TEL AVIV: Israel and Iran launched fresh attacks on each other overnight into Sunday (Jun 15), as US President Donald Trump said the conflict could be easily ended while warning Tehran not to strike any US targets.
Israeli rescue teams combed through the rubble of residential buildings destroyed in strikes, using flashlights and sniffer dogs to look for survivors after at least 10 people, including children, were killed, authorities said.
The Israeli military warned Iranians living near weapons facilities to evacuate, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacks by Israel so far were nothing compared with what Iran would see in the coming days.
“If we are attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the US Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before,” Trump said in a message on Truth Social. “However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict.”
Trump gave no details of any possible deal.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Israel’s attacks, which began on Friday, were aimed at sabotaging the nuclear talks with the US that were to resume in Oman on Sunday. He said Israel’s attacks had the support of the US and that Iran was acting only in self-defence.
Araqchi has previously said the Oman talks could not take place while Iran was being subjected to Israel’s “barbarous” attacks.
Israel has said the campaign’s goal is to stop Iran from developing atomic weapons and taking out its ballistic missile capabilities. Officials have acknowledged the military strikes were unlikely to fully halt Iran’s nuclear programme and voiced hopes they would lead to a comprehensive US-Iran deal.
Iran has said 78 people were killed there on the first day of Israel’s campaign on Friday, and scores more on the second, including 60 when a missile brought down a 14-storey apartment block in Tehran, where 29 of the dead were children.
The Shahran oil depot in Tehran was targeted in an Israeli attack, Iran said, but added the situation was under control. A fire had erupted after an Israeli attack on an oil refinery near the capital while Israeli strikes also targeted Iran’s defence ministry building, causing minor damage, the semi-official Tasnim news agency said on Sunday.
