British Foreign Secretary David Lammy will travel to Geneva on Friday for talks with his French and German counterparts, as well as EU High Representative Kaja Kallas and Iran’s foreign minister, to push for a diplomatic resolution over Iran’s nuclear programme, its foreign ministry said on Thursday.

The meeting comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East and follows Lammy’s visit to Washington, where he met U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff.

“We are determined that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon… A window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution,” Lammy said in a statement. “Now is the time to put a stop to the grave scenes in the Middle East and prevent a regional escalation that would benefit no one.”

Australia has closed its embassy in Tehran, as Iran and Israel continue to bomb each other and after United States President Donald Trump signalled the US could enter the conflict.

All foreign affairs staff and their dependents in the Iranian capital have been told to leave “based on advice about the deteriorating security environment”.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is deploying consular staff to Azerbaijan, including its border crossings, to support Australians departing Iran.

“We urge Australians who are able to leave Iran to do so now, if it is safe,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Friday.

“Those who are unable to, or do not wish to leave, are advised to shelter in place.

“We are continuing planning to support Australians seeking to depart Iran, and we remain in close contact with other partner countries.”

Overnight Trump, who has kept the world guessing about whether the US might join the war on Israel’s side, said he would make a decision within the next two weeks.

“Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters in Washington, quoting a message from the president.

The conflict between Israel and Iran erupted a week ago, when the former launched an attack against the Islamic republic’s missile capabilities, claiming it was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons.

Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 639 people and wounded 1300 others, according to a Washington-based Iranian human rights group.

Israel says Iran’s retaliatory strikes have killed at least 24 and wounded hundreds more.

Trump has demanded that Iran unconditionally surrender, saying he knew where Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was hiding.

Iran has warned of “all-out war” if the US joins the fray.

Over 3,200 Australians registered for assistance across Iran, Israel

There are now more than 2,000 Australians who have registered for assistance to leave Iran, up from 1,500 on Thursday.

“It’s a difficult, hard situation, the airspace is still closed,” Health Minister Mark Butler told Seven’s Sunrise program on Friday.

“We’ll be exploring every opportunity we can to support people getting out in other ways.”

The government has already helped Australians flee Israel using a border crossing to Jordan, and some of those people only got 55 minutes to get moving.

“When the opportunity arises to get people out, we take that opportunity,” Butler said.

There are still more than 1,200 Australians registered for assistance to depart Israel, where the airspace is also closed.

Australia said on Friday it had suspended operations at its embassy in Tehran, citing “a deteriorating security environment” as Israel hit Iran’s nuclear facilities again, and the week-old air war showed no sign yet of an exit strategy from either side.

Israel launched a sweeping aerial campaign against Iran last Friday, calling it a preemptive strike to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Iran has denied any such plans and retaliated by launching counterstrikes on Israel.

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“The Australian government has directed the departure of all Australian officials and dependents … based on advice about the deteriorating security environment in Iran,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a statement.

Consular staff are being deployed to neighbouring Azerbaijan, including its border crossings, to support Australians departing Iran, Wong said.

“We remain in close contact with other partner countries. At this stage, our ability to provide consular services is extremely limited due to the situation on the ground. The airspace remains closed,” she added.

Australia’s ambassador to Iran, Ian McConville, would remain in the region to support the government’s response, Wong said.

More than 1,500 Australians and their families in Iran have sought assistance to leave the country, official data showed.

Published By: Aashish Vashistha Published On: Jun 20, 2025

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Israeli scientists reel after Iranian missile strikes premier research institute

REHOVOT, Israel: For years, Israel has targeted Iranian nuclear scientists, hoping to choke progress on Iran’s nuclear program by striking at the brains behind it.

Now, with Iran and Israel in an open-ended direct conflict, scientists in Israel have found themselves in the crosshairs after an Iranian missile struck a premier research institute known for its work in life sciences and physics, among other fields.

While no one was killed in the strike on the Weizmann Institute of Science early Sunday, it caused heavy damage to multiple labs on campus, snuffing out years of scientific research and sending a chilling message to Israeli scientists that they and their expertise are now targets in the escalating conflict with Iran.

