Israel bombs Tehran and Beirut as Trump says no deal with Iran ‘except unconditional surrender’
Lebanon’s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, said his country was drawn into a war “it did not seek or choose”. In a speech during a meeting with Arab and foreign ambassadors, he warned that “a humanitarian disaster is looming”.
Donald Trump posted on social media thatthere would be no deal with Iran except “unconditional surrender”. The US president said following “unconditional surrender”, there would be “the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s)” – earlier, Trump had said he must “be involved in the appointment” of Iran’s next leader as he was in Venezuela, and dismissed the idea of the assassinated ayatollah’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, succeeding his father as supreme leader as “unacceptable”.
US investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for an apparent strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed scores of children on Saturday but have not yet reached a final conclusion, according to a Reuters report citing two unnamed US officials.
Iranian forces fired seven attack drones at residential neighbourhoods in Bahrain overnight, said US Central Command (Centcom), which accused the Iranian government of attacking 12 different countries and “deliberately” targeting civilians.
The Israeli military announced a “new stage” in its campaign against Iran, with US and Israeli officials hinting at escalating strikes. The IDF said it has “additional surprising moves” as part of this new phase, without elaborating, while US defence secretary Pete Hegseth announced that strikes on Iran will “surge dramatically”.
The IDF claimed to have destroyedthe underground bunker of the slain Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which it claims is still used by senior Iranian officials. The Israeli military said approximately 50 fighter jets dropped about 100 bombs at the site in Tehran, which it claimed spread across multiple streets and included “many entry points”. There was no immediate comment from Iran.
The UN said nearly 100,000 people have been displaced within Lebanon and tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in the country have fled back over the border. It follows a mass evacuation order by the IDF for people to flee a vast swathe of Beirut’s southern suburbs as it bombs what it says are Hezbollah targets in the area.
Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, raised concerns thatthe Israeli military causing the mass displacement of people in Lebanon may be violating international law, the AFP reports. “Lebanon is becoming a key flashpoint,” Turk said.
Officials in Azerbaijan said they are withdrawing diplomatic staff from Iran for their own safety. It comes a day after Azerbaijan said four Iranian drones had crossed its border and injured four people in the Nakhchivan exclave.
Four people in the UK have been arrested by counter terror police on suspicion of spying on the Jewish community for Iran, the Metropolitan police said. The men, one Iranian and three dual British-Iranian nationals, were arrested this morning shortly after 1am in Barnet and Watford.
