Media Report 2025.06.19
Palestine Israel Media Report Thursday 19 June 2025
Gazans fear they are being forgotten amid focus on Iran
While Israel’s war with Iran continues, Gazans are begging for help, saying their suffering is being ignored because of the new conflict.
“No one cares about Gaza. The massacres continue in silence,” Mahmoud Wadi, from northern Gaza, told the ABC.
The 21-year-old is one of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians whose life has been uprooted by Israel’s renewed offensive.
He now fears the focus on Iran will allow Israel to continue expanding its attacks and seizure of territory in Gaza.
“With the strike on Iran, we fear the war will intensify against us. We have no one left but God to turn to. We can only hope their focus shifts elsewhere, because what we’ve endured here, no one else has realised,” Mr Wadi said.
“It’s been over 600 days, and the bloodshed hasn’t stopped. We had only a brief pause, a few months of fragile respite, before it returned, even more brutal than before. Now we fear that it will continue here and it will continue with Iran.”
The United Nations said about 60 people were killed on Tuesday, many near a food distribution, one of a series of shootings around the new, Israeli-backed aid system.
The Israeli military said its troops opened fire when an aid truck got stuck near Israeli soldiers in the city of Khan Younis.
It said it was reviewing the incident.
The United Nations said 338 people (as of Wednesday) had been killed and more than 2,800 injured trying to get food from new sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private contractor with undisclosed funding sources, since they opened last month.
Israeli air strikes and artillery fire are also continuing, and Israel has ordered more Palestinians to leave new areas of Gaza.
Humanitarian organisation said essential services and healthcare were about to collapse because of ongoing Israeli restrictions on aid entering the strip.
“No fuel has entered Gaza for more than 100 days, and attempts to retrieve fuel stocks from evacuation zones have been denied,” the director of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a social media post.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs also warned that the lack of fuel would cut off other remaining essential services.
“Without immediate resupply, essential services — including the provision of clean water — will grind to a halt very soon. As we mentioned yesterday, in southern Gaza, diesel supplies needed to operate critical equipment are nearly exhausted,” the agency said.
Israel’s government and military have previously stated they were monitoring the humanitarian situation in Gaza and have been allowing aid in as needed.
The Israeli government has blamed aid groups coordinated by the United Nations for failures in delivering aid, although the UN said Israeli restrictions and attacks are the main obstacles to collecting and distributing aid.
The Israeli military has denied committing war crimes in Gaza, saying it tries to minimise civilian casualties.
Gazans told the ABC they feel abandoned and fear the focus on the Iran war will allow Israel to commit atrocities unnoticed.
“Despite the conflict with Iran, the bombardments here have resumed — more targeting, more killing. Even as they fight with other countries, their war against us has not stopped. It continues without pause,” Nabila Shanmar, from Gaza City, told the ABC.
“We fear that the strikes on Iran will only worsen our situation here. The crossings remain sealed, and we’ve endured this dire reality for a couple of years. Now, we brace for even darker days ahead.”
Other Gazans said they were not hopeful of any outside help and were now just expecting to die.
“The situation can’t possibly get any worse, we’ve already reached the lowest point imaginable. And if it does, it will mean we’re beyond caring because we’ll no longer be here,” Abu Mohammad, 68, from the central Gazan city of Deir al Balah said.
“More than the bombing of buildings with residents inside, massacres, what can be worse than that?”
Israel’s military campaign since October 2023 has killed over 55,600 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Israel launched its campaign aiming to destroy Hamas after the group’s October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 251 hostage.
The militants still hold 53 hostages, fewer than half of them alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Talk of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which previously ruled Gaza, has faded.
Israel has previously accused Iran of supporting Hamas and is presumed to have been responsible for killing Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh while he was visiting Tehran in 2024.
But ordinary Gazans said the new conflict was distracting Arab nations like Qatar which were working to end the war in Gaza.
“No country is looking at us as all Arab countries support the Americans and the Israelis,” Salah el Nabein, from Deir al Balah, said.
“All leaders like Qatar are busy with Iran. They have no time for us.
“The war is only growing worse. Gaza has faded from the headlines, forgotten by much of the world. Yet the suffering continues. People are starving, cut off from food, aid, and hope. There is no food left, there is nothing.”
“We feel helpless as the situation continues to deteriorate. Each day brings more loss, more martyrs than the day before. The toll keeps rising.
The international inattention, Israel’s highly controversial aid program and expanding offensive have left Gazans feeling trapped and believing Israel and the United States are about to force them to leave the strip.
“We feel like a laboratory or a huge animal zoo, where experiments are conducted on us,” Abu Mohammad said.
“The times ahead will be devastating, as they plan to forcibly deport all of us. An uprooting of an entire people, with no one to stand beside us or demand that we be spared.”
Donald Trump refuses to rule out US strikes as Iran-Israel conflict continues
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-19/trump-refuses-to-rule-out-us-strikes-on-iran-israel/105434796
Donald Trump has refused to say whether the US will order strikes on Iran, warning Tehran that “nobody knows what I’m going to do”.
The US president spoke to reporters outside the White House after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected Washington’s demand for “unconditional surrender” and warned a US intervention in the conflict with Israel would lead to “irreparable harm”.
Air strikes between Iran and Israel look set to enter a seventh day on Friday, with little sign of either side backing down.
On Wednesday, Mr Trump said his patience had “run out” but declined to say whether the US would join in Israeli strikes.
“I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” he said when asked directly if US forces would be involved.
He said Iranian officials had reached out about negotiations, including a possible meeting at the White House, but added it was “very late to be talking”.
Asked for his response to Ayatollah Khamenei defying the US’s demand for surrender, Mr Trump said: “I say, good luck.
“Unconditional surrender, that means I’ve had it,” he added.
A source familiar with internal discussions said Mr Trump and his team were considering options that included joining Israel in strikes against Iranian nuclear installations.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a Senate committee on Wednesday that the Pentagon was prepared to execute any order given by the president.
Israeli prime minister praises Trump
At a later press conference, Mr Trump repeated that he was yet to make a decision on whether to attack Iran, and said a change in Iran’s government “could happen”.
But the US president also kept the door open for a deal with the Islamic republic, noting that many of his domestic supporters “don’t want to see Iran get a nuclear weapon”.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a video released by his office on Wednesday evening, said Israel was “progressing step by step” towards eliminating threats posed by Iran’s nuclear sites and ballistic missile arsenal.
“We control the skies over Tehran. We are striking with tremendous force at the regime of the ayatollahs. We are hitting the nuclear sites, the missiles, the headquarters, the symbols of the regime,” Mr Netanyahu said.
He also thanked Mr Trump, “a great friend of the state of Israel”, for standing by its side in the conflict, saying the two were in continuous contact.
‘The people of Iran do not surrender’
In a televised address, Ayatollah Khamenei was defiant and said Iranians were standing “firm against an imposed war”.
“The people of Iran do not surrender to any kind of imposition,” he said.
The ayatollah also warned against American involvement, saying it would “eventuate in a worse outcome for America”.
“The entry of America in this matter, the entry of America’s military in this matter would cause irreversible damage to itself and it will have a greater impact on that nation than on Iran.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations also responded to Mr Trump in posts on X: “Iran does NOT negotiate under duress, shall NOT accept peace under duress, and certainly NOT with a has-been warmonger clinging to relevance,” it wrote.
