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Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Israel says it killed a top Iranian general as Trump warns people to flee Iranian capital

by

GUARDIAN MEDIA NEWSROOM
35 days ago
20250617
Smoke rises from the building of Iran's state-run television after an Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo)

Smoke rises from the building of Iran's state-run television after an Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Is­rael claimed Tues­day to have killed a top Iran­ian gen­er­al as it trad­ed more strikes with its long­time foe, and U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump warned res­i­dents of Tehran to evac­u­ate while sug­gest­ing that the Unit­ed States could give up on ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Trump left the Group of Sev­en sum­mit in Cana­da a day ear­ly to deal with the con­flict be­tween Is­rael and Iran, telling re­porters on Air Force One dur­ing the flight back to Wash­ing­ton: “I’m not look­ing at a cease­fire. We’re look­ing at bet­ter than a cease­fire.”

When asked to ex­plain, he said the U.S. want­ed to see “a re­al end” to the con­flict that could in­volve Iran “giv­ing up en­tire­ly.” He added: “I’m not too much in the mood to ne­go­ti­ate.”

Trump’s hard line added to the un­cer­tain­ty roil­ing the re­gion on the fifth day of Is­rael’s air cam­paign aimed at Iran’s mil­i­tary and nu­clear pro­gram. Res­i­dents of Tehran fled their homes in droves, and the U.N. nu­clear watch­dog for the first time said Is­raeli strikes on Iran’s main en­rich­ment fa­cil­i­ty at Natanz had al­so dam­aged its main un­der­ground sec­tion, not just an above-ground fa­cil­i­ty, as pre­vi­ous­ly ac­knowl­edged.

Is­rael says its sweep­ing as­sault on Iran’s top mil­i­tary lead­ers, nu­clear sci­en­tists, ura­ni­um en­rich­ment sites and bal­lis­tic mis­sile pro­gram is nec­es­sary to pre­vent its ad­ver­sary from get­ting any clos­er to build­ing an atom­ic weapon. The strikes have killed at least 224 peo­ple in Iran.

Iran has re­tal­i­at­ed by launch­ing some 400 mis­siles and hun­dreds of drones at Is­rael. So far, 24 peo­ple have been killed in Is­rael.

Is­rael tar­gets more Iran­ian lead­ers

The head of the op­er­a­tions di­rec­torate of the Is­raeli mil­i­tary, Maj. Gen. Oded Ba­siuk, said Is­rael con­tin­ued to strike Iran’s lead­er­ship “to deep­en our achieve­ments, ac­cord­ing to our plan and on our own time­line.” The mil­i­tary claimed to have killed an­oth­er top Iran­ian gen­er­al in a strike on Tehran.

Iran did not im­me­di­ate­ly com­ment on the re­port­ed killing of Gen. Ali Shad­mani, whom Is­rael de­scribed as the most se­nior mil­i­tary com­man­der in Iran.

Shad­mani was lit­tle-known in the coun­try be­fore be­ing ap­point­ed last week to a chief-of-staff-like role as head of the para­mil­i­tary Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard’s Khatam al-An­biya Cen­tral Head­quar­ters. That ap­point­ment fol­lowed the killing of his pre­de­ces­sor, Gen. Gho­lam Ali Rashid, in an Is­raeli strike.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary al­so an­nounced on two oc­ca­sions Tues­day that Iran had fired new salvos of mis­siles but said most were in­ter­cept­ed.

Mean­while, Iran’s state-run IR­NA news agency re­port­ed Is­raeli airstrikes around the city of Is­fa­han, with air de­fens­es al­so fir­ing. A se­ries of ex­plo­sions and an­ti-air­craft fire boomed through­out Tehran just be­fore 6:30 p.m.

Shops closed, lines for gas in Iran’s cap­i­tal

Echo­ing an ear­li­er Is­raeli mil­i­tary call for some 330,000 res­i­dents of a neigh­bor­hood in down­town Tehran to evac­u­ate, Trump warned on so­cial me­dia that “every­one should im­me­di­ate­ly evac­u­ate Tehran.”

Tehran is one of the largest cities in the Mid­dle East, with around 10 mil­lion peo­ple, rough­ly equiv­a­lent to the en­tire pop­u­la­tion of Is­rael. Peo­ple have been flee­ing since hos­til­i­ties be­gan.

Asked why he had urged the evac­u­a­tion of Tehran, Trump said: “I just want peo­ple to be safe.”

Down­town Tehran emp­tied out ear­ly Tues­day, with many shops shut­tered, even the an­cient Grand Bazaar, which has closed on­ly in times of cri­sis, such as dur­ing the 2022 an­ti-gov­ern­ment protests and the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic.

On the roads out of Tehran to the west, traf­fic stood bumper to bumper. Many mid­dle- and up­per-class Ira­ni­ans were head­ed to the Caspi­an Sea, a pop­u­lar get­away spot. Long lines snaked from Tehran’s gas sta­tions. Plac­ards and bill­boards across the city called for a “se­vere” re­sponse to Is­raeli strikes.

