The Tehran Governor has announced that government employees in Tehran can continue working from home until Tuesday, June 23. This decision follows a directive from the Vice President and the country’s top hiring authority.

This work-from-home option, also called teleworking, means employees can do their jobs remotely — using phones, computers, and the internet — without going to the office. Women employees have been especially encouraged to use this option.

Banks in Tehran will keep at least 50% of their branches open, including those that handle foreign currency and offer locker services, to serve the public.

However, the rule does not apply to emergency and essential services like hospitals, police, military, security forces, and municipalities — these will continue to operate normally.

(Input from Subodh Kumar)

Israel-Iran Conflict Live Updates: The conflict between the two heavily armed nations, Iran and Israel, has entered its sixth day. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has declared that the “battle has begun” and that they will show no mercy to Zionists.

“We must give a strong response to the terrorist Zionist regime. We will show the Zionists no mercy,” Khamenei wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter). In another post, he wrote, “The battle begins”. It accompanies a poster of a man entering a cave set on fire with a sword and lions on either side as others look at him. It is a reference to the historic Battle of Khaybar.

The stark warning and battle cry come after the US President Donald Trump said that they know Khamenei’s whereabouts and that he is an “easy target”. He also said that the US will not kill him at the moment and demanded an “unconditional surrender” from Iran.

“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, before demanding Iran’s “unconditional surrender” in a separate post.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in contrast, emphasised that their military offensive is not aimed at the Iranian people. “We are doing everything we can to protect them,” he told Iran International, before adding, “That’s the difference between a terrorist regime and a democracy like ours, fighting a just war with just means.”

Why did Israel attack Iran? The attack came after tensions between Iran and the international community escalated sharply after Tehran announced the activation of a third nuclear enrichment facility. The announcement came just hours after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued its first formal censure against Iran in two decades, criticising its failure to meet nuclear non-proliferation commitments.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated the attack was on “the heart of Iran’s ballistic missiles program.” He asserted strikes would continue “for as long as it takes to remove this threat.” IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir emphasised the urgency of the operation, saying, “We had reached the point of no return. Freedom is granted to those willing to fight for it.”

War casualties: Iran’s health ministry reported that at least 224 Iranians have been killed in Israeli strikes since Friday, while the Israeli death toll has climbed to 24. 500 people in Israel have been injured in the ongoing conflict. Despite repeated international calls for de-escalation, tensions continue to spiral.

Live Updates

Israel-Iran Conflict Live Updates: Stay up to date with all the latest updates and breaking news from the region as the Middle East heads into a dangerous war.

Iran’s supreme leader has vowed his country will “never surrender” in a direct rebuke to Donald Trump.

The statement from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, broadcast on Iranian state TV, also warned that “any form of US military intervention will undoubtedly be met with irreparable harm”.

“This nation will never surrender to imposition from anyone.”

It came after the American president said on Tuesday that the US would not “take out” Khamenei “at least not for now”, as he considers joining Israel’s military campaign against Tehran.

American officials told The Telegraph that Mr Trump was more bullish about joining the conflict, which has been less deadly than feared.

In response, Tehran could target American forces in Iraq first, then expand attacks to other Arab countries hosting US bases, two senior Iranian officials told the New York Times.

Russia, a key strategic partner of Iran, warned Mr Trump against joining Israel’s military campaign, saying it could radically destabilise the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer is expected to chair a COBRA meeting with ministers later today on the situation on the Middle East.

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Smokes after Israeli airstrikes in Tehran on Tuesday. In Iran, Israel is carrying out the kind of broad and brazen attack that it long threatened but never dared to enact before.

For nearly two decades, Israel avoided all-out war with its biggest enemies.

It fought contained conflicts with Hamas, but ultimately allowed the group to retain power in Gaza. It maintained an uneasy calm with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, even as its fighters entrenched themselves in southern Lebanon. And despite planning a major assault on Iran, it limited its attacks to smaller, clandestine operations.

Israel’s massive, ongoing assault on Iran highlights an extraordinary shift in Israeli military doctrine since Hamas, Iran’s Palestinian ally, attacked the country in October 2023. It is a change that has redrawn the power dynamics in the Middle East, unraveled Iran’s regional alliance and enshrined Israel as the dominant military force in the region.

Having given Hamas years to prepare for the Oct. 7 attack, Israel reversed course afterward to unleash one of the most destructive campaigns in recent warfare. It then assassinated most of Hezbollah’s leadership and decimated large parts of southern Lebanon. Now, in Iran, it is carrying out the kind of broad and brazen attack that it long threatened but never dared to enact.

“We are changing the face of the Middle East,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel during a press briefing on Monday. “And this could lead to far-reaching changes within Iran itself,” he added.

For now, that second claim remains unproven. The Israeli military campaign has weakened Iran, but it has not yet destroyed the country’s nuclear program or collapsed its government, and it may still fall short of both. The war could also devolve into an intractable quagmire with no exit strategy or offramp.