“It’s a moral victory” for Iran, said Oren Schuldiner, a professor in the department of molecular cell biology and the department of molecular neuroscience whose lab was obliterated in the strike. “They managed to harm the crown jewel of science in Israel.”

Iranian scientists were a prime target in a long shadow war

During years of a shadow war between Israel and Iran that preceded the current conflict, Israel repeatedly targeted Iranian nuclear scientists with the aim of setting back Iran’s nuclear program.

Israel continued that tactic with its initial blow against Iran days ago, killing multiple nuclear scientists, along with top generals, as well as striking nuclear facilities and ballistic missile infrastructure.

For its part, Iran has been accused of targeting at least one Weizmann scientist before. Last year, Israeli authorities said they busted an Iranian spy ring that devised a plot to follow and assassinate an Israeli nuclear scientist who worked and lived at the institute.

Citing an indictment, Israeli media said the suspects, Palestinians from east Jerusalem, gathered information about the scientist and photographed the exterior of the Weizmann Institute but were arrested before they could proceed.

With Iran’s intelligence penetration into Israel far less successful than Israel’s, those plots have not been seen through, making this week’s strike on Weizmann that much more jarring.

“The Weizmann Institute has been in Iran’s sights,” said Yoel Guzansky, an Iran expert and senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank. He stressed that he did not know for certain whether Iran intended to strike the institute but believed it did.

While it is a multidisciplinary research institute, Weizmann, like other Israeli universities, has ties to Israel’s defense establishment, including collaborations with industry leaders like Elbit Systems, which is why it may have been targeted.

But Guzansky said the institute primarily symbolizes “Israeli scientific progress” and the strike against it shows Iran’s thinking: “You harm our scientists, so we are also harming scientific cadre.”

Damage to the institute and labs ‘literally decimated’

Weizmann, founded in 1934 and later renamed after Israel’s first president, ranks among the world’s top research institutes. Its scientists and researchers publish hundreds of studies each year. One Nobel laureate in chemistry and three Turing Award laureates have been associated with the institute, which built the first computer in Israel in 1954.

Two buildings were hit in the strike, including one housing life sciences labs and a second that was empty and under construction but meant for chemistry study, according to the institute. Dozens of other buildings were damaged.

The campus has been closed since the strike, although media were allowed to visit Thursday. Large piles of rock, twisted metal and other debris were strewn on campus. There were shattered windows, collapsed ceiling panels and charred walls.

A photo shared on X by one professor showed flames rising near a heavily damaged structure with debris scattered on the ground nearby.

“Several buildings were hit quite hard, meaning that some labs were literally decimated, really leaving nothing,” said Sarel Fleishman, a professor of biochemics who said he has visited the site since the strike.

Life’s work of many researchers is gone

Many of those labs focus on the life sciences, whose projects are especially sensitive to physical damage, Fleishman said. The labs were studying areas like tissue generation, developmental biology or cancer, with much of their work now halted or severely set back by the damage.

“This was the life’s work of many people,” he said, noting that years’ or even decades’ worth of research was destroyed.

For Schuldiner, the damage means the lab he has worked at for 16 years “is entirely gone. No trace. There is nothing to save.”

In that once gleaming lab, he kept thousands of genetically modified flies used for research into the development of the human nervous system, which helped provide insights into autism and schizophrenia, he said.

The lab housed equipment like sophisticated microscopes. Researchers from Israel and abroad joined hands in the study effort.

“All of our studies have stopped,” he said, estimating it would take years to rebuild and get the science work back on track. “It’s very significant damage to the science that we can create and to the contribution we can make to the world.”

Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy said on Thursday that a narrow window remains open for a diplomatic resolution with Iran over its nuclear programme, following high-level talks at the White House. Speaking after his meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, Lammy emphasised the urgency of avoiding a broader regional conflict.

“The situation in the Middle East remains perilous. We are determined that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon,” Lammy said in a statement issued by the UK embassy in Washington.

He added that both sides discussed the need for Iran to return to the negotiating table. “A window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution,” Lammy stated, underlining the importance of seizing the moment to prevent the crisis from escalating further.