Trump opens door, while Israel issues deathly instruction
Israel’s defence minister has overtly threatened Iran’s supreme leader after the latest missile barrage from Iran damaged a major hospital and hit a high-rise and several other residential buildings near Tel Aviv.
At least 40 people were wounded in the attacks on Thursday (local time), according to Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service.
Black smoke rose from the Soroka Medical Centre in the southern city of Beersheba as emergency teams evacuated patients.
There were no serious injuries in the strike on the hospital.
In the aftermath of Thursday’s strikes, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz blamed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and 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”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the hit Soroka hospital. Photo: AAP
US officials said this week that President Donald Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei. Trump later said there were no plans to kill him “at least not for now”.
Trump said on Thursday that he will decide whether to launch a military strike on Iran “within the next two weeks”.
You might like
White House Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump believed there was a substantial chance of negotiations with Iran.
Meanwhile, Israel has hit Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor and the country’s only functioning nuclear power plant on the Gulf coast on the seventh day of a conflict that began with a surprise wave of Israeli air strikes targeting military sites, senior officers and nuclear scientists.
A Washington-based Iranian human rights group said at least 639 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 1300 wounded.
In retaliation, Iran has fired some 400 missiles and hundreds of drones, killing at least 24 people in Israel and wounding hundreds.
Two doctors told The Associated Press that the missile struck almost immediately after air raid sirens went off, causing a loud explosion that could be heard from a safe room.
The hospital said the main impact was on an old surgery building that had been evacuated in recent days.
After the strike, the hospital was closed to all patients except for life-threatening cases.
Soroka has more than 1000 beds and provides services to about a million residents in the south of Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the strike on the hospital and vowed a response, saying: “We will exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran.”
Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel, although most have been shot down by Israel’s multi-tiered air defences.
Stay informed, daily
Israel’s military said its fighter jets targeted the Arak facility and its reactor core seal to halt it from being used to produce plutonium.
Iranian state TV said there was “no radiation danger whatsoever” from the attack on the Arak site.
Israel had warned earlier on Thursday that it would attack the facility and urged the public to flee the area.
Israel separately claimed to have struck another site near Natanz it described as being related to Iran’s nuclear program, and Iran’s only operating nuclear power plant in Bushehr.
A military official later said “it was a mistake” to say there was a strike on the Bushehr plant.
An attack on Bushehr, which is near Iran’s Arab Gulf neighbours and employs technicians from Russia, would potentially be a major escalation in Israel’s air war.
Iran has long maintained its program is for peaceful purposes.
The strikes came a day after Iran’s supreme leader rejected US calls for surrender and warned that any military involvement by the Americans would cause “irreparable damage to them”.
Israel had lifted some restrictions on daily life on Wednesday, suggesting the missile threat from Iran on its territory was easing.
Already, Israel’s campaign has targeted Iran’s enrichment site at Natanz, centrifuge workshops around Tehran and a nuclear site in Isfahan.
Its strikes have also killed top generals and nuclear scientists.
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said he would travel to Geneva to meet his European counterparts on Friday, indicating a diplomatic initiative might be taking shape.
Putin , Xi condemn Israel
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have held a phone call during which both leaders condemned Israel for its strikes on Iran and agreed de-escalation was needed, the Kremlin says.
Both men had strongly condemned “Israeli actions which violated the UN Charter and other norms of international law”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said on Thursday.
He said there was a consensus that Israeli and Western concerns about Iran’s nuclear program could not be solved militarily and that a diplomatic solution was needed.
Xi had told Putin he was in favour of Russian mediation efforts on Iran because he believed it could help de-escalate the situation, Ushakov said.
