Media Report 2025.06.17
Palestine-Israel Media Report Tuesday 17 June 2025
Australian deported from US says he was targeted for writing on Palestine protests
Washington: An Australian man who attended Columbia University and was returning to the United States for a holiday says he was detained and questioned for 12 hours by American border officials about his involvement in pro-Palestine activity on campus, before being deported.
Alistair Kitchen, 33, flew to Los Angeles from Melbourne on Thursday, on the way to spend two weeks in New York, where he had lived for six years while working and studying.
He said that while he was in the immigration queue at Los Angeles International Airport, his name was announced via the intercom, and he was instructed to meet an officer at the back of the room.
“What began was a two-hour interview followed by 10 more hours of detention before I was put on a plane back home to Australia,” he said.
The incident is one of several similar encounters to occur at the US border since Donald Trump returned to the US presidency, with the administration cracking down on what it deems antisemitism on campus, and cancelling visas or blocking entry for people alleged to have unwelcome views.
Kitchen said he sought advice before travelling to the US, as he anticipated his writing on a blog called Kitchen Counter could bring him to the attention of authorities. He scrubbed his phone of most, but not all, potentially problematic material.
He said border officers asked him for the passcode to his phone or told him he would be deported.
“I chose to be compliant, and that was an immense mistake,” Kitchen said. “I urge all Australians to accept immediate deportation instead of complying with the request to hand over your phone … It is far worse, and if they are asking for your phone, there is no likelihood they will ever let you in.”
Kitchen said he was interviewed for 30 to 45 minutes about the protests at Columbia University, his views on Israel, Hamas and the broader conflict. He said the questions began vaguely but grew more specific.
The interviewing officer had read the blog posts he had scrubbed 48 hours earlier, Kitchen said, leading him to conclude that “by the time you scrub your phone to board the plane, it is already too late”.
Kitchen said he was also asked about drug use, and, feeling stressed and tired, admitted to having legally bought marijuana in New York state and consuming illicit drugs in other countries.
“I should never have admitted those things to him,” he said. “I should have taken yet another opportunity to accept immediate deportation.”
Moral support
Kitchen said after a second interview with a different officer, he was officially told he would not be permitted to enter the US. He was detained “in a kind of windowless, soulless box, the kind you can imagine, with some other detainees”, without his phone.
After asking about making a phone call, Kitchen was told he could call the Australian consulate. Consular staff were not able to provide tangible assistance but gave moral support, he said.
“They were able to tell me what normally happens, and tell me I would most likely be on a plane about six hours later.”
Kitchen also gave the consulate his mother’s phone number. Lesley Kitchen said she received a call from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade while she was at the library in her hometown of Castlemaine in central Victoria.
“My immediate reaction was: What’s happened?” she said. “I was trying to be calm when I was talking to them. I said, ‘Well, this is pretty shocking.’ They were able to say: ‘yes, we’re getting quite a few of these now’.”
Lesley said she thought her son would make it through US customs.
“In Australia, we have a certain expectation of freedom of speech and someone reporting or actually observing and writing about a student protest wouldn’t be considered to be a threat, in my expectation, as an Aussie.”
Lesley, who has travelled to the US, said the experience was traumatic. “We’re very au fait with the US. But it’s not a US we recognise now,” she said.
Kitchen said he was delivered to the gate to board flight QF94 back to Melbourne after 9pm that night, and was the last passenger allowed on the plane. He said his phone and passport were handed to airline staff in a sealed envelope, which was not returned to him until the plane landed back in Australia.
He said he was grateful to the flight attendant, who was “extremely warm”, but disappointed with Qantas, which he accused of “carrying water” for the Trump administration.
Kitchen said the incident had been an ordeal, but since arriving back in Australia, “people have been so supportive and so kind, and I’m feeling very proud to be an Australian”.
He has also republished his blog posts about the student protests. In one post from March 2025, Kitchen wrote about the Trump administration’s detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestine student activist at Columbia University, who has been detained since March 8.
In the piece, Kitchen wrote: “The arrest of a student on utterly specious grounds by a neo-fascist state, clearly designed to breed a climate of fear among students.”
He told this masthead he considered all his writing “reasonable moderate opinion”, though “unreasonable immoderate opinion should also be allowed in a liberal, open society”.
A DFAT spokesperson said it provided consular assistance to an Australian who was refused entry into the US but was unable to comment further due to privacy obligations.
US Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter.
Qantas was also contacted. The Guardian reported the airline had confirmed staff received the sealed envelope from US customs officials containing Kitchen’s items, and returned it in Australia.
DFAT’s Smart Traveller website instructs Australians travelling to the US: “Entry requirements are strict. US authorities have broad powers to decide if you’re eligible to enter and may determine that you are inadmissible for any reason under US law.”
Trump’s Russian delusion is complete. He sees Putin as a peacemaker
We know that Donald Trump has long had a soft spot for Vladimir Putin. But now it’s almost as if he’s given him a spot in his administration.
The US president has said that Russia’s Putin on the weekend had phoned to offer himself as a new peace mediator in the war between Israel and Iran: “We had a long talk about it,” Trump told the American news network ABC. “I would be open to it. He [Putin] is ready.”
Trump himself has proved unable to negotiate an end to any of the conflicts he’d promised to resolve. So perhaps it’s a good idea to let Putin try?
French President Emmanuel Macron doesn’t think so. “I do not think that Russia, which is today engaged in a high-intensity conflict and has decided not to respect the United Nations charter for several years now, could be in any way a mediator,” he said.
Fair point. And Putin has a favourite in the fight. Moscow is the most important foreign sponsor of Iran’s ayatollah regime. Appointing Putin mediator would be like allowing a football team’s coach to referee his own team’s match.
Russia has supplied Iran with air defence systems and weapons for many years. Iran has returned the favour by giving Russia thousands of drones for its war against Ukraine and even built a drone factory in Russia for Putin.
“Putin has a keen interest in perpetuating the Iranian regime,” points out Peter Tesch, former Australian ambassador to Moscow.
So, by attacking Iran now, “Israel is posing a serious challenge to Russia’s strategic interest in the country with which Russia recently signed a 20-year strategic agreement”.
But these aren’t the only reasons that Trump’s anointing of Putin as potential Middle East mediator is quite extraordinary. It’s breathtaking that an American president would outsource peace negotiations to Russia, a traditional enemy of the US.
Tesch says that it’s unsurprising that Trump would be prepared to gratify Putin. And yet he says it’s unprecedented: “I’m not aware of any American president essentially sub-contracting a major engagement like this to another country, particularly in an area of such vital strategic significance to the US.”
How could Trump possibly trust an American rival to settle a war on terms favourable to the US? He can’t. Putin, as always, would only favour himself.
Israel has fought Iran before and will again. It’s important, but not new. But the US delegating peace negotiations to its traditional enemy when vital US interests are at stake? That’s new.
Tesch, who also served as chief of strategy in the Australian Defence Department, says that it’s more evidence of “this bizarre, gushing admiration that Trump manifests for Putin that’s a constant in US foreign policy under this administration”.
He says that Trump hasn’t made even a single decision in his foreign policy that would harm any Russian interest. On the contrary, Trump has granted Russia special favour. When the US in April applied tariffs on 180 nations, including all its traditional allies plus penguin colonies, Russia got a special exemption.
Trump gave his “genius” Russian buddy another important gift in the past few months. The incoming administration immediately dismantled US efforts to protect against foreign meddling in US elections.
FBI officers and Homeland Security staff working against foreign interference were reassigned or forced out, the New York Times reported. “In last year’s election, the teams tracked and publicised numerous influence operations from Russia, China and Iran to blunt their impact on unsuspecting voters”.
In Trump’s America, these foreign enemies are to have free rein. Arizona’s secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, wrote to Trump that it was akin to shutting down the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ahead of hurricane season.
But what about Trump’s pressure on Putin to end his war with Ukraine? It’s only play-acting. When the US leader proposed a 30-day ceasefire between Moscow and Kyiv, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky agreed immediately. Putin refused.
Trump huffed and puffed and threatened to put secondary sanctions on Russian oil exports as a way of coercing Putin into a ceasefire. But the threat was empty. There were no US sanctions on Putin, and therefore no ceasefire.
The EU is applying its 18th brace of sanctions on Russian oil, the financial lifeblood of Putin’s war machine. Plucky European states, including Denmark and Sweden, are seizing and impounding the ships of Russia’s “shadow fleet” carrying illicit Russian cargoes.
But mighty America stands by, doing nothing to impede Putin. In fact, Putin has only escalated the war.
“Today,” Zelensky said on Monday, “the Russians launched a stone-cold, combined attack on our energy infrastructure. This is a spit in the face of everything the international community is trying to do to stop this war.”
Tellingly: “It happened right after Putin’s conversation with Trump,” said the Ukrainian leader. “After the Americans asked us not to strike Russian energy facilities”. Implication: Trump applies a double standard, restraining us from hitting Russia, yet licensing Russia to hit us with impunity.
Zelensky continued: “At the same time as Putin tries to portray himself as a mediator for the Middle East and attempts to somehow assist his accomplices in Tehran. The level of cynicism is staggering.”
Indeed, Trump tells us that he and Putin spoke for about an hour on the weekend, mostly about Israel and Iran: “Much less time was spent talking about Russia/Ukraine, but that will be for next week.”
The Russian leader, apparently, gets to choose topics and priorities, which wars are to be ended and which will continue. This week Putin hosts Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto.
The US president has gutted the expert advisers in the White House National Security Council, and sacked his first national security adviser, Mike Walz. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, is in the post in an acting capacity.
The evidence of Putin’s uncanny and growing influence over Trump suggests that perhaps he is the de facto US national security adviser to the president. From Russia, with love.
Trump faces three excruciating choices in a war only he can end
Donald Trump promised to end the wars in the Middle East. Instead, America’s president finds himself supervising a new one.
No matter: he thinks the conflict between Israel and Iran, now in its fourth day, will be simple to stop.
“We can easily get a deal done,” he wrote in a social media post on June 15. A few hours later, he implied that peace between the two countries, bitter foes since 1979, was merely a matter of convincing them to trade more.
His breezy optimism is easy to dismiss and out of place with a war that has rained air strikes on Tehran and missile barrages on Tel Aviv. But Trump will nonetheless have a big say in when and how that war ends. In coming days, he will have to make several decisions that will either restrain or embolden Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu started the war, but he is relying on Trump to end it; how the president plans to do so is anyone’s guess.
Trumpian diplomacy
The first decision is whether to demand a diplomatic solution. Before the war, America was trying to negotiate a new nuclear pact with Iran to replace the one Trump abandoned in 2018. A sixth round of talks had been scheduled last weekend. Unsurprisingly, it was cancelled. Still, Trump continues to urge negotiations. Iran’s nuclear project is the ostensible focus of Israel’s war effort; an agreement to restrict it would be a key part of a ceasefire. But Trump will face a string of obstacles.
For a start, neither warring party is ready to make such a deal. Israel has spent years planning this war. It will not want to stop fighting after a few days, with many of its goals unmet. And while Iran says it is willing to accept a mutual ceasefire, it is not yet prepared to make major concessions on its nuclear program. America will want it to forswear uranium enrichment and dismantle many of its nuclear facilities, things it has resisted doing for decades.
Perhaps Iran will be more willing to capitulate as the damage mounts. The regime wants to survive. But it does not trust America in general, and Trump in particular: he ditched the nuclear pact in 2018, assassinated Iran’s top commander in 2020 and allowed Israel to start a war.
The German foreign minister has offered, alongside Britain and France, to negotiate with the Iranians. But America would still have to play a central role in the talks. No one else could assure both Israel and Iran that an agreement would stick. If it is serious about a deal, it will need to be a more competent negotiator this time around. Steve Witkoff, the US president’s Middle East envoy, managed just five meetings with Iran in two months, while juggling a portfolio that also included the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. He also scorned help from American allies (a European diplomat says he received more detailed readouts on the talks from Iran than from America).
Would America join the war?
If Trump is not serious about diplomacy, his second choice is whether America should join the war. Satellite imagery suggests that Israel has destroyed the so-called “pilot-fuel enrichment plant” at Natanz, an above-ground facility where Iran enriched uranium to 60 per cent, a small step below weapons-grade.
But it has yet to damage the enrichment facility at Fordow, which is dug into the side of a mountain, too deep for Israeli ordnance to reach. Israel could damage the entrances and ventilation shafts, in effect entombing the facility for a time. It would rather enlist help from America, which has specialised bombs capable of burrowing deep underground. It has asked Trump to join strikes on Fordow (he has not yet agreed).
In the most optimistic scenario, those sorties would both cripple the facility and spook Iran into submitting to a deal. Reality is rarely so tidy, however.
