Israel-Iran war enters second week as talks take place between Europe and Tehran

A crane lifts a destroyed car at an impact site following Iran’s missile strike in Be’er Sheva, Israel on June 20, 2025. (Reuters)
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Updated 21 June 2025
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Israel-Iran war enters second week as talks take place between Europe and Tehran

  • European leaders push for Iran’s return to negotiations
  • Iran's foreign minister says Israel attacks betrayed diplomacy with US

TEL AVIV/DUBAI/WASHINGTON: Israel and Iran’s air war entered a second week on Friday, and European officials sought to draw Tehran back to the negotiating table after President Donald Trump said any decision on potential US involvement would be made within two weeks.

Israel began attacking Iran last Friday, saying it aimed to prevent its longtime enemy from developing nuclear weapons. Iran retaliated with missile and drone strikes on Israel. It says its nuclear program is peaceful.

On Friday, European foreign ministers met with their Iranian counterpart to discuss the conflict. They emerged from a three-hour meeting in Geneva having urged Tehran to resume negotiations with the US over its nuclear program.

Meanwhile in New York, the UN Security Council held a bad-tempered meeting over the conflict, with Iran and Israel trading accusations. The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency Rafael Grossi offered stark warnings over the risks of radiation leaks if Israel continues to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities.

Salvos of Iranian missiles were fired at Israel on Friday, with a strike hitting Haifa and wounding 19. In Tehran, funerals took place for some of those killed in Israel's airstrikes.

European powers urge Iran to continue US nuclear talks

European powers on Friday urged Iran to continue diplomacy to find a solution in the standoff over its nuclear program.

"The good result today is that we leave the room with the impression that Iran is ready to further discuss these questions," said German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul in a statement alongside his British, French and EU counterparts after talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said "we are keen to continue ongoing discussions and negotiations with Iran, and we urge Iran to continue their talks with the United States", while French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said there "can be no definitive solution through military means to the Iran nuclear problem".

UN's Guterres urges 'give peace a chance' 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday that expansion of the Israel-Iran conflict could "ignite a fire no one can control" and called on both sides and potential parties to the conflict to "give peace a chance."

At the same meeting, Iran said it would continue to defend itself against Israel, while Israel's UN ambassador vowed that his country would not stop its attacks until Iran's nuclear threat is dismantled.

"We will not stop," Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon said. "Not until Iran's nuclear threat is dismantled, not until its war machine is disarmed, not until our people and yours are safe."

Iran's UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani urged the Security Council to take action.

"Israel apparently declared that it will continue this strike for as many days as it takes. We are alarmed by credible report that the United States... may be joining this war," he said.

The US ambassador to the UN, Dorothy Camille Shea, said the United States "continues to stand with Israel and supports its actions against Iran's nuclear ambitions."
 

Iran missile barrage injures 19 in Haifa

Missiles fired from Iran on Friday left at least 19 people injured in the northern Israeli port of Haifa, a local hospital said.

At least one projectile appeared to evade Israel's air defences, slamming into an area by the docks of Haifa where it damaged a building and blew out windows, littering the nearby ground with rubble, AFP images showed.

A spokesman for the city's Rambam hospital said 19 people had been injured, with one in a serious condition.

Earlier, Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service reported two people had been injured by falling shrapnel after the attack but did not specify the location.

IAEA chief warns against strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities

 The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency on Friday warned against attacks on nuclear facilities and called for maximum restraint amid Israel's strikes on Iran.

 

"Armed attack for nuclear facilities should never take place and could result in radioactive releases with great consequences within and beyond boundaries of the state which has been attacked," Rafael Grossi, director of the International Agency for Atomic Energy, told the UN Security Council. "I therefore, again call for maximum restraint."

Iranian foreign minister says Israel attack 'betrayal' of diplomacy

Iran's foreign minister on Friday condemned the Israeli attacks against the Islamic republic as a "betrayal" of diplomatic efforts with the US, saying Tehran and Washington had been due to craft a "promising agreement" on the Iranian nuclear programme.

"We were attacked in the midst of an ongoing diplomatic process," Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva ahead of a crunch meeting with European foreign ministers.

Araghchi, making his first trip abroad since the strikes began, denounced Israel's attack as an "outrageous act of aggression".