Image Iranians lined up at gas stations in Tehran on Monday. Credit… Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

Mr. Netanyahu’s broader point is harder to contradict. Hamas is no longer a threat to Israel. Hezbollah’s influence over Lebanon — let alone the danger it poses to Israelis — is much diminished. The government in Syria, a pillar of Iran’s regional alliance, was overthrown last December, in part because Hezbollah could no longer come to its aid.

These tectonic shifts also speak to a vast change within the Israeli psyche and strategic outlook since Hamas’s attack in October 2023.

For Israel’s critics, the attack was the inevitable consequence of the country’s blockade of Gaza, occupation of the West Bank, and failure to resolve the Palestinian conflict through diplomatic concessions. Many Israelis have drawn the opposite conclusion: They believe that the October attack — the deadliest in Israeli history — stemmed from Israel’s failure to pre-emptively and decisively defeat its enemies.

“In the 20 years before Oct. 7, we allowed threats to develop beyond our borders, trusting that our intelligence would give us prior warnings of any attack,” said Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence.

“The trauma of Oct. 7 completely changed that mind-set and made us willing to take risks that we didn’t take in the past,” General Yadlin said. “We will no longer wait to be attacked, and we will not wait to be surprised.”

The approach echoes Israel’s strategic outlook in the early decades of its existence, when it often acted more swiftly and decisively to remove threats on its borders, General Yadlin said. The clearest example was in June 1967, when Israel pre-emptively attacked Egypt after the Egyptian military moved troops toward the Israeli border.

Image Israeli fighter aircraft over the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt in June 1967. Israel’s current approach in the Middle East echoes its strategic outlook in the early decades of its existence, when it often acted swiftly and decisively to remove threats on its borders. Credit… Israel Defense Forces, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“As Egypt massed troops on our southern border, we did not wait to be surprised,” General Yadlin said. “Now, we are reviving that doctrine.”

Israel’s new approach is the culmination of months of re-evaluation, during which the military’s confidence — crushed by the failures of Oct. 7 — was gradually restored.

While Israel’s approach to Hamas was immediately wrathful, the country was initially wary of taking on Hezbollah and Iran. Mr. Netanyahu called off a pre-emptive attack on Hezbollah in the first week of the war in 2023, amid fears that Israel would struggle to maintain a multi-front war against the Iran-led alliance.

For nearly a year, Israel fought only a low-level border conflict with Hezbollah. Despite increasing clashes with Tehran in 2024, Israel limited its strikes on Iran to avoid an all-out conflict.

Israel’s approach began to change last September, when a sequence of unexpected moves allowed Israel to decimate much of Hezbollah’s senior leadership.

That increased Israel’s confidence and prompted its leaders to order a more decisive assault on the group. Troops invaded southern Lebanon and the air force killed Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah.

Israel then severely weakened Iran’s air defense systems and successfully repelled massive barrages of Iranian missiles, giving Israel greater confidence in its offensive and defensive abilities. More than a year after Oct. 7, Israeli leaders finally concluded that they had a rare window of opportunity to mount a decisive blow against Iran’s nuclear program.

Image An oil storage west of Tehran was hit by Israeli airstrikes on Sunday. Credit… Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

Though Israel’s new approach has undercut Iran’s regional influence, it has done little to resolve Israel’s oldest and most intractable problem: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In Gaza, Israel’s retaliation has led to widespread destruction and bloodshed, reinstating a fearsome sense of Israeli might and reducing Hamas’s threat for a generation.

But the conflict has provided no clear long-term trajectory for either Gaza or the wider Palestinian question. Mr. Netanyahu has consistently ignored opportunities to end the war, balking at the idea of either leaving Hamas’s remnants in charge or allowing other Palestinian groups to take over.

“Instead, we are left with only bad options,” said Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli foreign minister. “Either occupation or chaos, rather than a diplomatic process involving moderate regional and Palestinian stakeholders that could change the reality on the ground for both Palestinians and Israelis.”

A similarly aimless dynamic could yet emerge in Iran, analysts said, if the Israeli leadership fails to clearly define its goals there and set an exit strategy.

For now, Israeli officials hope the United States will join the attack and help Israel destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. If the United States stays away, and if Iran refuses to stop the enrichment by choice, it is unclear whether Israel’s forceful new doctrine will achieve the kind of game-changing outcomes that many Israelis desire.

“One wonders whether effective military performance is matched by a sober political vision,” said Nimrod Novik, a former senior Israeli official and a fellow at Israel Policy Forum, a research group in New York. “Or, like in Gaza, we are left without an endgame. Time will tell.”

Johnatan Reiss and Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.

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Khamenei rejects demand for surrender

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Germany urges Iran to find a negotiated solution

DUBAI/JERUSALEM, June 18 (Reuters) – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand for unconditional surrender on Wednesday, as Iranians jammed the highways out of Tehran fleeing from intensified Israeli airstrikes

In a recorded speech played on television, his first appearance since Friday, Khamenei, 86, said the Americans “should know that any U.S. military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage.”

