A person appears at flames rising from an oil storage facility after it appeared to have been struck by an Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran, early Sunday, June 15, 2025.
Vahid Salemi/AP
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Vahid Salemi/AP
Israel and Iran exchanged one other spherical of intense missile strikes into Sunday, fueling rising issues that the combating may escalate right into a wider regional battle. The most recent exchanges got here simply hours after deliberate U.S. talks on Iran’s nuclear program have been known as off.
Israeli missiles struck two vitality amenities in southern Iran, in response to Iranian state media. In response, Iran fired a whole bunch of ballistic missiles and drones into Israel, inflicting a number of casualties and inflicting vital harm to an oil refinery and outstanding science institute.
On social media, President Trump mentioned the U.S. had “nothing to do with the assault on Iran, tonight,” however warned that if the U.S. was attacked by Iran in any approach, that “the total energy of U.S. Armed forces will come down on [Iran] at ranges by no means seen earlier than.”
Onerous evening for Israelis
It marked the toughest evening for Israelis because the begin of the combating, with at the least ten casualties — together with kids — and a whole bunch injured, in accordance to Israeli emergency companies group, Magen David Adom.
A whole lot of Iranian missiles rained down throughout Israel starting Saturday evening, a few of them evading the nation’s refined protection techniques.
The deadliest strikes hit a residential constructing in Bat Yam, a suburb south of Tel Aviv, killing at the least six folks together with a 10-year-old boy and 9-year-old lady. One other 180 folks have been wounded and 7 nonetheless lacking, in response to native police.
Within the north, sirens blared and folks ran for shelter as missiles struck the nation’s largest oil refinery, situated close to the port metropolis of Haifa. 4 ladies have been killed in Tamra, an Arab city of round 35,000 folks, in accordance to the Related Press. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, mentioned it had focused Israel’s gas construction in response to Israel’s strikes on its oil amenities within the south.
Israelis keep in a shelter of a residential space that was hit by a missile fired from Iran, within the central Israeli metropolis of Bat Yam, early Sunday, June 15, 2025.
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Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
Within the central metropolis of Rehovot, at the least 42 folks have been injured and a number of other campus buildings at The Weizmann Institute of Science, a outstanding analysis middle, have been additionally struck. The middle mentioned nobody on campus was damage, regardless of the intensive harm.
Sunday’s casualties convey Israel’s dying toll to 13 because the begin of the strikes on Friday.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels mentioned Sunday that they’d assisted Iran by launching extra ballistic missiles at Israel. Israel’s army confirmed that the group additionally launched missiles at Israel on Friday, coinciding with Iran’s direct retaliation for Israeli strikes.
Extra explosions rock Tehran
Experiences of explosions have been heard throughout Tehran early Sunday, with pictures exhibiting plumes of smoke and flames rising from an oil facility within the metropolis.
“Tehran is burning,” Israel’s Protection Minister Israel Katz tweeted late Saturday.
An Israeli army official confirmed that the Israel’s Protection Forces, or IDF, attacked 80 targets in a single day, together with Iran’s nuclear headquarters and two gas websites.
The dying toll in Iran from the most recent explosions wasn’t instantly clear. On Saturday, Iran’s UN ambassador mentioned 78 folks had been killed and greater than 320 wounded because the begin of Israel’s assault.
Requires de-escalation mount
The mounting battle comes amid rising requires diplomacy over combating from leads world wide.
In the identical publish on Reality Social the place he warned Iran to not assault the U.S., President Trump urged each international locations to shortly make a deal.
“We are able to simply get a deal completed between Iran and Israel, and finish this bloody battle!!!” Trump wrote early Sunday.
Demonstrators carry posters of prime Iranian commanders killed in Friday’s Israeli strikes on Tehran, through the Muslim Shiite vacation of Eid al-Ghadir, which commemorates the Prophet Muhammad naming Ali, revered as the primary Shiite imam, as his successor, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 14, 2025.
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Vahid Salemi/AP
Instantly following Israel’s preliminary assault on Iran, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged for restraint.
“Stability within the Center East have to be the precedence,” he mentioned. “Now could be the time for restraint, calm and a return to diplomacy.”
UN Secretary Normal Antonio Guterres known as on each side to “present most restraint” and Pope Leo XIV known as for “honest dialogue” after stating the scenario between Israel and Iran had “deteriorated drastically.”
Israel’s preliminary assault late Thursday adopted intelligence from its Mossad spy company, which Israel says prompt Iran was near growing a nuclear weapon. Israel — broadly thought to own its personal nuclear weapons — considers Iran’s nuclear program a direct risk to its nationwide safety.
The strikes got here a day after the U.N. nuclear watchdog declared that Iran wasn’t complying with nuclear nonproliferation agreements geared toward halting the unfold of nuclear weapons. Iran reacted saying it could create a brand new uranium enrichment facility. Iran says its uranium enrichment program is for peaceable functions.
Israeli safety forces examine a destroyed constructing that was hit by a missile fired from Iran, close to Tel Aviv, Israel, early Sunday, June 15, 2025.
Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
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Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
In a video assertion on Friday night, Prime Minister Netanyahu mentioned the assault on Iran was within the works for months since September, following Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, chief of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, in Beirut.
Netanyahu warned that when the area’s “Iranian axis” was damaged, Iran would speed up its nuclear program. The assault on Iran was presupposed to happen in April however it was postponed, Netanyahu added.
The hostilities come because the U.S. and Iran have been planning to start the sixth spherical of talks about Iran’s nuclear program on Sunday in Oman.
The U.S. was making an attempt to strike a cope with Iran to restrict its uranium enrichment in trade for lifting sanctions, which have crippled Iran’s financial system.
On Saturday, the Omani overseas minister mentioned on social media that the assembly was canceled. However he mentioned “diplomacy and dialogue stay the one pathway to lasting peace.”
NPR’s Jane Arraf contributed reporting from Amman, Jordan.
