President Trump will make a decision on potential strikes on Iran “within two weeks,” the White House press secretary quoted a statement from his as saying.

European foreign ministers are slated to meet with Iranian officials in Geneva on Friday to press them to de-escalate and to offer a rollback of Iran’s nuclear activities.

Meanwhile, Israel and Iran continued to exchange fire as the conflict entered a seventh day. An Israeli hospital was hit by an Iranian missile, while Israel said it struck 100 targets in Iran, including the heavy-water reactor in Arak and a site in Natanz that it said was being used for nuclear-weapons development.

Trump told senior aides late Tuesday that he approved of attack plans for Iran, but was holding off to see if Tehran would abandon its nuclear program, people familiar with the deliberations said.

Asked if he had decided whether to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump said, “I may do it, I may not do it.” And he repeated his insistence on Iran’s unconditional surrender: “The next week is going to be very big, maybe less than a week.”

The U.S. has built up military forces in the region in recent days. A third U.S. Navy destroyer entered the eastern Mediterranean Sea and a second U.S. carrier strike group is heading toward the Arabian Sea. While the Pentagon said the buildup is defensive, it better positions the U.S. should Trump decide to join Israeli attacks on Iran. It could also be a tactic to pressure Iran to capitulate or make concessions.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country wouldn’t surrender and warned any U.S. military intervention would bring irreparable consequences.

What else to know:

U.S. President Donald Trump will decide within two weeks whether the United States will join Israel in its military campaign against Iran , White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday.

Delivering what she described as a “message directly from the president,” Leavitt quoted Trump as saying, “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.”

Statement by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt ( Video: Reuters )

Leavitt confirmed that diplomatic contacts between Washington and Tehran are ongoing. “We were engaged with six rounds of negotiations with them in both indirect and direct ways,” she said. She reiterated Trump’s long-held stance that Iran must not acquire nuclear weapons . “He’s been unequivocally clear about this for decades, not just as president, not just as a presidential candidate, but also as a private citizen,” she said.

Leavitt added that Trump’s firm opposition to the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, brokered by then-president Barack Obama, reflected this core principle. “He’s been very clear. Iran went for 60 days, when he gave them that 60-day warning without coming to the table, on day 61, Israel took action against Iran, and as I just told you, from the president directly, he will make a decision within two weeks,” she said.

Asked what a renewed agreement with Iran must include, Leavitt replied: “No enrichment of uranium and Iran is absolutely not able to achieve a nuclear weapon. The president has been very clear about that. And the deal that special envoy [Steve] Witkoff proposed to the Iranians was both realistic and acceptable within its terms, and that’s why the president sent that deal to them.”

3 View gallery US President Donald Trump ( Photo: AP Photo/Alex Brandon )

Responding to a question on intelligence sources behind Trump’s assertion that Iran is closer than ever to building a nuclear bomb, Leavitt said: “It is a fact, and the United States government maintains this fact that Iran has never been closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

In Israel, officials expressed concern that Trump may delay his decision, possibly for another one to two weeks. “The president isn’t under pressure—his country isn’t under missile fire,” an Israeli source said, while acknowledging that “Washington is doing 100% of what it can to assist us with intercepts.”

Meanwhile, Trump on Thursday denied a report in The Wall Street Journal that claimed he had approved a strike on Iran but paused it at the last moment to give Tehran one final chance to negotiate, saying the Wall Street Journal had “no idea” what he was intending to do.

3 View gallery Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility ( Photo: AFP PHOTO / Satellite image ©2025 Maxar Technologies )

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi have spoken by phone several times since Israel began its strikes on Iran last week , in a bid to find a diplomatic end to the crisis, three diplomats told Reuters.

According to the diplomats, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, Araghchi said Tehran would not return to negotiations unless Israel stopped the attacks, which began on June 13.

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They said the talks included a brief discussion of a U.S. proposal given to Iran at the end of May that aims to create a regional consortium that would enrich uranium outside of Iran, an offer Tehran has so far rejected.

U.S. and Iranian officials did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the matter.

3 View gallery US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi ( Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/Pool, Amer HILABI/AFP, CameraObscura82/Shutterstock, Smolkov Vladislav/Shutterstock )

This week’s phone discussions were the most substantive direct talks since the two began negotiations in April. On those occasions, in Oman and Italy, the two men exchanged brief words when they encountered each other after indirect talks were held.

A regional diplomat close to Tehran said Araghchi had told Witkoff that Tehran “could show flexibility in the nuclear issue” if Washington pressured Israel to end the war.

A European diplomat said: “Araghchi told Witkoff Iran was ready to come back to nuclear talks, but it could not if Israel continued its bombing.”

Other than brief encounters after five rounds of indirect talks since April to discuss Iran’s decades-old nuclear dispute, Araghchi and Witkoff had not previously held direct contacts.

A second regional diplomat who spoke to Reuters said, “the (first) call was initiated by Washington, which also proposed a new offer” to overcome the deadlock over clashing red lines.

✕ Close Trump To Decide On Iran Action ‘In Two Weeks’

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US president Donald Trump has said he will make a decision on whether to strike Iranian nuclear facilities within the next two weeks.

Mr Trump said he would make the call on whether to order US warplanes to strike Iranian nuclear sites depending on whether Tehran engages in talks over ending its nuclear weapons programme.

“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,” he said.

