Missile launched from Yemen hits Israel's Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv
A ballistic missile launched from Yemen has hit the perimeter of Israel's Ben Gurion airport, damaging road structures and a vehicle and causing air traffic to stop, according to mphotos and footage verified by Al Jazeera.
The Israeli military confirmed on Sunday morning that its defence system failed to shoot down the projectile despite several attempts to intercept it, adding that an investigation was under way.
Flight were suspended at Israel's busiest airport, all entrances to the airport were briefly closed, and train movements leading to the airport were suspended. Some flights had to be redirected.
Sirens blared across central Israel, and millions moved to shelters, according to Israeli media.
Three people were lightly injured, according to paramedics.
Videos of the site of the impact circulating online showed that the missile hit a connecting road inside the perimeter of the airport, with some debris scattered on adjacent roads.
The Houthis did not immediately comment on the attack, but they have continued to launch ballistic missiles and drones at Israeli cities in stated opposition to the war on Gaza and the Israeli blockade on all humanitarian aid entering the besieged enclave.
More than 50 Palestinians have been starved to death due to the ongoing Israeli blockade since March 2.
The attacks by the Yemeni group are continuing despite daily bombardment of areas across Yemen by the United States and the United Kingdom military. Houthi-run media reported many more US air raids on Yemen in the early hours of Sunday.
US warplanes launched 10 raids on the al-Hazm district of the al-Jawf governorate, and three attacks on the Marib governorate, Al Masirah TV reported.
It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties, as with some of the other US strikes this week, including one on a migrant detention centre that left dozens dead.
Benny Gantz, leader of the Israel Resilience party, said the blame for the missile attacks should be put on Iran.
'It is Iran that is firing ballistic missiles at the state of Israel, and it must bear responsibility,' he said in a post on X. 'The shooting at the state of Israel is bound to lead to a severe reaction in Tehran.'
Yair Golan, a leading opposition figure, said millions of Israelis are in shelters again, Israeli captives held in Gaza are dying, the cost of living is crushing families, and reservists are 'collapsing under the burden' of the war.
'This is big for Netanyahu, this is big for the government,' he said about the prime minister. 'We must return the kidnapped people home and end the war.'
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Newsweek
6 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Map Shows Iran's Adversaries in Key Nuclear Vote
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors has declared that Iran has not complied with its nuclear obligations in a vote following a resolution, backed by the United States and the E3 (Britain, France, and Germany). The resolution was passed with 19 votes in favor. Three countries voted against, 11 abstained and two countries did not vote, according to multiple media reports. Iran described it as a "politically motivated" resolution and said it will build a new uranium enrichment facility in a secure location, state media Press TV reported after the vote. Newsweek has contacted the IAEA for comment. Why It Matters The IAEA resolution could lead to the reimposition of sanctions on Iran under UN Security Council Resolution 2231. Iran has warned this would trigger a strong response, including limiting IAEA cooperation, boosting uranium enrichment, or quitting the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Increased tensions raise the risk of military escalation between Iran and the United States—with prospects also rising for an Israeli strike—which could trigger a wider Middle East conflict involving regional allies. What To Know On Thursday, the UN nuclear watchdog's board of governors officially determined that Iran has failed to meet its nuclear obligations for the first time in two decades, with 19 countries voting for the resolution, according to The Associated Press. The resolution said "Iran failed to provide credible explanations for nuclear material at three undeclared locations," according to a copy published by Al-Jazeera English TV channel. The IAEA held a board session Wednesday on Iran's nuclear program, during which Britain, France, and Germany warned Iran that its escalating nuclear activities—such as 60 percent enrichment of uranium and expansion of centrifuge and stockpile limits—undermine the JCPOA, a 2015 deal with Iran, but did not call for immediate punitive steps. The resolution seeks to prompt Iran to resolve the issue without immediately referring its non-compliance to the U.N. Security Council for sanctions, giving Iran a window to address six years of outstanding requests, a Western diplomat told The Associated Press earlier in June. The push followed IAEA chief Rafael Grossi's reports uncovering undisclosed nuclear activities in Iran. Grossi said Iran had undermined the agency's ability to monitor Iran's JCPOA commitments and removed all related surveillance and monitoring equipment in 2022. Timely meeting in Cairo with Egypt's @MfaEgypt Badr Abdelatty and Iran's Foreign Minister @araghchi. Grateful for Egypt's constructive role in supporting peaceful, diplomatic solutions to regional challenges. — Rafael Mariano Grossi (@rafaelmgrossi) June 2, 2025 Iran criticized the resolution and dismissed Grossi's report, warning of serious consequences if the U.N. Security Council imposes new sanctions, Iran's UN Ambassador Reza Najafi told the board, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). Russia's envoy to the IAEA, Mikhail Ulyanov, supported Tehran's position, saying that "the United States and then the E3 deliberately sabotaged the implementation of the nuclear deal," he said, referring to the JCPOA." Gulf states and other Arab and Middle East countries have supported diplomatic efforts and mediated rapprochement with Iran, but remain cautious and neutral, mindful that regional security would be at serious risk if war erupts. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear deal which lifted sanctions in exchange for nuclear limits, was disrupted by the U.S. withdrawal in 2018 and is set to fully expire in October 2025. What People Are Saying U.S. President Donald trump told "Pod Force One" podcast on the nuclear deal: "I'm getting more and more less confident about it. They seem to be delaying, I think that's a shame. I'm less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago. Reza Najafi, Iran's Permanent Ambassador to the UN office and international organizations in Vienna, as quoted by IRNA: "Since the E3 has seriously violated Resolution 2231 and the JCPOA, they are neither in a moral nor legal position to activate the snapback mechanism. If such a scenario unfolds, Iran's options will be firm, and the United States and the E3 will bear full responsibility." France, Germany and the UK (E3) joint statement, published by the British government's website: "Iran must halt and reverse its nuclear escalation and refrain from making threats regarding a change of its nuclear doctrine, which are in themselves highly destabilising and not consistent with Iran's status as a state without nuclear weapons under the NPT." What Happens Next Washington and Tehran are scheduled to resume nuclear negotiations on Sunday in Oman amid key disagreements on enrichment and sanctions' relief.
Atlantic
27 minutes ago
- Atlantic
Why Israel Should Learn to Love the Coming Iran Deal
Having once described Donald Trump as Israel's 'greatest friend ever,' Benjamin Netanyahu must be watching with some consternation as the American president enthusiastically pursues a nuclear deal with Iran. After all, the Israeli prime minister made every effort to stop the Obama administration's Iran deal in 2015. Trump exited that deal in 2018, perhaps partially at Netanyahu's urging. And now Trump is pursuing a deal of his own—his administration has even dropped a number of Iran hawks from its ranks, in what one pro-Israel D.C. outlet described as a 'purge.' But Israel's leaders shouldn't fear the coming Iran deal. They may even find reasons to welcome it: Among a host of bad options for curbing Iran's nuclear program and pacifying a volatile region, a nuclear agreement between Trump and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could be the least bad option for Israel too. No such deal has happened yet—and none will until the two sides can reach an accord about whether Iran should maintain a capacity to enrich uranium on its own soil. The U.S., together with Israel, has strongly objected to any such prospect. 'WE WILL NOT ALLOW ANY ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM!' Trump wrote on Truth Social on June 2. The Iranians insist on it—and, for their part, are playing a game of reverse psychology: 'This Guy Has No Will for a Deal,' read a headline in the semiofficial Tehran Times on June 7, referencing Trump. But both sides have compelling reasons to want these talks to come to something. The Trump administration, stymied in Ukraine and Gaza, could use a foreign-policy win, and the Iranian regime, having lost its regional proxy power, would prefer to avoid military strikes on its nuclear facilities and to see some sanctions lifted. Steven Witkoff, the Trump administration's top negotiator, has proffered a plan that reportedly suggests outsourcing Iran's uranium enrichment to a regional consortium. The enrichment would be for civilian purposes, and the consortium would include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and possibly Qatar and Turkey. The idea is to remove the technical capacity from Iranian hands and internationalize the process. Whether this consortium would do its work on Iranian soil or elsewhere, however, is not clear. And as Richard Nephew, an American diplomat who helped negotiate the 2015 nuclear deal, told me, this is the nub of the issue—'centrifuges in Iran'—in relation to which 'a consortium is window-dressing.' Mostafa Najafi, a Tehran-based expert close to Iran's security establishment, told me that Iran has 'seriously studied' Washington's consortium proposal and could accept it only if at least some enrichment were to be done on Iranian soil. One option might be to use Iran's islands in the Persian Gulf for this purpose, he added. These are part of Iran but geographically close to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and therefore easier to monitor than the mainland. For Israel, the matter of where the enrichment happens is nonnegotiable. 'Israel would be willing to accept the consortium solution only if it is located outside of Iran, a condition that Iran, of course, will not accept,' Raz Zimmt, the head of the Iran program at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, told me. 