Israeli strikes continued to hit the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Wednesday, with smoke seen billowing over the city’s skyline.
Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said Iran’s police headquarters was among the targets struck, while the Iranian Red Cross said a strike hit near its own building in Tehran.
“As we promised — we will continue to strike at symbols of governance and hit the ayatollah regime wherever it may be,” Mr Katz said.
Iranian officials have not issued updated casualty figures since Sunday, when they said 224 people had been killed by Israel’s military strikes.
Tehran’s ballistic strikes have so far killed 24 people in Israel.
Meanwhile, Iranians jammed the highways out of Tehran, fleeing from intensified Israeli air strikes.
Since Friday, Iran has fired around 400 missiles at Israel, some 40 of which have pierced through air defences, killing 24 people, all of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities.
In Israel, Iran’s missile volleys marked the first time in decades of shadow war and proxy conflict that a significant number of projectiles fired from Iran have penetrated defences, killing Israelis in their homes.
With Ayatollah Khamenei’s main military and security advisers killed, the leader’s inner circle has been narrowed, raising the risk that he could make strategic errors, according to five people familiar with his decision-making process.
Israelis seek to leave
Meanwhile, the threat of Iranian strikes left Israel’s largest city, Tel Aviv, uncharacteristically quiet.
It is usually choked with traffic and buzzing with activity but its residents have either fled to other parts of Israel or are staying at home close to shelters in case missile alerts ring out.
With the country’s main airport still closed and land border crossings clogged, some have boarded chartered boats in the marina in Herzliya to leave the country.
Miam resident Pauline Markowicz had been staying in Herzliya before deciding to leave the country.
A missile hit not far from where she was sheltering on Tuesday morning.
“I was supposed to leave yesterday — I got injured, I need surgery, I can’t get it done because it’s not important enough in the time of war,” she told the ABC, her arm in a sling.
“So this is really the best way to leave.
“I could have left through Jordan or Egypt, but it’s a long way — it’s not as safe, so this is my way to try and go home and get back to life.”
While many foreigners cross land borders in and out of Israel, it is less common for Israelis to do so.
Prices ranged from around 1,000 shekels ($440) for a chartered voyage taking more than 20 hours, to more than 10,000 shekels ($4,600) for a fast boat to Cyprus.
“I feel bad abandoning and leaving but I have to — you know, some people have to go,” passenger Roy Rankin said, who was hoping to get back to the United States.
“They look for the best option for them, this seems to be the best one for me.”
One of the boat charters usually operates as a sailing school.
“12 boats we have in our company, and we are going around the clock,” Captain Avi Moysa told the ABC.
“It’s a kind of madness about it — there is a lot of people that are stuck in Cyprus and there was a lot people that they want to go out from Israel to Cyprus, out anywhere.
“This is the only way now, these days it’s the only to go out from Israel.”
Iran bans filming
Inside Iran, authorities are intent on preventing panic and shortages.
Fewer images of destruction have been allowed to circulate than in the early days of the bombing, when state media showed pictures of explosions, fires and flattened apartments. A ban on filming by the public has been imposed.
The state has placed limits on how much fuel can be purchased. Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad told state TV that restrictions were in place to prevent shortages, but there would be no problem supplying fuel to the public.
A London-based online watchdog, Netblocks, on Wednesday also said Iran was experiencing a “near-total internet blackout”.
Trump rejects Putin’s mediation offer
Meanwhile, the US president has pushed back on his Russian counterpart’s offer to mediate an end to the conflict.
With his own army busy in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has in recent days put himself forward as the person to negotiate an end to hostilities between Israel and Iran.
But on Wednesday, Mr Trump appeared to rebuff that offer.
“He actually offered to help mediate, I said ‘do me a favour, mediate your own. Let’s mediate Russia first, okay?'” Trump told reporters at the White House.
“I said ‘Vladimir, let’s mediate Russia first, you can worry about this later.'”
Wealthy Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have also been involved in frantic diplomacy in recent days, fearing the conflict could spill across borders.
The UAE’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan said the Gulf country’s president had “conducted intensive diplomatic calls … to de-escalate tensions and prevent the conflict from spreading”.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also convened an emergency meeting of senior government officials to discuss the conflict and the possibility of US involvement.
Israel wants to topple Iran’s regime. New leadership won’t necessarily be friendly to the West
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-18/iran-regime-change-israel-scenarios/105430628
The timing and targets of Israel’s attacks on Iran tell us that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s short-term goal is to damage Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to severely diminish its weapons program.
But Netanyahu has made clear another goal: he said the war with Iran “could certainly” lead to regime change in the Islamic republic.
These comments came after an Israeli plan to assassinate the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was reportedly rebuffed by United States President Donald Trump.
It’s no secret Israel has wanted to see the current government of Iran fall for some time, as have many government officials in the US.
But what would things look like if the government did topple?
How is power wielded in today’s Iran?
Founded in 1979 after the Iranian Revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran has democratic, theocratic and authoritarian elements to its governing structure.
The founding figure of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, envisioned a state run by Islamic clerics and jurists who ensured all policies adhered to Islamic law.
As Iran was a constitutional monarchy before the revolution, theocratic elements were effectively grafted on top of the existing republican ones, such as the parliament, executive and judiciary.
Iran has a unicameral legislature (one house of parliament), called the Majles, and a president (currently Masoud Pezeshkian). There are regular elections for both.
But while there are democratic elements within this system, in practice it is a “closed loop” that keeps the clerical elite in power and prevents challenges to the supreme leader. There is a clear hierarchy, with the supreme leader at the top.
Khamenei has been in power for more than 35 years, taking office following Khomeini’s death in 1989. The former president of Iran, he was chosen to become supreme leader by the Assembly of Experts, an 88-member body of Islamic jurists.
While members of the assembly are elected by the public, candidates must be vetted by the powerful 12-member Guardian Council (also known as the Constitutional Council). Half of this body is selected by the supreme leader, while the other half is approved by the Majles.
The council also has the power to vet all candidates for president and the parliament.
In last year’s elections, the Guardian Council disqualified many candidates from running for president, as well as the Majles and Assembly of Experts, including the moderate former president Hassan Rouhani.
As such, the supreme leader is increasingly facing a crisis of legitimacy with the public. Elections routinely have low turnout. Even with a reformist presidential candidate in last year’s field — the eventual winner, Masoud Pezeshkian — turnout was below 40 per cent in the first round.
Freedom House gives Iran a global freedom score of just 11 out of 100.
The supreme leader also directly appoints the leaders in key governance structures, such as the judiciary, the armed forces and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The all-powerful IRGC
So, Iran is far from a democracy. But the idea that regime change would lead to a full democracy that is aligned with Israel and the US is very unlikely.
Iranian politics is extremely factional. Ideological factions, such as the reformists, moderates and conservatives, often disagree vehemently on key policy areas. They also jockey for influence with the supreme leader and the rest of the clerical elite. None of these factions is particularly friendly with the US, and especially not Israel.
There are also institutional factions. The most powerful group in the country is the clerical elite, led by the supreme leader. The next most powerful faction would be the IRGC.
Originally formed as a kind of personal guard for the supreme leader, the IRGC’s fighting strength now rivals that of the regular army.