It comes after Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz vowed that Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei “cannot continue to exist” said after the latest wave of Iranian missiles struck an Israeli hospital.

Mr Katz said the military “has been instructed and knows that in order to achieve all of its goals, this man absolutely should not continue to exist”.

US officials said this week that Mr Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Mr Khamenei.

President Trump will make a decision on whether the U.S. will strike Iran “within two weeks,” the White House said Thursday.

“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,” Trump said in a statement read by Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokeswoman.

The statement tamps down on speculation that the U.S. was poised to strike an Iranian nuclear facility as the conflict between Israel and Iran intensifies.

According to a statement from Soroka Medical Center, the largest hospital in southern Israel, several people were being treated for minor injuries and cases of shock after the hospital was struck by Iranian missiles. The strike caused extensive damage to the hospital’s old surgical wing, which was preemptively evacuated several days ago, according to the statement. Videos shared online showed shattered hospital rooms and black smoke pouring from the facility.

Iran’s state media claimed that the missile was aimed at a military target nearby and denied intentionally hitting the hospital.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed retribution for the attack.

“This morning, Iran’s terrorist tyrants launched missiles at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba and at a civilian population in the center of the country,” he said on social media. “We will exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran.”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called the strike a “war crime,” and said Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “cannot continue to exist.”

Other missiles hit a high-rise building and other residential buildings near Tel Aviv.

Katz said he and Netanyahu had instructed the Israeli military to intensify its strikes on strategic and government targets in Tehran, as part of a broader effort to undermine Iran’s regime.

The Israeli military says more than 400 ballistic missiles and 1,000 drones have been launched at Israeli territory since the conflict began Friday.

Israel’s emergency services, Magen David Adom, said three people were in serious condition from Thursday’s blasts, including an elderly man and two women. An additional 42 civilians were wounded by shrapnel or blasts, and 18 more were hurt while running to shelters.

Israel’s strikes on Iran, meanwhile, have killed more than 200 people, according to Iran’s Health Ministry. But an independent group called the Human Rights Activists News Agency says it has counted 639 dead in Iran based on nongovernmental sources.

Israel also continued its strikes on Iran overnight into Thursday, with the Israeli military saying it struck the Arak heavy water reactor. The International Atomic Energy Agency said the site — which it called the “Khondab (former Arak) heavy water research reactor” — was “not operational and contained no nuclear material,” so there was no risk of “radiological effects.”

It was the latest move targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure since Israel launched its surprise attack seven days ago.

In Washington on Thursday, Leavitt said the U.S. government believes “Iran has never been closer to a nuclear weapon.”

Trump has stopped short of saying whether the U.S. would join Israel in striking Iran’s nuclear sites.

“We’re the only ones that have the capability to do it — but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it,” he said Wednesday.

“I have ideas as to what to do. I like to make the final decision one second before it’s due because things change, especially with war,” he said. Earlier in the week he demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender.”

Khamenei warned Wednesday that any U.S. military intervention would bring “irreversible consequences.” In a nationally broadcast address, the Iranian leader said the nation would not surrender, and would resist an “imposed war” just as it would resist an “imposed peace.”

Speaking Thursday, Netanyahu said the United States is “participating in the protection of the skies over Israel and its cities with THAAD missile batteries that are in Israel, with Aegis ships that are on the shore of Israel, with their pilots that are fighting alongside our pilots to knock out drones.”

In an interview with NPR that day, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said the country would welcome interventions from “nations” — without naming the U.S. — and “anything that helps eradicate the Iranian nuclear program completely.”

As the fighting and rhetoric seemed to escalate, some countries are calling for restraint. Foreign ministers of Germany, France and the United Kingdom are scheduled to meet their Iranian counterpart in Geneva on Friday.

The three European countries played a role in negotiations over a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. President Trump said the deal was too favorable to Iran and pulled the United States out during his first term.

“All sides must show restraint, refrain from taking steps which lead to further escalation in the region, and return to diplomacy,” the European countries said in a joint statement.

NPR’s Hadeel Al-Shalchi, Daniel Estrin, and Itay Stern contributed to this report from Tel Aviv.

Are Iran’s underground nuclear sites safe from Israeli attacks?

By Michael Drummond, foreign news reporter

Israel hit more targets in Iran overnight, including multiple nuclear facilities.

The Israeli military said it targeted the Khondab nuclear reactor in Iran’s Arak, including its partially built heavy-water research reactor.

Heavy-water reactors pose a nuclear proliferation risk because they can easily produce plutonium, which can be used as the core of a nuclear bomb.

The IDF said it also struck a site in the area of Natanz, one of Iran’s uranium enrichment plants.

However, despite days of Israeli strikes on infrastructure associated with Iran’s nuclear programme, it appears that much of Iran’s deeply-buried nuclear apparatus may remain intact.

At Natanz, Israel has been unable to breach the subterranean hall of centrifuges, but damage to its power supply is thought to have caused serious damage to the centrifuges indirectly.

At Fordow, the secretive enrichment plant buried deep beneath a mountain, it’s thought that only America’s GBU-57, a 14-ton bunker buster bomb is powerful enough to destroy the facility.

It’s understood that it can penetrate about 200ft (61m) below the surface before exploding.

But analysts say it can only be delivered from a US B-2 stealth bomber. Its 30,000lb (13,600kg) weight means that its sheer kinetic force enables it to reach deeply buried targets.

Read on here…