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Here’s where things stand on Wednesday 18 June 2025:
- Supreme Leader Khamenei says Iran won’t accept “imposed war”, “peace”, and warns any US strikes on its territory will have “serious irreparable consequences”.
- Israel says it has struck 40 sites in Iran today, including centrifuge production and weapons facilities, while Iran launched a swarm of drones at Israel.
- Iran rejects Trump’s claims that it sought meeting at the White House.
- The death toll from Israel’s attacks on Iran has risen to more than 240, including 70 women and children. More than 24 people have been killed in Iranian attacks on Israel.
- In Gaza, Israeli forces have killed at least 89 Palestinians, including 70 people seeking food aid in the city of Khan Younis.
Photos: Smoke in Tehran from Israeli attacks
Is Iran ‘very close’ to building a nuclear bomb as Trump claims?
Returning early from the G7 summit in Canada early on Tuesday, Trump told reporters he believed Iran was “very close” to building nuclear weapons.
His comments were in keeping with increasingly threatening social media posts and language from Trump against Iran in recent days during Israel’s escalating conflict with Iran.
So is Iran indeed close to building a nuclear bomb as Trump and Netanyahu claim? And are there parallels between the accusations against Iran and the fraudulent allegations of weapons of mass destruction used by the US and its allies to attack Iraq in 2003?
Read the full story here.
Iran places temporary restrictions on internet access
Iran’s Ministry of Communications said it will temporarily limit internet access to prevent “the enemy from threatening citizens’ lives and property” amid the ongoing war with Israel.
The announcement follows an earlier report from the London-based internet watchdog Netblocks stating that there was a “near-total national internet blackout”.
The entire region is being pushed to war
A stark warning from Iran’s supreme leader: Khamenei has warned any US strikes will have serious consequences
The only man who is seen to be able to stop Israeli attacks is increasingly poised to get militarily involved. Trump has called for an unconditional Iranian surrender. The US president said, “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.”
Iran had good sky trackers and other equipment, but it doesn’t compare to American-made, conceived and manufactured stuff.
And as the American and Israeli war rhetoric escalates, the entire region is being pushed to war.
There are unprecedented scenes of destruction after Israel decided to attack Iran. And while there’s no let-up in attacks by both sides, Khamenei says Iran will show Israel “no mercy”.
Houthis say they will continue support for Gaza
A leader of the Yemeni group said it will continue the campaign of support for Gaza until “aggression stops, and the siege is lifted”.
“Our operations in support of Gaza will not cease, no matter the sacrifices,” Mahdi al-Mashat said in a statement.
Iranian government planes land in Oman: Flight-tracking data
Navigational data verified by Al Jazeera shows two planes registered with Iran’s government have landed in Oman’s capital.
A third plane registered with Iran’s privately owned Meraj Airlines also landed in Muscat, flight-tracking data reveals.
Iran’s government has not released details on any official trip to Oman, which served as a mediator in US-Iran nuclear negotiations.
Ex-UN aid chief warns conflict spiralling towards US attack
Martin Griffiths, the UN’s former humanitarian chief, says he has very little confidence that Trump truly wants diplomacy with Iran.
“What we’re facing is a tunnel going forward” towards a possible US military attack, Griffiths told Al Jazeera.
Griffiths, director of the Mediation Group International, noted that governments in the Middle East have tried to pass messages between the parties to the conflict “but there’s no appetite in the US and Israel for mediation.”
But he said that could change.
“The one thing we have learned about Trump – not so much about Netanyahu, who mostly does what he says he’s going to do, to the disasters that follow – is that President Trump does change,” Griffiths said.
Israeli army says missiles fired from Iran
The army says Israel’s defence systems are working to intercept the missiles. In a short statement, the army also ordered people in Israel to get to shelters.
If you’re just joining us
Let’s bring you up to speed with the latest developments:
- Iran has denied US President Donald Trump’s claim that Iranian officials asked for a meeting at the White House, saying “the only thing more despicable than his lies is his cowardly threat to ‘take out’ Iran’s Supreme Leader”.
- Asked by a reporter if the US will strike Iran, Trump fails to offer a clear answer, saying “I may do it, I may not do it”.