The IRGC is extremely hardline politically. At times, the IRGC’s influence domestically has outstripped that of presidents, exerting significant pressure on their policies. The guard only vocally supports presidents in lockstep with Islamic revolutionary doctrine.
In addition to its control over military hardware and its political influence, the guard is also entwined with the Iranian economy.
The IRGC is heavily enriched by the status quo, with some describing it as a “kleptocratic” institution. IRGC officials are often awarded state contracts, and are allegedly involved in managing the “black economy” used to evade sanctions.
Given all of this, the IRGC would be the most likely political institution to take control of Iran if the clerical elite were removed from power.
In peacetime, the general consensus is the IRGC would not have the resources to orchestrate a coup if the supreme leader died. But in a time of war against a clear enemy, things could be different.
Possible scenarios post-Khamenei
So, what might happen if Israel were to assassinate the supreme leader?
One scenario would be a martial law state led by the IRGC, formed at least in the short term for the purposes of protecting the revolution.
In the unlikely event the entire clerical leadership is decimated, the IRGC could attempt to reform the Assembly of Experts and choose a new supreme leader itself, perhaps even supporting Khamenei’s son’s candidacy.
Needless to say, this outcome would not lead to a state more friendly to Israel or the US. In fact, it could potentially empower a faction that has long argued for a more militant response to both.
Another scenario is a popular uprising. Netanyahu certainly seems to think this is possible, saying in an interview in recent days:
The decision to act, to rise up this time, is the decision of the Iranian people.
Indeed, many Iranians have long been disillusioned with their government — even with more moderate and reformist elements within it. Mass protests have broken out several times in recent decades — most recently in 2022 — despite heavy retaliation from law enforcement.
We’ve seen enough revolutions to know this is possible — after all, modern Iran was formed out of one. But once again, new political leadership being more friendly to Israel and the West is not a foregone conclusion.
It is possible for Iranians to hold contempt in their hearts for both their leaders and the foreign powers that would upend their lives.
Iran’s ambassador to Australia calls on Canberra to condemn Israel over strikes
Iran’s ambassador to Australia has made a huge call on the Albanese government as the conflict with Israel deepens.
The Iranian ambassador to Australia has demanded the Albanese government condemn Israel as “the aggressor” in the midst of ongoing rocket strikes between the two Middle Eastern powers.
Ahmad Sadeghi said Iran would only come back to the negotiation table with the United States and other Western powers if they condemned Israel’s strikes on the Islamic Republic.
“When it comes to the Australian position, we ask Australia … a friendly nation … to condemn,” he said in an interview with David Speers on 7.30.
He said “you have to have the punishment of the aggressor”.
“If you let it go unpunished (and) the prime minister of this regime (Benjamin Netanyahu) declared publicly and arrogantly that ‘I ordered such an attack against Iran’,” he said.
The demand comes after planned talks between Iran and the United States were scrapped when Israel launched what it referred to as “pre-emptive” missile strikes on Tehran on June 13.
The initial volley on targets related to the Iranian nuclear program has been followed by repeated exchanges of rocket fire and drone strikes between the two nations.
Multiple civilian and military casualties have been reported on both sides.
Mr Sadeghi also denied Iran was working on a nuclear weapons program.
Earlier, Foreign Minister Penny Wong demanded Iran ends its nuclear weapons program as the conflict with Israel continues to escalate, putting “thousands” of Australians in the region at mortal risk.
Donald Trump has hinted the US could intervene in the Middle East and called for the Iranian regime’s “unconditional surrender”.
The US President’s comments have sparked speculation he was mulling a direct strike on a major uranium enrichment facility nestled deep in a mountainous region of Iran.
Israel does not have the firepower to destroy the site – only the US has the bunker-busting bombs needed.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Wednesday refused to comment on whether Washington intervening would better the situation but said the onus was on Iran to “come to the table”.
“I have been clear, the world has been clear, that any nuclear weapons program by Iran is a risk threat to global peace and security, as well as the security of the region,” Senator Wong told Sky News.
“The fastest way out of the danger that the world sees, that the region is experiencing and that the Iranian people are suffering under, is for Iran to come to the table and to stop any nuclear weapons program.”
The US has been bolstering its military position in the Middle East, including by deploying a second aircraft carrier.
Mr Trump has also posted on social media that the US knew “exactly where the so-called “Supreme Leader” is hiding”, referring to Iran’s leader Ayotollah Ali Khamenei.
“He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” he said.
“But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin.”
The thinly veiled warning came after he hastily bailed on the G7 summit in Canada and warned “everyone” to “evacuate Tehran”.
Senator Wong said the ball was in Iran’s court.
“Ultimately, the Iranian regime has to make a decision about whether it is going to continue down a path that is so perilous,” she said.
“As I’ll again say, Iran must come to the table, Iran must stop its nuclear weapons program.
“That is the fastest way out of the danger Iran and the world, the region and the people face at this point.”
Surge in evac requests
As of Wednesday morning, almost 2000 Australians were seeking government help to flee Israel and Iran.
The Albanese government has shut embassies across the Middle East, issued do not travel warnings and set up a national crisis team to assist citizens in the region.
Jim Chalmers said “more than 1000 Australians and family members in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories” had registered – more than tripling the number on Monday.
He said a further 870 had registered in Iran, where the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade have advised Australians to “shelter in place”.
“We’re monitoring developments in that very dangerous part of the world very closely,” the Treasurer told the ABC.
“Obviously, our major focus is on the human cost of this escalating conflict.
“There are economic costs as well. We’re monitoring both of those things, and I’ll be briefed on all of that in the next hour or so.”
Earlier, Richard Marles said there were “thousands of Australians in both Iran and Israel” and that the Albanese government expected the number requests for help would rise.
Speaking to Sky, the Deputy Prime Minister said the “fundamental issue” with evacuating Australians was “that the airspace over both Iran and Israel in fact is closed”.
“But as soon as there is any opportunity to pursue an assisted departure, we will,” Mr Marles said.
He added that he could not “give a definitive answer” on when that might be.
“What we’re doing is really working up all the options that we’ve got available to us so that when there is an opportunity we are in a position to provide those assisted departures,” he said.
“And in the meantime … we are advising Australians in the region to shelter in place.”
Mr Marles also confirmed DFAT was considering evacuations from Israel by land through Jordan.
“There has been some efforts there, but fundamentally what we are looking at is providing assisted departures by air when there is an opportunity for that to occur,” he said.
“And so they are really the contingencies that we are working up right now.”
‘What are these wars for?’: Arab town in Israel shattered by Iran strike
An Arab town in northern Israel paid a heavy price for the ongoing air war between Iran and Israel when a ballistic missile slammed into a home there, killing four people and upending life in the small community.
Hundreds of sobbing residents crowded the narrow streets of Tamra on Tuesday to watch as the wooden coffins adorned with colourful wreaths were carried to the town’s cemetery.
To some, the Iranian strike highlighted the unequal protections afforded Israel’s Arab minority, while to others, it merely underscored the cruel indifference of war.
Raja Khatib has been left to pick up the pieces from an attack that killed his wife, two of his daughters and a sister in law.
“I wish to myself, if only the missile would have hit me as well. And I would be with them, and I wouldn’t be suffering anymore,” Khatib told AFP.
“Learn from me: no more victims. Stop the war.”