'This is Israel's official stance, and it enjoys near-unanimous support across the Israeli political spectrum.' The reasons for this are understandable: Iran's leaders, unlike many of their counterparts in the region, have never embraced a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and instead continue to clamor for the destruction of Israel. Just last month, Khamenei called Israel 'a cancerous, dangerous, and deadly tumor that must be removed from the region and it will be.' Israeli leaders are worried that a deal with Iran will not go far enough in disabling it from acting on its animus against Israel. In fact, hard-line Israelis cannot envision a solution to the Iranian nuclear problem that doesn't involve the total dismantlement of its centrifuges and expatriation of its uranium. That's because the means to weaponize are already there. Even those, including Nephew, who advocate for a new deal caution that Iran's enrichment capacity has increased in the seven years since Trump left the 2015 agreement. Iran now has enough enriched uranium that if it sought to weaponize, it could build as many as 10 atomic weapons. Even if it shipped that stockpile elsewhere, the country would still have its advanced centrifuges. With these, experts say, Iran could hold on to just 5 percent of its current stockpile and still be able to enrich enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb inside of a month, and four bombs' worth in two months. Given this reality, according to Zimmt, the Israeli government believes that it is running out of time to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. And to this end, he told me, 'Israel clearly prefers no deal over a bad deal,' because without a deal, military strikes become thinkable. Many in Israel see such a confrontation as the best option—even though Iran's nuclear facilities are spread across its territory, and some are buried deep underground, making any military campaign likely to be drawn-out, complicated, and hazardous. The analysts I spoke with did not see much lasting good coming of such an assault. Nephew noted that the setback to Iran's nuclear program would likely be temporary and said that Israel would be 'infinitely better off with a good deal.' Gregory Brew, an analyst with the Eurasia Group, pointed out that Iran's regional proxies have been so weakened that Israel is in a particularly strong position at the moment. A negotiated settlement to the nuclear question could allow Israel to build on its advantage by pursuing closer ties to Arab states. This 'would be a win for Israeli security and the region as a whole,' Brew said. Back in 2015, the Arab states of the Gulf region were leery of a U.S.-Iran nuclear deal. They had poor relations with Iran and worried that an agreement might exclude their interests. Now those relations have softened, and most of the Gulf states are eager for an arrangement that could cool the region's tempers. Their support for diplomacy should be good news for Israel, which already has diplomatic, trade, and military ties with two Gulf countries (the UAE and Bahrain). The Saudis have conditioned normalization on Israel's allowing for a Palestinian state, but their language is pragmatic—Riyadh's overwhelming interest appears to be in economic development, which regional conflict only undermines. A nuclear deal that draws in the Gulf states would undoubtedly serve to better integrate Iran into the region's economy. Some in Israel may balk at this idea, preferring to see Iran isolated. But there is a case to be made that giving Iran a stake in regional peace and stability would do more to de-radicalize its foreign policy than caging it has done. Some in Israel remain skeptical. 'I don't believe that Saudi or Emirati participation in the deal carries any real significance,' Zimmt said. 'It's not something that would reassure Israel, certainly not before normalization with Saudi Arabia, and not even necessarily afterward.' Other Israeli critics of Trump and Witkoff chastise them for mistaking the ideologically driven actors of the Middle East for transactional pragmatists like themselves. Daniel Byman: Trump is making Netanyahu nervous But leaders and peoples—in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Damascus, Beirut—have grown tired of wars around religion and ideology, and many are ready to pursue development instead. This explains why Syria's new leaders have embraced Trump and promised not to fight Israel. Iran is not immune to this new regional mood. Iranian elites have reason to fear that the failure of talks will bring about devastating military strikes. But they also have reason to hope that the lifting of sanctions, and even a partial opening for the country's beleaguered economy, will be a boon to some of the moneyed interests close to the regime. Najafi told me that Iran already has a shared interest with Arabs in trying to avoid a confrontation between Israel and Iran: 'Arabs know that any military action by Israel against Iran could destroy their grand developmental projects in the region,' he said. I've talked with Iranian elites for years. Most of them have no interest in Islamism or any other ideology. They send their sons and daughters to study in American and Swiss universities, not to Shiite seminaries in Iraq or Lebanon. Khamenei's zealotry is very unlikely to outlive him in Iran's highest echelons of power. A diplomatic deal, however flawed, will not only curtail Iran's nuclear program but also put the country on a path defined by its economic and pragmatic interests. A more regionally integrated Iran is likely to be much less belligerent, as it will have relations with the Saudis and Emiratis to maintain. The regime will likely be forced to drop many of its revolutionary pretensions, as it already has toward Saudi Arabia: Iran once considered the kingdom illegitimate, but it now goes out of its way to maintain good ties with Riyadh. Although this might sound unthinkable today, ultimately the regime will have to drop its obsession with Israel as well, for the same pragmatic reason that Arab