A U.S. attack on Iran, which President Donald Trump is reportedly preparing for the possibility of, would “radically destabilize the entire situation,” warned Russia’s deputy foreign minister, as the war between Israel and Iran continues to escalate. Sergei Ryabkov told Interfax news agency on Wednesday that Russia has advised the U.S. against direct involvement in the conflict, which has already killed hundreds in Iran and dozens in Israel since it erupted less than a week ago.

Advertisement Advertisement

Ryabkov’s comments come after Trump demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender” as he openly pondered authorizing U.S. strikes on the nation’s nuclear program. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected Trump’s demand on Wednesday and warned that the U.S. would suffer “irreparable damage” if it joins the war. Iran and the U.S. have since sent mixed messages about their openness to resolving tensions peacefully. “Iran does NOT negotiate under duress, shall NOT accept peace under duress, and certainly NOT with a has-been warmonger clinging to relevance,” Iran’s United Nations Mission said in a statement Wednesday after Trump suggested that Iran had proposed a meeting at the White House. In a separate statement hours later, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi asserted that Iran “remain[s] committed to diplomacy”—with the sole exception of its dealings with Israel, against which Iran has maintained its military actions since last Friday’s attack are in “self-defense.”

Advertisement

Trump offered a cryptic response Wednesday when asked whether he was planning to strike Iran: “I may do it, I may not do it, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” he told reporters. The Wall Street Journal later reported that the President approved attack plans but was holding off on the final order to see if Iran would abandon its nuclear program, hoping that the threat of U.S. intervention would force Iran’s hand to surrender. “I like to make the final decision one second before it’s due,” Trump told reporters. A source told ABC on Wednesday that Trump has grown comfortable with the idea of striking Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear facility, after Axios reported that he wanted to make sure the plan would succeed in destroying Iran’s nuclear program. Russia, a longtime ally of Iran and nuclear-armed adversary of the U.S., has sounded the alarm about the potential globally-devastating consequences of the conflict, especially should the U.S. military get more involved. “Nuclear facilities are being struck,” foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told Reuters on Wednesday. “Where is the [concern from the] entire world community? Where are all the environmentalists?”

Advertisement

The world, Zakharova warned, is “millimeters” away from catastrophe. What’s at stake for Russia as Trump turns down Putin’s offers to mediate Earlier this week, Trump said he was open to Russia mediating in the Middle East, but after a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump told reporters Wednesday that he turned down an offer. “I said, ‘Do me a favor. Mediate your own. Let’s mediate Russia first.’ I said, ‘Vladimir, let’s mediate Russia first. You can worry about [this] later,’” Trump said. “It’s a delicate issue,” Putin told senior news leaders on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Wednesday. “In my view, a solution could be found.” Putin said he has shared proposals for mediation with Iran, Israel, and the U.S. “We are not imposing anything on anyone; we are simply talking about how we see a possible way out of the situation. But the decision, of course, is up to the political leadership of all these countries, primarily Iran and Israel,” Putin said.

Advertisement

While a prominent Russian general claimed after Israel’s initial attack on Iran last Friday that “World War III” had begun and called for Moscow to prepare the mobilization of a million troops, experts say Russia is unlikely to intervene militarily. Earlier this year, Russia and Iran deepened their ties with the signing of a strategic partnership, which promised greater economic and military cooperation but crucially did not include a mutual defense clause. Middle East analyst Marianna Belenkaya told news outlet DW that Russia, which is enmeshed in its own resource-draining war with Ukraine that Trump has pressured Putin to end, is “trying to restore or improve relations with Washington.” Belenkaya suggested that Russia feels no urgent need to offer direct military support, “although some behind-the-scenes involvement can’t be ruled out entirely.” Hanna Notte, a Russia and Middle East expert at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, posted in a thread on X, that Russia is more likely to focus on trying to take up the role of mediator and calling for deescalation through international bodies.

Advertisement

Russia is navigating a “fine balancing act: How to appear helpful to the U.S. while not freaking out Iran,” Notte wrote. “For now, Russia will play its cards cautiously & observe how the situation plays out – understanding that it has [limited] leverage over the course of events And try to be involved in whatever comes next, while avoiding entanglement/overextension.” In fact, the turmoil could even prove helpful for Russia, at least in the short term. Russian oil prices rose 15% following the outbreak of the conflict. More critically, it distracts from the war in Ukraine, which has already been sidelined as Trump cancelled a June 17 meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to focus on the Middle East. “Ukraine will suffer the greatest military and political damage in this situation, apart from Iran itself,” said Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Moscow-based think tank Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, according to the Guardian. “A new war in the Middle East will not only distract the world’s attention from the [war in Ukraine] but will also, apparently, contribute to the final reorientation of the U.S. towards providing military assistance to Israel.”