- Israel’s defence minister claims that Israeli jets “destroyed the Iranian regime’s internal security headquarters” as the country continues to bomb Iran.
- Israel’s army says it intercepted an Iranian drone in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
- In Gaza, the Health Ministry says at least 144 bodies and 560 wounded have arrived at hospitals over the past 24 hours.
‘Israel is increasingly isolated on the global stage’
Etan Nechin, the New York correspondent for Israeli news outlet Haaretz, argues that Israeli identity has been dramatically altered by the constant drumbeat of war promoted by Netanyahu and his government.
“Even if Israel ‘wins’ this round against Iran, what exactly have we won if we remain in the grip of a corrupt, apocalyptic regime?” Nechin wrote.
“There will be no victory without a reckoning. Belief in a deus ex machina, in miracles falling on Tehran from the sky, instead of in meaningful political change, from refusal to serve in this war to confronting the corruption to finally facing the big occupation elephant that has become the room, only feeds the solipsistic loop.
“Israel is increasingly isolated on the global stage.”
Trump rebuffs Putin’s offer to help mediate Israel-Iran conflict
The US president urged his Russian counterpart to resolve Russia’s war in Ukraine before stepping in elsewhere.
“He actually offered to help mediate, I said, ‘do me a favour, mediate your own. Let’s mediate Russia first, OK?’” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Mapping Iran’s most significant strikes on Israel
Using open source intelligence, including publicly circulated images and videos on social media, Israeli media platforms, and visual identification of destroyed locations in Israeli cities, Al Jazeera has mapped some of the most significant Iranian attacks on Israel from Saturday to Monday.
Read the full story here.
How is the prospect of war with Iran dividing Trump’s political movement?
As Trump inches closer towards joining Israel’s assault on Iran, some prominent voices within his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement say doing so would be a betrayal of his promises to keep the US out of foreign wars.
In Congress, right-wing lawmakers such as Representatives Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene have railed against a war they say does not involve fundamental US interests. Far-right commentators such as Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon have also said that Trump’s political success is connected to his occasional willingness to break with the country’s hawkish foreign policy establishment.
Voters also appear firmly opposed, with an Economist/YouGov poll released earlier this week finding that just 19 percent of people who voted for Trump in the last election support US involvement in Israel’s war with Iran, with 53 percent opposed.
You can read more about how the possibility of war is straining Trump’s supporters here.
‘Israelis united in wanting Trump to join war against Iran’
Israeli journalist Gideon Levy says there is a broad consensus in Israel in favour of the US getting more involved in the conflict with Iran.
“I think if you make a poll, you would realise that over 90 percent would like the Americans to get in,” he said. “Because after years in which we were told – rightly or wrongly – that the Iranians are very close to a nuclear bomb, who will be against preventing them from getting it?”
Levy also noted that it is widely accepted that Israel will not be able to destroy Iran’s Fordow nuclear site, which is buried deep underground, without the help of American bombs.
“Without Fordow, there is no real achievement in this war,” Levy told Al Jazeera. “The key is in the hands of Donald Trump, someone who says one thing in the morning and one thing in the evening and in both cases, you don’t understand really what he means.”
At the same time, Levy said most Israelis are ignoring the price the war has taken so far – or could take as it intensifies.
“We never went through such a war, in which streets are destroyed in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. People are rushing to the shelters three times a night, the economy is totally paralysed, the airports are closed. My guess is that Israel cannot take it for very long. But for the time being, people are ready to pay this price.”
Erdogan says Iran has right to self-defence
The Turkish leader says that Iran is engaging in legitimate self-defence against what he called “state-terrorism” by Israel, whose strikes in Iran have killed hundreds of civilians and targeted medical workers, news agencies, and residential areas.
“These attacks were organised while the Iranian nuclear negotiations were taking place,” he said.
“Israel, which possesses nuclear weapons and does not recognise any international rules … did not wait for the negotiations to end but carried out a terrorist act without waiting for the result,” he added.
‘Less rhetoric, more action’, says former Israeli government spokesman
Uri Dromi says harsh rhetoric from all sides in the Israel-Iran conflict is creating a dangerous dynamic that will be hard to reverse.
“Trump set a very high sight by saying ‘unconditional surrender’,” said Dromi, referring to the US president’s social media post yesterday apparently directed at Iran. “I doubt that Trump can back down now.”