Iran may fear that strikes on Fordow are merely the opening act in a broader campaign to topple the regime. That could lead it to retaliate against America or its allies in the region. Iran has so far refrained from such actions, fearing they would draw America into the war; if America were already involved, though, Iran may feel it had nothing to lose.
Some of Trump’s supporters in Washington, and some analysts in Israel, suspect Netanyahu has such a scenario in mind. When the war began, after all, Israel said it only needed America’s permission. Now it wants America to join a limited military campaign – one that could easily morph into something bigger.
The prime minister seems increasingly fixated on toppling Iran’s regime. In a statement addressed to the people of Iran on June 13, he urged them to “stand up” against their rulers. Two days later, in an interview with Fox News, he was asked if regime change was Israel’s goal.
“It could certainly be the result, because the Iran regime is very weak,” Netanyahu replied. Several of Trump’s advisers have urged him not to approve American strikes, fearing it would become an open-ended campaign.
The final option
That points to Trump’s third choice. Israeli leaders like to say that their country defends itself by itself. But it relies on America to protect it against Iranian ballistic missiles, to share intelligence and to resupply its army. If Trump stays out of the war, and if he declines to pursue serious diplomacy – or if his efforts are aimless and futile, a hallmark of his administration – he will have to decide how much continued support to give Israel.
He could urge Israel to end the war anyway. Or he could allow it to continue, much as he has done in Gaza since March, when Israel abandoned a ceasefire there. Israel could probably continue its strikes in Iran for weeks, especially if Iran runs short of the ballistic missiles it uses to counter-attack. Would it eventually declare victory? Or would it keep bombing and hope it could destabilise the regime? And if Iran could no longer effectively strike back at Israel, would it widen the war to neighbouring countries?
The longer the war goes on, the more unpredictable it becomes. “There’s no end game for Israel unless it draws in the US or unless the regime falls,” says a Western diplomat. “Both are big gambles.”
Eventually, the only plausible way out may be a deal. But getting one will require diplomatic savvy from Trump and flexibility from both Israel and Iran – things that none of them are known for.
Iranian state TV hit as Iran urges Trump to make Israel halt war
Tel Aviv/Dubai: An Israeli strike hit Iran’s state broadcaster on Monday as Iran called on US President Donald Trump to force a ceasefire in the four-day-old aerial war, while Israel’s prime minister said his country was on the “path to victory”.
Israeli forces stepped up their bombardment of Iranian cities, while Iran proved capable of piercing Israeli air defences with one of its most successful volleys yet of retaliatory missile strikes.
“If President Trump is genuine about diplomacy and interested in stopping this war, next steps are consequential,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on X.
“Israel must halt its aggression, and absent a total cessation of military aggression against us, our responses will continue. It takes one phone call from Washington to muzzle someone like Netanyahu. That may pave the way for a return to diplomacy.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told troops at an air base that Israel was on its way to achieving its two main aims: wiping out Iran’s nuclear programme and destroying its missiles.
“We are on the path to victory,” he said. “We are telling the citizens of Tehran: ‘Evacuate’ – and we are taking action.”
Late on Monday, Israel said it had hit Iran’s broadcasting authority, and footage showed a newsreader hurrying from her seat as a blast struck. Iran’s State News Agency also reported the strike.
Israel’s defence minister said Israel had attacked the broadcaster after the evacuation of local residents.
Meanwhile, Iranian state media reported that Iran was preparing for the “largest and most intense missile attack” yet against Israel.
Israel says Tehran residents to ‘pay price’ after attacks
Iranian missiles struck Israel’s Tel Aviv and the port city of Haifa before dawn on Monday, killing at least eight people and destroying homes, prompting Israel’s defence minister to warn that Tehran residents would “pay the price and soon”.
The dangers of further escalation loomed over a meeting of the Group of Seven leaders in Canada, with US President Donald Trump expressing hope that a deal could be done, but no sign of the fighting abating on a fourth day of war.
Later on Monday, Israel’s military claimed to have achieved “aerial superiority” over Iran’s capital, saying it had degraded Iranian air defences and missile systems to the point that its planes could now operate over Tehran without facing major threats.
Its assertion came as Iran’s foreign ministry said parliamentarians were preparing a bill that could push Tehran towards exiting the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while reiterating Tehran’s official stance against developing nuclear weapons.
The latest fatalities in Israel, reported by Israel’s national emergency services, raised its death toll to 23 since Friday. Israeli attacks in Iran have killed at least 224 people over the same period, Iran’s health ministry has said.
At least 100 more were wounded in Israel in the overnight blitz, part of a wave of attacks by Tehran in retaliation for Israel’s strikes targeting the nuclear and ballistic missile programs of sworn enemy Iran.
In response, the Israeli military said fighter jets had struck 10 command centres in Tehran belonging to Iran’s Quds Force, an elite arm of its Revolutionary Guard that conducts military and intelligence operations outside Iran.
The Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence chief, Mohammad Kazemi, and his deputy were killed in the strikes, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Penny Wong confirmed that the Australian government was planning repatriation flights for some 650 citizens trapped in the Middle East, but said the exact timing would depend on reopening of airspaces.
“The timeline is primarily dictated by safety; as long as governments have closed down this space because of the risks to civilian aircraft, obviously no one can fly,” Wong told the ABC.
Wong said there were about 300 Australians in Israel and 350 in Iran who had sought help to leave, but she expected the numbers to increase.
Explosions before dawn
Search and location operations were under way in the Israeli coastal city of Haifa on Monday, where about 30 people were wounded, emergency authorities said, as dozens of first responders rushed to the strike zones.
Fires were seen burning at a power plant near the port, media reported, and social media footage appeared to show two missile impacts nearby.
In Tel Aviv, powerful explosions, probably from Israel’s defence systems intercepting Iranian missiles, rocked the city before dawn, sending plumes of black smoke into the sky.
American ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said a blast from an Iranian missile had caused minor damage to the US consulate, but no injuries.
In the city of Petah Tikva, central Israel, authorities said Iranian missiles hit a residential building, charring concrete walls, shattering windows and ripping the walls off multiple apartments.
The Israeli emergency service reported that two women and two men aged in their 70s and one other person were killed in the wave of strikes on four sites in central Israel.
“We clearly see that our civilians are being targeted,” said Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne outside the bombed-out building in Petah Tikva.
“And this is just one scene. We have other sites like this near the coast, in the south.”
Petah Tikva resident Yoram Suki rushed with his family to a shelter after hearing an air raid alert, and emerged after it was over to find his apartment destroyed.
“Thank God we were OK,” the 60-year-old said.
Despite losing his home, he urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to keep up the attacks on Iran.
“It’s totally worth it,” he said. “This is for the sake of our children and grandchildren.”
In addition to those killed, the emergency service said paramedics had evacuated another 87 wounded people to hospitals, including a 30-year-old woman in a serious condition, while rescuers were still searching for residents trapped beneath the rubble of their homes.
“When we arrived at the scene of the rocket strike, we saw massive destruction,” said paramedic Dr Gal Rosen, who said he had rescued a four-day-old baby as fires blazed from the building.
‘More severe’
During a barrage of Iranian missiles on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran would stop its strikes if Israel did the same.
But after a day of intensive Israeli aerial attacks that extended targets beyond military installations to hit oil refineries and government buildings, the Revolutionary Guard struck a hard line on Monday, vowing that further strikes would be “more forceful, severe, precise and destructive”.
The latest strikes employed a new method that caused Israel’s multi-layered defence systems to target each other, leading to “the successful and maximum hitting of the missiles on the targets”, the Guard said.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Israeli officials have repeatedly said its “Iron Dome” defence system is not 100 per cent and warned of tough days ahead.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement: “The arrogant dictator of Tehran has become a cowardly murderer who targets the civilian home front in Israel to deter the IDF from continuing the attack that is collapsing his capabilities.
“The residents of Tehran will pay the price, and soon.”
Iranian health authorities reported that 1277 people were wounded in Iran, without distinguishing between military officials and civilians.
The Washington-based Iranian advocacy group Human Rights Activists has suggested the official Iranian death toll is a significant undercount. It says it has documented more than 400 killed, among them 197 civilians.
Israel argues that its assault on Iran’s top military leaders, uranium enrichment sites and nuclear scientists was necessary to stop the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, and the US and others have assessed that Tehran has not pursued a nuclear weapon since 2003.
But Iran has enriched ever-larger stockpiles of uranium to near weapons-grade levels in recent years and was believed to be able to develop multiple weapons within months if it chose to do so.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told parliament on Monday that the country has no intention of producing nuclear weapons, but would continue to pursue its right to nuclear energy.
The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran ratified in 1970, guarantees countries the right to pursue civilian nuclear power in return for requiring them to forego atomic weapons and co-operate with the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.
Asked at a press conference on Monday about Tehran potentially leaving the NPT, foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said: “In light of recent developments, we will take an appropriate decision. Government has to enforce parliament bills, but such a proposal is just being prepared and we will co-ordinate in the later stages with parliament.”
The conflict is expected to be a top priority at the meeting of Group of Seven leaders, who began gathering in the Canadian Rockies on Sunday.
Before leaving for the summit, Trump was asked what he was doing to de-escalate the situation. “I hope there’s going to be a deal. I think it’s time for a deal,” he told reporters. “Sometimes they have to fight it out.”
How much damage has Israel inflicted on Iran’s nuclear program?
Israel’s strikes on Iran have targeted several of its nuclear facilities, but has the conflict removed the alleged weapons threat? Here’s what we know.
Israel’s strikes on Iran have targeted several of its nuclear facilities, as it claims the Islamic republic is seeking to develop nuclear weapons – an accusation Tehran denies.
Experts told AFP that while the attacks have caused some damage to Iran’s nuclear programme, they are unlikely to have delivered a fatal blow.
Here is an update on Iran’s nuclear sites:
What is the extent of the damage?
Israel’s operation included strikes on Iran’s underground uranium enrichment sites at Natanz and Fordow, and on its Isfahan nuclear site, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said, citing Iranian officials.
A key, above-ground component of Iran’s Natanz nuclear site has been destroyed, including its power infrastructure.
Agency chief Rafael Grossi said Monday that there has been “no indication of a physical attack on the underground cascade hall containing part of the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant and the main Fuel Enrichment Plant”.
However, power loss at the cascade hall “may have damaged the centrifuges”, the machines used to enrich uranium.
There was “extensive” damage to the site’s power supply, according to a report from the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a US-based organisation specialising in nuclear proliferation, which analysed satellite images.
If backup power is lost, “at the least, the enrichment plant is rendered inoperable for the time being”, it said.
At Iran’s underground Fordow enrichment plant, the country’s second uranium enrichment facility, the IAEA observed “no damage” following the attacks, Grossi said.
At the Isfahan nuclear site, however, “four buildings were damaged”: the central chemical laboratory, a uranium conversion plant, the Tehran reactor fuel manufacturing plant, and a metal processing facility under construction, the IAEA said.
Significant uranium stockpiles are believed to be stored around the Isfahan site.
Ali Vaez, International Crisis Group’s Iran project director, told AFP that if Iran managed to transfer significant quantities to “secret facilities,” then “the game is lost for Israel”.
Iran’s only nuclear power plant, the Bushehr plant, was not targeted, nor was the Tehran research reactor.
Can the program be destroyed?
While “Israel can damage Iran’s nuclear programme… it is unlikely to be able to destroy it,” Vaez said, arguing that Israel does not have the massively powerful bombs needed “to destroy the fortified, bunkered facilities in Natanz and Fordow”.
Destroying those would require US military assistance, added Kelsey Davenport, an expert with the Arms Control Association.
She also stressed that Israel’s unprecedented attack cannot erase the expertise Iran had built up on nuclear weapons, despite killing nine Iranian nuclear scientists.
What are the risks to the Iranian population?
The IAEA has not detected any increase in radiation levels at the affected sites.
“There is very little risk that attacks on Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities would result in a harmful radiation release,” said Davenport.
But an attack on the Bushehr plant could “have a serious impact on health and the environment”, she added.
After Israel launched its strikes, Grossi said that nuclear facilities “must never be attacked” and that targeting Iranian sites could have “grave consequences for the people of Iran, the region, and beyond”.
Is Iran close to developing a nuclear bomb?
After the United States unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from a landmark deal that sought to curb Tehran’s nuclear activities, Iran has gradually retreated from some of its obligations, particularly on uranium enrichment.
As of mid-May, the country had an estimated 408.6 kilogrammes enriched to up to 60 percent – just a short step from the 90 percent needed for a nuclear warhead.
Iran theoretically has enough near-weapons-grade material, if further refined, for about 10 nuclear bombs, according to the definition by the Vienna-based IAEA.