Advertisement

Still, Russia has a lot to lose. Destabilization in the region could spill over into the South Caucasus where Russia exerts its influence, Notte said on X. And an Iranian regime collapse risks an already diplomatically isolated Russia losing one of its few remaining allies. “If this regime falls, I think it will be much harder for Russia to retain its assets and influence in the country,” Notte told the Guardian. Russia has invested billions of dollars into gas, energy and infrastructure projects in Iran over the past two years. Russia, along with China and Pakistan, requested that the U.N. Security Council holds a second emergency meeting on the conflict, which has been scheduled for Friday. European diplomats will also hold nuclear talks with Iranian officials in Geneva on Friday, a European official told the Associated Press. The meeting will include diplomats from Germany, France, and the U.K., but currently is not set to include the U.S.

Advertisement

Russia urges U.S. not to attack Iran, accuses Israel of sabotaging diplomacy Trump initially disclaimed involvement in Israel’s attacks on Iran but has since shifted towards an increasingly threatening stance. That has included repositioning U.S. forces, warships, and aircraft to Middle East bases for “defensive” purposes earlier this week and urging “everyone” in Tehran—a city of 9.5 million—to immediately evacuate. When asked by reporters about his warning, Trump said, “I just want people to be safe.” Among the steps Trump could take is a strike to kill Khamenei, which he suggested the U.S. is capable of doing in a Tuesday Truth Social post—a plan that Israel reportedly initially proposed but Trump previously rejected. Of the idea, Putin said on Wednesday, “I don’t even want to discuss such a possibility.” Another possible route the U.S. could take is striking Iran’s deep-underground uranium-enrichment facility at Fordow, which would require powerful bunker-buster bombs that only the U.S. has in its arsenal.

Advertisement

Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter in a Wednesday interview with CNN expressed confidence in Israel’s ability to destroy Fordow but did not go into detail about whether that would entail U.S. support. “It might require multiple strikes, it might require something else or it might require one of our surprises,” Leiter said. “We have a few tricks up our sleeves.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Trump on Wednesday, saying in a national address that the two leaders “speak constantly.” Israel, which has placed pressure on the U.S. to join the war, has also upped its objectives. Leiter said that Israel must eliminate Iran’s ability to make ballistic missiles—in addition to its initial stated aim of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. “They cannot have the weapons that can destroy Israel, which they claim and which they want to do every day,” Leiter said. Iran has maintained, which Russia has publicly supported, that it has the right to enrich its uranium in line with its civilian nuclear program under the United Nations’ Treaty on Nuclear Non-Proliferation. U.S. intelligence earlier this year concluded that, while Iran has enriched uranium to unprecedented levels, the country was not believed to be developing nuclear weapons, though Trump has since dismissed those reports, saying “I think they were very close to having them.”

Advertisement

Analysts have warned that Israel’s attacks may actually incentivize Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, rather than deterring it. Aragchi, the Iranian foreign minister, said in his statement Wednesday that “we have never sought and will never seek nuclear weapons. If otherwise, what better pretext could we possibly need for developing those inhuman weapons than the current aggression by the region’s only nuclear-armed regime?” The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said it has lost track of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. Because of ongoing Israeli attacks, inspectors are unable to verify the location of the stockpile, which should be secured at an underground facility at Isfahan but that Tehran had warned the IAEA could be moved in the event of an Israeli attack. In a statement after Israel’s attack last Friday, Russia’s foreign ministry implied that Israel’s strikes were a “cynical” attempt to sabotage diplomatic efforts between the U.S. and Iran.

Advertisement

The U.S. was in the midst of protracted talks with Iran centered around the latter’s nuclear program, though discussions had stalled somewhat as Trump Administration officials increased their demands on Iran toward zero nuclear enrichment. A sixth round of talks was meant to take place over the past weekend but was cancelled after Israel’s surprise attack.

Seemingly implicating the U.S. too, Russia’s foreign ministry said in a Tuesday statement that “the confrontational approach and destructive actions of the Israeli leadership receive understanding and support solely from those states which are de facto accomplices, motivated by opportunistic interests.”

“Israel’s continued, intensive attacks,” the Tuesday statement said, “drive the world closer to a nuclear catastrophe.”