US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff had planned to meet Araghchi in Oman on June 15 but the meeting was cancelled after Israel began the strikes days before.

Thousands protest in Tehran against Israel

Thousands of people joined a protest against Israel in the Iranian capital on Friday after weekly prayers, chanting slogans in support of their leaders, images on state television showed.

“This is the Friday of the Iranian nation’s solidarity and resistance across the country,” the news anchor said. Footage showed protesters holding up photographs of commanders killed since the start of the war with Israel, while others waved the flags of Iran and the Lebanese militant movement Hezbollah.

Iran rejects any negotiation with US while Israeli attacks continue

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected any negotiations with the United States while Israel continues its attacks on Iran, in an interview with state TV broadcast on Friday.

“The Americans have repeatedly sent messages calling seriously for negotiations. But we have made clear that as long as the aggression does not stop, there will be no place for diplomacy and dialogue,” said the chief diplomat, who was due in Geneva for talks with his European counterparts.

Situation at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant is ‘normal’, Russian official says

The head of Russia’s nuclear energy corporation, Alexei Likhachev, said on Friday that Russian specialists were still working at the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran and that the situation there was normal and under control.

Likhachev said he hoped Russia’s warnings to Israel not to attack the site had been received by the Israeli leadership.

Russia, which has close ties with Iran, has warned strongly against US military intervention on the side of Israel.

Israeli defense minister warns Hezbollah against joining conflict with Iran

Israeli defense minister Israel Katz warned Lebanon’s Hezbollah to exercise caution on Friday, saying Israel’s patience with “terrorists” who threaten it had worn thin.

Katz also instructed the military to intensify attacks on “symbols of the regime” in Tehran, aiming to destabilize it.

“We must strike at all the symbols of the regime and the mechanisms of oppression of the population, such as the Basij (militia), and the regime's power base, such as the Revolutionary Guard.”

The head of Iran-backed Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, said on Thursday that the Lebanese group would act as it saw fit in the face of what he called “brutal Israeli-American aggression” against Iran.

European, Iranian FMs to hold nuclear talks on Friday in Geneva

Foreign ministers from Britain, France and Germany together with the EU’s top diplomat will hold nuclear talks with their Iranian counterpart in Geneva on Friday, officials and diplomats said.

The meeting comes as European countries call for de-escalation in the face of Israel’s bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear program — and as US President Donald Trump weighs up whether or not to join the strikes against Tehran.

“We will meet with the European delegation in Geneva on Friday,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a statement carried by state news agency IRNA.

European diplomats separately confirmed the planned talks, set to involve French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, as well as EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Thursday after meeting high-level US officials that there is still time to reach a diplomatic solution with Tehran.

Lammy met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff at the White House, before talks on Friday in Geneva with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi alongside his French, German and EU counterparts.

“The situation in the Middle East remains perilous,” Lammy said in a statement released by the UK embassy in Washington.

“We discussed how Iran must make a deal to avoid a deepening conflict. A window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution,” Lammy said.

Israel has targeted nuclear sites and missile capabilities, but also has sought to shatter the government of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to Western and regional officials.

“Are we targeting the downfall of the regime? That may be a result, but it’s up to the Iranian people to rise for their freedom,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

Iran has said it is targeting military and defense-related sites in Israel, but it has also hit a hospital and other civilian sites.

Israel accused Iran on Thursday of deliberately targeting civilians through the use of cluster munitions, which disperse small bombs over a wide area. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

With neither country backing down, the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany along with the European Union foreign policy chief were due to meet in Geneva with Iran’s foreign minister to try to de-escalate the conflict on Friday.

“Now is the time to put a stop to the grave scenes in the Middle East and prevent a regional escalation that would benefit no one,” said British Foreign Minister David Lammy ahead of their joint meeting with Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s foreign minister.

Israel says Iran fired cluster bomb-bearing missile

Iran fired at least one missile at Israel that scattered small bombs with the aim of increasing civilian casualties, the Israeli military said on Thursday, the first reported use of cluster munitions in the seven-day-old war.

Israeli military officials provided no further details.

