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Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Israel’s strikes against Tehran broaden as Trump issues ominous warning

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27 days ago
20250617
Smoke billows after an Iranian missile struck an oil refinery in Haifa, northern Israel, early Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Smoke billows after an Iranian missile struck an oil refinery in Haifa, northern Israel, early Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Ariel Schalit

Is­rael ap­peared to be ex­pand­ing its air cam­paign against Tehran five days af­ter its sur­prise at­tack on Iran’s mil­i­tary and nu­clear pro­gram, as U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump post­ed an omi­nous mes­sage warn­ing res­i­dents of the cap­i­tal to evac­u­ate.

“IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NU­CLEAR WEAPON,” Trump wrote Mon­day night be­fore re­turn­ing to Wash­ing­ton ear­ly from a Group of Sev­en sum­mit in Cana­da. “Every­one should im­me­di­ate­ly evac­u­ate Tehran!” he added.

Trump lat­er de­nied he had rushed back to work on a cease­fire, 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.”

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

Ear­li­er, the Is­raeli mil­i­tary had called for some 330,000 res­i­dents of a neigh­bour­hood in down­town Tehran to evac­u­ate. 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 the hos­til­i­ties be­gan.

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 long­time ad­ver­sary from get­ting any clos­er to build­ing an atom­ic weapon. The strikes have killed at least 224 peo­ple in Iran and wound­ed 1,277 since Fri­day.

Iran has re­tal­i­at­ed by launch­ing more than 370 mis­siles and hun­dreds of drones at Is­rael. So far, 24 peo­ple have been killed in Is­rael and more than 500 wound­ed. The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said a new bar­rage of mis­siles was launched on Tues­day, and ex­plo­sions could be heard in north­ern Is­rael.

Shops closed, lines for gas in Iran’s cap­i­tal

Down­town Tehran ap­peared to be emp­ty­ing out ear­ly Tues­day, with many shops closed. The an­cient Grand Bazaar was al­so closed, some­thing that on­ly hap­pened in the past dur­ing an­ti-gov­ern­ment demon­stra­tions or at the height of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic.

On the roads out of Tehran to the west, traf­fic stood bumper to bumper. Many ap­peared to be head­ing to the Caspi­an Sea area. Long lines al­so could be seen at gas sta­tions in Tehran, with print­ed plac­ards and boards call­ing for a “se­vere” re­sponse to Is­rael vis­i­ble across the city.

Au­thor­i­ties can­celled leave for doc­tors and nurs­es as the at­tacks con­tin­ue, but in­sist­ed every­thing was un­der con­trol and did not of­fer any guid­ance for the pub­lic on what to do.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary mean­while claimed to have killed some­one it de­scribed as Iran’s top gen­er­al in a strike on Tehran. Iran did not im­me­di­ate­ly com­ment on the re­port­ed killing of Gen. Ali Shad­mani, who had just been named as the head of the Khatam al-An­biya Cen­tral Head­quar­ters, part of the para­mil­i­tary Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard.

Iran has named oth­er gen­er­als to re­place the top lead­ers of the Guard and the reg­u­lar armed forces af­ter they were killed in ear­li­er strikes.

Trump leaves G7 ear­ly to fo­cus on con­flict

Be­fore leav­ing the sum­mit in Cana­da, Trump joined the oth­er lead­ers in a joint state­ment say­ing 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 ap­peared to shoot 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.”

Mean­while, U.S. De­fence Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth head­ed to the White House Sit­u­a­tion Room to meet with the pres­i­dent and his na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty team.

Hegseth didn’t pro­vide de­tails on what prompt­ed the meet­ing but said on Fox News late Mon­day that the move­ments were to “en­sure that our peo­ple are safe.”

Trump said he wasn’t ready to give up on diplo­mat­ic talks, and 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.”