By Jana Choukeir, Alexander Cornwell and Crispian Balmer for Reuters

Photo: JOHN WESSELS/AFP

Iranian nuclear sites targeted, Israeli hospital hit

“I may do it. I may not do it,” Trump says on joining attacks

US Senate Democrats say Trump needs Congress approval for war

Netanyahu says Israel “progressing step by step” towards eliminating Iranian nuclear, missile threats

Putin: Don’t want to discuss possibility of Iran leader killing

Israel struck a key Iranian nuclear site on Thursday (local time) and Iranian missiles hit an Israeli hospital, as President Donald Trump kept the world guessing about whether the US would join Israel in air strikes seeking to destroy Tehran’s nuclear facilities.

A week of Israeli air and missile strikes against its major rival has wiped out the top echelon of Iran’s military command, damaged its nuclear capabilities and killed hundreds of people, while Iranian retaliatory strikes have killed at least two dozen civilians in Israel.

The Israeli military said it targeted the Khondab nuclear reactor in Iran’s Arak overnight, including its partially built heavy-water research reactor. Heavy-water reactors pose a nuclear proliferation risk, because they can easily produce plutonium, which – like enriched uranium – can be used to make the core of an atom bomb.

Iranian media reported two projectiles hitting an area near the facility, which had been evacuated, and there were no reports of radiation threats.

Israel’s military said it also struck a site in the area of Natanz, which it said contained components and specialised equipment used to advance nuclear weapons development.

On Thursday morning, several Iranian missiles struck populated areas in Israel, including a hospital in the southern part of the country, according to an Israeli military official.

Trails of missiles and interception efforts were visible in the skies over Tel Aviv, with explosions heard, as incoming projectiles were intercepted. Israeli media also reported direct hits in central Israel.

Emergency services said five people were seriously injured in the attacks and dozens of others hurt in three separate locations. People were still trapped in a building in a south Tel Aviv neighbourhood, they added.

About a dozen mostly European and African embassies and diplomatic missions were located just a few hundred metres from the strike on Tel Aviv.

Images showed buildings extensively damaged in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv and emergency workers helping residents, including children. Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, in southern Israel, reported it had sustained damage.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it targeted Israeli military and intelligence headquarters near the hospital.

The worst-ever conflict between the two regional powers has raised fears that world powers would be drawn in and further destabilise the Middle East.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump declined to say if he had decided whether to join Israel’s air campaign.

“I may do it. I may not do it,” he said. “I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.”

In later remarks, Trump said Iranian officials wanted to come to Washington for a meeting.

Photo: JALAA MAREY/AFP

“We may do that,” he said, adding “it’s a little late” for such talks.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rebuked Trump’s earlier call for Iran to surrender in a recorded speech played on television, his first appearance since Friday.

“Any US military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage,” he said. “The Iranian nation will not surrender.”

Iran denied it sought nuclear weapons and said its programme was for peaceful purposes only. Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Tehran was in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in 20 years.

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain plan to hold nuclear talks with their Iranian counterpart on Friday in Geneva to urge Iran to return to the negotiating table, a German diplomatic source told Reuters.

Israel, which is not a party to the international Non-Proliferation Treaty, is the only country in the Middle East believed to have nuclear weapons. Israel does not deny or confirm that.

Calls for diplomacy

Trump veered from proposing a swift diplomatic end to the war to suggesting the United States might join it.

A source familiar with internal discussions said Trump and his team were considering options that included joining Israel in strikes against Iranian nuclear installations, but the prospect of a US strike against Iran had exposed divisions in the coalition of supporters that brought Trump to power, with some of his base urging him not to get the country involved in a new Middle East war.

Senior US Senate Democrats urged Trump to prioritise diplomacy and seek a binding agreement to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons, while expressing concern about his administration’s approach.

“We are alarmed by the Trump administration’s failure to provide answers to fundamental questions,” they said. “By law, the president must consult Congress and seek authorisation, if he is considering taking the country to war.

“He owes Congress and the American people a strategy for US engagement in the region.”

In social media posts on Tuesday, Trump mused about killing Khamenei.

Asked what his reaction would be if Israel did kill Iran’s Supreme Leader with the assistance of the United States, Russian President Vladimir Putin said: “I do not even want to discuss this possibility, I do not want to.”

Putin said all sides should look for ways to end hostilities in a way that ensured both Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear power and Israel’s right to the unconditional security of the Jewish state.

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

The Iranian missile salvoes marked the first time in decades of shadow war and proxy conflict that a significant number of projectiles fired from Iran had penetrated defences, killing Israelis in their homes.

Iran reported at least 224 deaths in Israeli attacks, mostly civilians, but had not updated that toll for days.