Israeli news reports quoted the Israeli military as saying the missile’s warhead split open at an altitude of about 4 miles and released around 20 submunitions in a radius of around 5 miles over central Israel.

One of the small munitions struck a home in the central Israeli town of Azor, causing some damage, Times of Israel military correspondent Emanuel Fabian reported. There were no reports of casualties from the bomb.

Iran appoints new Revolutionary Guards intelligence chief

Iran appointed a new chief of intelligence at its Revolutionary Guards on Thursday, the official Irna news agency said, after his predecessor was killed in an Israeli strike last week.
Major General Mohammad Pakpour, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps , appointed Brig. Gen. Majid Khadami as the new head of its intelligence division, Irna said.
He replaces Mohammed Kazemi, who was killed on Sunday alongside two other Revolutionary Guards officers — Hassan Mohaghegh and Mohsen Bagheri — in an Israeli strike.

Trump ponders Iran attack

Trump has mused about striking Iran, possibly with a “bunker buster” bomb that could destroy nuclear sites built deep underground. The White House said on Thursday Trump would decide in the next two weeks whether to get involved in the war. That may not be a firm deadline. Trump has commonly used “two weeks” as a time frame for making decisions and has allowed other economic and diplomatic deadlines to slide.

The role of the US, meanwhile, remained uncertain. On Thursday in Washington, Lammy met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s special envoy to the region, Steve Witkoff, and said they discussed a possible deal.

Witkoff has spoken with Araqchi several times since last week, sources say. Trump, meanwhile, has alternated between threatening Tehran and urging it to resume nuclear talks that were suspended over the conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping both condemned Israel and agreed that de-escalation is needed, the Kremlin said on Thursday.

With the Islamic Republic facing one of its greatest external threats since the 1979 revolution, any direct challenge to its 46-year-long rule would likely require some form of popular uprising.

But activists involved in previous bouts of protest say they are unwilling to unleash mass unrest, even against a system they hate, with their nation under attack.

“How are people supposed to pour into the streets? In such horrifying circumstances, people are solely focused on saving themselves, their families, their compatriots, and even their pets,” said Atena Daemi, a prominent activist who spent six years in prison before leaving Iran.

IAEA chief identifies Isfahan as Iran’s planned uranium enrichment site

UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi on Thursday identified Isfahan, home to one of Iran’s biggest nuclear facilities, as the location of a uranium enrichment plant that Iran said it would soon open in retaliation for a diplomatic push against it.

The day before Israel launched its military strikes against Iranian targets including nuclear facilities last Friday, Iran announced it had built a new uranium enrichment facility, which it would soon equip and bring online. Tehran did not provide details such as the plant’s location.

Iran’s announcement was part of its retaliation against a resolution passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors declaring Tehran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations over issues including its failure to credibly explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites.


Israeli forces arrest pro-Palestine activists near Jericho amid settlers’ attack

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Israeli forces arrest pro-Palestine activists near Jericho amid settlers’ attack

  • The settlers entered Al-Auja Spring village on Wednesday and attempted to sabotage a Palestinian bedouin community’s source of livelihood

LONDON: Israeli forces detained several pro-Palestine activists with foreign nationalities north of Jericho in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday evening.

The Al-Baidar Organization for Defense of Bedouin Rights reported that activists were arrested while intervening on behalf of Palestinian residents of Al-Auja Spring village to protect the nomadic community’s cattle from an attack by Israeli settlers.

The settlers entered the village on Wednesday and released the cattle among the homes and cultivated land, sabotaging the community’s source of livelihood, the Al-Baidar human rights group said.

The Arab Al-Mlaihat clan living in the Jordan Valley relies on livestock for their income. Al-Baidar said that repeated settler attacks on this nomadic community aim to force them to leave the area.

The clan originally comes from the desert area of the Negev in Israel. However, due to political events and armed conflicts since 1948, the residents of Arab Al-Mlaihat were forced to live in different parts of the West Bank.

Dozens of Palestinian bedouin communities live in the Jordan Valley, an area that Israel has declared 45.7 percent of its northern part as military firing zones.

About 1 million Israeli settlers live in illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in violation of international law. Their violence against Palestinians has escalated since 2023, prompting Western governments to sanction some of their leaders; however, Israeli authorities rarely prosecute their actions.