Au­thor­i­ties asked all med­ical staff to re­main on du­ty.

Iran’s of­fi­cial death toll still stands at 224, but Hu­man Rights Ac­tivists, a Wash­ing­ton-based group that mon­i­tors Iran, said it had count­ed at least 452 deaths as a re­sult of the Is­raeli cam­paign. The group cross­checks lo­cal re­ports in the Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic against a net­work of sources it has de­vel­oped in the coun­try.

Nu­clear agency re­ports more dam­age to en­rich­ment site

The In­ter­na­tion­al Atom­ic En­er­gy Agency said Tues­day that it be­lieved that Is­rael’s first aer­i­al at­tacks on Iran’s Natanz en­rich­ment site had di­rect­ly af­fect­ed the fa­cil­i­ty’s un­der­ground cen­trifuge fa­cil­i­ty.

Satel­lite im­agery col­lect­ed af­ter Fri­day’s at­tacks showed “ad­di­tion­al el­e­ments that in­di­cate di­rect im­pacts on the un­der­ground en­rich­ment halls,” the watch­dog said.

Lo­cat­ed 220 kilo­me­tres (135 miles) south­east of Tehran, the Natanz fa­cil­i­ty was for­ti­fied by an­ti-air­craft bat­ter­ies, fenc­ing and Iran’s para­mil­i­tary Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard.

The IAEA ear­li­er re­port­ed that Is­raeli strikes had de­stroyed an above-ground en­rich­ment hall at Natanz and knocked out elec­tri­cal equip­ment that pow­ered the fa­cil­i­ty.

How­ev­er, most of Iran’s en­rich­ment takes place un­der­ground to pro­tect from airstrikes.

Is­rael has struck Natanz re­peat­ed­ly and claims to have hurt its un­der­ground fa­cil­i­ties, which ex­perts as­sess con­tain 10,000 cen­trifuges that en­rich ura­ni­um up to 60%. But Tues­day’s IAEA state­ment marked the first time the agency has ac­knowl­edged dam­age there.

Iran main­tains its nu­clear pro­gram is peace­ful, and the U.S. and oth­ers have as­sessed that Tehran has not had an or­ga­nized ef­fort to pur­sue a nu­clear weapon since 2003. But the IAEA has re­peat­ed­ly warned that the coun­try has enough en­riched ura­ni­um to make sev­er­al nu­clear bombs should it choose to do so.

While Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu claimed Mon­day that Is­raeli strikes on Iran’s nu­clear sites have set the coun­try’s nu­clear pro­gram back a “very, very long time,” Is­rael has not been able to reach Iran’s For­do ura­ni­um en­rich­ment fa­cil­i­ty, which is built deep in­to a moun­tain­side.

Hit­ting For­do would re­quire the U.S. to get in­volved mil­i­tar­i­ly and de­ploy B-2 stealth bombers to drop its bunker-bust­ing bomb. The 30,000-pound (14,000-kilo­gram) GBU-57 Mas­sive Ord­nance Pen­e­tra­tor us­es its weight and sheer ki­net­ic force to reach deeply buried tar­gets.

Trump leaves G7 ear­ly to fo­cus on con­flict

Be­fore leav­ing the sum­mit in Cana­da, Trump joined the oth­er lead­ers in a joint state­ment say­ing that Iran “can nev­er have a nu­clear weapon” and call­ing for a “de-es­ca­la­tion of hos­til­i­ties in the Mid­dle East, in­clud­ing a cease­fire in Gaza.”

French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron told re­porters that dis­cus­sions were un­der­way on a cease­fire be­tween Is­rael and Iran, but Trump shot that down in his com­ments on so­cial me­dia.

Macron “mis­tak­en­ly said that I left the G7 Sum­mit, in Cana­da, to go back to D.C. to work on a ‘cease fire’ be­tween Is­rael and Iran,” Trump wrote. “Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Wash­ing­ton, but it cer­tain­ly has noth­ing to do with a Cease Fire. Much big­ger than that.”

Al­though Trump ap­peared to de­mand a full sur­ren­der from Iran af­ter leav­ing the G7, he al­so in­di­cat­ed that diplo­mat­ic talks re­mained an op­tion. He said he could send Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance and spe­cial en­voy Steve Witkoff to meet with the Ira­ni­ans.

“I may,” he said. “It de­pends on what hap­pens when I get back.” —DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (AP)

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Sto­ry by JOSEPH KRAUSS, JON GAM­BRELL, NA­TAL­IE MELZ­ER and MELANIE LID­MAN | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Na­tal­ie Melz­er re­port­ed from Na­hariya, Is­rael. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Nass­er Kari­mi and Amir Vah­dat in Tehran, Iran; Melanie Lid­man in Tel Aviv, Is­rael; and Tara Copp in Wash­ing­ton con­tributed to this re­port.


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