US-based Iranian activist news agency HRANA said 639 people were killed in the Israeli attacks and 1329 injured as of 18 June. Reuters could not independently verify the report.

– Reuters

US resumes visas for foreign students but demands access to social media accounts

WASHINGTON: The US State Department said Wednesday it is restarting the suspended process for foreigners applying for student visas but all applicants will now be required to unlock their social media accounts for government review.

The department said consular officers will be on the lookout for posts and messages that could be deemed hostile to the United States, its government, culture, institutions or founding principles.

In a notice made public Wednesday, the department said it had rescinded its May suspension of student visa processing but said new applicants who refuse to set their social media accounts to “public” and allow them to be reviewed may be rejected. It said a refusal to do so could be a sign they are trying to evade the requirement or hide their online activity.

The Trump administration last month temporarily halted the scheduling of new visa interviews for foreign students hoping to study in the US while preparing to expand the screening of their activity on social media, officials said.

Students around the world have been waiting anxiously for US consulates to reopen appointments for visa interviews, as the window left to book their travel and make housing arrangements narrows ahead of the start of the school year.

On Wednesday afternoon, a 27-year-old Ph.D. student in Toronto was able to secure an appointment for a visa interview next week. The student, a Chinese national, hopes to travel to the US for a research internship that would start in late July. “I’m really relieved,” said the student, who spoke on condition of being identified only by his surname, Chen, because he was concerned about being targeted. “I’ve been refreshing the website couple of times every day.”

Students from China, India, Mexico and the Philippines have posted on social media sites that they have been monitoring visa booking websites and closely watching press briefings of the State Department to get any indication of when appointment scheduling might resume.

In reopening the visa process, the State Department also told consulates to prioritize students hoping to enroll at colleges where foreigners make up less than 15 percent of the student body, a US official familiar with the matter said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to detail information that has not been made public.

Foreign students make up more than 15 percent of the total student body at almost 200 US universities, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal education data from 2023. Most are private universities, including all eight Ivy League schools. But that criteria also includes 26 public universities, including the University of Illinois and Pennsylvania State University. Looking only at undergraduate students, foreign students make up more than 15 percent of the population at about 100 universities, almost all of them private.

International students in the US have been facing increased scrutiny on several fronts. In the spring, the Trump administration revoked permission to study in the US for thousands of students, including some involved only in traffic offenses, before abruptly reversing course. The government also expanded the grounds on which foreign students can have their legal status terminated.

As part of a pressure campaign targeting Harvard University, the Trump administration has moved to block foreign students from attending the Ivy League school, which counts on international students for tuition dollars and a quarter of its enrollment. Trump has said Harvard should cap its foreign enrollment at 15 percent.

This latest move to vet students’ social media, the State Department said Wednesday, “will ensure we are properly screening every single person attempting to visit our country.”

In internal guidance sent to consular officers, the department said they should be looking for “any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States.”

Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said the new policy evokes the ideological vetting of the Cold War, when prominent artists and intellectuals were excluded from the US

“This policy makes a censor of every consular officer, and it will inevitably chill legitimate political speech both inside and outside the United States,” Jaffer said.

The Trump administration also has called for 36 countries to commit to improving vetting of travelers or face a ban on their citizens visiting the United States. A weekend diplomatic cable sent by the State Department says the countries have 60 days to address US concerns or risk being added to a travel ban that now includes 12 nations.

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday refused to discuss the possibility that Israel and the United States would kill Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and said the Iranian people were consolidating around the leadership in Tehran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly speculated that Israel’s military attacks could result in regime change in Iran while U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the U.S. knew where Khamenei was “hiding” but that Washington was not going to kill him “for now.”

Asked what his reaction would be if Israel did kill Khamenei with the assistance of the United States, Putin said: “I do not even want to discuss this possibility. I do not want to.”

When pressed, Putin said he had heard the remarks about possibly killing Khamenei but that he did not want to discuss it.

“We see that today in Iran, with all the complexity of the internal political processes taking place there…that there is a consolidation of society around the country’s political leadership,” Putin told senior news agency editors in the northern Russian city of St Petersburg.

Reuters

Summary

Companies LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:

‘I may do it. I may not do it,’ Trump says on joining attacks

Netanyahu says Israel ‘progressing step by step’ towards eliminating Iranian nuclear, missile threats

Putin: Don’t want to discuss possibility of Iran leader killing

Iran to impose temporary restrictions on internet access

WASHINGTON/DUBAI/JERUSALEM, June 18 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump kept the world guessing about whether the United States will join Israel’s bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites as the Israel-Iran conflict entered its seventh day on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump declined to say if he had made any decision on whether to join Israel’s campaign . “I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” he said.