King of Jordan meets leaders on sidelines of Sun Valley Conference in Idaho

Updated 10 July 2025
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King of Jordan meets leaders on sidelines of Sun Valley Conference in Idaho

  • King Abdullah II emphasized the need to modernize the economy and administration to enhance Jordan’s competitiveness

LONDON: King Abdullah II met with various business and technology leaders during the Sun Valley Conference taking place this week in the US state of Idaho.

The one-day annual gathering on July 8 brought together leaders from various fields, including technology, business, media, and entertainment.

The conference, funded by the private investment firm Allen & Company, is known as the Sun Valley Media and Technology Conference and is often referred to as the “summer camp for billionaires.” Alongside politicians, several technology and media leaders attended this year’s event, including the CEOs of Apple, Disney, and OpenAI.

On the sidelines of the forum this week, King Abdullah II met with representatives from several major international and US companies operating in sectors such as industry, mining, technology, trade, transport, defence, and media, the Petra news agency reported.

He also had a meeting with Scott Bessent, the US Treasury secretary. King Abdullah emphasized the significance of modernizing the economy and administration to enhance Jordan’s competitiveness, attract investments, and build partnerships, Petra added.

Crown Prince Hussein of Jordan and Alaa Batayneh, the director of the king’s office, attended the meetings.


Children queuing for nutrition supplements among 52 killed by Israeli forces in Gaza

A Palestinian woman comforts a child as casualties are brought into Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital following an Israeli strike, in Dei
Updated 10 July 2025
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Children queuing for nutrition supplements among 52 killed by Israeli forces in Gaza

  • 17 Palestinians, including eight children, killed in Israeli strike in front of a medical point in Deir Al-Balah in Gaza
  • Dozens of others killed across the territory by airstrikes and shooting

GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency on Thursday said at least 52 people, including eight children, were killed by Israeli forces in the Palestinian territory battered by more than 21 months of war.
The latest deadly strikes and gunfire came just hours after Hamas, which runs Gaza, announced it was willing to release 10 hostages as part of indirect ceasefire talks with Israel.
Israel has recently expanded its military operations in the Gaza Strip, where the war has created dire humanitarian conditions for the population of more than two million people.
Civil defense official Mohammad Al-Mughair told AFP that 17 people were killed in a strike in front of a medical point in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza.
The Israeli military told AFP that it had struck a Hamas militant in Deir Al-Balah who had infiltrated Israel during the group’s October 7, 2023 attack.
It said it “regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible,” adding the incident was under review.
Mughair said eight children and two women were killed in the strike.

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Yousef Al-Aydi, 30, said he was among dozens of people, mostly women and children, waiting for nutritional supplements in front of the medical point.
“Suddenly, we heard the sound of a drone approaching, and then the explosion happened,” he told AFP by phone.
“The ground shook beneath our feet, and everything around us turned into blood and deafening screams.”
“What was our fault? What was the fault of the children?” asked Mohammed Abu Ouda, 35, who had also been waiting for supplies.
“I saw a mother hugging her child on the ground, both motionless — they were killed instantly.”
AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details due to media restrictions in Gaza.

Palestinians react as casualties are brought into Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital following an Israeli strike, in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza on Thursday. (Reuters)


Four people were killed and several injured in a pre-dawn air strike on a family home in Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza, Mughair added.
AFP footage from Al-Bureij showed a family including three young children sitting among rubble outside their tattered tent after an air strike hit a house next door.
Mughair reported 27 more people killed in bombardments across the territory, including 15 people in five separate strikes in the area of Gaza City.
One person was killed southwest of the southern city of Khan Yunis by “Israeli military fire,” Mughair said.
Three more, including a woman, were killed by Israeli gunfire on civilians near an aid center in the northwest of nearby Rafah, he added.
More than 600 people have been killed around aid distributions and convoys in Gaza since late May, when Israel began allowing in a trickle of supplies, the United Nations said in early July.
The war began after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, leading to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians.
Israel’s retaliatory strikes have killed at least 57,680 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
The United Nations deems the figures reliable.