Iran is the only non-nuclear-armed state producing uranium to this level of enrichment, according to the UN nuclear watchdog.
While the IAEA has been critical of Iran’s lack of cooperation with the UN body, it says that there are “no credible indications of an ongoing, undeclared structured nuclear program”.
Tehran has consistently denied ambitions to develop nuclear warheads. But Davenport warned the strikes could strengthen factions in Iran advocating for an atomic arsenal.
“Israel’s strikes set Iran back technically, but politically the strikes are pushing Iran closer to nuclear weapons,” she said.
HOW ISRAEL ATTACKED IRAN
Israeli spies smuggled missiles and secretly hid explosive drones deep inside Iran in a series of covert operations leading up to Friday’s deadly onslaught – before tricking military leaders into gathering for a meeting so they could be wiped out.
Intelligence agents with Mossad, Israel’s top spy agency, started infiltrating the heart of Iran several months back in order to pull off the surprise attack aimed at obliterating Iranian nuclear and military facilities, as well as a swath of top military commanders.
The spy agency planted the explosive drones inside Iran ahead of time as they laid the groundwork for the major strikes, according to Israeli security sources.
Agents also managed to smuggle precision weapons into central Iran so Israel could target Tehran’s defences from within.
The stealth campaign, dubbed Operation Rising Lion, was eventually conducted in three separate operations early Friday local time – with the airstrikes each targeting specific weaponry and defence systems in Iran, one Israeli security source told The New York Post.
Commando units deployed precision-guided weapons near Iran’s surface-to-air missile defences and targeted the Iranian systems.
A second operation set up strike systems and mounted technology onto vehicles that were launched at Iranian air defence systems.
The final operation targeted Iran’s surface-to-surface missile launchers at a base outside of Tehran when the explosive-laden drones were activated.
The unmanned aerial vehicles flew to the base and destroyed the launchers that had “posed a threat to Israeli strategic and civilian targets.”
The sabotage operations allowed Israel’s airstrikes to destroy radars and other surface-to-air defences. Nuclear plants and uranium enrichment facilities were also targeted.
Roughly 200 aircraft were involved in the initial attack on about 100 targets, Israel’s military said.
The attack hit several sites, including Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz, where black smoke could be seen rising into the air. Later in the morning, Israel said it had also destroyed dozens of radar installations and surface-to-air missile launchers in western Iran.
Several high-ranking Iranian officials were killed in the strikes – including Gen. Hossein Salami, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard; Mohammad Bagheri, chief of the country’s military; Gholam Ali Rashid, head of Iran’s emergency command; and Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Revolutionary Guards aerospace force.
Israel was able to trick some top commanders of Iran’s air force into gathering for a meeting before they were targeted, an Israeli official told Fox News.
“We carried out specific activities to help us learn more about them, and then used that information to influence their behaviour,” the official said.
“We knew this would lead them to meet — but more importantly, we knew how to keep them there.”
It wasn’t immediately clear how Israel managed to lure the Iranian officials together.
“Significant intelligence was gathered and surveillance was conducted to incriminate senior members of the Iranian defence establishment and nuclear scientists who were eliminated,” a source told The New York Post.
“This was carried out alongside a covert operational campaign targeting Iran’s strategic missile array.”
The unprecedented strikes appeared to be the most significant attack Iran has faced since its 1980s war with Iraq.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the operation, saying the effort was to “roll back” Iran’s threat to Israel’s “very survival.”
“If we don’t act now, we simply won’t be here. We have internalised the lessons of history. When an enemy says he intends to destroy you — believe him,” he said.
“When the enemy develops the capabilities to destroy you — stop him.”
Iran quickly called the barrage of strikes a “declaration of war,” as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned of “severe punishment” and President Masoud Pezeshkian vowed to make “Israel regret its foolish act.”
Iran behind two Trump kill plots, says Benjamin Netanyahu
Donald Trump says he vetoed plans to assassinate Iran’s supreme leader but did not rule out direct US involvement in the conflict.
Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Iran of planning two failed assassination attempts on Donald Trump during his third presidential campaign last year.
“These people who chant, ‘Death to America,’ tried to assassinate President Trump twice,” Israel’s PM told Fox News on Sunday,
Mr Netanyahu said he had received the information from Iran “through proxies”, and added, “through their intel, yes, they want to kill him”.
American security agencies have never linked the two assassination attempts to the Islamic Republic, but in a speech in September, Mr Trump suggested Iran was behind them.
Meanwhile, President Trump warned that the US could get directly involved in the Israel-Iran conflict if things continue to escalate.
While Mr Trump predicted that Iran and Israel will “make a deal” to end the deadly violence started Friday, the president said the US may find itself involved if a truce doesn’t happen.
“We’re not involved in it. It’s possible we could get involved. But we are not at this moment involved,” Mr Trump told ABC News on Sunday.
Later Sunday, speaking on Marine One as he left the G7 summit in Calgary, Canada, Mr Trump said: “Sometimes they have to fight it out. We’ll see what happens.”
Netanyahu ‘changing the face of the Middle East’ with Iran conflict
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel was “changing the face of the Middle East” with its military campaign against Iran.
“We are changing the face of the Middle East,” he told a press conference in which he outlined Israel’s strikes against Iranian nuclear and military targets.
“We have eliminated Iran’s security leadership, including three chiefs of staff, the commander of their air force, two intelligence chiefs,” Mr Netanyahu said.
“We are eliminating them, one after the other.”
He said that Israel was “pursuing three main objectives: the elimination of the nuclear program, the elimination of ballistic missile production capability, and the elimination of the axis of terrorism”, referring to Iranian-backed militant groups in the Middle East.
“We will do what is necessary to achieve these goals, and we are well coordinated with the United States,” he said.
Mr Netanyahu asserted that Iranians perception of their government had changed. “They understand that the regime is much weaker than they thought – they realise it, and that could lead to results,” he said.
Israel’s strikes have so far killed at least 224 people, including top military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians, according to Iranian authorities.
The Israeli prime minister’s office says 24 people have been killed in Iranian attacks since Friday.
Israel-Iran conflict: latest developments
Israel and Iran traded deadly fire for a fourth day on Monday in their most intense confrontation in history, fuelling fears of a drawn-out conflict that could engulf the Middle East.
The longtime foes have fought a prolonged shadow war through proxies and covert operations, with Israel battling several Iran-backed groups in the region, including Hamas in the Gaza Strip since October 2023.
Here are the latest developments:
– Mounting casualties –
In a major campaign launched early Friday, Israeli fighter jets and drones have struck nuclear and military sites in Iran, also hitting residential areas and fuel depots.
Iran’s health ministry says at least 224 people have been killed and more than 1,200 wounded.
Tehran has responded with barrages of missiles and drones that hit Israeli cities and towns, killing at least 24 people and wounding 592 others, according to the prime minister’s office.
Israel has also killed many top military commanders and atomic scientists in Iran as part of an offensive that officials say seeks to end nuclear and missile threats from the Islamic republic.
– Iran state TV hit –
AFP journalists heard massive blasts across Tehran after Israel issued an evacuation order for the northern District 3, home to state broadcaster IRIB which was hit in an Israeli strike.
IRIB resumed its live broadcast that was momentarily cut due to the attack.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that “the propaganda and incitement broadcasting authority of the Iranian regime was attacked”, threatening to strike “everywhere” against “the Iranian dictator”.
– Israel claims ‘air superiority’ –
The Israeli military said that after a wave of strikes on Monday, its forces had destroyed one third of Iran’s surface-to-surface missile launchers.
According to military spokesman Effie Defrin, “we have now achieved full air superiority over Tehran”.
That followed a wave of intense air raids across the country, from the western border with Iraq to the capital Tehran and as far east as Mashhad, where the airport was hit.
Reza Sayyad, spokesman for the Iranian armed forces, said their targets in Israel included “sensitive and important” security sites as well as “the residences of military commanders and scientists”.
Among the sites hit in Israel on Sunday was a major oil refinery in the coastal city of Haifa, an Israeli official said after a military censorship gag order was lifted.
Residential areas in both countries have suffered, with Israel accusing Iran of deliberately targeting civilians.
– Diplomacy –
The conflict has rapidly escalated despite calls from world leaders to halt the attacks.
China urged Iran and Israel to “immediately” take steps to reduce tensions and “prevent the region from falling into greater turmoil”.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his Iranian counterpart in a phone call on Monday that Ankara was ready to play a “facilitating role” to end the conflict.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he believed “there’s a consensus for de-escalation” among Group of Seven leaders, who are meeting in Canada.
US President Donald Trump told reporters at the G7 summit that “Iran is not winning this war, and they should talk… immediately, before it’s too late”.
Nuclear negotiations between Tehran and Washington that were set to take place on Sunday had been called off.
– Nuclear sites –
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the Israeli offensive aims to thwart the “existential” threats posed by Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes.
The fierce bombing campaign began as Tehran and Washington were engaged in nuclear talks — which have since been cancelled — and after warnings from the UN nuclear watchdog over Iran’s atomic activities.
Rafael Grossi, head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said on Monday there was “no indication of a physical attack” on an underground section of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility, and that radiation levels outside the plant were “at normal levels”.
The IAEA previously said that a key, above-ground component of Iran’s Natanz nuclear site was destroyed.
Grossi told an extraordinary board meeting of the UN agency that “nuclear safety is being compromised” by the conflict.
France shuts Israeli weapons booths at Paris Air Show
Geopolitical tensions roiled the opening of the Paris Air Show on Monday as French authorities sealed off Israeli weapons industry booths amid the conflicts in Iran and Gaza, a move that Israel condemned as “outrageous”.
The decision added drama to the major aerospace industry event, which was already under the shadow of last week’s deadly crash of Air India’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
Black walls were installed around the stands of five Israeli defence firms at the trade fair in Le Bourget, an airfield on the outskirts of Paris.
The booths displayed “offensive weapons” that could be used in Gaza — in violation of agreements with Israeli authorities, a French government source told AFP.
The companies — Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Rafael, Uvision, Elbit and Aeronautics — make drones and guided bombs and missiles.
An Israeli exhibitor wrote a message in yellow chalk on one of the walls, saying the hidden defence systems “are protecting the state of Israel these days. The French government, in the name of discrimination is trying to hide them from you!”
French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou defended the decision during a Monday press conference at the air show.
“The French government’s position was very simple: no offensive weapons at the arms exposition,” he said.
“Defensive weapons were perfectly acceptable,” he added.
– Conflicts loom large –
Bayrou cited the ongoing conflict in Gaza as the rationale behind the ban.
“Given the situation in Gaza… which is extremely serious from a humanitarian and security point of view, France was keen to make it clear that offensive weapons should not be present at this exposition,” Bayrou said.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he was shocked by the “outrageous” closure of the pavilions and said the situation should be “immediately corrected”.
“Israeli companies have signed contracts with the organisers… it’s like creating an Israeli ghetto,” he said on French television channel LCI.
The Israeli defence ministry said in a statement that the “outrageous and unprecedented decision reeks of policy-driven and commercial considerations”.
“The French are hiding behind supposedly political considerations to exclude Israeli offensive weapons from an international exhibition — weapons that compete with French industries,” it said.
“This is particularly striking given Israeli technologies’ impressive and precise performance in Iran.”
Israel launched surprise strikes on Iranian military and nuclear sites on Friday, killing top commanders and scientists, prompting Tehran to hit back with a barrage of missiles.
The presence of Israeli firms at Le Bourget, though smaller than in the past, was already a source of tension before the start of the Paris Air Show, because of the conflict in Gaza.
A French court last week rejected a bid by NGOs to ban Israeli companies from Le Bourget over concerns about “international crimes”.
Local lawmakers from the Seine-Saint-Denis department hosting the event were absent during Bayrou’s visit to the opening of the air show in protest over the Israeli presence.
“Never has the world been so disrupted and destabilised,” Bayrou said earlier at a roundtable event, urging nations to tackle challenges “together, not against each other”.
– Boeing ‘focus on supporting customers’ –
The row over Israel cast a shadow over a trade fair that is usually dominated by displays of the aerospace industry’s latest flying wonders, and big orders for plane makers Airbus and Boeing.
Airbus announced an order of 30 single-aisle A320neo jets and 10 A350F freighters by Saudi aircraft leasing firm AviLease.
The European manufacturer also said Riyadh Air was buying 25 long-range, wide-body A350-1000 jets.
But Boeing chief executive Kelly Ortberg last week cancelled plans to attend the biennial event, to focus on the investigation of the Air India crash.
“Our focus is on supporting our customers, rather than announcing orders at this air show,” a Boeing spokeswoman told AFP on Monday.
The London-bound Dreamliner crashed shortly after take-off in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, killing 241 passengers and crew and another 38 on the ground. One passenger survived.
