Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the Middle East, where Iran has launched a wave of retaliatory attacks after Israel killed scores of people and injured hundreds in a surprise attack on Friday morning that it claimed was aimed at preventing its arch enemy from developing a nuclear weapon.
Explosions were heard over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv early on Saturday. Two people were reported to have been killed, one in Tel Aviv in an attack on Friday night and one in central Israel on Saturday morning. In Iran, fresh explosions were reported at an airport in Tehran that houses an air force base, and across the Hakimiyeh and Tehranpars neighbourhoods in the east of the capital.
The Israeli military said its air defence systems were operating. “In the last hour, dozens of missiles have been launched at the state of Israel from Iran, some of which were intercepted,” the Israeli military said.
Rescue teams were working at a number of locations across the country where fallen projectiles were reported, it said.
In Iran, several explosions were heard in the capital, Tehran, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. The Fars news agency said two projectiles hit Tehran’s Mehrabad airport, and Iranian media said flames were reported there. Close to key Iranian leadership sites, the airport hosts an air force base with fighter jets and transport aircraft.
Israeli media said a suspected missile came down in Tel Aviv, and a loud boom was reported in Jerusalem.
In other developments:
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Iran’s envoy to the UN security council, Amir Saeid Iravani, said 78 people including senior officials had been killed in the Israeli attacks on Friday, and that more than 320 were injured, most of them civilians. He said the US was complicit in the attacks and accused Israel of seeking “to kill diplomacy, to sabotage negotiations and to drag the region into wider conflict”.
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The US role in the attack remained murky with President Donald Trump giving conflicting accounts as to his approval and foreknowledge. In the run-up to the Israeli 200-plane attack, Trump had publicly urged Israel to give diplomacy more of a chance, before US-Iranian talks that were planned for Sunday. But on Friday, the US president insisted he had been well informed of Israel’s plans and described the Israeli attack as “excellent”.
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Iran launched a fresh wave of attacks on Israel early on Saturday, state media said, after Israel’s military reported it detected inbound missiles from Iran. “New round of Honest Promise 3 attacks,” state television reported, referring to the name of the Iranian military operation against Israel.
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Israel’s ambulance service said 34 people were injured on Friday night in the Tel Aviv area, most with minor injuries. Police later said one person had died. On Saturday Israeli media quoted emergency services as saying one person had been killed and 19 injured by a direct Iranian strike on an area in central Israel.
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A top-level UN conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians scheduled for next week has been postponed, French president Emmanuel Macron said on Friday. France and Saudi Arabia had been due to co-chair the conference hosted by the UN general assembly in New York on 17-20 June, and Macron had been among leaders scheduled to attend.
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Dozens of Palestinians were killed and injured after Israeli forces opened fire on people waiting to receive aid near a checkpoint north of Nuseirat, Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif and Drop Site News reported, in the latest such massacre. More Palestinians were killed when Israeli gunboats targets the tents of displaced people on a beach north-west of Gaza City, al-Sharif reported. It was impossible to independently verify the reports as Israel has barred foreign journalists from entering the territory. It has also cut off internet to Gaza since Thursday.
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Israel closed all checkpoints to the Israeli-occupied West Bank as the country attacked Iran, a military official said Friday. The move sealed off entry and exit to the territory, meaning that Palestinians could not leave without special coordination.
Key events
Iran’s airspace has closed ‘until further notice’, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP), citing Iranian state media.
Iran says planned Sunday talks with US ‘meaningless’ after Israel attack, but yet to decide on attendance
Iran said the dialogue with the US over Tehran’s nuclear programme is “meaningless” but said it is yet to decide on whether to attend planned talks on Sunday, reports Reuters.
“The other side [the US] acted in a way that makes dialogue meaningless. You cannot claim to negotiate and at the same time divide work by allowing the Zionist regime [Israel] to target Iran’s territory,” state media on Saturday quoted foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei as saying. “It is still unclear what decision we will make on Sunday in this regard,” Baghaei was quoted as saying.
He said Israel “succeeded in influencing” the diplomatic process and the Israeli attack would not have happened without Washington’s permission, accusing Washington of supporting the attack.
Iran earlier accused the US of being complicit in Israel’s attacks, but Washington denied the allegation and told Tehran at the UN security council that it would be “wise” to negotiate over its nuclear programme.
The sixth round of US-Iran nuclear talks was to be held on Sunday in Muscat, but it was unclear whether it would go ahead after the Israeli strikes.
Iran denies that its uranium enrichment programme is for anything other than civilian purposes, rejecting Israeli allegations that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons.
US president Donald Trump told Reuters that he and his team had known the Israeli attacks were coming but they still saw room for an accord.
Lebanon said it had temporarily reopened its airspace on Saturday at 10am local time (7am GMT/8am BST), the state news agency NNA said.
