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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Israel says it’s preparing for a possibly long war against Iran as attacks continue

by

Newsdesk
16 days ago
20250621
Parnia Rahmanian, 13, lies unconscious in a hospital bed following Israeli strike that targeted her neighborhood, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Parnia Rahmanian, 13, lies unconscious in a hospital bed following Israeli strike that targeted her neighborhood, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Vahid Salemi

Is­rael ‘s mil­i­tary said Sat­ur­day it struck an Iran­ian nu­clear re­search fa­cil­i­ty overnight and killed three se­nior Iran­ian com­man­ders in tar­get­ed at­tacks, while em­pha­siz­ing it was prepar­ing for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a lengthy war.

The prospect of a wider war threat­ened, too. Iran­ian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said they would re­sume at­tacks on U.S. ves­sels and war­ships in the Red Sea if the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion joins Is­rael’s mil­i­tary cam­paign against Iran. The Houthis had paused such at­tacks in May as part of a deal with the ad­min­is­tra­tion.

In­side Iran, smoke rose from an area near a moun­tain in Is­fa­han, where the province’s deputy gov­er­nor for se­cu­ri­ty af­fairs, Ak­bar Sale­hi, con­firmed the Is­raeli strikes dam­aged the fa­cil­i­ty but caused no ca­su­al­ties.

The tar­get was two cen­trifuge pro­duc­tion sites, ac­cord­ing to an Is­raeli mil­i­tary of­fi­cial speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty un­der army guide­lines to brief re­porters. It was the sec­ond at­tack on Is­fa­han, which was hit in the first 24 hours of the war as part of Is­rael’s goal to de­stroy Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Atom­ic En­er­gy Agency con­firmed the lat­est at­tack.

Iran launched a new wave of drones and mis­siles at Is­rael but there were no im­me­di­ate re­ports of sig­nif­i­cant dam­age. The Ma­gen David Adom res­cue ser­vice said a drone hit a two-sto­ry build­ing in north­ern Is­rael, with no ca­su­al­ties.

The Is­raeli of­fi­cial called it a “small bar­rage” that was large­ly in­ter­cept­ed by Is­rael’s de­fens­es. The of­fi­cial es­ti­mat­ed that Is­rael’s mil­i­tary has tak­en out more than 50% of Iran’s launch­ers.

“We’re mak­ing it hard­er for them to fire to­ward Is­rael,” he said. “Hav­ing said all that, I want to say the Iran­ian regime ob­vi­ous­ly still has ca­pa­bil­i­ties.”

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary’s chief spokesman, Brig. Gen. Effie De­frin, lat­er said Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Za­mir told the army to be pre­pared for a “pro­longed cam­paign.”

Iran says US mil­i­tary in­volve­ment would be ‘dan­ger­ous’

U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump is weigh­ing ac­tive U.S. mil­i­tary in­volve­ment in the war. On Sat­ur­day, Iran­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Ab­bas Araghchi said “I think that it would be very, very dan­ger­ous for every­one.” He spoke on the side­lines of an Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Is­lam­ic Co­op­er­a­tion meet­ing in Turkey.

Bar­ring a com­man­do raid or even a nu­clear strike, Iran’s un­der­ground For­do ura­ni­um en­rich­ment fa­cil­i­ty is con­sid­ered out of reach to all but Amer­i­ca’s “bunker-buster” bombs. Trump said he would put off his de­ci­sion on mil­i­tary in­volve­ment for up to two weeks.

The war erupt­ed June 13, with Is­raeli airstrikes tar­get­ing Iran’s nu­clear and mil­i­tary sites, top gen­er­als and nu­clear sci­en­tists. At least 722 peo­ple, in­clud­ing 285 civil­ians, have been killed in Iran and more than 2,500 wound­ed, ac­cord­ing to a Wash­ing­ton-based Iran­ian hu­man rights group.

One Tehran res­i­dent, Nas­rin, writhed in her hos­pi­tal bed as she de­scribed how a blast threw her against a wall in her apart­ment. “I’ve had five surg­eries. I think I have noth­ing right here that is in­tact,” she said Sat­ur­day. An­oth­er res­i­dent, Shahram Nour­mo­ham­ma­di, said he had been mak­ing de­liv­er­ies when “some­thing blew up right in front of me” at an in­ter­sec­tion.

Iran has re­tal­i­at­ed by fir­ing more than 450 mis­siles and 1,000 drones at Is­rael, ac­cord­ing to Is­raeli army es­ti­mates. Is­rael’s mul­ti­tiered air de­fens­es have shot down most of them, but at least 24 peo­ple in Is­rael have been killed and hun­dreds wound­ed.

Iran has long main­tained its nu­clear pro­gram is for peace­ful pur­pos­es, but it is the on­ly non-nu­clear-weapon state to en­rich ura­ni­um up to 60% — a short, tech­ni­cal step away from weapons-grade lev­els of 90%. Is­rael is wide­ly be­lieved to be the on­ly Mid­dle East­ern coun­try with a nu­clear weapons pro­gram but has nev­er ac­knowl­edged it.

Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu has said Is­rael’s mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion will con­tin­ue “for as long as it takes” to elim­i­nate what he called the ex­is­ten­tial threat of Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram and bal­lis­tic mis­sile ar­se­nal.

No date set for new talks

Talks in Gene­va on Fri­day failed to pro­duce a break­through. Eu­ro­pean of­fi­cials ex­pressed hope for fu­ture dis­cus­sions. Iran’s for­eign min­is­ter said he was open to fur­ther di­a­logue while em­pha­siz­ing that Tehran had no in­ter­est in ne­go­ti­at­ing with the U.S. while Is­rael con­tin­ues to at­tack.

“Iran is ready to con­sid­er diplo­ma­cy once again, and once ag­gres­sion is stopped and the ag­gres­sor is held ac­count­able for the crimes com­mit­ted,” he told re­porters.

No date was set for a new round of talks.

For many Ira­ni­ans, up­dates re­mained dif­fi­cult. In­ter­net-ac­cess ad­vo­ca­cy group Net­Blocks.org said Sat­ur­day that lim­it­ed in­ter­net ac­cess had again “col­lapsed.” A na­tion­wide in­ter­net shut­down has been in place for sev­er­al days.

More at­tacks on Iran­ian mil­i­tary com­man­ders

Is­rael’s open­ing at­tack killed three of Iran’s top mil­i­tary lead­ers: one who over­saw the armed forces, Gen. Mo­ham­mad Bagheri; one who led the para­mil­i­tary Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard, Gen. Hos­sein Sala­mi; and the head of the Guard’s bal­lis­tic mis­sile pro­gram, Gen. Amir Ali Ha­jizadeh.

Is­rael’s de­fense min­is­ter said Sat­ur­day the mil­i­tary has killed a Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard com­man­der who fi­nanced and armed Hamas in prepa­ra­tion for the Oct. 7, 2023, at­tack on Is­rael that sparked the on­go­ing 20-month war in Gaza.

Iran­ian of­fi­cials did not im­me­di­ate­ly con­firm Saeed Iza­di’s death, but the Qom gov­er­nor’s of­fice said there had been an at­tack on a four-sto­ry apart­ment build­ing and lo­cal me­dia re­port­ed two peo­ple had been killed.

Is­rael al­so said it killed the com­man­der of the Quds Force’s weapons trans­fer unit, who it said was re­spon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing weapons to Hezbol­lah and Hamas. Behnam Shahri­yari was killed while trav­el­ing in west­ern Iran, the mil­i­tary said.

Iran threat­ens head of U.N. nu­clear watch­dog

Iran­ian lead­ers say IAEA chief Rafael Grossi’s state­ments about the sta­tus of Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram have prompt­ed Is­rael’s at­tack.

On Sat­ur­day, a se­nior ad­vis­er for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei, Ali Lar­i­jani, said in a so­cial me­dia post, with­out elab­o­ra­tion, that Iran would make Grossi “pay” once the war is over.

Grossi, the head of the U.N. nu­clear watch­dog, warned Fri­day at an emer­gency meet­ing of the U.N. Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil against at­tacks on Iran’s nu­clear re­ac­tors, par­tic­u­lar­ly its on­ly com­mer­cial nu­clear pow­er plant in the south­ern city of Bushehr.

“In case of an at­tack on the Bushehr nu­clear pow­er plant, a di­rect hit would re­sult in a very high re­lease of ra­dioac­tiv­i­ty,” Grossi said, adding: “This is the nu­clear site in Iran where the con­se­quences could be most se­ri­ous.”

Is­rael has not tar­get­ed Iran’s nu­clear re­ac­tors, in­stead fo­cus­ing its strikes on the main ura­ni­um en­rich­ment fa­cil­i­ty at Natanz, cen­trifuge work­shops near Tehran, lab­o­ra­to­ries in Is­fa­han and the coun­try’s Arak heavy wa­ter re­ac­tor south­west of the cap­i­tal.

Iran pre­vi­ous­ly agreed to lim­it its ura­ni­um en­rich­ment and al­low in­ter­na­tion­al in­spec­tors ac­cess to its nu­clear sites un­der a 2015 deal in ex­change for sanc­tions re­lief. But af­ter Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal dur­ing his first term, Iran be­gan en­rich­ing ura­ni­um up to 60% and re­strict­ing ac­cess to its nu­clear fa­cil­i­ties.

Iran has in­sist­ed on its right to en­rich ura­ni­um — at low­er lev­els — in re­cent talks over its nu­clear pro­gram. But Trump, like Is­rael, has de­mand­ed Iran end its en­rich­ment pro­gram al­to­geth­er.

TEL AVIV, Is­rael (AP)

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The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

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