Is­rael says it has ‘aer­i­al su­pe­ri­or­i­ty’ over Tehran

Is­raeli mil­i­tary spokesper­son Brig. Gen. Effie De­frin said Mon­day his coun­try’s forces had “achieved full aer­i­al su­pe­ri­or­i­ty over Tehran’s skies.”

The mil­i­tary said it de­stroyed more than 120 sur­face-to-sur­face mis­sile launch­ers in cen­tral Iran, a third of Iran’s to­tal, in­clud­ing mul­ti­ple launch­ers just be­fore they launched bal­lis­tic mis­siles to­wards Is­rael. It al­so de­stroyed two F-14 fight­er planes that Iran used to tar­get Is­raeli air­craft, the mil­i­tary said.

Is­raeli mil­i­tary of­fi­cials al­so said fight­er jets had struck 10 com­mand cen­tres in Tehran be­long­ing to Iran’s Quds Force, an elite arm of its para­mil­i­tary Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard that con­ducts mil­i­tary and in­tel­li­gence op­er­a­tions out­side Iran.

Is­rael’s mil­i­tary is­sued an evac­u­a­tion warn­ing for a part of cen­tral Tehran that hous­es state TV and po­lice head­quar­ters, as well as three large hos­pi­tals, in­clud­ing one owned by the Guard. It has is­sued sim­i­lar evac­u­a­tion warn­ings for parts of the Gaza Strip and Lebanon ahead of strikes.

On Mon­day, an Is­raeli strike hit the head­quar­ters of Iran’s state-run TV sta­tion, send­ing a tele­vi­sion an­chor flee­ing her stu­dio dur­ing a live broad­cast. The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said Tues­day it had hit the sta­tion be­cause “the broad­cast chan­nel was used to spread an­ti-Is­rael pro­pa­gan­da.”

Is­rael says strikes have set back nu­clear pro­gramme

Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu said the Is­raeli strikes have set Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram back a “very, very long time,” and told re­porters he is in dai­ly touch with Trump.

Iran main­tains its nu­clear pro­gram is peace­ful, and the U.S. and oth­ers have as­sessed Tehran has not had an or­gan­ised ef­fort to pur­sue a nu­clear weapon since 2003. The head of the In­ter­na­tion­al Atom­ic En­er­gy Agency has re­peat­ed­ly warned that the coun­try has enough en­riched ura­ni­um to make sev­er­al nu­clear bombs should it choose to do so.

So far, Is­rael has tar­get­ed mul­ti­ple Iran­ian nu­clear pro­gram sites but has not been able to de­stroy Iran’s For­do ura­ni­um en­rich­ment fa­cil­i­ty.

The site is buried deep un­der­ground — and to elim­i­nate it, Is­rael may need the 30,000-pound (14,000-kilo­gram) GBU-57 Mas­sive Ord­nance Pen­e­tra­tor, a U.S. bunker-bust­ing bomb that us­es its weight and sheer ki­net­ic force to reach deeply buried tar­gets. Is­rael does not have the mu­ni­tion or the bomber need­ed to de­liv­er it. The pen­e­tra­tor is cur­rent­ly de­liv­ered by the B-2 stealth bomber.

No sign of con­flict let­ting up

Iran’s for­eign min­is­ter, Ab­bas Araghchi, ap­peared to make a veiled plea Mon­day for the U.S. to step in and ne­go­ti­ate an end to hos­til­i­ties.

In a post on X, Araghchi wrote that if Trump is “gen­uine about diplo­ma­cy and in­ter­est­ed in stop­ping this war, next steps are con­se­quen­tial.”

“It takes one phone call from Wash­ing­ton to muz­zle some­one like Ne­tanyahu,” Iran’s top diplo­mat wrote. “That may pave the way for a re­turn to diplo­ma­cy.”

The mes­sage to Wash­ing­ton was sent as the lat­est talks be­tween the U.S. and Iran were can­celled over the week­end af­ter Is­rael’s sur­prise bom­bard­ment.

On Sun­day, Araghchi said Iran will stop its strikes if Is­rael does the same.

DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (AP) —

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