The airspace will be shut down again starting from 10.30pm local time (7.30pm GMT/8.30pm BST) till 6am (3am GMT/4am BST) on Sunday, NNA reported citing the Lebanese Civil Aviation Authority.
Israel’s military said on Saturday it was striking dozens of missile launchers in Iran, after announcing it had targeted air defences with a wave of strikes in the Tehran area overnight.
The Israeli air force “continues striking dozens of surface-to-surface missile launchers in Iran”, the military said in a statement, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Two deputy commanders at Iranian armed forces’ general staff killed in Israeli attacks, state media reports
Two deputy commanders at the Iranian armed forces’ general staff were killed in Israeli attacks, Iranian state media reported on Saturday.
According to Reuters, it was unclear when the two commanders were killed but their deaths were announced on Saturday.
Israel’s attacks on Iran since Friday have killed at least 78 people, including senior military officials, in what are Israel’s biggest attacks ever against Iran.
Reuters has a breaking news line, citing Iranian state media, that two deputy commanders at Iran’s armed forces general staff have been killed in Israeli attacks.
More details soon …
Iran confirms limited damage at Fordow nuclear site, atomic body says
Iran confirmed that its Fordow nuclear facility sustained limited damage after recent attacks, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported on Saturday, citing a spokesperson for the country’s atomic energy organisation.
“There has been limited damage to some areas at the Fordow enrichment site,” state atomic energy agency spokesperson Behrouz Kamalvandi said, reports Reuters.
“We had already moved a significant part of the equipment and materials out, and there was no extensive damage and there are no contamination concerns.”
Patrick Wintour
France and Saudi Arabia have postponed next weeks UN conference in New York on a two state solution. The high level three day conference starting 17 June was seen as a moment for countries such as France and the UK to clarify their plans formally to recognise the state of Palestine.
There was a concern that the sudden Iran crisis meant senior Arab ministers would not have felt able to leave the region to fly to New York. Many Gulf states are trying to ensure they do not become drawn into the Iran-Israel conflict.
Decisions about recognition – bound to be denounced as a betrayal by the Israeli government – would also be harder to take at a time when Israel is locked in military combat with Iran.
The postponement underlines how Israel can still lead in shaping the agenda in the Middle East.
Iran’s Fars news agency has reported that the country’s strikes against Israel will continue, citing senior Iranian military officials.
“This confrontation will not end with last night’s limited actions and Iran’s strikes will continue, and this action will be very painful and regrettable for the aggressors,” Fars cited an unnamed official as saying.
Emma Graham-Harrison
Emma Graham-Harrison, the Guardian’s chief Middle East correspondent, has spoken to families who live in a Tel Aviv neighbourhood that was struck by Iran’s retaliatory attacks.
At midnight on Friday Sveta’s four-year-old daughter was asleep on the floor outside their shattered apartment block, as the rest of the family weighed up where they should spend the night.
A missile from the first Iranian salvo fired at Tel Aviv had landed a couple of blocks away, killing at least one person, injuring at least 16 others and damaging hundreds of shops and homes in this quiet residential area.
The 37-year-old was sanguine about her own losses, and backed the government decision to attack Iran even though it had so quickly cost her family their home.
“I support it completely,” she said as her older daughter stroked their chihuahua. “This is nothing compared to what they will be able to do if they get their hand on the A-bomb [nuclear weapons]. We can’t afford for the Iranians to get them.
“We tell [our daughters] that as long as we go to the shelter together, everything is OK. The damage in the house is just material things.”
Israeli forces target Iran’s air defences in Tehran
The Israeli military said its air force carried out a wave of strikes over Tehran last night, targeting Iran’s air defences.
“Overnight, the IAF struck dozens of targets, including surface-to-air missile infrastructure, as part of the effort to damage the Iranian regime’s aerial defence capabilities in the area of Tehran,” the military said in a statement.
“For the first time since the beginning of the war, over 1,500 kms from Israeli territory, the IAF (Israeli military) struck defence arrays in the area of Tehran.”
An air attack on Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport overnight targeted a hanger that was housing fighter jets, Iranian state media has reported.
Video showed thick plumes of smoke rising near to the airport, which was reportedly struck by two projectiles.
A missile fired from Yemen by the Iran-backed Houthi militia, killed five Palestinians including three children in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
It was earlier reported that a missile hit the Palestinian town of Sa’ir. The Israel Defence Force said no interceptors were launched to prevent the missile strike.
Sirens had sounded in Jerusalem and the southern West Bank settlements, according to local media.
Israel Defence Force said it has intercepted several Iranian drones, after sirens sounded in the Dead Sea and West Bank area.
In a separate update, it said it is continuing air strikes on targets in Iran.
Earlier, Iranian state media reported that Iranian forces had shot down and pushed back Israeli drones at its north western border.
Images coming in from news agencies show the impact of Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel overnight.