After five days of fighting, at least 24 people have been killed in Israel and hundreds more wounded by the repeated barrages launched from Iran.
Israel’s sophisticated air defence systems have managed to intercept a majority of the missiles and drones targeting the country.
But some have managed to slip through.
With some projectiles roughly the size of a train carriage and carrying a payload that can weigh hundreds of kilograms, Iran’s ballistic missiles can be devastating upon impact.
A single strike can destroy large swaths of a city block and rip gaping holes in an apartment building, while the shockwave can shatter windows and wreak havoc on the surrounding area.
The level of destruction from the missiles has been unprecedented in Israel, even after 20 months of continuous war in the wake of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks.
Along with Tamra, barrages have also hit residential areas in Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak, Petah Tikva and Haifa.
– Discrimination –
As the coffins made their way through Tamra on Tuesday, a group of women tended to a relative of the victims who had become faint with grief, dabbing cold water on her cheeks and forehead.
At the cemetery, men embraced and young girls cried at the foot of the freshly dug graves.
Iran has continued to fire daily salvos since Israel launched a surprise air campaign that it says is aimed at preventing the Islamic republic from acquiring nuclear weapons — an ambition Tehran denies.
In Iran, Israel’s wide-ranging air strikes have killed at least 224 people, including military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians.
Despite mounting calls to de-escalate, neither side has backed off from the fighting.
In Israel, frequent air raid alerts have kept residents close to bomb shelters, while streets across the country have largely emptied and shops shuttered.
But some in the country’s Arab minority have said the government has done too little to protect them, pointing to unequal access to public shelters used to weather the barrages.
Most of Israel’s Arab minority identify as Palestinians who remained in what is now Israel after its creation in 1948. They represent about 20 percent of the country’s population.
The community frequently professes to face discrimination from Israel’s Jewish majority.
“The state, unfortunately, still distinguishes between blood and blood,” Ayman Odeh, an Israeli parliamentarian of Palestinian descent, wrote on social media after touring Tamra earlier this week.
“Tamra is not a village. It is a city without public shelters,” Odeh added, saying that this was the case for 60 percent of “local authorities” — the Israeli term for communities not officially registered as cities, many of which are majority Arab.
But for residents like Khatib, the damage has already been done.
“What are these wars for? Let’s make peace, for the sake of the two people,” he said.
“I am a Muslim. This missile killed Muslims. Did it differentiate between Jews and Muslims? No, when it hits, it doesn’t distinguish between people.”
Trump on Iran strikes: ‘I may do it, I may not do it’
President Donald Trump said he was considering Wednesday whether the United States will join Israeli strikes on Iran and said that Tehran had reached out to seek negotiations on ending the conflict.
Speaking as he watched installation of a new flagpole at the White House, Trump added that his patience “had already run out” with Iran and repeated his call for the Islamic republic’s “unconditional surrender.”
“I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn when asked if he had decided whether to launch US air strikes.
“I can tell you this, that Iran’s got a lot of trouble, and they want to negotiate.”
Trump said Iran had even suggested sending officials to the White House for talks on Tehran’s nuclear program in a bid to end Israel’s air assault, but added that it was “very late.”
“I said it’s very late to be talking. We may meet. There’s a big difference between now and a week ago, right? Big difference,” Trump added.
“They’ve suggested that they come to the White House. That’s, you know, courageous, but it’s, like, not easy for them to do.”
When asked if it was too late for negotiations, he said: “Nothing is too late.”
Trump had favored diplomatic route to end Iran’s nuclear program, seeking a deal to replace the one he tore up in his first term in 2018.
But since Israel launched strikes on Iran six days ago Trump has moved in behind the key US ally and is now weighing whether to use US military power against Tehran too.
– ‘I’ve had it’ –
Trump issued a series of bellicose statements on social media on Tuesday, saying that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was an “easy target” and calling for Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”.
Khamenei said Wednesday the nation would never surrender and warned the United States of “irreparable damage” if it intervenes.
Asked on Wednesday what he meant by his earlier statement, Trump replied: “Two very simple words. It’s very simple — unconditional surrender.”
“That means I’ve had it, okay? I’ve had it. I give up, no more, we go and blow up all the nuclear stuff that’s all over the place,” Trump said.
Trump meanwhile backed Prime Minister Benjamin Netahyahu to continue Israel’s offensive against Iran. Iran has hit back with salvos of ballistic missiles.
Asked what he had told Netanyahu in a call on Tuesday, he said: “Keep going. I speak to him every day, he’s a good man, doing a lot.”
The US president however rebuffed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer to mediate in the Israel-Iran conflict, saying Russia should end its own war in Ukraine first.
“He actually offered to help mediate, I said ‘do me a favor, mediate your own. Let’s mediate Russia first, okay? You can worry about this later,” Trump said.
Iran later denied it had offered to send officials to Washington.
“No Iranian official has ever asked to grovel at the gates of the White House,” Iran’s mission to the UN said in a post on X.
“The only thing more despicable than his lies is his cowardly threat to “take out” Iran’s Supreme Leader.”
Iranian opposition supporters grapple with US and Israeli regime change plans
‘We want freedom on our own terms,’ says one Tehran resident, while another writes, ‘Someone is helping us’
Despite a substantial internet blackout, news spread quickly in Iran on Tuesday night: the US was considering joining Israel in its war on Iran.
The US president, Donald Trump, wrote on Truth Social: “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now … Our patience is wearing thin.” Three minutes later, in a second post, he added: “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
When Mehnaz*, a 24-year-old student activist in east Tehran, heard the news, she did not think of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Instead, she thought of her fellow students who were detained, shot and executed by Iranian security forces during the “woman, life, liberty” protests in 2022.
“After Mahsa [Amini]’s death, we tried to stand up. Teenagers were shot point blank, our compatriots were hanged. We could never get rid of the Islamic Republic on our own. Now, someone from outside is helping us,” Mehnaz told the Guardian via text on Wednesday after a sleepless night of Israeli bombing.
The prospect of imminent US involvement in an Israeli bombing campaign, which is suggested to be in pursuit of regime change, has laid bare deep divides in Iran’s population, even among the opposition. Many are deeply suspicious of the US’s intentions in Iran, which has a bitter history of foreign adventurism gone awry. Others do not care who is the one to topple the government.
A large portion of Iran’s population is bitterly opposed to the government, which has only grown more repressive as the country slips deeper into economic crisis. Just two weeks ago, much of Iran was paralysed by a nationwide strike in protest at the dismal economic situation.
To some of the opposition, anything that could topple the Iranian government is welcome, whether it comes from street protests or US bunker busters.
Mehnaz said: “Yes, we’ll probably have massive destruction in Tehran and other cities, but this regime will fall – and then we can rebuild everything again.”
The toll of fighting – now in its sixth day – is growing. Israeli strikes have killed at least 585 people and wounded 1,326 others in Iran, according to Iranian media. At least 24 people have been killed and 600 injured by Iranian strikes in Israel.
Fighting started after Israel launched hundreds of pre-dawn strikes on Iran last Friday, which it said were aimed at preventing the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Iran quickly retaliated by firing a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel, kicking off a steadily escalating tit-for-tat war.
Israel’s assumption US would get drawn into Iran war is being put to the test
To Alborz*, an athlete from Tehran, the cost of Israeli bombing was already too high.