Could Iran be creating a nuclear bomb?
Experts warn that after decades of research and development, Iran’s military could be “weeks away” from creating a nuclear bomb.
Just how close is Iran to making a nuclear bomb?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims Tehran poses a “clear and present danger” after decades of nuclear research and development.
But, despite allegations of secret research and undeclared nuclear material, no evidence has been presented that Iran is actually building thermonuclear warheads.
Yet.
What is certain is Tehran’s possession of at least 400kg of uranium enriched to 60 per cent concentrations of the isotope U-235. And that means it’s just weeks of extra processing away from reaching levels suitable for missile-mounted warheads.
What’s also certain are the recent shipments of advanced ballistic rocket fuel from China and specialist technological support from Russia.
Once these ingredients are pulled together, Tehran will have small but powerful nuclear warheads capable of being carried the 1900km to Israel by ballistic missiles more able to dodge defences.
Israel itself already has nuclear-armed missiles, developed in secrecy since the 1960s. Several of its politicians have threatened to use them against the Gaza Strip.
But Prime Minister Netanyahu insists Tehran is too close to developing its own nuclear weapons to be allowed to continue.
So the question is: Just how effective have Israel’s weekend attacks been?
“For years, analysts have studied the possible outcomes of such an attack—and have come away with very different predictions,” argues Columbia University nuclear analyst and former National Security Council advisor Richard Nephew.
“Now, everyone will find out which forecast was correct.”
Success could topple the leadership of the Shia Muslim religious state.
It could set back Tehran’s nuclear program by months, years or decades.
Or it could fail.
“The danger … is that Israel has opened a Pandora’s box,” warns Middle East Institute and former CIA Persian Gulf military analyst Kenneth Pollack. “The worst Iranian response might also be the most likely—a decision to withdraw from its arms control commitments and build nuclear weapons in earnest.”
States of play
No evidence has been presented that Iran possesses 90 per cent enriched weapons-grade uranium. And no Western intelligence agency reports it is building warheads.
All agree, however, that Tehran is poised in a position to do so – if it were to give the order.
Nuclear warheads need enrichment of the isotope U-235 to at least 20 per cent for the critical mass needed to sustain a runaway chain reaction. But bombs using this concentration are far too bulky to be mounted on missiles.
It’s a similar problem for uranium refined to 60 per cent. Although this is more than 10 times greater than the amount needed for civilian power plants and medical equipment.
To be small enough and powerful enough for use in a warhead, uranium must be refined to about 90 per cent. And doing that is far easier than refining it to 50 per cent. Experts say it can be achieved in a matter of weeks.
“Iran was testing the global nuclear order for decades with its enrichment to 60 per cent, which is well beyond the percentage required for civilian peaceful purposes,” argue Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) analysts Heather Williams and Doreen Horschig.
“It is worth emphasising that immediately prior to Israel’s strike, the IAEA stated that Iran was not complying with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations and passed the first resolution against the country in 20 years.”
The 400kg of 60 per cent refined uranium is, at 90 per cent enrichment, enough to build about 10 nuclear warheads. A few days before Israel’s attack, Tehran announced plans to assemble another uranium enrichment facility.
“Iran already has enough highly enriched uranium to build several nuclear weapons,” says the Middle East Institute’s Pollack. “This is containerised and believed to be stored at three different locations, and it is unclear whether Israel will be able to destroy all of it in the ongoing military strikes.”
But enriched uranium does not on its own result in a bomb.
Iran must also turn the concentrate into metal, size and shape it, and assemble it as a functional warhead. This, in turn, would need to be paired with a ballistic missile capable of delivering it to a target.
At the weekend, some of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s most vocal critics, France and Germany, offered qualified support for the strikes.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Tehran’s nuclear program was an “existential threat” to both Israel and Europe. Germany’s Foreign Minister, Johann Wadephul, emphasised the need for diplomacy to diffuse the situation.
Tactical outcomes
Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear and military facilities and personnel are ongoing. But targets appear to include the capital, Tehran, and the cities of Natanz, Tabriz and Karmanshah.
Iranian nuclear scientists, military commanders, and diplomats involved in negotiations with the US have been killed. Several known nuclear research and production sites have also been hit.
“To get at these sites, Israel seems to have conducted not only repeated aerial strikes on the same underground targets, but engaged in a combined effort that also included sabotage, along with what could only be described as assassinations,” observes Bulletin of Atomic Scientists correspondent Dan Drollette.
“The effort was apparently to decapitate Iran’s entire chain of command at once—but it also resulted in the death of one of Iran’s most influential politicians, Ali Shamkhani, who had been overseeing nuclear talks with the United States at the request of Iran’s supreme leader.”
Natanz, 225km south of Tehran, is home to Iran’s main nuclear site. Six research buildings mark the surface. Beneath are three underground uranium enrichment and processing facilities.
Unverified social media footage out of Natanz appears to show four sites within the compound being subjected to repeated strikes. Commercially available satellite imagery confirms the site has been damaged.
Israel’s Defence Force (IDF) claims to have “significantly damaged” the underground infrastructure. This reportedly includes multi-storey bunkers full of sophisticated centrifuges, electrical equipment and supporting equipment. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi says Natanz has been severely damaged, but added that “there are no elevated radiation levels.”
The Khondab nuclear reactor, which is powerful enough to produce enough plutonium waste for a nuclear weapon, has been hit. As has the Kermanshah ballistic missile facility.
Another suspected nuclear site at Parchin, near Tehran, has been attacked. IAEA inspectors have been repeatedly prevented from investigating evidence of nuclear activity at this site.
Iran’s Fordow enrichment plant, built deep inside a mountain near Qom in central Iran, was not hit in the initial strikes. But the IAEA says it was targeted in Israel’s follow-up attacks.
“It’s difficult to assess the consequences of the strikes on the nuclear program itself and the facilities, as we are still waiting for independent analyses of the satellite imagery,” French Middle East proliferation analyst Héloïse Fayet told the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (the home of the Doomsday Clock).
Columbia University analyst Richard Nephew says Israel’s strikes have been successful in destroying power generators and supporting infrastructure linked to Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“Israel has also demonstrated the ability to attack targets in Iran largely at will,” Nephew states. “But success is by no means assured, given Iran’s substantial investment in defensive fortifications, its commitment to the program, its redundant systems, and the intrinsic difficulty of Israel’s task.”
What comes next?
“There is no indication that Israel has rendered unusable Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium,” says the University of Columbia’s Richard Nephew. “If that stockpile is still available, and if Iran’s centrifuges still exist, Tehran may be able to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program in just weeks.”
Scheduled talks between US and Iranian diplomats in Oman later this week have been shelved after the assassination of several key participants.
So, success in stunting Tehran’s nuclear ambitions depends on Israel’s military.
Have critical components of Iran’s nuclear program been entirely destroyed?
Have key players and those who possess critical knowledge been killed?
How will Iran’s Axis of Authoritarian allies Beijing and Moscow respond?
Will the war spread to other nations in the Middle East and draw in the United States?
“To fully succeed, Israel’s attack must also have convinced Iran to reconsider the viability of its nuclear weapons project,” warns Nephew.
Russia has condemned Israel’s strikes as a violation of the UN Charter.
China agrees, saying that it is “deeply worried” about Israeli aggression.
Meanwhile, academic and security analysts do not know how close Iran is to being able to shape 90 per cent refined uranium into a warhead, Nephew adds, “although intelligence agencies had assessed that it would take Iran months to do so”.
That may still be possible.
“If key sites like Fordow and Esfahan are not severely damaged in future strikes and underground advanced centrifuges remain operational at Fordow and Natanz, Iran could continue its nuclear development,” CSIS analysts Horschig and Williams argue.
That decision is in the hands of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
And history isn’t in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s favour.
“An attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities may have the opposite result of prompting an escalation in Iran’s nuclear developments, a pattern previously observed in response to kinetic actions attributed to Israel,” Harvard nuclear security researcher Assaf Zoran argued last year
“Such an attack could be used by Tehran as a justification and motivation to progress toward nuclear weapons development, confirming that conventional deterrence is insufficient”
Middle East Institute analyst Kenneth Pollack points out the 1981 Israeli strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear research facility provoked Saddam Hussein to dramatically ramp up his efforts – ultimately leading to the 1990s Gulf War.
“Accordingly, the real challenge … is to find ways to prevent Iran from following the path that Iraq did following the Osirak strike,” Pollack argues. “If anything, the situation is more dangerous now than it was then, since Iran’s nuclear program is so much more advanced, its scientists so much more knowledgeable, and its nuclear infrastructure so much more capable than Iraq’s was in 1981.”
Australia’s claim that Israel has a right to defend itself against Iran is inconsistent with our rules-based order
While Australia rightly urges de-escalation, it also fails to condemn Israel’s attack on Iran
For all Australia’s breezy talk of a “rules-based international order”, it doesn’t take much for our politicians to question that order to shield Israel.
The Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, on Sunday extraordinarily referred to Israel’s “right to self-defence” after it pre-emptively attacked Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. Australia’s defence minister, Richard Marles, affirmed that statement to the ABC on Monday. The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, made the same call over the weekend. While Marles and Wong rightly urged de-escalation, and Ley urged caution, they also failed to condemn Israel’s attack on Iran, along with a few other outliers like France and Germany.
Israel claims that its attack is necessary to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and using them in the future. The problem is that under international law, a country may only defend itself from an actual or imminent armed attack by another country.
Iran is obviously not attacking Israel with nuclear weapons. It is also not about to attack Israel, given that it has not built a single nuclear weapon, let alone indicated a specific threat to use one. Inflammatory and even genocidal rhetoric by Iranian officials over the years does not equate to a concrete plan to launch an imminent nuclear attack, particularly when Iran knows Israel has many more nuclear weapons and is backed by the US arsenal. Hossein Salami, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard chief killed by Israel in the latest attack, had vowed in 2019 to “wipe the Zionist regime” off the political map.
There is no wider legal right of “anticipatory” self-defence against a speculative, more distant future threat, to prevent another country acquiring weapons, or to disarm a country. Israel’s lawless attack hands Iran the legal right of self-defence.
When Israel attacked an Iraqi civilian nuclear reactor being built in 1981, the UN security council condemned it. When Israel bombed a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, it received little support. The US-led coalition’s attack on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003, to dismantle weapons of mass destruction, was denounced by the vast majority of countries. The then UK attorney general warned it could constitute the international crime of aggression by political leaders. Recall too that Russia claimed to invade Ukraine in part because it speculatively feared Nato expansion.
Where there is no actual or imminent attack, there remains time to pursue non-violent means to address the threat, including action by the security council and International Atomic Energy Agency, sanctions, and diplomacy. The US was still negotiating with Iran as Israeli bombs began shredding peaceful dialogue, while the security council and IAEA were still actively monitoring Iran’s nuclear activities.
The current international rules on the use of force were written into the Charter of the United Nations in 1945 by the countries that survived the worst war in history, which killed perhaps 80 million people. Countries deliberately chose to abandon an international order built on brute military force, by limiting self-defence to only the most essential cases when a country is under attack.
The risk of abuse of “anticipatory” self-defence is simply too great, and too dangerous, for the world to tolerate. Many countries have hostile relations with other countries. Allowing each country to unilaterally decide when they wish to degrade another country’s military, even when they have not been attacked, is a recipe for global chaos – and for the unjustified deaths of many innocent people. Would Australia accept, for example, another country’s right to preventively bomb our Aukus program, if they perceived it as a security threat?
Israel’s current aggression against Iran is sadly part of a pattern of unlawful “anticipatory” violence against other countries. Most recently, since the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, Israel has systematically destroyed Syrian military bases and equipment, in the absence of any attack by the new Syrian authorities on Israel. It has thus deprived a sovereign country of its capacity to defend itself and to restore order, including to prevent atrocities against minorities.
The attack on Iran also raises concerns because it is not limited to preventing nuclear weapons, as claimed, but has also involved attacks on oil infrastructure and military bases. This suggests the attacks are a pretext for a wider campaign to weaken Iran. The attack may also have violated international humanitarian law, which regulates the fighting once it begins. The many Iranian nuclear scientists Israel has targeted were not taking a direct part in the hostilities and were thus protected civilians immune from attack.
None of this minimises Iran’s transgressions. Its trajectory towards nuclear weapons has rightly fuelled international concern, albeit in a context where Israel is the only nuclear weapons power in the Middle East, making others feel insecure and fuelling an arms race. Iran’s retaliatory strikes appear to have involved indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians, itself illegal. Iran is also well known for illegally sponsoring Hezbollah.
