israel's strikes, which he said were the 'result of the direct support by Washington'.
In a post on his Truth Social account early on Sunday, Mr Trump reiterated that the US was not involved in the attacks on Iran and warned that any retaliation directed against it would bring an American response 'at levels never seen before'.
'However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict!!!' he wrote.
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Telegraph
30 minutes ago
- Telegraph
What Sadiq Khan can learn from the city that crushed fare evasion
When Laura first moved to Washington three years ago, she thought the bus was a complimentary service paid for by the city. 'I assumed it was free when I took it the first couple of times because nobody was paying,' says the researcher. 'Everyone just walked straight on.' Across the world, fare evasion on public transport has exploded in the wake of the pandemic. It has left public transport companies reeling from hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenues. Now, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) – which manages the US capital's bus and subway systems – is at the forefront of a crackdown. It has had huge success in tackling fare evasion on its Metrorail network, and is now targeting the buses. Randy Clarke, the WMATA general manager, says the network has cut subway fare-dodging by as much as 85pc from its peak. Meanwhile, on the other side of the atlantic, Transport for London (TfL) haemorrhages £130m to fare dodgers. Sir Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, would do well to take note of Clarke's tactics. Almost one in 20 Tube passengers didn't pay last year. Fare dodging has become a political flashpoint in London. Last month, Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, filmed himself confronting fare dodgers pushing through the barriers at Stratford station in east London. He posted the video on X with the message: 'Sadiq Khan is driving a proud city into the ground. Lawbreaking is out of control. He's not acting. So, I did.' But what can Sir Sadiq learn from Washington? Across all US transport networks, the rate of fare evasion has nearly quadrupled since the pandemic. In 2018, it was 2pc. Last year, it was 7pc – according to the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). But 7pc sounds quaint on large city networks. Clarke may have had success on Washington's subway network but WMATA data last autumn showed around 70pc of riders on DC buses were travelling without paying. Paul Skoutelas, APTA's president, blames a psychological shift during lockdown. Many transport systems stopped charging fares to reduce contact between people, or to boost passenger numbers. 'People are thinking, 'We didn't pay then, do we really need to pay now?'' says Skoutelas. In Washington, Metrobus fares were waived between March 2020 and January 2021. For many riders, the habit stuck. By 2022, WMATA was losing $40m (£29.5m) a year in revenues to fare evaders across Metrorail and Metrobus. Benjamin Lynn, of the Amalgamated Transit Union (AMT), says of the rail network: 'You'd see people climb over the fare gates on a daily basis.' Three steps to tackle fare evasions When Clarke joined WMATA as general manager in the summer of 2022, he launched a three-pronged attack to tackle fare evasion on DC's Metrorail network. First, he tightened the rules to introduce new penalties for failing to pay. Secondly, he stepped up police patrols to catch offenders. And thirdly, and most crucially, WMATA introduced new gates that are much harder to skip through. At the end of 2018, Washington had decriminalised fare evasion, meaning perpetrators only faced fines. Then during the pandemic, it largely stopped policing the policy. Fare evasion enforcements plunged from more than 15,000 in 2017 to just 297 in 2021. WMATA launched a new system of penalties shortly after Clarke joined in 2022, with $50 civil fines for fare evasion in Washington. In the states of Virginia and Maryland, which are also part of the transport network, fare evasion is a criminal offence with a fine of up to $100. But officers had limited means to impose these fines until District of Columbia council officials passed the Secure DC Bill in March 2024, which handed police greater powers to force offenders to provide their correct names and addresses. Anyone failing to comply can face an additional $100 fine. At the same time, Clarke increased police patrols by 70pc. Between 2023 and 2024, the number of citations and summonses issued by the Metro Transit Police surged by 136pc to hit nearly 16,000 – the highest total on record in at least a decade. In the first four months of 2025, citations were up by a further 45pc. WMATA also began rolling out new fare gates, with installations completed across all 98 stations last year. The old gates were only 28 inches high and consisted of small retracting fan-shaped gates. They were easy to push through, crawl under or climb over. The new gates are almost twice the height (55 inches) and consist of L-shaped polycarbonate door-panels with robust, motorised hinges and only a 10-inch gap underneath. Clarke's personal leadership style has also helped. One of his first steps after becoming general manager was to get remote workers back into the office. 