Israel-Iran battle escalates, civilians urged to evacuate target areas

CNA

11 hours ago

BAT YAM, Israel/DUBAI/WASHINGTON: Israel and Iran launched fresh attacks on Sunday (Jun 15), 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 convening 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 programmes, 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 futures were up US$2.14, or 2.9 per cent, to US$76.37 a barrel by 10.25pm GMT (Monday, 6.35am, Singapore time), while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed US$2.03, or 2.8 per cent, to US$75.01. They surged more than US$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 per cent 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, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 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 programmes 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 the 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 Truth Social. "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 programme, which Iran says is for peaceful purposes but Western countries say could be used to make a bomb.
The latest round of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States, due on Sunday, was scrapped after Tehran said it would not negotiate while under Israeli attack.
Financial markets are holding their breath to see whether oil prices surge further when trading resumes on Monday after the weekend, with potentially punishing consequences for the global economy, or settle down on hopes that Gulf exports will escape relatively unscathed.
The escalating battle has raised fears of disruption at the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping passage where about 20% of the world's oil passes through.