But illegal preventive war is not the answer. By allowing Israeli impunity for alleged international crimes in Gaza, the world has enabled Israel to feel untouchable and commit ever more severe violations. In the present geopolitical moment, every day we witness international law collapse further under the weight of realist politics and historically shortsighted hawks. This moral slide makes international life less stable and predictable, and more violent, for everyone, even the most powerful. It fuels grievances that perpetuate inter-generational cycles of vengeance and extremism.
International law is only law if we demand that our allies, not only our adversaries, obey it. If we apply it selectively, we cannot expect others to respect it, or to respect us.
In Gaza, Israel destroyed its reputation. Attacking Iran is a belated and dangerous attempt to restore it
Losing credibility Netanyahu has acted to diminish Iran while he still can, and in doing so regain support from his allies
There are two ways of looking at events in the Middle East over the past year and a half. One is that the response to 7 October 2023 was a break from the past. The attack by Hamas triggered an Israeli response so vengeful that it has been impossible to fit within the boundaries set by international laws or contain geographically – the genocide in Gaza, the invasion of southern Lebanon, the occupation of the buffer zone in southwestern Syria and airstrikes across that country, and now its attacks against Iran.
Then there is the explanation that these events are part of a historical continuum. Regional peace was the result of a volatile status quo that was always vulnerable to disruption. It only looked tenable because it relied on a variety of factors that, working together, looked like a settlement. This fine balance has been tipped by an Israeli government that is now fixated on pursuing its own agenda, singlehandedly rewriting the future of the region in ways that it is unable to explain and unwilling to control.
One of the elements of this brittle peace was the presence of the Gulf powers as mediators. Gulf rapprochement with Iran was not motivated by trade or fellow feeling, but rather the pragmatic need for stability. Some Gulf states also crossed a historic red line and either recognised Israel with the signing of the Abraham accords or began a process of normalisation. Now these countries find themselves caught between two feuding sides and at risk of alienating Israel’s main ally, the US, with whom it has close military and economic ties.
The status quo also relied on suppressing Palestinian rights to a degree that everyone was happy with; everyone except the Palestinians, of course. In a sense, the Palestinian problem had also been neutralised. When the assault on Gaza began, it exposed Israel’s views and intentions to the world, raising the spectre of a new Nakba. It also brought Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah and the Houthis of Yemen, into play as defenders of Palestinian rights. Once Iran entered the frame, and Israel felt empowered to act without break or censure, there was no going back.
Something else has snapped – justification for Israel’s actions has been stretched beyond plausibility. With the safety of Jewish people as the rationale for unbridled support, and Israel’s importance as a close partner in a strategic region, the US and other allies have provided carte blanche for the country to defend itself. But this relies on Israel responding to any threats in a proportional way, so as not to create further instability. Israel has not only responded inappropriately to threats, it has weaponised them to such an extent that it has become a primary factor in its own insecurity, and that of the rest of the region.
Backing from allies also relies on transparency between the camps. The colossal military, economic and political cover is provided on the understanding that whoever is in charge of the Israeli government has no other motives for engaging in conflict other than securing safety for its citizens. Trust has been broken by the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is using the war to bolster public support for his own political career. He is not only making Israelis less safe, but further capitalising on that insecurity as he plays the role of protector.
Relations with key allies were being put to the test over Gaza as public pressure from within western countries grew, fed by constant images of starving children, charred hospitals and row after row of body bags. By opening a new front and engaging another enemy, the Israeli government has a chance at both restoring the terms of its pact with its sponsors, and the historical narrative that it is the victim, acting in irreproachable good faith. Here it is, once again in need of support, suffering strikes and civilian casualties at the hands of a belligerent neighbour.
Stories of people dying of starvation in Gaza or of the hungry being killed while queueing for food, have fallen away from the headlines. The relentless assault on the West Bank and the expansion of illegal settlements has receded from view. The pressure that was beginning to build on Israel to let in more aid and honour a ceasefire has been replaced with the same mealy-mouthed defences that we saw in the early days of the war in Gaza, plus the same pabulum of urging “restraint”. The clock is reset.
Regarding the strikes on Iran, Israel appears to have drawn upon the lessons of the Iraq war, claiming it has acted in defence on the basis of intelligence that the world has to take on trust. How imminent was the threat? Who has the right to decide when a “pre-emptive strike” is justified? And who has the right to respond to an illegal unilateral attack? What we do know so far is that global politics is run on the basis of exceptions and different benchmarks of sovereignty. Yes, Iran has violated its nuclear non-proliferation obligations, but Israel refused to sign up to them altogether.
These distinctions in the past could be more easily smoothed over, because Israel and the US were “the good guys”, and Iran was part of an “axis of evil”. But the erosion of Israel’s and the US’s credibility as honest interlocutors, wise in their security considerations and compliant with international law, has made these campaigns less straightforward.
Here is the real war that Israel is fighting. Iran still retains a measure of political will and military capability that is too high for comfort for Israel. And so as the window of Israeli credibility closes, it becomes more necessary for it to diminish Iran’s political credibility and military capabilities. But what is the endgame? Does Israel envisage a close-ended campaign, after which it retreats, satisfied with the results? Or is that not a plausible scenario, considering the counterstrikes it has provoked. It’s all looking very Gaza-like: escalation with no end; or regime change with no plan.
Both Israel’s campaigns – the propaganda one and the one on the ground – share one thing: they regard the Middle East as a theatre for domestic politics, reputation management and experimentation in bringing about “safety” on yet-to-be-defined terms. But the region is not just Israel’s back yard. It is other people’s homes and they have their own politics, histories, populations and security needs that, increasingly, are subject to a country that has decided that only its own agenda matters.
Israelis are used to living under conflict but Iran’s strikes are making many wary
The streets around Jerusalem are eerily quiet and empty.
Since Israel launched strikes into Iran late last week in what it says is an existential fight for its future, it feels like life inside Israel has come to a standstill.
In Jerusalem, schools, some restaurants, and even businesses including banks are closed.
Residents are heeding warnings to stay inside, anticipating another wave of retaliatory Iranian missiles at any moment.
In Tel Aviv, people have been hauling sleeping bags and pillows into bomb shelters night after night.
The mood feels tense and uncertain, even for a population that’s very used to combat.
The last time Israel was thrust into a similar societal standstill was in the days following the October 7 Hamas attacks in 2023 and the start of the Israel-Gaza war.
Since then, Israel has been engaged in non-stop combat, it says sometimes on at least seven different fronts.
So most Israelis are used to living under conflict.
But now Israel is hooked in yet another, potentially more dangerous war.
The biggest test of Israel’s defences
There seems to be a widespread fear among civilians here that this moment in warfare is more dangerous, and different than all the others.
“Just when you think you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, it gets deeper,” one person told the ABC.
It’s not unusual for Israelis to receive an incoming rocket-alert notification on their phone, or for air-raid style sirens to ring out through the air.
The aerial defence systems Israel relies on to protect against outside threats have traditionally given Israelis confidence that their loved ones would be relatively safe under attack, especially in larger population areas like Tel Aviv.
There has long been a feeling here that while ongoing war is uncomfortable, Israel’s defence capabilities would ensure civilian safety was largely guaranteed.
But that sense of security has been shattered in recent days as the defences are being put through their biggest test ever and the cracks are showing.
Iran is a far more formidable foe than other opponents Israel has engaged in war in the last 18 months, like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Civilians living near targets
The power, and strength of Iran’s weapons cache is potent.
It is estimated Iran has thousands of ballistic missiles, which Tehran has stockpiled for years and is now unleashing on Israel in retaliation.
Hundreds of Iranian rockets have been launched into Israeli airspace over the last few days, and despite Israel’s advanced aerial defence systems, several are making landfall.
Even the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) concedes it doesn’t have the capabilities to stop all the missiles when overwhelmed with a volley of hundreds.
Civilians, who live near major Iranian targets including the IDF’s main headquarters in Tel Aviv, are increasingly scared.
Over the weekend, some limitations in Israel’s fight against Iran were exposed when a rocket smashed into a residential complex in the central Israeli city of Bat Yam killing at least six people, including a 10-year-old boy and eight-year-old girl.
Despite Israel’s attempts to intercept the ongoing waves of missiles, the last few days have reminded residents here that if even one of Iran’s more powerful rockets can get through, it can cause mass civilian causalities.
Israelis wary of a more dangerous war
The reality of war against an advanced opponent like Iran has left Israelis scared, and in shock.
Local social media groups have been flooded with fevered questions on how to leave the country with Israel’s airspace remaining closed.
There are hours-long queues at land border crossings into Egypt and Jordan — currently the only way to exit Israel.
Israel’s Health Ministry has also reported it has been inundated with calls to its emotional support hotlines since the fighting with Iran broke out.
People on the ground have told the ABC their sense of security has been rocked — and it is likely to get worse.
If Iran continues to fire even at least 100 missiles per day, it will potentially keep Israel’s home front under heavy pressure for weeks, or perhaps even months.
In such a scenario, the likelihood of rising civilian casualties is high.
It’s too early to tell what the appetite is here amongst Israelis for a protracted conflict with Iran.
A lot of people agree that the threat Iran poses to Israel is so big that it has warranted Israel’s extraordinary strikes that kicked off the war.
But for a war-weary community, the reaction from Iran may mean this could start to feel like one fight too far.
Israel and Iran carry out further strikes as Iranian state TV knocked off air
An Iranian state television broadcast has been bombed live on air as Israel and Iran stepped up missile attacks against each other.
Explosions were seen ringing out in the Iranian capital of Tehran, where residents could be seen joining huge queues of traffic trying to leave on Monday.
At least 224 people had been killed in Iran by Israeli strikes between Friday and Sunday, amid reports Iran had reached out to the US to indicate its desire for a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, the death toll in Israel has risen to 24 since the conflict began, as Iran continued its retaliatory strikes.
On Monday evening local time, further missile alerts sounded in northern Israel as Iran vowed to “pummel” the country until Israel stopped launching attacks.
At the scene of a deadly strike in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva, residents were gathering essentials and preparing to move out of their apartments.
“Our home is in a bad situation, you can’t live in it,” Liel Fenigshtein, who lives in the adjacent building, told the ABC.
“We can’t drive our cars or wear our clothes. We don’t have anything.”
She and other residents described being stuck in their homes after the blast, because of the extensive damage.
Locals say war ‘necessary’ despite toll
Another neighbour, Matthew Danoff, described the explosion as a “huge boom”, shaking all the apartment towers.
“I’ve been here [Israel] for the past 10 years … and I’ve never seen anything like this before. This is crazy and I want it to stop. I hope it stops soon,” he said.
“I’m just super grateful that we’re OK but I feel bad for the people who were in the building next to us because they did everything they could. They were in the mamad [safe room], they were in the bomb shelter, they followed protocol. It’s just an unfortunate situation.”
But Mr Danoff and other residents said they supported Israel’s decision to attack Iran, even though it meant they were affected by the Iranian retaliation.
“I think honestly that it’s something that we have to do, unfortunately. It’s a really shitty situation, but I think Iran having that nuclear capability is a lot worse,” he said.
“But I think it’s a step in the right direction and I know it’s a very unpopular opinion, but for my sake and Australia’s sake and the rest of the western world’s sake, I think it’s what we have to do.”
Mr Danoff said he doubted Iran had deliberately targeted the apartment towers, but was instead firing at population centres.
“I think it was really like a ‘spray and pay’ sort of method and unfortunately hit this building. They don’t care about casualties, they were just firing wherever,” he said.
Iran’s military has said it is targeting military sites and energy infrastructure in retaliation for Israeli strikes on its oil and gas facilities.
Another neighbour, Yafit Bareket, said her home across the road from the affected building had also suffered major damage. She also expressed support for Israel’s campaign.
“We are strong, our spirit is strong. We will win, we will fight, we are not afraid of the terrorists. And you will see, Israel will be number one,” she told the ABC.
“I believe in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he made the best thing for the state of Israel.
“But we are smiling and our spirit is strong. They cannot break us.”
Israel attacks Iranian state media
As Israeli residents cleaned up, the country’s military said it had established full aerial dominance in the skies over Iran.
The Israel Defense Forces also claimed to have destroyed Iranian aircraft at Tehran airport, while Iran state media said its air defences had downed an Israeli F35.
Israel’s strikes have so far killed top military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians, according to Iranian authorities.
On Monday, Israel’s government urged residents in a part of Tehran to evacuate, before launching strikes against Iran’s state broadcaster.
Footage showed a newsreader ducking for cover and running off screen as debris fell in the studio she was presenting from.
The live feed of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) was abruptly cut but resumed broadcasting shortly afterwards.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei accused Israel of committing a war crime by launching the strikes at the broadcaster.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that “the propaganda and incitement broadcasting authority of the Iranian regime was attacked”, threatening to strike “everywhere” against “the Iranian dictator”.