'A lot of people didn't love that at the time,' he told the Statecraft politics podcast this month. However, he said the shift in policy helped get results. 'I think that is actually one of the reasons we produced so much.' The impact has been undeniable. The network has clawed back tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue and in two years the crime rate across WMATA has fallen by 65pc to a seven-year low. 'Not everyone who fare-evades commits crimes, but almost universally, everyone who commits serious crimes fare-evades,' Clarke told Statecraft. 'Not many people are going to tap in and then do armed robbery.' The Metrobus, however, is still something of a Wild West. This is Clarke's new frontier. At the end of last year, WMATA launched a new effort with transit police, plain-clothes officers and video monitoring. Digital signs on the front of Metrobuses now say 'fare required'. 'You would think, 'Geez, that's very simple.' But I think it needs to be said,' says Skoutelas. WMATA is at the aggressive forefront of a national effort to claw back lost revenues. City networks including New York, San Francisco and Seattle have all made major inroads on fare evasion with similar tactics. In London, TfL is on a campaign too, with a target to cut fare evasion from 3.4pc – or 4.7pc on the Tube – to 1.5pc by 2030. Sir Sadiq has taken similar efforts to tighten the rules, increasing fines for fare evasion from £80 to £100 in March last year. In April, TfL announced it was expanding its team of dedicated investigators to crack down on prolific repeat offenders. But there has so far been no word on improving fare gates. In response to a Freedom of Information request on the topic in March this year, TfL said: 'There are currently no plans to replace the ticket barriers.' It seems Sir Sadiq is missing a vital trick. Ultimately, the key to fixing the problem is psychological, Clarke believes. 'There is some truth to a larger societal idea. People want to see other people follow rules, and the more that people follow rules, the more people watching them follow rules,' he told Statecraft. 'There's a societal group-think at play.'
Spectator
31 minutes ago
- Spectator
The danger of recognising a Palestinian state
As Western leaders prepare to gather in New York this week to discuss international recognition of a Palestinian state, a stark signal from Washington demands their attention. US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has openly stated that he does not believe Palestinian statehood remains an American foreign policy goal. 'Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there's no room for it,' Huckabee told Bloomberg News this week, adding that such changes 'probably won't happen in our lifetime'. The White House, far from rebuking him, referred reporters to past remarks from President Trump questioning whether a two-state solution 'is going to work'. Huckabee's statement is, of course, one of plain fact – rather like President Trump's observation in his inaugural address that there are two sexes, male and female. Yet in today's political climate, even such elemental truths have become politically fraught. In saying it now about Palestinian statehood, Huckabee is doing something more than stating the obvious: he is exposing a long-protected fiction, a tired diplomatic orthodoxy that has endured for decades despite its manifest unreality. It is high time it was said plainly. This alignment with terror is no aberration In this spirit, the United States has now issued a formal demarche urging governments around the world not to attend this week's UN conference co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, warning that the gathering is 'counterproductive' and will undermine Israel's security. The message could not be clearer, and underscores a hardening recognition of a grim reality: to reward the current Palestinian leadership with statehood would be a profound moral and strategic failure. That failure is made plain by an unforgivable truth. For those who previously weren't paying attention, Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's recent public praise for the Hamas atrocities of 7 October ought to be a useful wake-up call. Far from condemning the savagery carried out by Palestinian terrorists, he described the massacre as having achieved 'important goals'. This alone should suffice to disqualify Abbas and the PA from the privileges of statehood. In an interview published last week in the PA's official daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, and translated by Palestinian Media Watch, Abbas enthusiastically declared: Hamas launched a sudden attack… killed 1,200 Israelis, abducted 250 others… this attack shook the foundations of the Israeli entity. He focused not on the massacre of civilians, the rape, or the horror of hostage-taking, but on the 'strategic impact' of the