“I can’t explain how we pass each day, in fear. It feels like I am walking on a street of hot coal and having acid rain down on me,” Alborz said via text. “We want to get our freedom on our own terms, not through US bombs,” he added.
Iran has a long history of foreign intervention that has left the population suspicious of offers of help.
A 1953 coup that deposed the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, was backed by the CIA and MI6 to protect western oil interests. The intelligence plot features heavily in the national narrative of the current government, which overthrew the western-backed Shah of Iran in the country’s 1979 revolution.
The more recent 21st-century history of US adventurism in the Middle East has inspired further scepticism among Iranians.
“Look at Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq – they destroyed the countries, then walked away. It’s funny how they call this ‘exporting democracy’ while they always have paralysed all the democratic institutions in those countries,” Abbas*, a 26-year-old artist from west Tehran, said.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has called for Iran’s opposition to rise up, suggesting in an interview on Monday that his military operation could help liberate Iranians from an oppressive regime.
Netanyahu told the London-based opposition news outlet Iran International: “A light has been lit, carry it to freedom. This is the time, your hour of freedom is near, it’s happening now.”
His calls rang hollow in Iran, which has seen nightly news broadcasts of starvation, displacement and mass killings in Gaza over the last 36 months.
Abbas said: “Now Trump wants to unite with Israel – and people here are scared. If they come here like they did in other places, we will be left with nothing but ruins and extremist groups.”
While Israeli bombings have battered Iran, its security services have intensified their crackdown on dissidents and political organisation.
“Activists and former political prisoners have been rearrested. They’re basically targeting anyone who’s talking about the war,” said Bahar Ghandehari, the director of advocacy and communications at the US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran.
Iranian authorities have restricted internet access, detained activists, and on Saturday arrested 16 people on charges of “spreading rumours” on social media.
The renewed wave of oppression has hardened the desire for regime change for some of the opposition, who now find themselves having to deal not only with Israeli bombings but also fear of arrest.
“Yes, 585 people were killed in this war till now, but in four days of demonstration after Mahsa Amini’s killing, almost 1,000 people were killed by the regime,” said Mohammad Reza, a resident of Tehran in his 50s who took part in the 2022 protests.
Israel’s assumption US would get drawn into Iran war is being put to the test
Donald Trump initially appeared to discourage attacks but Israeli officials claim they always had his support
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/18/israels-iran-war-us-join-trump
Along the Ayalon highway, in the centre of Tel Aviv, two huge illuminated signs have appeared, portraying Donald Trump against a billowing stars-and-stripes backdrop and bearing the blunt appeal: “Mr President, finish the job!”
Israel’s attack on Iran may have been carried out with Trump’s approval, as government officials in Israel claim, but it appears to have been unleashed only in the expectation – rather than any certainty – that the US will ultimately be drawn into the war.
That assumption is now being put to the test as the US president weighs a decision on whether to join an assault he has increasingly embraced in his public pronouncements.
Israeli officials have said it would have been unthinkable for the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to have ordered the attack in the early hours of Friday morning against Trump’s wishes, and that there was little ambiguity about the US leader’s preferences.
“This president makes it pretty clear what he wants,” one of the officials said during a visit to a bomb site near Tel Aviv this week.
In the Israeli version of events, an agreement in principle dates back to a letter Trump sent to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in March, giving Iran 60 days to accept tight constraints on its nuclear programme. The clock started ticking on 12 April, the date of the first round of US-Iranian negotiations in Oman.
Netanyahu seems to have accepted the same 60-day window to hold off on military action and to give diplomacy a chance. He has said that Operation Rising Lion had originally been planned for April. It was postponed and last Thursday marked day 61 on Trump’s calendar. That night about 200 Israeli planes took off on their first sorties.
As the deadline approached, the US withdrew non-essential personnel from embassies in the Middle East, but Trump appeared to discourage an Israeli attack, saying it might “blow” the chances for a sixth round of negotiations due on Sunday.
It is unclear whether this was a ruse to put Iran off its guard, as some Israeli officials claimed, or a genuine call for a few more days leeway. If the latter, it was already too late.
The Israeli attack plan involved precise coordination. Mossad commandos and drones had been pre-positioned, and waiting several days for talks – which Trump was pessimistic about anyway – would have compromised the prospects for the whole operation as well as the safety of Israelis already behind Iranian lines.
The diplomatic option was almost certainly doomed from the start. After some initial wavering immediately after the Israeli attack began, Trump stuck to the inflexible and maximalist position that Iran stop enriching uranium permanently – now one of Israel’s primary war aims.
Once the operation had begun, Trump quickly swung his support behind it, noting on his Truth Social platform: “Two months ago I gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum to ‘make a deal’. They should have done it! Today is day 61. I told them what to do, but they just couldn’t get there. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!”
The “second chance” seemed to be an option to return to the table and bow to Trump’s demands, using the leverage of Israel’s military might to produce a diplomatic triumph for the president.
With every passing day of Israeli battlefield success, however, Trump has warmed to a military solution, declaring himself on Tuesday to be “not too much in the mood to negotiate”, and even claiming ownership of the campaign, announcing: “We now have complete and total control of the Iranian skies.”
Israel is counting on Trump to stake a direct claim to glory and join the operation, now that the risks of failure and downed planes have been minimised.
“The whole operation is premised on the fact that the US will join at some point,” an Israeli official told CNN.
“We are waiting for the decision of the president,” another senior official told the network.
Israel has yet to attack Iran’s most secure enrichment facility, at Fordow, which is built into a mountain with up to 100 metres of rock above it. Only the US air force has penetrating bombs of the size that have the best chance of making a dent in such defences, although even with those 13,000kg (30,000lb) munitions, success is not guaranteed.
As the war has progressed, so has the clamour in Israel for US involvement, along with uncertainty over whether Netanyahu has a plan B if Trump opts to watch from the sidelines.
“We need to hope that this actually happens, and possibly very soon,” the veteran commentator Ben Caspit wrote in Ma’ariv newspaper on Wednesday. “Take all the credit, Donald. The important thing is that you ultimately decide to join.”
Writing in Yedioth Ahronoth, Shimon Shiffer argued: “Without the involvement of the United States, the war with Iran will not reach a decisive conclusion that justifies our assault on the ayatollahs’ regime and the heavy price that Israeli citizens are paying with their lives and property.
“Mr President, come save the world,” Shiffer wrote. “Come save us from Iran. Come save us from ourselves.”
The warmongers were wrong about Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Now watch them make the same mistake about Iran
Israel is the main source of terror and instability in the Middle East. But the west continually turns away from this reality
As the G7 issues a statement declaring that Israel has a “right to defend itself”, you have a right to ask if you are losing your mind. Israel launched an unprovoked onslaught on Iran. Its excuse – that Tehran may acquire a nuclear weapon – renders its attack illegal under the UN charter, which forbids wars justified by the claim of a future threat.
“Iran is the principal source of regional instability and terror,” declares the G7 statement. Even though Donald Trump’s intelligence chief testified three months ago that the US intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon”. Even though it’s Israel that actually possesses nuclear weapons, while refusing to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and refusing International Atomic Energy Agency inspections. Even though, as progress was being made in nuclear talks between Iran and the US, Israel targeted Iran’s chief negotiator and proceeded to exterminate scientists, including their families, alongside countless other civilians, including children, an athlete, a teacher, a pilates instructor. Even though Israel’s leader is subject to an arrest warrant, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. And even though Israel has erased Gaza in a genocidal frenzy, and subjected the illegally occupied and colonised West Bank to an escalating pogrom, attacked southern Lebanon and Beirut, and invaded and occupied Syria. No country in the Middle East is as great a source of regional instability and terror as Israel: it’s not even close.
