Israel expands Gaza offensive, and Iran's nuclear capacity
Israel is expanding its operations in Gaza. Iran has warned that any attack by the US or its allies could push Tehran to pursue nuclear weapons. The US is sending more forces to the Middle East.
On today's episode of Trending Middle East:
Israeli defence minister warns 'large areas' will be seized as Gaza offensive expands
Iran talks nukes, but how close is it to building one?
US to send second aircraft carrier strike group to Middle East
Houthis claim US warship attacked in retaliation for strikes on Yemen that killed four
This episode features Foreign Editor Mohamad Ali Harisi.
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Arabian Post
20 minutes ago
- Arabian Post
Was Israeli Strike Against Iran A Part Of Donald Trump's Game Plan?
By Nitya Chakraborty Israeli missile strikes against Teheran and Iran's counter offensive entered its fifth day on June 17 Tuesday with U.S. President Donald Trump dramatically cutting short his stay in Canada for G-7 meeting for Washington indicating that he would be busy in peace moves in the next few hours for organizing a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. French President Emanuel Macron also informed at the summit venue that Iran sought Trump's assistance for ending the war. If we look at the chronology of the developments since the early morning of June 13, we will see that the entire course from the beginning of the sudden Israeli strikes to the dramatic exit of Trump from G-7 meeting, was a part of a stage managed event prepared by Trump-Netanyahu duo to achieve the Trump objective of Iran coming to the next round of US-Iran nuclear talks with bended knees with virtually little bargaining power. Trump wants to emerge as a peace maker by bringing victorious Netanyahu and shattered Iranian leaders in the negotiating table. The sixth round of talks on Iran's nuclear programme was scheduled for June 15, Sunday in Oman. Trump wanted to precipitate the deal on his own terms, but he did not get positive signal. The Iranians with their nuclear programme monitored by some top scientists, were not in a mood to surrender to the US President's diktat. They were getting ready for hard bargaining which Trump could not tolerate. The missile strikes by Israel began two days before the scheduled meeting. In the last four days, the nuclear facilities have been damaged in a serious manner, nine top scientists have been killed. With Israel guaranteeing high tech protection to Tel Aviv's air defences, the Iranian missiles could not damage much. It was an uneven war between Israel and Iran in terms of missile quality and technology. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was candid when he said that the Israeli objective was to eliminate any Iranian threat to Israel. He even gave a call to Iranians to rise in revolt. In fact, the Israeli defence forces are still targeting Iran's supreme head Ali Khamenei who has been shifted to a secret shelter by the Iranian authorities fearing attack on him. Trump himself said that Israel had a plan to kill Khamenei, but he rebuffed that. This was a way of making it clear that he was not involved if by any chance the Iranian supreme leader got killed. Interestingly, Israel gave advance information to the US President after attack, after that only Trump said that it was Israel's war against Iran, the US had nothing to do with it. Days before, the US government warned its citizens in Israel and asked the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem embassies to be careful in the next few days and look for shelters. An analysis by Zaineb Riduoa for the Washington-based Hudson Institute says that , Israel prepared for its June 13 operation over years of sustained intelligence preparation, real-time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), and deep infiltration. Israeli military planners achieved full-spectrum disruption by dismantling and infiltrating Iran's command and control networks, severing high-level communications, and injecting uncertainty into the regime's decision-making processes. As our IPA analyst Asad Mirza mentioned in his piece on June 16, by the time Tehran could react, the damage was already done. Its upper command was wiped out, and its defensive systems were disabled. Crucially, Israel did not rely on cross-border operations. It had pre-positioned remote-activated strike platforms inside Iran and deployed them with surgical precision. This shows its preparations and depth of its infiltration of the Iranian security apparatus. Israel combined a decapitation strike with cognitive disruption. The psychological warfare element – that the strike had come from Iranian soil – amplified the attack's kinetic effects, leaving Tehran paralysed. Unable to determine whether it had been infiltrated or outmanoeuvred, the regime's ability to respond took time to recover and initiate countermeasures. But these were inadequate to penetrate the highly sophisticated air defence system to protect Tel Aviv. In the last 48 hours, there have been intensive discussions about the possible US role in Israeli attacks. In US media, the right wing channels and podcasts have been showing how the Israeli defence forces have shattered the defence system of Iran and how Teheran has got isolated. Among the conservative whites, there is a sort of pleasure at the humiliation of a Muslim nation. Experts mention that the Trump-Netanyahu duo are planning for a regime