countries have done in the past. The alternative to a deal is an extensive military campaign—most likely, a direct war between Iran and Israel—with unpredictable consequences. The notion that such a confrontation would lead to positive political change in Iran is a fantasy. Just as likely, the regime will hunker down under duress, prolonging its hold on power. This is why even the most pro-Israel figures in the Iranian opposition, such as former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, oppose military strikes on Iran. Iran's population harbors very little hostility to Israel. A group of student activists recently tried to organize an anti-Israel rally at the University of Tehran, but only a couple of dozen people joined them, a small fraction of those who have turned out for rallies in Cairo, Amman, or New York City. But a direct war that costs Iranian civilian lives would easily change this. The future of Iran and Israel does not need to lie in hostility. That's why a deal that keeps Iran from going nuclear and avoids military strikes is the least bad option for everyone.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Oman to host US-Iran nuclear talks on Sunday
Oman said Thursday it would host a sixth round of nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran over the weekend, amid escalating tensions between the long-time foes and reports of an imminent Israeli attack on Iran. Despite reporting progress in earlier rounds, Tehran and Washington have sharply disagreed over Iran's uranium enrichment in recent weeks, with Tehran threatening to target US military bases in the region in the event that the talks fail and conflict erupts. Tensions reached a fever pitch this week as Washington ordered the evacuation of personnel from the Middle East and US media reported that Israel appeared to be preparing an attack on Iran. Oman's Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi nonetheless confirmed in a post on X on Thursday that the "6th round of Iran US talks will be held in Muscat this Sunday". Iran meanwhile vowed to build a new uranium enrichment facility and "increase signficantly" its production after the UN nuclear watchdog passed a resolution condemning Tehran's "non-compliance". The United States and Iran have held five rounds of talks since April to hammer out a new nuclear deal, replacing a 2015 accord that President Donald Trump abandoned during his first term in office. Trump appeared to shift his previously optimistic tone this week, saying he was "less confident" a deal could be reached, and on Wednesday ordered US personnel to be moved from the potentially "dangerous" Middle East. - 'Suffer more losses' - Israel has repeatedly warned that it could attack Iranian nuclear sites, vowing to stop its arch foe from acquiring an atomic bomb, which Tehran has consistently denied it was seeking. The US president says he has pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off from striking Iran's nuclear facilities to give the talks a chance, but has increasingly signalled that he is losing patience. Iran however warned it would respond to any attack. "All its (US) bases are within our reach, we have access to them, and without hesitation we will target all of them in the host countries," Iran's Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said in response to US threats of military action if the talks fail. "God willing, things won't reach that point, and the talks will succeed," the minister said, adding that the US side "will suffer more losses" if it came to conflict. A US official had earlier said that staff levels at the embassy in Iraq were being reduced over security concerns, while there were reports that personnel were also being moved from Kuwait and Bahrain. An Iraqi security official said it was "not complete evacuation" and the US was taking precautionary measures in case of the failure of talks. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the US embassy in Manama said the mission "has not changed its staffing posture and remains fully operational". - 'Strategic mistake' - The latest developments come amid a diplomatic standoff over Iran's uranium enrichment, which Tehran has defended as a "non-negotiable" right while Washington has called it a "red line". Iran currently enriches uranium to 60 percent, far above the 3.67-percent limit set in the 2015 deal and close though still short of the 90 percent needed for a nuclear warhead. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in major state policies, has recently said enrichment is "key" to Iran's nuclear programme and that the United States "cannot have a say" on the issue. On May 31, after the fifth round of talks, Iran said it had received "elements" of a US proposal for a nuclear deal, with Araghchi later saying the text contained "ambiguities". Iran has said it will present a counter-proposal to the latest draft from Washington, which it had criticised for failing to offer relief from sanctions -- a key demand for Tehran, which has been reeling under their weight for years. On Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors adopted a resolution drafted by the US, Britain, France and Germany, condemning Iran's "non-compliance" with its nuclear obligations. In response, Iran's foreign ministry and atomic agency said orders had been issued "to launch a new enrichment centre in a secure location". The agency added that uranium enrichment would "increase significantly". The resolution could lay the groundwork for European countries to invoke the "snapback" mechanism under the 2015 nuclear deal, reinstating UN sanctions in response to Iranian non-compliance -- an option that expires in October. bur-mz/jsa