Yet even as polling shows that Britons overwhelmingly want no part in this literal crime, we hear the same tunes sung to demonise opponents of the latest carnage. Scottish politicians demanding peace “are siding with a mediaeval theocratic dictatorship”, declares former flagship BBC interviewer Andrew Neil. Recall how opponents of the Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya calamities were monstered as lackeys of Saddam Hussein, the Taliban and Muammar Gaddafi. Yet who, Mr Neil, was vindicated – catastrophically so?
Here is a tragedy paid with the blood of an estimated more than 4.5 million human souls – the combined number of direct and indirect deaths in the post-9/11 war zones, according to a Brown University study. There have been no reputational consequences for those who cheered on each calamity, allowing them to walk away whistling from each crime scene demanding yet more violence without shame. About six months before the Iraq invasion, and believing the war in Afghanistan to already be a great success, Neil wrote a column warning “the suburbs of Baghdad are now dotted with secret installations, often posing as hospitals or schools” which were developing chemical and biological weapons and, “most sinister of all, a renewed attempt to develop nuclear weapons”.
One sentence he deployed against advocates of peace should surely become the epitaph of the warmongers: “It is unclear how many more times they have to be wrong before we are released from the obligation to take them too seriously.” Benjamin Netanyahu, of course, shared his hubris, promising US Congress in 2002: “If you take out Saddam – Saddam’s regime – I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”
No amount of objective failure can change their minds. This fanaticism can only be sustained by mocking reality itself. Unlike Israel, the Iranian regime “targets civilians”, says a prime minister accused of war crimes. At the same time, an Israeli military spokesperson brands Tehran a “terror regime” because of these killings. The concept of terrorism, in practice, has come to mean violence perpetrated by regimes and militants hostile to the west, used to portray such acts as illegitimate and immoral, unlike the vastly more lethal missiles and bullets of Tel Aviv and Washington.
Israel’s gall is something to behold. It has butchered tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza – mostly women and children – yet 24 Israelis killed by Iranian attacks apparently exposes the unique evil of Tehran’s regime. More than twice as many hungry Palestinians looking for food in Gaza were slaughtered in a single massacre by Israeli troops overnight: note how this mass killing receives the tiniest fraction of media attention. There is no attempt to disguise this hierarchy of death. A comprehensive new report on the BBC’s reporting of the Gaza genocide finds that each Israeli fatality received 33 times more coverage than each Palestinian. The west’s facilitation of Israel’s atrocities relies on treating Arab and Iranian lives as worthless.
Iran, too, of course, has a legal responsibility to avoid killing Israeli civilians. As Kenneth Roth, former Human Rights Watch director, observes: “Israel’s close intermingling of military and civilian sites makes it difficult to know what Iran is aiming its missiles at.” In Gaza, this was defined as using civilians as “human shields”, but no such standards are applied to Israel. This narrative was used to wipe Gaza from the face of the Earth, even as Israel used actual Palestinian human shields on an industrial scale.
You may indeed feel like you are losing your mind. After all, Israel’s military has reportedly committed every war crime under the sun. It attacked Iran without evidence or provocation. The same cheerleaders for past bloodbaths strut around advocating yet more slaughter as though recent history never happened, while opponents of dropping bombs on terrified civilians are once more smeared as dangerous extremists. Yet western states issue a statement portraying the genocidal, expansionist, nuclear-armed Israeli state as the victim, and our government refuses to rule out military support for Tel Aviv.
The truth is you are not losing your mind. The actual mad men are those in power. And unless they finally face a reckoning, the abyss awaits.
Israeli strikes shake foundation of Iran’s theocratic rule
Iran’s embattled leaders have found themselves in an existential struggle domestically to protect nearly a half-century of rule, as Israel pounds the military, government and population.
The US and Israel have made it clear that even Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, could be a target. “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” President Trump posted on social media. “He is an easy target, but is safe there — We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.”
Israel’s attacks have demonstrated how thoroughly its intelligence agency, Mossad, has penetrated Iran. Israel killed the region’s top military commanders and nuclear scientists, bombed oil-and-energy infrastructure as well as Iran’s state broadcaster, and sent tens of thousands fleeing from Tehran.
“What the last four days has done is create a real rupture in the social contract that has existed at least for the last two decades,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations. That contract, between the regime and its people, “has been anchored on this promise of security from the state in return for severely restricted political, social and increasingly economic rights.”
Iran has already had to replace at least six top military commanders killed by Israel since Friday. Its powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which oversees the nation’s security, has gone into damage-control mode.
Following intelligence failures that allowed Israel to kill military commanders and scientists inside their homes with ease, the Revolutionary Guard has gone on a propaganda offensive. State media outlets have published story after story about the IRGC finding cells working for Mossad, often without offering evidence.
On Wednesday, the IRGC said several Israeli “agents and mercenaries” were arrested in central Iran. It urged residents to “be vigilant regarding the movements of neighbours who have recently settled in the area.”
An Israeli military official said these reports were fake and part of misinformation the Iranians are spreading “in efforts to create the appearance of success.” The Israeli prime minister’s office didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
“The political, military, security establishment is trying to regain control of that narrative and that social contract to say we can protect you,” said Geranmayeh. “It’s a real challenge to repair. That social contract is now the biggest challenge for them internally.”
In a televised message on Wednesday, Khamenei vowed to resist Israel and denounced Trump’s “threatening and vulgar” remarks, saying they “have no effect on the Iranian people’s thoughts or actions.”
“The United States must know that our people will not surrender, and any military intervention by them will lead to irreparable consequences,” Khamenei said.
The theocracy was already under pressure before the war erupted. Israel’s military has battered its allied militias, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Gaza’s Hamas. Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, a close ally of Tehran, was toppled in December. Israel killed a top Hamas leader while he was visiting Tehran last year and several Iranian commanders in the region.
Meanwhile, ordinary Iranians were reeling from economic sanctions. Before Friday’s strikes, Iran was under pressure to clinch a deal to end US sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. The value of the country’s currency has plummeted since November. And Iran’s gross domestic product had fallen 45 per cent since 2012.
Before the war, protests were becoming more frequent in response to the economic strains. Nurses and telecommunications workers protested delayed payments. Retired teachers demonstrated in front of parliament over delays in welfare payments. Shoemakers and other merchants in Tehran’s main bazaar staged a rare strike in December over high inflation.
Israel’s strikes in recent days have amplified the pressure dramatically. The value of the Iranian currency has lost 13 per cent. Israel’s strikes on natural-gas plants along the Persian Gulf and an oil depot and refinery in Tehran may worsen an energy crisis. It has forced schools, cement factories and pharmaceutical plants to shut down.
“The Islamic Republic is, in essence, losing control of what is going on inside Iran, on at least the symbolic level,” said Rasmus Christian Elling, associate professor of Iranian studies at the University of Copenhagen. “The open question is whether there are enough people still actively participating to meet these challenges and actually do their job. In many ways, the Islamic Republic is helpless right now.”