Gaza doctors cram babies into incubators as fuel shortage threatens hospitals

Updated 10 July 2025
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Gaza doctors cram babies into incubators as fuel shortage threatens hospitals

  • Overwhelmed medics say the dwindling fuel supplies threaten to plunge them into darkness and paralyze hospitals and clinics in the Palestinian territory, where health services have been pummelled during 21 months of war

GAZA: At Gaza’s largest hospital, doctors say crippling fuel shortages have led them to put several premature babies in a single incubator as they struggle to keep the newborns alive while Israel presses on with its military campaign.
Overwhelmed medics say the dwindling fuel supplies threaten to plunge them into darkness and paralyze hospitals and clinics in the Palestinian territory, where health services have been pummelled during 21 months of war.
While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the fate of Israeli hostages in Gaza with US President Donald Trump in Washington this week, patients at Al Shifa medical center in Gaza City faced imminent danger, doctors there said.
“We are forced to place four, five, or sometimes three premature babies in one incubator,” said Dr. Mohammed Abu Selmia, Al Shifa’s director.
“Premature babies are now in a very critical condition.”
The threat comes from “neither an airstrike nor a missile — but a siege choking the entry of fuel,” Dr. Muneer Alboursh, director general of the Gaza Ministry of Health, told Reuters.
The shortage is “depriving these vulnerable people of their basic right to medical care, turning the hospital into a silent graveyard,” he said.
Gaza, a tiny strip of land with a population of more than 2 million, was under a long, Israeli-led blockade before the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas erupted.
Palestinians and medical workers have accused the Israeli military of attacking hospitals, allegations it rejects.
Israel accuses Hamas of operating from medical facilities and running command centers underneath them, which Hamas denies.
Patients in need of medical care, food and water are paying the price.
There have been more than 600 attacks on health facilities since the conflict began, the WHO says, without attributing blame. It has described the health sector in Gaza as being “on its knees,” with shortages of fuel, medical supplies and frequent arrivals of mass casualties.
Just half of Gaza’s 36 general hospitals are partially functioning, according to the UN agency.
Abu Selmia warned of a humanitarian catastrophe and accused Israel of “trickle-feeding” fuel to Gaza’s hospitals.
COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about fuel shortages at Gaza’s medical facilities and the risk to patients.

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Abu Selmia said Al Shifa’s dialysis department had been shut down to protect the intensive care unit and operating rooms, which can’t be without electricity for even a few minutes.
There are around 100 premature babies in Gaza City hospitals whose lives are at serious risk, he said. Before the war, there were 110 incubators in northern Gaza compared to about 40 now, said Abu Selmia.
“Oxygen stations will stop working. A hospital without oxygen is no longer a hospital. The lab and blood banks will shut down, and the blood units in the refrigerators will spoil,” Abu Selmia said, adding that the hospital could become “a graveyard for those inside.”
Officials at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis are also wondering how they will cope with the fuel crisis. The hospital needs 4,500 liters of fuel per day and it now has only 3,000 liters, said hospital spokesperson Mohammed Sakr.
Doctors are performing surgeries without electricity or air conditioning. The sweat from staff is dripping into patients’ wounds, he said.
Earlier this year, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza for nearly three months, before partly lifting it. Israel accuses Hamas of diverting aid, something Hamas denies.
“You can have the best hospital staff on the planet, but if they are denied the medicines and the pain killers and now the very means for a hospital to have light ... it becomes an impossibility,” said James Elder, a spokesperson for UN children’s agency UNICEF, recently returned from Gaza.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Gaza’s health ministry says Israel’s response has killed over 57,000 Palestinians. It has also caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced almost all Gaza’s population and prompted accusations of genocide and war crimes, which Israel denies.


China, Russia should work together for Middle East peace, Beijing says

Updated 10 July 2025
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China, Russia should work together for Middle East peace, Beijing says

  • Wang Yi said the two countries should push for a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear issue

BEIJING: China's foreign minister told his Russian counterpart on Thursday that China and Russia should strengthen strategic coordination to promote peace in the Middle East, according to a ministry statement.

Wang Yi said the two countries should push for a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear issue, as he met with Russia's Sergei Lavrov in Kuala Lumpur, China's foreign ministry said.

"Peace cannot be achieved through force, and applying pressure won't solve problems," Wang said, adding that dialogue and negotiations were the way out.