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“Intelligent people who know Iran, the Iranian nation and its history will never speak to this nation in threatening language because the Iranian nation will not surrender,” he said.

Trump has veered from proposing a swift diplomatic end to the war to suggesting the United States might join it. In social media posts on Tuesday he mused about killing Khamenei, then demanded Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”

A source familiar with internal discussions said Trump and his team were considering options which included joining Israel in strikes against Iranian nuclear sites.

Israel’s military said 50 Israeli jets had struck around 20 targets in Tehran overnight, including sites producing raw materials, components and manufacturing systems for missiles. The military told Iranians to leave parts of the capital for their safety while it struck targets.

Traffic was backed up on highways leading out of the city of 10 million people. Arezou, 31, told Reuters by phone that she had made it out to the nearby resort town of Lavasan.

“We will stay here as long as this war continues. My friend’s house in Tehran was attacked and her brother was injured. They are civilians,” she said. “Why are we paying the price for the regime’s decision to pursue a nuclear programme?”

In Israel, sirens rang out warning people of Iranian retaliatory missile strikes. At Ramat Gan city train station east of Tel Aviv people were lying on city-supplied mattresses lined along the floor, the odd camping chair and plastic water bottles strewn about.

“I feel scared, overwhelmed. Especially because I live in a densely populated area that Iran seems to be targeting and our city has very old buildings, without shelters and safe spaces,” said Tamar Weiss, clutching her four-month-old daughter.

Russia’s foreign ministry said the world was “millimetres away from catastrophe” due to daily strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. Germany’s foreign minister appealed to Iran’s leaders to make credible assurances they were not seeking a nuclear weapon and show willingness to find a negotiated solution.

RAISING STAKES

The prospect that Trump could bring the United States into the war has raised the stakes since he abandoned a summit of the Group of Seven industrialised countries and met his security officials in Washington on Tuesday.

Iran had conveyed to Washington that it would retaliate strongly without restraint against the United States for any direct participation, its ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, said. He said he already saw the U.S. as “complicit in what Israel is doing”.

Iran has been exploring options for leverage, including veiled threats to hit the global oil market by restricting access to the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important shipping artery for oil. Tehran has in the past threatened to close the strait but has never followed through.

Item 1 of 12 Smoke rises from a fire, as the Israel-Iran air war continues, in Tehran, Iran, in this still image obtained from social media video released June 17, 2025. Social Media/via REUTERS [1/12] Smoke rises from a fire, as the Israel-Iran air war continues, in Tehran, Iran, in this still image obtained from social media video released June 17, 2025. Social Media/via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab

A former Iranian Economy Minister, Ehsan Khandouzi, said on X that Iran should start requiring permission for tankers transiting the strait, a move he said would be “decisive” but only if implemented quickly. Iran’s Oil Ministry and Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

BAN ON FILMING

Inside Iran, the biggest attacks since war with Iraq in the 1980s have wiped out an echelon of senior leadership.

Authorities are intent on preventing panic and shortages, and fewer images of destruction have been allowed to circulate than in the early days of the bombing, when state media showed pictures of explosions, fires and flattened apartments. A ban on filming by the public has been imposed.

The state has placed limits on how much fuel can be purchased. Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad told state TV that restrictions were in place to prevent shortages, but there would be no problem supplying fuel to the public.

Iranian officials have reported at least 224 deaths in Israeli attacks, mostly civilians, though that toll has not been updated for days.

In Israel, Iran’s retaliatory strikes are the first time in decades of shadow war and proxy conflict that a significant number of missiles fired from Iran have penetrated defences, killing Israelis in their homes.

Since Friday, Iran has fired around 400 missiles at Israel, some 40 of which have pierced through air defences, killing 24 people, all of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities.

Explosions were heard over Tel Aviv on Wednesday. The military said two barrages of Iranian missiles were launched toward Israel in the first two hours of Wednesday morning.

Iranian news websites said Israel was attacking a university linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the country’s east, and the Khojir ballistic missile facility near Tehran, which was also targeted by Israeli airstrikes last October.

With Khamenei’s main military and security advisers killed by Israeli strikes, the leader’s inner circle has been narrowed , raising the risk that he could make strategic errors, according to five people familiar with his decision-making process.

During the Gaza war, Israel has dealt heavy blows to Iran’s regional allies Hamas and Hezbollah, limiting Iran’s ability to retaliate through strikes by its proxy fighters close to Israeli borders. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, propped up by Iran through 13 years of war, was toppled last year.

Trump’s social media posts – which have ranged from diplomatic offers to end the war to threats to join it – have created uncertainty over his intentions.

The U.S. has so far taken only indirect actions, including helping to shoot down missiles fired toward Israel. But Washington has important capabilities that Israel lacks, including massive bombs able to destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment plant, built deep under a mountain at Fordow.

On Tuesday Trump wrote on Truth Social of Khamenei: “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now … Our patience is wearing thin.”

Three minutes later Trump posted, “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”

Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Nia Williams, Lincoln Feast and Michael Georgy; Editing by Saad Sayeed and Peter Graff

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