Some dissident groups based in the US and Europe have supported Israel’s strikes and called for regime change, while other Iranian activists have called for the regime to give up uranium enrichment. But some groups have expressed nationalist sentiments and denounced Israel’s attacks.
To be sure, there have been no visible signs of dissent inside Iran so far. The government has restricted access to the internet and warned against publishing social-media posts considered supportive of Israel. Five people were arrested in the central city of Yazd on Sunday for “attempting to disturb public opinion” by sending postings online, according to semi-official news agency ISNA.
Besides, most Iranians at the moment are too busy trying to escape Israel’s air strikes, analysts said. “This should be quite a strong indicator to President Trump that if you are bombing a nation from the outside, it’s going to be very hard for them to organise on the inside for a political opposition or a transition,” said Geranmayeh.
Iran’s reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is also weakened. His policy to open up to the West to get sanctions relief failed. That is giving Iran’s hardliners the upper hand, though they are now compromised as well for not protecting Iran from Israel’s strikes.
“The system is under immense strain since neither reform nor force is working,” said Mostafa Pakzad, chairman of Pakzad Consulting, who advises foreign companies on Iranian geopolitics and isn’t currently in the country. “The June 13 Israeli strikes and the death of IRGC leaders have shattered the illusion of strategic control. With no reformist credibility and declining coercive legitimacy, the regime is losing both of its traditional legs.”
Some Iranian officials are worried the country could simply fracture along ethnic lines, say Iranian and Arab diplomats. Iran is populated with Arab, Azeri and Kurdish minorities to the west and Baluch to the east, all of which have separatist aspirations.
In some ways, decisions taken by Khamenei have returned to haunt him. The architect behind Iran’s military expansion in the Middle East, he and his senior advisers underestimated Israel’s desire to confront them. As early as February, Khamenei was made aware of a plan for massive Israeli air strikes, but when Israel attacked last week, he and his advisers were caught off guard.
Khamenei’s death would trigger more uncertainty in Iran. The death in a helicopter crash last year of his presumed successor, Ebrahim Raisi, has left the theocracy with no transparent plans for succession, though Khamenei’s son is considered a contender. One scenario is that Khamenei’s death would lead to military rule in Iran led by hardliners favouring a nuclear weapon to deter Israel.
“If Khamenei were to die for one reason or another in the middle of this war, in order to prevent a vacuum, the Revolutionary Guard and all the regular military would step in and take control of the situation,” said Elling. “There is no clear religious leader waiting in the corridors that will have popular support and also religious legitimacy.”
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei readies for violent end to Iran-Israel conflict
The war in Iran risks spiralling into a devastating regional conflict after the country’s Supreme Leader issued a rallying call to his people and Donald Trump edged closer to green-lighting direct US strikes to destroy Tehran’s nuclear program once and for all.
As Israel continued to pound Iran’s nuclear sites and White House officials said all options were on the table, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared “the battle begins” and transferred key powers to his Revolutionary Guard Corps to ensure continuity of power if he was assassinated.
Earlier, in a flurry of social media posts, the US President called for Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”, and declared: “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.”
Mr Trump, who had an 80-minute meeting with top advisers in the White House situation room on Wednesday AEST, said he was seeking a “real end” to the conflict, having previously dismissed calls for a ceasefire.
The President said “we know exactly where the so-called Supreme Leader is hiding” and that his patience with Khamenei was “wearing thin”. But he said no decision had been made to take out Khamenei “for now”.
The warning came as Israel’s military said more than 50 of its fighter jets had launched overnight strikes on weapons manufacturing sites and a facility used to make centrifuges in Tehran.
Despite damage to key facilities, experts believe America’s Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs, known as “bunker busters”, will be needed to destroy Iran’s deeply buried Fordow nuclear facility.
Khamenei responded defiantly to the Israeli attacks and US warnings, declaring on X: “In the name of the noble Haidar, the battle begins.”
“Haidar” refers to Shia Islam’s first imam and successor to the prophet Mohammed.
The Supreme Leader, whose regime faces an existential threat, added on his English-language account: “We must give a strong response to the terrorist Zionist regime. We will show the Zionists no mercy.”
Khamenei, who has lost at least 14 of his top nuclear scientists and 16 of his military leaders to surgical Israeli strikes, reportedly transferred a “significant proportion” of his power to the Revolutionary Guards Supreme Council to ensure the continuation of the war effort if he was killed. “According to the IRGC regulations, the Supreme Council of the IRGC oversees the performance of the IRGC commander at the request of the leader,” the dissident website Iran International said.
The US has ordered at least 30 air-to-air refuellers to the region to support fleets of F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning fighters, as a second US carrier strike group steams towards the Middle East from the South China Sea.
It is weighing the prospect of retaliatory strikes by Iran on US military sites in the Middle East if it enters the conflict. There are also fears US involvement could unleash waves of cyber attacks, reactivate Iranian proxies in Yemen and Lebanon, and unleash a new era of Islamic terrorism.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Iran had launched more than 400 missiles and hundreds of drones at Israel since the Jewish state launched strikes on its enemy last Friday.
Iran claimed it launched Fattah-1 hypersonic missiles at Israel before dawn, local time, on Wednesday, saying the weapons were “repeatedly shaking the shelters” in Tel Aviv.
Twenty-four Israelis have been killed and 800 wounded, while at least 224 people have been killed in Iran since the strikes began, according to Iranian authorities.
The exiled son of Iran’s last shah, Reza Pahlavi, said the Islamic Republic was collapsing and called on Iranians to rise up.
The US-based dissident said a transitional plan was in place and urged Iran’s military not to defend the country’s “decaying” system.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Israel was doing the “dirty work” for other countries by striking at Iran’s nuclear sites.
“I can only say I have the greatest respect for the fact that the Israeli army and the Israeli government had the courage to do this,” Mr Merz told German media at the G7 summit.
After days of calling for de-escalation by both Iran and Israel, Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong shifted her language, declaring Tehran “must come to the table” and end its nuclear program.
“That is the fastest way out of danger for the globe, for the region, and for the Iranian people,” Senator Wong said.
US Vice President JD Vance added to mounting speculation the America could join Israel’s war effort, saying Mr Trump “may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment”.
“And of course, people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy,” Mr Vance said. “But I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue.”
Democratic congressman John Fetterman urged the administration to take out Khamenei and use its bunker-buster bombs to destroy the Fordow uranium-enrichment facility.
“Take this facility out,” Mr Fetterman told Fox News.
“Use the B-2 and those gigantic bunker buster ones and partner up with Israel.”
Republican senator Lindsey Graham said on Fox News that Mr Trump should be “all-in on helping Israel eliminate the nuclear threat”. “If we need to provide bombs to Israel, provide bombs,” Mr Graham said. “If we need to fly planes with Israel, do joint operations. But here is the bigger question: wouldn’t the world be better off if the ayatollahs went away and were replaced with something better?”
The prospect of US intervention in the war has divided Mr Trump’s MAGA base, after the President’s repeated vows to end US involvement in “forever wars”.
“Anyone slobbering for the US to become fully involved in the Israel-Iran war is not America First-MAGA,” said staunch Trump ally, Republican senator Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“Real America First/MAGA wants world peace for all people and doesn’t want our military killed and forever injured physically and mentally … I don’t want to see Israel bombed or Iran bombed or Gaza bombed.”