Netanyahu says killing Iranian supreme leader would ‘end the conflict’
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was again asked about reports Donald Trump vetoed a plan to assassinate Iran’s supreme leader, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Mr Netanyahu told ABC America such a step was “not going to escalate the conflict, it’s going to end the conflict”.
“The ‘forever war’ is what Iran wants, and they’re bringing us to the brink of nuclear war,” he said.
“In fact, what Israel is doing is preventing this, bringing an end to this aggression, and we can only do so by standing up to the forces of evil.”
Iran launches fresh strikes
After a series of strikes against Tehran, Iran vowed swift retaliation on Monday night.
Iran’s state TV issued threats against Israeli broadcasters N12 and N14 in retaliation, and later announced a fresh salvo of missile and drone strikes had been launched against Israel.
Israeli citizens received emergency alerts several times on Monday night local time.
A spokesperson for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said strikes would continue against Israel until morning.
After an Iranian strike damaged a power plant in Haifa, Israel’s Energy Ministry said other generators would be able to provide enough power to keep lights on across the country.
Israel-Iran conflict: latest developments
Israel and Iran traded deadly fire for a fourth day on Monday in their most intense confrontation in history, fuelling fears of a drawn-out conflict that could engulf the Middle East.
The longtime foes have fought a prolonged shadow war through proxies and covert operations, with Israel battling several Iran-backed groups in the region, including Hamas in the Gaza Strip since October 2023.
Here are the latest developments:
– Mounting casualties –
In a major campaign launched early Friday, Israeli fighter jets and drones have struck nuclear and military sites in Iran, also hitting residential areas and fuel depots.
Iran’s health ministry says at least 224 people have been killed and more than 1,200 wounded.
Tehran has responded with barrages of missiles and drones that hit Israeli cities and towns, killing at least 24 people and wounding 592 others, according to the prime minister’s office.
Israel has also killed many top military commanders and atomic scientists in Iran as part of an offensive that officials say seeks to end nuclear and missile threats from the Islamic republic.
– Iran state TV hit –
AFP journalists heard massive blasts across Tehran after Israel issued an evacuation order for the northern District 3, home to state broadcaster IRIB which was hit in an Israeli strike.
IRIB resumed its live broadcast that was momentarily cut due to the attack.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that “the propaganda and incitement broadcasting authority of the Iranian regime was attacked”, threatening to strike “everywhere” against “the Iranian dictator”.
– Israel claims ‘air superiority’ –
The Israeli military said that after a wave of strikes on Monday, its forces had destroyed one third of Iran’s surface-to-surface missile launchers.
According to military spokesman Effie Defrin, “we have now achieved full air superiority over Tehran”.
That followed a wave of intense air raids across the country, from the western border with Iraq to the capital Tehran and as far east as Mashhad, where the airport was hit.
Reza Sayyad, spokesman for the Iranian armed forces, said their targets in Israel included “sensitive and important” security sites as well as “the residences of military commanders and scientists”.
Among the sites hit in Israel on Sunday was a major oil refinery in the coastal city of Haifa, an Israeli official said after a military censorship gag order was lifted.
Residential areas in both countries have suffered, with Israel accusing Iran of deliberately targeting civilians.
– Diplomacy –
The conflict has rapidly escalated despite calls from world leaders to halt the attacks.
China urged Iran and Israel to “immediately” take steps to reduce tensions and “prevent the region from falling into greater turmoil”.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his Iranian counterpart in a phone call on Monday that Ankara was ready to play a “facilitating role” to end the conflict.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he believed “there’s a consensus for de-escalation” among Group of Seven leaders, who are meeting in Canada.
US President Donald Trump told reporters at the G7 summit that “Iran is not winning this war, and they should talk… immediately, before it’s too late”.
Nuclear negotiations between Tehran and Washington that were set to take place on Sunday had been called off.
– Nuclear sites –
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the Israeli offensive aims to thwart the “existential” threats posed by Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes.
The fierce bombing campaign began as Tehran and Washington were engaged in nuclear talks — which have since been cancelled — and after warnings from the UN nuclear watchdog over Iran’s atomic activities.
Rafael Grossi, head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said on Monday there was “no indication of a physical attack” on an underground section of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility, and that radiation levels outside the plant were “at normal levels”.
The IAEA previously said that a key, above-ground component of Iran’s Natanz nuclear site was destroyed.
Grossi told an extraordinary board meeting of the UN agency that “nuclear safety is being compromised” by the conflict.
UN ‘fudges’ settler violence claims
Settler violence in Israel, when it occurs, is reprehensible. But it may not be quite what Foreign Minister Penny Wong believed when she announced last week that Australia was joining Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Norway in sanctioning two “far right” members of the Israeli government, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. New analysis by The Wall Street Journal suggests the data about settler violence relied on by the five countries was “fudged” by the UN and does not stand up to scrutiny.
Violence by Israeli settler radicals in remote outposts was a real problem, the paper noted, reporting the findings of Regavim, a conservative Israeli NGO that scrutinised 7½ years of statistics held by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The statistics reportedly were used by the Biden administration to impose sanctions on settler groups. Reviewing the UN’s list of 6285 incidents of alleged settler violence, Regavim noticed the database included thousands of nonviolent incidents in its count. These included every visit by Jews to the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, which is also venerated by Muslims. Each visit was counted as “settler violence”. So were school trips to archaeological sites, traffic accidents involving Jews and Palestinians, and “trespassing” by hikers. Some incidents reportedly occurred in Jerusalem, which is not a settlement. Filtering out such cases from the database left 833 alleged settler violent incidents involving bodily harm. That number did not hold up, either. The Orwellian UN counted Palestinians harmed while committing acts of terrorism as victims of settler violence. In half the 833 cases, the researchers found, the UN recorded “victims” in clashes without saying who was responsible for such clashes. In 117 cases, Israeli security forces, not settlers, were involved.
When she visited Israel in January 2024, Senator Wong condemned “ongoing settler violence”. Last week she insisted “rampant settlement construction and impunity to settler violence in the West Bank” was “extinguishing prospects for a two-state solution”. In overseeing the relationship with one of our oldest and closest allies, she should be more considered. Analysis of UN data shows the view of antagonists of the Jewish state that the West Bank is a hotbed of violence against peaceful Palestinians is an inversion of reality.
It’s first Australians’ turn to speak out for our Jewish allies
Right now I am in Jerusalem with a delegation of Aboriginal Australians, many of whom are stepping on to the land for the first time. We are here to listen, learn and bear witness to the story of a people who, like us, are indigenous to their ancestral homeland and have endured centuries of hardship, displacement and conflict. Our purpose is not only to learn their history but also to carry that truth back to Australia.
Our journey began in Jerusalem, a city layered with history. For hundreds of generations, Jewish people have prayed at the Western Wall, the ancient retaining wall of the Temple Mount. Their connection to this land predates recorded Christian and Muslim presence.
Likewise, deep within us as First Nations Australians is that same connection; a deep breath through our ancestors’ bones, a land encoded with memory and meaning.
For Christians, Jerusalem is the site of Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified. For Muslims, it is the sacred setting of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock.
Since arriving in Israel we have sheltered repeatedly from missiles, drones and rockets launched mostly by the Iranian regime and its proxy militia in Yemen, the Houthis.
This is not only disruption: these are war crimes. Targets include civilian infrastructure, schools, hospitals, places of worship and the majesty of Jerusalem itself. It is precisely at these times, inside the iron embrace of bomb shelters, that I’ve stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Jews, Christians, Muslims, Druze, Indigenous Australians and international visitors.
We’re reminded that each life matters. We all benefit equally from early-warning sirens, evacuation protocols, precision defence systems such as the Iron Dome, even welfare payments and healthcare afterwards. No exceptions. Contrast this with those who deliberately exploit civilian populations as shields. Hamas has constructed 700km of tunnels beneath Gaza, often under hospitals and schools, offering cover for its military while risking the lives of those it claims to protect.
This strategy, tragically, creates headlines but hides a calculated tactic to exploit civilian pain for propaganda.
We’ve also witnessed Israel’s integrated civil defence. Israel is an ancient civilisation preserved through modern innovation: underground shelters in every city, air-raid systems in every school, Iron Dome interceptions daily, mobile evacuation alerts, defibrillators on every street. These are the defences of a people determined to preserve life, regardless of religion or ethnicity.
Just as Israel defends life inside its own borders, it seeks to minimise civilian death when fighting its enemies. As much as possible Israel warns civilians and pursues targeted strikes against known military threats. Every civilian casualty is taken seriously. Every investigation is public.
We, as Indigenous Australians – who have seen the resilience and fragility of our own communities – stand in admiration of that accountability.
This is a moment for moral clarity. Our delegation has seen the faces of those who defended life on Saturday night. We have held babies saved by Israel’s Iron Dome. We have pressed hands with Jewish families who sleep in shelters, with Druze children who fear rockets from Hezbollah, with Muslims who long to worship in peace. We have listened to the stories of trauma at Majdal Shams, where Druze parents recounted losing 12 of their own children to Hezbollah rockets in 2024.
We carry those stories back to Australia and we demand our media, our leaders, our neighbours do the same. We cannot stand by while human lives are cynically used for political propaganda.
As Aboriginal Australians, we have never forgotten the immense contribution of Jewish people to our own nation. Through human rights advocacy, land rights litigation, legal representation, journalism, politics, scholarship and everyday solidarity, Jewish Australians have fought to safeguard our existence. From death-row reprieves to equitable policies, Jewish allies have shaped the lives of First Nations people.
The vision of Jewish leaders such as Sir John Monash has helped shape our nation’s military legacy. More than 9000 Jewish Australians have served in our armed forces, fighting for freedom. Their service must never be forgotten.
In broader society, Jewish Australians have enriched our literature, science, arts, politics and commerce. Among them are doctors, teachers, lawyers, actors, footballers, MPs, scholars and poets – all woven into Australia’s cultural and civic fabric. We need only look to people such as Zelman Cowen, global HIV expert David Cooper, human rights lawyer Ron Castan and a pantheon of philanthropic families – all Jewish Australians who have helped make us who we are today.
Every Australian should stand up and say: we will not tolerate anti-Semitism. We will not tolerate the denial of Israel’s right to exist, to defend its people, to preserve its Jewish heritage. Nor will we tolerate anti-Aboriginal bigotry and racism.
We must ask our government to back Israel’s right to live in peace, while supporting humanitarian efforts to care for civilians in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, who are all suffering the consequences of terror. Indigenous Australians stand with the Jewish people because we understand; because our stories are entwined. We understand displacement, intergenerational trauma, stolen childhoods, stolen languages and resilience.
As a proud Australian woman – and a proud member of the world’s oldest living culture – I leave Jerusalem, at a time of war, determined to defend Israel against the hate, threats and lies and defend its right to exist and flourish.
The delegation of Indigenous Australians in Israel is part of an Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council study tour.
Islamic Republic’s ayatollahs are weaker than ever
Iran’s war against Israel took another turn for the worse last week as Operation Rising Lion struck Tehran’s nuclear weapons program, air defences and military leadership. Iran’s retaliation so far has been uneven and ineffective. Contrary to the scaremongers, World War III hasn’t broken out, nor will it.
But what next? The 1979 Islamic Revolution retains power in Tehran and it could rebuild its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and terrorist networks. The only lasting foundation for Middle East peace and security is overthrowing the ayatollahs.
America’s declared objective should be just that. Benjamin Netanyahu made the case last week, telling the Iranian people: “The time has come for you to unite around your flag and your historic legacy by standing up for your freedom from an evil and oppressive regime.”
Despite outward appearances of solid authoritarianism, the regime in Tehran faces widening discontent. The opposition extends across Iran, in the smaller cities and countryside, far beyond Tehran, where the few Western journalists congregate.
Iran’s economy has been parlous for decades and Israeli strikes on oil refineries may weaken it further. Citizen protests in 2018-19 provoked heightened nationwide repression.
International anti-proliferation and anti-terrorism sanctions caused part of the distress, but the fundamental lesson is plain: Never trust your economy to medieval religious fanatics. There is widespread outrage at the corruption and self-enrichment of senior clerics and flag officers (and their families) in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and regular military.
The regime’s imperial projects have done nothing for Iran’s people. They have brought only devastation in Iran itself and elsewhere. Untold billions of dollars were spent over decades to empower terrorist proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis), to prop up Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and to undertake massive nuclear and missile projects that now lie in ashes.
There’s more. In September 2022, regime police murdered Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, for not wearing the required hijab. The ensuing nationwide protests under the banner “woman, life, freedom” challenged not merely the regime’s female dress code but its very legitimacy, rejecting the precept that the ayatollahs spoke the word of God that had to be obeyed.