assault. He lauded Hamas for exposing 'the glaring failure of this entity's components, especially the army and the various security forces,' and framed Israel's intelligence lapse as a 'strategic victory for the Palestinian cause'. Abbas's sole expression of regret concerned not the barbarity of the attack but the suffering inflicted upon Gaza: As important as the goals that Hamas attempted to achieve… they are not comparable to the damages and heavy losses that the Gaza Strip residents… have suffered. Not a word of remorse for the innocent Israeli lives brutally extinguished; not a flicker of empathy for the abducted. This is not the language of a statesman. It is the cold calculation of a corrupt and barbaric man who sees terrorism as a legitimate path to political gain. We in the civilised world must face down this violent agenda, not only for Israel's sake, but also for our own. This alignment with terror is no aberration. Abbas's senior adviser, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, reinforced the message in March, declaring repeatedly that 'resistance is legitimate' and insisting that 'what happened on 7 October is a legitimate thing'. These statements, emerging on the eve of a United Nations event sponsored by France and Saudi Arabia to advance Palestinian statehood, strip away any remaining pretence. Western leaders must no longer hide behind diplomatic euphemisms. Abbas's latest comments are no aberration; they are the blunt restatement of a reality his leadership has embodied for years. Just as President Trump and Ambassador Huckabee have now said openly what many Western leaders privately acknowledge about the futility of a two-state solution, so too Abbas has merely reasserted his unwavering commitment to terrorism and rejectionism. The true nature of the Palestinian leadership has never been in doubt for those willing to see it. In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered a peace deal granting a Palestinian state on nearly all of the West Bank and Gaza, with a capital in East Jerusalem. Abbas rejected it outright, later telling the Washington Post: 'The gaps were wide. We didn't sign.' In 2014, during US Secretary of State John Kerry's mediation, Abbas again walked away – refusing a framework that included land swaps, a shared Jerusalem, and security guarantees, while insisting on full refugee return and rejecting recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Faced with the reality that peace would require genuine compromise, Abbas chose another path. In his 2011 New York Times op-ed, 'The Long Overdue Palestinian State', he laid bare this strategy: Palestine's admission to the United Nations would pave the way for the internationalisation of the conflict as a legal matter, not only a political one. The goal was clear – to bypass negotiations, to litigate rather than reconcile, and to wage diplomatic and legal war against Israel, adding to the decades of violent terrorism the Palestinians had perpetrated. This is the essence of even the most moderate parts of the Palestinian political approach: evade the responsibilities of peace, pursue maximalist aims through international bodies, and cultivate a political culture that glorifies and encourages violence. The PA continues to honour 'martyrs', to pay stipends to the families of terrorists, and to inculcate hatred in its media and schools. And they are meant to be the 'moderates'. With Abbas now openly praising the bloodiest day of anti-Jewish violence since the Holocaust, the moral bankruptcy of his leadership is undeniable. It is grotesque that Western diplomats should contemplate bestowing statehood upon an entity whose leaders celebrate mass murder, less than two years after such a vicious and barbaric attack carried out in pursuit of the same cause. We must ask, what sort of state would we be ushering into existence? Another Islamic terrorist state intent on anti-Jewish violence and bloodshed. As Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch rightly stated: 'Mahmoud Abbas has reminded us once again that if the PA were to become a state, it would be a terror state.' In this context, Huckabee's blunt assessment in Jerusalem resonates with unflinching clarity. Unless Palestinian leadership undergoes a radical transformation, there is no room for statehood. The French and Saudi sponsors of the upcoming UN event, and all attending Western leaders, must confront this reality without equivocation. To proceed even with discussions of recognition in these circumstances is to reward terrorism and embolden those who seek the destruction of a neighbouring state. Recognition of Palestinian statehood must be contingent on an unambiguous, demonstrated commitment to peace. Abbas and his regime have not merely failed to meet this standard – they have defied it. Until a leadership arises that rejects terror, embraces coexistence, and upholds the sanctity of human life, Palestinian statehood will remain not only unmerited, but a peril to international order. The signals from Washington should serve as a warning. Western leaders must heed it.