He described Khamenei’s response today – that Iran “would not surrender to anyone” as a natural reaction – and said it shows why trying to “humiliate” another nation is unwise.
“This is the problem with too much rhetoric in a very volatile situation,” said Dromi, adding that he is also concerned by rhetoric from some Israeli leaders.
“Less rhetoric, more doing on the ground,” he urged.
Iran denies sending negotiators to Oman’s capital
I spoke with Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, about reports regarding the dispatching of a negotiating team to Oman, and he told me that this report is not true and Iran has not sent any negotiating team to Muscat.
US ambassador to Israel says working on evacuation flights and cruise ships
Mike Huckabee says that the US embassy is working to set up options for citizens who want to leave Israel.
“Urgent notice! American citizens wanting to leave Israel – US Embassy in Israel is working on evacuation flights and cruise ship departures,” the US ambassador said in a social media post.
What’s happening in the occupied West Bank?
Israeli forces have carried out a familiar wave of violent raids across the occupied West Bank, according to Wafa news agency. So far today, the agency reports that Israeli forces have:
- Stormed into Balata refugee camp, near Nablus, and raided several houses, forcing 14 families to leave their homes and detaining and interrogating a group of young men.
- Continued a raid in Jaba, near Jenin, for a second day, and forced 35 families there to leave their homes.
- Shot and wounded a Palestinian near Bethlehem.
- Closed off two entrances to the town of Tuqu, near Bethlehem, severely disrupting residents’ movements.
Netanyahu’s spent 33 years warning an Iran nuke is ‘imminent’
The man who cried “bomb”.
For more than 30 years, Netanyahu has been telling the world that Iran was on the brink of creating a nuclear weapon.
The UN disagreed but Isreal used this ageing pretext to justify its ongoing attacks on Iran.
What did Khamenei say in his address today?
Earlier, Iran’s supreme leader gave a televised address. Here are the major talking points from his speech:
- Iran “will not surrender to anyone”, and its people “do not answer well to the language of threats”.
- Any US military intervention will be met with “irreparable consequences”.
- Israel’s attacks on Iran are a “grave mistake” and are “being punished”. “There are plans for further action.”
- The US involvement in the conflict is a sign of Israel’s “weakness and incapacity”.
Iran faces ‘near-total’ internet blackout: Monitor
NetBlocks has confirmed the internet outage in a post on X, saying it comes after an earlier series of partial disruptions amid the conflict with Israel.
Iran denies Trump’s claim of officials seeking White House meeting
Iran has denied Donald Trump’s claim that Iranian officials asked for a meeting at the White House.
“No Iranian official has ever asked to grovel at the gates of the White House. The only thing more despicable than his lies is his cowardly threat to ‘take out’ Iran’s Supreme Leader,” said the Iran mission to the UN on X.
The comment comes soon after Trump said Iranian officials had reached out to him for negotiations.
“Iran does NOT negotiate under duress, shall NOT accept peace under duress, and certainly NOT with a has-been warmonger clinging to relevance,” it said, echoing previous remarks from Ali Khamenei who said Iranians “do not answer well to the language of threat”.
US defence secretary says ‘ready to execute’ potential war orders from Trump
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has been asked about potential conflict with Iran during a Senate hearing.
He said he would not say in a public forum whether he had provided Trump with options on a strike against Iran.
“If and when those decisions are made [on matters of war and peace], the Department [of Defense] is prepared to execute them,” Hegseth said.
Pressure mounts on Trump to get Congress approval for war
There is a lot of growing support for Trump getting approval from Congress before joining the war. We know there are two resolutions: one in the House and another in the Senate. They are war power resolutions calling for not only debate on whether the US should participate, but also a vote.
The US president needs Congress’s approval to go to war. Right now, Trump is boasting about what he says is his 95 percent approval for his foreign policy among Republicans, but those Democratic-sponsored resolutions show that there is division within Congress, and activists are rallying up on Capitol Hill in support of that.
Another division we should know is that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been excluded from recent cabinet meetings. She did testify before the Senate in recent weeks, saying that Iran was not close to nuclear weapons, so it’s clear that Trump, at least in recent days, has been sidelining or silencing that part of his party that does not agree with his assessment.
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