Sign up here.

Trump in later remarks said Iranian officials wanted to come to Washington for a meeting and that “we may do that.” But he added, “It’s a little late” for such talks.

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain plan to hold nuclear talks with their Iranian counterpart on Friday in Geneva aimed at persuading Iran to firmly guarantee that it will use its nuclear program solely for civilian purposes, a German diplomatic source told Reuters.

But while diplomatic efforts continue, some residents of Tehran, a city of 10 million people, on Wednesday jammed highways out of the city as they sought sanctuary from intensified Israeli airstrikes

The Wall Street Journal said Trump had told senior aides he approved attack plans on Iran but was holding off on giving the final order to see if Tehran would abandon its nuclear program.

Asked if he thought the Iranian government could fall as a result of the Israeli campaign, Trump said: “Sure, anything could happen.”

Referring to the destruction or dismantling of Iran’s Fordow nuclear enrichment center, Trump said: “We’re the only ones that have the capability to do it. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it – at all.”

Military analysts believe that Israel might need U.S. military help to destroy Fordow, dug beneath a mountain near the city of Qom.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , 86, rebuked Trump in a recorded speech played on television, his first appearance since Friday.

The Americans “should know that any U.S. military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage,” he said. “The Iranian nation will not surrender.”

In its latest bombings, Israel said its air force destroyed Iran’s police headquarters.

Israel’s military said sirens sounded in northern Israel just before 2 a.m. local time on Thursday (23:00 GMT on Wednesday) and that it had intercepted a drone launched from Iran. It said several minutes later that another drone was intercepted in the Jordan Valley area.

The Iranian missile salvoes mark the first time in decades of shadow war and proxy conflict that a significant number of projectiles fired from Iran have penetrated defences, killing Israelis in their homes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a video released by his office on Wednesday, said Israel was “progressing step by step” towards eliminating threats posed by Iran’s nuclear sites and ballistic missile arsenal.

“We are hitting the nuclear sites, the missiles, the headquarters, the symbols of the regime,” Netanyahu said.

Israel, which is not a party to the international Non-Proliferation Treaty, is the only country in the Middle East believed to have nuclear weapons. Israel does not deny or confirm that.

Netanyahu also thanked Trump, “a great friend of the state of Israel”, for standing by its side in the conflict, saying the two were in continuous contact.

Item 1 of 21 A destroyed drone, which the Iranian Army says belongs to Israel, is seen in Isfahan, Iran, in this handout image obtained on June 18, 2025. Iranian Army/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS [1/21] A destroyed drone, which the Iranian Army says belongs to Israel, is seen in Isfahan, Iran, in this handout image obtained on June 18, 2025. Iranian Army/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab

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.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, asked what his reaction would be if Israel did kill Iran’s Supreme Leader with the assistance of the United States, said on Thursday: “I do not even want to discuss this possibility. I do not want to.”

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

Iran’s mission to the United Nations mocked Trump in posts on X, describing him as “a has-been warmonger clinging to relevance.”

Israel’s military said scores of Israeli jets had struck targets in and around Tehran and in western Iran in the previous 24 hours in three waves, hitting sites producing raw materials, components and manufacturing systems for missiles.

FLEEING TEHRAN

Arezou, a 31-year-old Tehran resident, told Reuters by phone that she had made it out of the city to the nearby resort town of Lavasan.

“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 anew at dusk on Wednesday warning of further incoming Iranian missiles. A motorist was injured by missile debris, Israeli medics said. The army later advised civilians they could leave protected areas, signalling the threat had passed.

At Ramat Gan train station east of Tel Aviv, people were lying on city-supplied mattresses or sitting in the odd camping chair, with 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.

Iran has reported at least 224 deaths in Israeli attacks, mostly civilians, but has not updated that toll for days.

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

LEVERAGE

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.

Inside Iran, authorities are intent on preventing panic and shortages. 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 communications ministry said on Wednesday that temporary restrictions on internet access would be imposed to help prevent “the enemy from threatening citizens’ lives and property”.

Iran’s ability to hit back hard at Israel through strikes by proxy militia close to Israeli borders has been limited by the devastating blows Israel has dealt to Tehran’s regional allies – Hamas and Hezbollah – in conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon since 2023.

Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Alistair Bell and Costas Pitas; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Deepa Babington and Diane Craft

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tab

Share X

Facebook

Linkedin

Email

Link Purchase Licensing Rights