Young Iranians – those under 30 constitute roughly 60 per cent of the population – know they can have a different life than the mullahs allow simply from watching what is happening across the Gulf in places such as the United Arab Emirates. Iran’s non-Persian ethnic groups – Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis – all yearn for more autonomy.
While the interests of the various dissidents don’t always coincide, they align entirely in their discontent with the ayatollahs. Significantly, since Israeli attacks began, there has been no spontaneous rush of Iranian nationalism, as pro-regime Western apologists long prophesied. The people of Iran know what is actually at stake.
Widespread finger-pointing within the regime followed Assad’s fall in Syria, then spread to the general population. It is likely now getting more intense.
What should the US do? Most important, it should be clear that neither US nor Israeli troops will be staging a ground invasion of Iran. Those arguing that assistance for Iranian opponents of the mullahs inevitably means another “forever war” are simply engaging in knee-jerk propaganda.
The regime’s weakness and fragmentation at senior levels is the starting point for strategy. Iran is led by an ailing octogenarian, supreme leader Ali Khamenei, with no clear successor in sight. His son apparently wants the job but he is widely disliked.
The leading potential successor, president Ebrahim Raisi, died in 2024 when his helicopter crashed. Khamenei has held power for more than 35 years and is only the second supreme leader, so there is no established path for succession and internal chaos won’t make it any easier. Israel’s decapitation of significant elements of the regime’s military leadership compounds the disarray at the top.
In the current crisis, further divisions within the regime’s leadership should be fostered and supported, especially among military officers who could emulate Egypt’s military during the 2011 protests against Hosni Mubarak, refusing to attack civilian protesters. If significant elements of the regular forces and Revolutionary Guard make clear they won’t fire on their own people, the regime could fall quickly. Offering amnesty to regime officials to switch sides could be a useful tool for a more consolidated opposition.
The Amini protests revealed that while the opposition is widespread, there is little or no national leadership. While this fragmentation means that dissent can’t be stifled simply by arresting or eliminating a small number of people, it also makes nationwide co-ordination and control impossible.
Accordingly, based on advice from regime opponents, both in-country and in the diaspora, Washington could supply communications resources internally and revive the Voice of America to provide accurate information from outside. Basic financial aid to the opposition also could make a substantial difference. Israel, the Gulf Arab states and America can all participate. Success is far from guaranteed but the moment is auspicious.
Israel-Iran conflict: Netanyahu ‘won’t rule out killing Ayatollah’: Tehran signals it wants to negotiate
Welcome to The Australian’s rolling coverage of Israel’s ongoing conflict with Iran as the two sides continue to fire missile barrages at each other.
Netanyahu ‘won’t rule out assassinating Ayatollah’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he hasn’t ruled targeting Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
After reports on Monday that the WHite House had vetoed any attempt on the life of the Ayatollah, Mr Netanyahu told America’s ABC TV: “Look, we’re doing what we need to do.
“It’s not going to escalate the conflict, it’s going to end the conflict,” Mr Netanyahu added.
Mr Netanyahu confirmed Israel had targeted Iran’s “top nuclear scientists.” At least 10 scientists have died in strikes since Friday, many of them the leaders of Tehran’s nuclear program.
“It’s basically Hitler’s nuclear team,” Mr Netanyahu claimed.
As the Wall St Journal reports that Iran is willing to resume talks over its nuclear program and end the fighting, he said he didn’t take Tehran’s messages seriously.
“They want to continue to have these fake talks in which they lie, they cheat, they string the US along,” he said. “And, you know, we have very solid intel on that.””
Restrain Bibi, Iran Foreign Minister urges Trump
Iran’s foreign minister has publicly urged Donald Trump to tell Benjamin Netanyahu to stop Israel’s continuing attacks.
Abbas Araghchi claimed Mr Netanyahu had launched an attack early on Friday to derail negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, with a sixth round of talks with the US scheduled for Sunday.
He wrote on Telegram that if Mr Netanyahu wasn’t restrained there would be “dangerous, unpredictable, and possibly unimaginable” consequences for the Middle East’s stability and world economy.
“If President Trump truly believes in diplomacy and wants to stop this war, the next steps are crucial,” he wrote.
“Israel must stop its aggression, without a complete cessation of military aggression against us, our responses will continue.
“It only takes one phone call from Washington to silence someone like Netanyahu. This could pave the way for a return to diplomacy.”
Israel ‘had braced for 5,000 civilian deaths’
Israel’s leadership reportedly braced for 5,000 civilian deaths in an all-out war with Iran when it launched its first strikes on Friday and has been surprised at Tehran’s relatively weak response.
Former intelligence officer Miri Eisin told the London based news site Iran International that Israel had also expected Hezbollah and the Houthis to join an attack on Israel, despite their hugely weakened state.
Ms Eisin, a retired colonel of the Israeli Defence Forces said that while the Iranian barrages are heavier than last year’s strikes, their impact on Israel was relatively minimal.
“If you put aside the human story, in general, life totally exists here, you can go out, there is food in the stores,” she said.
“We had estimated 5,000 deaths – we expected more barrages – and the risk of Hezbollah and the Houthis joining in simultaneously,” Ms Eisin said.
“We do a guesstimate of what they can do based on worst case scenarios and expecting that the system is overwhelmed. You have to have the estimates as the hospital needs to be ready.”
“Right now Iran has fired 370 missiles and 30 got through. If it hits urban areas you see the devastation there, but Israel continues to intercept more than 90% with its air defence systems which is amazing,”
The Israeli military on Monday said it had destroyed one third of Iran’s surface-to-surface missile launchers.
Haifa oil refinery closes after 3 killed in Iranian strike
The Bazan oil refinery in Haifa has closed after an Iranian strike that killed three people, Israeli media reports.
Bazan, the largest refinery in Israel, said all its facilities have been shut down after a power station used to produce steam and electricity were significantly damaged in the attack.
Meanwhile Israel has intercepted a barrage of drones from Iran this morning, with no strikes reported.
Trump sends two aircraft carriers to Middle East
Two aircraft carriers are now on their way to the Middle East in a sign the US may be preparing a strike against Iran, The London Times reports.
The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz has left Southeast Asia and is now travelling through the Malacca Strait toward the Indian Ocean, according to Marine Traffic, a ship-tracking site.
The Times reports that Donald Trump has already approved the dispatch of a second aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson battle group to operate alongside the USS Nimitz with accompanying warships in the Red Sea and Eastern Mediterranean.
Iran ‘would like to talk’: Trump refuses to sign G7 statement
Donald Trump has said he’s seen messages from Iran indicating it wants to ease hostilities, telling reporters: “They‘d like to talk, but they should have done that before.”
Speaking in Canada before a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, the US President said Iran “wants to make a deal.”
“I said 60 days, and they had 60 days. On the 61st day, I said, ‘we don’t have a deal.’ They have to make a deal, and it’s painful for both parties. But I’d say Iran is not winning this war, and they should talk, and they should talk immediately, before it’s too late.”
Asked what it would take for the US military to get involved in the Iran situation, Mr Trump said: “I don’t want to talk about that.”
US officials told CBS and the UK Telegraph that Mr Trump – who insists Tehran must not be allowed any uranium enrichment – would not sign a G7 draft statement on Iran that calls for both sides to protect citizens and the monitoring of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Israel ‘is changing the face of the Middle East’: Netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu has repeated his calls for regime change in Iran, telling reporters Israel was changing the face of the Middle East.
In his first press conference since the start of the war with Iran, the Israeli Prime Minister declared that Israel was aiming for three results in the conflict: “The destruction of the nuclear program, the destruction of the production capacity of ballistic missiles, and the destruction of the axis of terror.”
“We will do what is necessary to achieve those goals,” Mr Netanyahu said, adding: “We are coordinated with the United States.”
Mr Netanyahu said the US was “helping us,” adding that he spoke to Donald Trump almost every day.
The US President on Monday said it was “possible” the US could get involved in the conflict, adding that Iran and Israel might have to “fight it out” before they reach a peace deal.
Mr Netanyahu said Mr Trump “will decide on what is good for America… We will accept any assistance.”
He said Israel was “committed to removing” the Iranian nuclear threat, which he described as “an existential” danger. “We are doing it and we won’t give up on it,” he said.
Asked about the possibility of an assassination attempt on Ayatollah Khamenei, he said: “I won’t go into all our war plans… We will do what is necessary. We are on the way to victory.”
‘All uranium centrifuges at Natanz damaged or destroyed’: IAEA
It is highly likely all 15,000 centrifuges operating at Iran’s biggest uranium enrichment plant at Natanz were badly damaged or destroyed because of a power cut caused by an Israeli strike, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog has told the BBC.
International Atomic Energy Agency and Director General Rafael Grossi had previously said the centrifuges at the underground enrichment plant at Natanz may have been damaged as a result of an airstrike on its power supply, even though the hall housing the plant itself did not seem to have been hit.
On Monday (AEST), the Wall St Journal reported that the lower floors of the plant, where the centrifuges are held, might have imploded
“Our assessment is that with this sudden loss of external power, in great probability the centrifuges have been severely damaged if not destroyed altogether,” Mr Grossi said in an interview with the BBC.
“I think there has been damage inside,” he said.
In an update to the IAEA board, Mr Grossi said the above-ground pilot enrichment plant at Natanz had been destroyed.
Even bunker buster bombs can’t take out Iran’s nuclear fortress
Benjamin Netanyahu believes Israel’s war with Iran will have been worthwhile if it sets back Iran’s nuclear weapons program by at least a year.
But four days into the conflict –one that has cost it at least 14 lives and billions of dollars in intergenerational debt – there is no indication the Israeli Prime Minister has yet achieved that goal.
Israeli airstrikes have done significant damage to Iran’s decades-old nuclear project, both through its strikes on physical facilities and assassinations of up to 10 nuclear scientists that one conservative US commentator likened to “eliminating Oppenheimer and his top team before the Trinity Test in June 1945”.
Yet Israeli officials admit they need at least a fortnight to meaningfully damage Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities.
Even then, the Israeli Defence Forces may not have the military capacity to do so without powerful US “bunker buster” bombs capable of piercing Iran’s most important and heavily guarded subterranean fuel enrichment facility, Fordow.
Whether the US will provide those to Israel is a critical question.
How long Israel can sustain its attacks on Iran, and defend itself against Iran’s retaliatory bombardments, is another.
Israel attacks Iranian state TV during broadcast
Israel bombed the building of Iran’s state TV IRIB during a live broadcast early on Tuesday (AEST), with a news anchor being forced to flee as the studio filled with smoke.
The female anchor looks shocked and runs from the studio as a voice in the background says “Allahu Akhbar.”
Shortly before the attack, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said: “The Iranian propaganda and incitement mouthpiece is on its way to disappear.”
The IDF had issued an evacuation warning for the area in Tehran where IRIB’s headquarters are based.
Hours after the attack, Iran reported that it had issued evacuation warnings for Israeli news channels .
“Iran has issued an evacuation warning for the N12 and N14 channels of Israel. This order comes in response to the hostile attack of the Zionist enemy against the Islamic Republic of Iran’s broadcasting service,” IRIB reported.
Why even bunker buster bombs can’t take out Iran’s nuke fortress
Benjamin Netanyahu needs to substantially set back Tehran’s atomic bomb project for his war on Iran to be a success. To do so, he must penetrate its most fortressed nuclear bunker.
Benjamin Netanyahu believes Israel’s war with Iran will have been worthwhile if it sets back Iran’s nuclear weapons program by at least a year.
But four days into the conflict –one that has cost it at least 14 lives and billions of dollars in intergenerational debt – there is no indication the Israeli Prime Minister has yet achieved that goal.
Israeli airstrikes have done significant damage to Iran’s decades-old nuclear project, both through its strikes on physical facilities and assassinations of up to 10 nuclear scientists that one conservative US commentator likened to “eliminating Oppenheimer and his top team before the Trinity Test in June 1945”.
Yet Israeli officials admit they need at least a fortnight to meaningfully damage Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities.
Even then, the Israeli Defence Forces may not have the military capacity to do so without powerful US “bunker buster” bombs capable of piercing Iran’s most important and heavily guarded subterranean fuel enrichment facility, Fordow.
Whether the US will provide those to Israel is a critical question.
How long Israel can sustain its attacks on Iran, and defend itself against Iran’s retaliatory bombardments, is another.
“The entire operation … really has to be completed with the elimination of Fordow,” Israeli ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter said at the weekend.
Mr Netanyahu has made it clear he intends to try.
Iranian officials confirmed on Saturday that Israeli airstrikes caused only minor damage to some above-ground buildings at Fordow, though loud explosions reported near the site early on Monday – around the time a magnitude-2.5 earthquake struck – raised alarm locally.