New Statesman
33 minutes ago
- New Statesman
Impunity is fuelling Israel's spiralling aggression
Photo byThe images of shattered buildings and billowing smoke are familiar but the locations are new: the destruction in Tel Aviv and Tehran signals the onset of an all-out war between Israel and Iran. The death toll in both countries continues to grow as their forces trade missiles in the wake of Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and military apparatus early on the morning of 13 June. Army bases, energy infrastructure and residential blocks all appear to be fair game, and the hostilities show no signs of dissipating. Israel was quick to characterise its attack as 'pre-emptive', saying it had no choice but to act in defence of its citizens as Iran advances towards a nuclear weapon. Yet such a claim is without basis in international law. Moreover, the attack has only disrupted planned talks between Iran and the United States aimed at achieving a deal that would restrict the former's nuclear programme. Israel even assassinated one of Iran's key negotiators over the weekend. In reality, Israel attacked not out of fear but out of hubris: it seeks to decisively weaken its strongest enemy in the region — at a cost of what could amount to hundreds or even thousands of civilian lives — and knows it can do so with impunity. This was, no doubt, a risky gambit. More than a dozen Israelis have already paid with their lives and over 100 more have been wounded as the country's air defences struggle to intercept every Iranian projectile. Against such a powerful adversary, there is also a chance that carefully calibrated hostilities could quickly spiral out of control, dragging the entire region into conflagration. But as far as the broader international response is concerned, things are playing out exactly as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu wagered. US President Donald Trump described the attack as 'excellent', and had reportedly sent Israel a shipment of 300 Hellfire missiles only days earlier despite maintaining that the US was uninvolved in the operation. Keir Starmer's government has duly followed suit, calling for restraint while simultaneously moving military assets to the Middle East and suggesting the UK could support Israel in the war. With Israeli leaders hinting at a loftier goal of bringing about regime change in Iran, the chances of de-escalation in the short term appear slim. And just as Israel's allies in the region have already helped shoot down Iranian missiles, we can be certain that Western governments will come readily to Israel's defence — both rhetorically and materially — ensuring it can continue its attacks. This is the overwhelming lesson Israel has drawn from the past 20 months amid its intensifying onslaught on Gaza: there is no limit to what the world will let it get away with. Now, as it bombs its sixth neighbouring state or occupied territory in less than two years, there should be no doubt that impunity is the lifeblood of Israel's far-right government, and the fuel driving its spiralling aggression. Until it runs up against firm international resistance, it will not cease in its campaign to militarily re-engineer the entire region. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Indeed, while the new war with Iran has hijacked the headlines, the death toll from Israel's assault on Gaza since the Hamas attacks of 7 October has surpassed 55,000. Researchers believe the true figure could be twice as high. Trump's support for the war on Gaza should be no excuse for Starmer not to do everything in his power to halt it. Instead he continues to authorise arms exports to Israel worth hundreds of millions of dollars — including components of F-35 warplanes used to drop bombs. Since breaking the ceasefire with Hamas in March, Israel has effectively dropped the pretense that the Gaza offensive is primarily about freeing the more than 50 hostages remaining in captivity. Yet impunity still reigns, and it takes two to make a mockery of international law. Israel's leaders have made plain their ambition to seize control of the entire Gaza Strip and raze everything in it to the ground, and the army is dutifully obliging: in some cities, the extent of the devastation is greater than in the aftermath of the atomic strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many of the enclave's two million inhabitants are homeless and starving. If Israel's government has its way, Gazans may soon be pushed out of the Strip for good. And the war with Iran won't disrupt this agenda; it will only provide a smokescreen allowing Israel to operate with even less scrutiny. It's not just Gaza. Israel has also used the cover of war to rapidly accelerate its takeover of the West Bank. Settlers armed by the state have succeeded in wiping scores of Palestinian communities off the map through threatening and administering brutal violence. In the West Bank's urban centres, the largest Israeli military operation in 20 years has forcibly displaced 40,000 people from several refugee camps, destroying hundreds of homes in the process. The Israeli government additionally announced plans last month to build 22 new illegal settlements in the West Bank with the explicit intention of preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has also initiated a large-scale land registration process that rights groups have described as a significant leap towards formalising Israeli sovereignty in the occupied territory. This, too, will continue unabated as the world's attention shifts to war with Iran, and simply imposing sanctions on a pair of outspoken ministers is a paltry response to a campaign that is rapidly erasing the Palestinian people from their land. If the UK wants to avoid being dragged into a war that will further destabilise the region, cause countless civilian deaths in Israel and Iran, enable the continuation of Israel's ethnic cleansing and slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank — not to mention almost certainly lead to more attacks on Israelis and Jews around the world — it must act immediately to force Israel down. That means ceasing all arms licenses until Israel complies with international law, suspending the existing bilateral trade agreement, and imposing sanctions on all political and military leaders responsible for war crimes. All of these measures are long overdue, popular with the British public, and will end the impunity that Israel has enjoyed for far too long. [See more: Netanyahu's gamble] Related