Dozens of Palestinians killed or wounded while waiting for food, reports say, as GHF aid distribution cancelled on Saturday
Earlier, Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif reported that dozens of civilians in Gaza were killed or wounded early on Saturday after they were attacked by Israeli forces as they gathered to wait for aid north of the Nuseirat refugee camp.
The Guardian has not been able to confirm the details of this report. Israel has not allowed foreign reporters to enter Gaza since 7 October 2023, unless they are under Israeli military escort. A complete internet blackout in the Gaza Strip since Thursday has made reporting even more challenging.
There have been repeated deadly attacks on Palestinians queuing for food aid and the GHF scheme of distributing food from a restricted number of heavily militarised sites has been strongly criticised. For months, humanitarian experts have warned that Gaza is on the brink of famine.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said in a statement it will not distribute food aid on Saturday. It did not provide an explanation, but said food assistance would resume on Sunday.
Jordan reopened its airspace at 7:30 a.m. (0530 GMT), the civil aviation commission said, a day after it suspended flights amid Iran-Israel tensions.
This earlier visualisation from Flightradar24, which tracks air traffic, shows how rapidly the Iranian and Iraqi airspace cleared on Friday following Israel’s attack on Iran.
Emma Graham-Harrison
At least three people were killed across Israel and over 40 injured, emergency services reported early on Saturday.
It was the most intense and deadly few hours inside Israel since the Hamas cross-border attacks on 7 Oct 7 2023 that triggered the war in Gaza, but the toll was dwarfed by the damage that Israel inflicted on Iran.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the Middle East, where Iran has launched a wave of retaliatory attacks after Israel killed scores of people and injured hundreds in a surprise attack on Friday morning that it claimed was aimed at preventing its arch enemy from developing a nuclear weapon.
Explosions were heard over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv early on Saturday. Two people were reported to have been killed, one in Tel Aviv in an attack on Friday night and one in central Israel on Saturday morning. In Iran, fresh explosions were reported at an airport in Tehran that houses an air force base, and across the Hakimiyeh and Tehranpars neighbourhoods in the east of the capital.
The Israeli military said its air defence systems were operating. “In the last hour, dozens of missiles have been launched at the state of Israel from Iran, some of which were intercepted,” the Israeli military said.
Rescue teams were working at a number of locations across the country where fallen projectiles were reported, it said.
In Iran, several explosions were heard in the capital, Tehran, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. The Fars news agency said two projectiles hit Tehran’s Mehrabad airport, and Iranian media said flames were reported there. Close to key Iranian leadership sites, the airport hosts an air force base with fighter jets and transport aircraft.
Israeli media said a suspected missile came down in Tel Aviv, and a loud boom was reported in Jerusalem.
In other developments:
-
Iran’s envoy to the UN security council, Amir Saeid Iravani, said 78 people including senior officials had been killed in the Israeli attacks on Friday, and that more than 320 were injured, most of them civilians. He said the US was complicit in the attacks and accused Israel of seeking “to kill diplomacy, to sabotage negotiations and to drag the region into wider conflict”.
-
The US role in the attack remained murky with President Donald Trump giving conflicting accounts as to his approval and foreknowledge. In the run-up to the Israeli 200-plane attack, Trump had publicly urged Israel to give diplomacy more of a chance, before US-Iranian talks that were planned for Sunday. But on Friday, the US president insisted he had been well informed of Israel’s plans and described the Israeli attack as “excellent”.
-
Iran launched a fresh wave of attacks on Israel early on Saturday, state media said, after Israel’s military reported it detected inbound missiles from Iran. “New round of Honest Promise 3 attacks,” state television reported, referring to the name of the Iranian military operation against Israel.
-
Israel’s ambulance service said 34 people were injured on Friday night in the Tel Aviv area, most with minor injuries. Police later said one person had died. On Saturday Israeli media quoted emergency services as saying one person had been killed and 19 injured by a direct Iranian strike on an area in central Israel.
-
A top-level UN conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians scheduled for next week has been postponed, French president Emmanuel Macron said on Friday. France and Saudi Arabia had been due to co-chair the conference hosted by the UN general assembly in New York on 17-20 June, and Macron had been among leaders scheduled to attend.
-
Dozens of Palestinians were killed and injured after Israeli forces opened fire on people waiting to receive aid near a checkpoint north of Nuseirat, Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif and Drop Site News reported, in the latest such massacre. More Palestinians were killed when Israeli gunboats targets the tents of displaced people on a beach north-west of Gaza City, al-Sharif reported. It was impossible to independently verify the reports as Israel has barred foreign journalists from entering the territory. It has also cut off internet to Gaza since Thursday.
-
Israel closed all checkpoints to the Israeli-occupied West Bank as the country attacked Iran, a military official said Friday. The move sealed off entry and exit to the territory, meaning that Palestinians could not leave without special coordination.