Tehran is clearly at a strategic disadvantage in this conflict, having been systematically weakened over the past 18 months by direct attacks on its air defences and by the decapitation of its key regional military proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas.
Yet both the Iranian regime and Israeli government see this as an existential battle.
Israel cannot live next to a nuclear weapons-capable theocratic Iran while Ayatollah Ali Khameini sees uranium enrichment and nuclear capability as a cornerstone of his regime’s survival.
“Having to choose between them is like choosing between two chalices of poison,” Raz Zimmt, of Israel’s National Institute for Strategic Studies told The Economist of the Supreme Leader.
So far, the IDF and Mossad spy agents are believed to have caused significant damage to the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, including an underground chamber where centrifuges enrich uranium.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the sudden loss of power at Natanz, Iran’s biggest enrichment plant, may have destroyed some of the roughly 14,000 underground centrifuges – a major blow given it is where much of Iran’s near-weapons grade uranium has been produced.
The long cascades of centrifuge machines, which spin to produce uranium, are fragile and can break if they aren’t shut down gradually.
Multiple airstrikes on the Isfahan complex in central Iran have also destroyed a uranium conversion facility, which turns uranium into the required gas to feed centrifuges, and a fuel fabrication plant that converts enriched uranium into uranium metal for nuclear warheads.
Both are key stages in the development of an atomic bomb.
IAEA officials say is likely to have set back Iran’s uranium fuel cycle by months, given Isfahan is the only location for converting uranium into the feedstock used by centrifuges, which in turn separate the uranium isotopes needed for nuclear power or bombs.
In order for Israel to achieve its minimum aim of deferring Iran’s induction into the global club of nuclear weapons-capable states, it must take off line the sprawling underground Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant near the ancient Iranian city of Qom.
The tightly-guarded facility, first discovered by Western intelligence agencies in 2009, is encased in concrete and buried 500m inside a mountain within an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps base.
To get at it, the IDF would need a massive “bunker buster” US bomb, though there are some doubts even those powerful munitions have the capacity to pierce its defences.
With the US equivocating on how far it is prepared to go to assist Israel, some have speculated that Mr Netanyahu may be tempted to take the far riskier path of sending special forces in to raid the facility, as he did last September in Syria when Israeli operatives planted and detonated explosives in an underground missile factory.
Even if it succeeds in making Fordow inoperable for a time, Iran is likely to have developed alternative, covert sites where it could produce a nuclear bomb if its stockpile of material is intact. A few hundred more advanced centrifuges could work to produce weapons-grade material from the stockpile in a short period.
Tehran has long denied seeking atomic bombs but has been enriching uranium to 60 per cent – far above the 3.67-per cent limit set under the 2015 agreement with major powers that was abandoned by President Donald Trump. That same agreement demanded Iran stop enriching uranium at Fordow for 15 years but after the deal fell apart in 2018, it began producing highly enriched uranium again.
IAEA inspectors believe Iran now has around 408kg of highly enriched uranium, a considerable amount that could nonetheless fit in three or four easily concealed cylinders and be moved to covert locations should Israel’s attacks motivate Iran to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and accelerate development of a bomb, as many now fear.
Tehran vowed to do just that last week after it was rebuked by the IAEA board of governors for failing to fully co-operate with the UN agency’s inspectors and provide full access to its facilities.
The nuclear watchdog was due to meet for an emergency session late on Monday to discuss Israel’s ongoing efforts to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, and the interruption to its ability to verify the country’s stockpile of near-bomb grade uranium.
Whether Israel can locate and destroy Iran’s stockpile of 60 per cent-enriched uranium, given even a modest amount could allow Iran to build nuclear weapons, is unclear. Doing so has become a task of the highest urgency at a time when such critical information is harder to come.
David Albright from the Institute for Science and International Security says Israel’s intelligence is now “so intrusive that Iran has to worry about early discovery of any such effort and about the exposure and subsequent destruction of key hidden nuclear weapons-related assets”.
UN inspectors will almost certainly be locked out of sites for a long time to come, as Tehran moves its nuclear program further underground. The Islamic Republic retains the capacity to enrich sufficient uranium required to produce nine nuclear bombs in just three weeks at Fordow, Mr Albright estimated on Monday in his latest briefing on the conflict.
Meanwhile, another underground facility, nicknamed Pickaxe Mountain, is under construction just south of Natanz that is expected to be even more deeply fortified than Fordow.
Battered Iran signals it wants to reduce hostilities with Israel and negotiate
Iran has been urgently signalling that it seeks an end to hostilities and resumption of talks over its nuclear programs, sending messages to Israel and the US via Arab intermediaries, Middle Eastern and European officials said.
In the midst of a ferocious Israeli air campaign, Tehran has told Arab officials they would be open to returning to the negotiating table as long as the US doesn’t join the attack, the officials said.
They also passed messages to Israel saying it is in the interest of both sides to keep the violence contained.
But with Israeli warplanes able to fly freely over the capital and Iranian counterattacks inflicting minimal damage, Israeli leaders have little incentive to halt their assault before doing more to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites and further weaken the theocratic government’s hold on power.
Israeli strikes have killed key military leaders, including much of the top echelon of Iran’s air force, leaving Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei increasingly isolated. But the impact on nuclear facilities has been modest and analysts say it could take a long air war to get the results Israel wants.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the attacks will continue until Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missiles are destroyed, and he has shown no indication he is ready to stop. He has also said regime change isn’t a goal but could be a result given the Iranian leadership’s weakness.
Israeli officials have said the military has prepared at least two weeks of strikes. On Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron told his Iranian counterpart “to return swiftly to the negotiating table to reach an agreement’’, and Arab leaders have called for an end to the fighting. President Donald Trump resisted a military campaign for much of the year but has since cheered on Israel’s attacks.
“I think it’s time for a deal, and we’ll see what happens, but sometimes they have to fight it out,” Mr Trump told reporters on Sunday.
Securing a pause could give Iran breathing room to regroup and for pressure to build internationally against Israel’s campaign. It would also be a win for Tehran to keep the US from bringing its bunker-busting military capabilities into the fight.
Tehran appears to be betting that Israel can’t afford to get stuck in a war of attrition and would have to seek a diplomatic solution eventually, Arab diplomats who have spoken with the Iranians said.
Iranian officials said they thought Israel lacked a clear exit strategy and would need US help to do meaningful damage to targets such as the Fordow uranium-enrichment facility, which is buried under a mountain.
“The Iranians know the US is supporting Israel in its defence, and they are sure the US is supporting Israel logistically,” an Arab official said. “But they want guarantees the US won’t join the attacks.”
Iran has told Arab officials it could accelerate its nuclear program and expand the scope of the war if there are no prospects of resuming talks with the US
There is no indication Iran is ready to make new concessions in nuclear talks, the Arab intermediaries said. The diplomatic effort led by the Trump administration was stalled over Iran’s refusal to stop enriching uranium before the talks were cut short by Israel’s attacks last week.
Before the attack, a senior Israeli official said that an end to enrichment was the minimum Israel could accept from Iran. Israel and Gulf states are also concerned with Iran’s support for regional militias and its ballistic-missile program, which theoretically could come back up for discussion if Iran is backed into a sufficiently deep corner.
Israel has targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities and staff, as well as its military leadership. Over the weekend, Israel and Iran opened a new dimension to the conflict by striking at each other’s energy facilities. They are also inflicting mounting casualties on civilians.
Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman have been lobbying the US to pressure Israel to stop the fighting, Arab officials said.
They have warned the conflict could widen if Israel and Iran don’t return to the negotiating table – putting nearby energy assets at risk with potentially significant consequences for oil markets and the global economy.
US may step into Israel-Iran war as stranded Aussies plead for help
Donald Trump has warned that the US may enter the escalating war between Israel and Iran, as each side accuses the other of targeting civilians, and hundreds of Australians stranded in both countries plead for help to leave the region.
Israeli aircraft attacked Iran’s military leadership and nuclear infrastructure for a fourth day on Monday, while Iranian missiles continued to evade Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system, killing at least eight people and wounding almost 300.
The US President warned Iran that if it attacked the US “the full strength and might of the US armed forces will come down on you at levels never seen before”.
The US embassy in Israel suffered “minor damage” when an Iranian missile hit buildings just a few hundred metres away in Tel Aviv, but there were no injuries.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the government was “working on a range of plans” to evacuate citizens from Israel and Iran, but warned any assisted departure flights could begin only when it was “safe to do so” and current advice was to shelter in place.
Senator Wong said about 350 Australians had registered for assistance in leaving Iran and about 300 from Israel, but those numbers were expected to grow. The government has few immediate options for repatriation as Israeli and Iranian airspace is closed, and land routes out of both countries are restricted.
Anthony Albanese called for “dialogue and diplomacy” as he arrived in Canada for the G7 summit. “I have expressed before our concern about Iran gaining the capacity of nuclear weapons as something that is a threat to security in the region,” the Prime Minister said. “But we, along with other like-minded countries, do want to see that priority on dialogue and diplomacy.”
Chief of the Australian Defence Force David Johnston told the Defending Australia summit in Canberra on Monday that the strikes between Israel and Iran represented “a deeply concerning escalation”.
The risk of further regional instability was severe, “particularly recognising ongoing volatility across the Middle East region in Gaza, Syria and Yemen”, Admiral Johnston said.
All ADF personnel assigned to the region were safe, and the ADF would “continue to observe events closely to provide for their protection”, he said.
In Israel, eight people were killed and upwards of 300 wounded in overnight strikes, primarily in the central cities of Petah Tikva and Bnei Brak, with victims pulled from the rubble of apartment buildings hit by Iranian ballistic missiles.
Iran has now launched more than 370 missiles at Israel, along with hundreds of drones.
Israeli jets targeted fuel depots and oil refineries in Tehran, while an Iranian ballistic missile hit a power plant in northern Israel’s Haifa port, causing pipeline and transmission damage.
The conflict shows little sign of abating, with Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi claiming Iran still had “thousands of ballistic missiles” at its disposal, a higher figure than analysts had previously estimated.
“This is not a battle that over the long term will be able to bring an end to the Iranian threat,” Mr Hanegbi told Israeli Army Radio.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz condemned Iran’s missile attacks in social media post, vowing: “The residents of Tehran will pay the price, and soon.”
Israel was expected to order residents of various neighbourhoods in Tehran to evacuate, followed by strikes on infrastructure and government buildings, according to The Jerusalem Post. This was referred to as the “Beirut model,” an Israeli official told the newspaper.
The intelligence chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Kazemi, and his deputy, Hassan Mohaqiq, were killed in Israeli attacks on Tehran, with Israeli jets hitting Revolutionary Guard command centres housing the Quds Force, the foreign espionage arm of the Revolutionary Guards.
Traffic jams and long queues at petrol stations were reported as civilians rushed to escape the city.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the killing of at least nine nuclear scientists could set Iran back years in its attempts to build a nuclear weapon. However, some experts and former officials told The Wall Street Journal that Iran had developed sophisticated networks to preserve and pass its nuclear expertise to a new generation of scientists.
Israeli military planners believe airstrikes at Iran’s biggest enrichment facility, at Natanz, may have destroyed some of the 14,000 underground centrifuges at the plant.
Israel has also struck Iran’s nuclear supply chain at the Isfahan complex in central Iran, destroying a uranium conversion facility and a fuel fabrication plant for converting enriched uranium into the uranium metal required for a nuclear warhead.
However, it appears Israel has so far been unable to inflict serious damage on Iran’s most fortified nuclear enrichment facility, Fordow, which is built deep inside a mountainside near Iran’s holy city of Qom.
Military experts suggest it would require a bunker-busting bomb of a type only the US possesses to destroy the plant.
Mr Trump said the US was not involved in the conflict – contrary to reports that US aircraft and Patriot missile batteries were already assisting Israel’s aerial defence – but warned: “It’s possible we could get involved.
“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.”
In a series of unverified claims on Monday it was reported that Mr Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and that the US President was the target of two failed assassination attempts by Iran.
Israel boasted of its air superiority across Iran, posting footage it said showed an attack on Iranian troops seconds before they reached a surface-to-air missile launcher south of Tehran. And in a demonstration of its reach, Israel struck a refuelling aircraft at Mashhad in northeast Iran, 2300km from its own borders.
Israeli attacks have killed more than 400 people, including nearly 200 civilians, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a non-governmental monitoring organisation. The Iranian government has not disclosed casualty numbers but foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei claimed in a social media post that Israel was “killing children as a hobby” in its attacks, alleging it had targeted a children’s hospital in Tehran.
Iran announced that it had executed a man found guilty of spying for Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad. Iranian media separately showed what it claimed to be Iran security forces chasing and shooting at Mossad agents in a truck at night, but the video ends abruptly and there was no explanation of the outcome.
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