change though officially, the US state secretary Marco Rubio has ruled that out. The leaders at G-7 however in a signed statement supported Israel's right to self defence and put the blame on Iran for bringing instability in Middle East. The G-7 leaders ruled out regime change as a solution in Iran but their identification with Israeli attack against Iran calling it right of self defence, makes it apparent that despite some high sounding liberal sentiments occasionally, they will go with Trump on Iran. Trump earlier wrote a post in his media platform saying that he had given Iran many chances to reach a nuclear deal with USA' He even said that he warned Iranian leadership that they are facing an attack that's much worse than anything they could imagine. What more is needed to prove that Trump and Netanyahu was in collusion? (IPA Service)
Middle East Eye
2 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
State Department pushes 'peace' narrative as Trump threatens Iran
In a packed room at the first State Department press briefing since Israel launched air strikes on Iran on Friday, spokesperson Tammy Bruce dodged far more questions than she answered, referring reporters to the Trump administration's central messaging depot: the White House. More specifically, Donald Trump's Truth Social account. That account, since Monday, has only conveyed threats to Iran. First, Trump told Tehran's 14 million residents to evacuate the capital, causing waves of panic and traffic jams across the city. Then he suggested he could kill Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But he won't, for the time being, he said. And as night fell on Iran after the fifth day of Israeli air strikes, he demanded "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" from the Islamic Republic. The US president made the posts while attending the first day of the G7 Summit in Canada. He then abruptly left 24 hours earlier than his schedule was due to wrap up, even skipping a scheduled meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He was heading back to the White House for something 'much bigger' than a ceasefire deal between Iran and Israel, he told reporters on Monday night. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters The Israeli press had earlier suggested that the Americans would now join the war in some form or another. The New York Times reported that only the US has the 30,000-pound bomb capable of taking out Iran's Fordow nuclear site. It seemed clear that the president who ran two successful campaigns on ending America's "endless wars" was about to enter a new one, and yet again in the Middle East. But the US State Department begged to differ. "Due to the wisdom of the American people, President Trump's election to a second term has offered the world a chance to see an American leader committed to solving many of the world's existential threats with determination," Bruce told reporters on Tuesday. "All he wants is a peaceful world. His activity, and the activity and the nature of the actions that the United States has taken... [has] been rooted in one thing, which is negotiations, looking for diplomatic solutions to generational problems that he wants solved diplomatically. That has been his constant posture." Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also currently serves as Trump's national security adviser, "has travelled the world working to implement President Trump's vision of peace and security," she added. The Trump administration's narrative comes across as mixed messaging. On the one hand, the department that oversees the implementation of foreign policy is boasting about a president of "peace", while the president is independently posting threats online to use the full might of the US military against Iran. But Trump administration officials have repeatedly made it clear that the president will conduct US policy with a "peace through strength" approach, suggesting he will, in fact, make military preparations and take his rhetoric to the limit until he gets a result he will accept. This particular behaviour also feeds into Trump's theatricality as a longtime reality TV star and darling of the New York tabloids. He has been known to push his opponents right to the edge and make his audience wait with desperate anticipation for his next move. Surprisingly, Trump has been amenable to walking his positions back, but the president has still kept the world in the dark about which position he will ultimately take on Iran.
Al Etihad
3 hours ago
- Al Etihad
Israel, Iran trade shelling for fifth consecutive day
18 June 2025 01:10 TEL AVIV-TEHRAN (WAM)Iran's Revolutionary Guard announced Tuesday that it launched a new wave of missiles targeting air bases in Israel from which warplanes take off to carry out strikes on the Islamic Republic of an Israeli army spokesperson stated that the Israeli military had conducted precise, pre-planned operations against Iranian missile launch platforms, targeting 12 locations inside marks the fifth day of the unprecedented confrontation between the two State TV broadcast a statement from the Revolutionary Guard saying that a large-scale missile strike was carried out against Israeli air force bases, which were used to launch fighter jets toward a parallel development, Israeli military spokesperson Effie Defrin reported that Israeli jets had targeted and bombed three significant facilities housing underground-stored materials designated for use against Israel.