She said that taking this position was not anti-Semitic but was “rational, sane, and loving toward all people”.
Mr Trump has repeatedly said that Iran “cannot have a nuclear power”, and earlier posted a message on Truth Social that he received from the US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. It said the US President had been spared by God from assassination in last year’s election campaign “to be the most consequential president in a century – maybe ever”.
“The decisions on your shoulders I would not want to be made by anyone else,” the message said.
“You have many voices speaking to you Sir, but there is only ONE voice that matters. HIS voice. I trust your instincts. No president in my lifetime has been in a position like yours. Not since Truman in 1945.”
Kunafa chef charged for chanting ‘All Zionists are terrorists’ at pro-Palestinian rallies
Victoria Police will argue in court that chanting “all Zionists are terrorists” in public is anti-Semitic and effectively brands the majority of Jewish Australians as such, in a major legal test of hate speech laws targeting pro-Palestinian activists.
Summary of statement documents obtained by The Australian reveal Victoria Police deemed the controversial chant “anti-Semitic” and considered the use of it as an “affront” to the Jewish community while pressing charges against activists.
The documents concern charging kunafa chef Jad Awwad Abu Alsendyan under Section 17(1) of the state’s Summary Offences Act – which prohibits profane, indecent or obscene language – for allegedly saying “all Zionists are terrorists” at pro-Palestinian rallies.
If proven, the crime is punishable with two months’ prison for the first offence, three months for the second, and six months for three or more.
Mr Alsendyan, who owns the popular Kunafeh House food truck, is facing two charges.
The 48-year-old activist is widely regarded in Melbourne’s Middle Eastern community for making Nablus-style kunafa (Palestinian dessert).
Police allege Mr Alsendyan led the chant during the Protest Until Ceasefire rally in Melbourne’s CBD on April 6, using a megaphone to amplify the slogan. Detectives say they relied on footage shared by pro-Palestinian groups online to identify him and other participants.
“During the march, the accused was walking at the head of the march with a megaphone,” the informant’s summary states.
“The accused chanted ‘all Zionists are terrorists’ a total of three times, encouraging the protest group to chant in unison by saying ‘Louder!’
“The chant ‘all Zionists are terrorists’ was deemed to be anti-Semitic and offensive language as it categorises the majority of the Australian Jewish community as terrorists, seen as an affront to that community.”
Speaking to Mr Alsendyan, detectives asked him how he would define the chant.
“Everyone in the protest, they chant. So all the thousands of people they chant,” he said.
“We didn’t say anything bad. We didn’t attack any person or any religion or any country.”
The conflation between Zionism and anti-Semitism has been a flashpoint in public discourse since October 2023, complicating debates around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and freedom of speech in Australia.
Pro-Palestinian supporters argue that Zionism is a settler-colonial ideology that led to the displacement of Palestinians in 1948 (the Nakba). They see it as the driving force behind the establishment of Israel on land they consider historically Palestinian. But mainstream Jewish organisations in Australia argue that activists had been hiding behind the “Zionist” euphemism to vilify Jews.
Mr Alsendyan told The Australian he planned on camping outside the Melbourne Magistrates Court until his case was heard later this month.
Rule of Law Institute of Australia vice-president Chris Merritt said the decision by police to use the Summary Offences Act raised the question of why it was not used earlier.
“This act has been on the statute books since 1966 and imposes jail time for public threats, abuse and insults – conduct that is now a regular occurrence on the streets of Melbourne,” Mr Merritt said.
“It has a much broader reach than Victoria’s recently enacted anti-vilification law, which appears incapable of protecting Zionists from vilification.
“But Zionism, or support for the Jewish homeland, is a political belief that is not determined by race or religion. And vilification on the basis of political belief is not one of the new law’s protected attributes.”
He said while the Summary Offences Act carried lesser penalties, it was not restricted by definitions based on race, religion or other specific characteristics.
It is understood a total of five activists have been charged by Victoria Police for using the chant.
At least 59 Palestinians killed waiting for aid, medics say
The Age (& Sydney Morning Herald)
At least 59 Palestinians were killed when Israeli tanks fired into a crowd trying to get aid from trucks in Gaza, according to medics, in one of the bloodiest incidents yet in mounting violence as desperate residents struggle for food.
Video shared on social media from the Tuesday incident showed around a dozen mangled bodies lying in a street in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. The Israeli military, at war with Hamas-led Palestinian militants in Gaza since October 2023, acknowledged firing in the area and said it was looking into the incident.
Witnesses interviewed by Reuters said Israeli tanks had fired at least two shells at a crowd of thousands who had gathered on the main eastern road through Khan Younis in the hope of obtaining food from aid trucks that use the route.
“All of a sudden, they let us move forward and made every one gather, and then shells started falling, tank shells,” said Alaa, an eyewitness, inter viewed by Reuters at Nasser Hospital, where wounded victims lay sprawled on the floor and in corridors due to the lack of space.
“No one is looking at these people with mercy. The people are dying, they are being torn apart, to get food for their children. Look at these people, all these people are torn to get flour to feed their children.”
Palestinian medics said at least 59 people were killed and 221 wounded in the incident, at least 20 of them in critical condition. Casualties were being rushed into the hospital in civilian cars, rickshaws and donkey carts. It was the worst death toll in a single day since aid resumed in Gaza in May.
In a statement, the Israel Defence Forces said: “Earlier today, a gathering was identified adjacent to an aid distribution truck that got stuck in the area of Khan Younis and in proximity to IDF troops operating in the area. The IDF is aware of reports regarding a number of injured individuals from IDF fire following the crowd’s approach. The details of the incident are under review. The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimise harm as much as possible to them while maintaining the safety of our troops.”
Medics said at least 14 others were also killed by Israeli gunfire and airstrikes elsewhere in the densely populated enclave, taking Tuesday’s overall death toll to at least 73. The Health Ministry said 397 Palestinians trying to get food aid had been killed and more than 3000 wounded since late May.
The incident was the latest in nearly daily large-scale killings of Palestinians seeking aid in the three weeks since Israel partially lifted a total blockade on the territory it had imposed for nearly three months.
UN officials say Israeli military restrictions, a breakdown of law and order, and wide spread looting make it difficult to deliver the aid Israel has allowed in. Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for OCHA, said the aid Israeli authorities have allowed into Gaza since late May had been “woefully insufficient.”
Israel has been channelling much of the aid it is now allowing into Gaza through a new US- and Israeli-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates a handful of distribution sites in areas guarded by Israeli forces.
“The incident in question did not occur at a GHF site, but rather near a United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) location,” the foundation said of the incident on Tuesday. The UN rejects the GHF de livery system as inadequate, dangerous and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules. Israel says it is needed to prevent Hamas fighters diverting aid, which Hamas denies.
Gaza authorities say hundreds of Palestinians have been killed trying to reach GHF sites. The GHF said in a press release it had distributed more than three million meals at its four sites without incident.
The Gaza war was triggered in October 2023, when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli allies. Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Nearly the entire population of 2.3 million has been displaced.
Palestinians have kept an eye on the new air war between Israel and Iran, a major sup porter of Hamas. Gaza residents have circulated images of buildings in Israel wrecked by Iranian missiles, some saying they are happy to see Israelis experiencing a measure of the fear they have endured.
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