4 h. ago Israel’s attack has exposed Iran’s lack of firepower – but conflict could yet turn in Tehran’s favour

Iran has struggled to respond effectively after Israel killed many of its top military commandersIt is a week since Israel began its largest attack ever on Iran, and in conventional military terms it is clear that Tehran is under extreme pressure. Israel has been able to achieve superiority over Iran’s skies at extraordinary speed, within hours of launching its surprise assault. Its military claimed on Monday to have knocked out 120 Iranian air defence systems through a mixture of air and drone strikes, about a third of Tehran’s pre-war total.In response, Iran’s most effective weapon has been its stock of high-speed ballistic missiles, estimated at about 2,000 by Israel’s Defence Force (IDF) at the outset of hostilities last week. But the heavy targeting by Israel of launch sites in western Iran, in underground bases such as at Kermanshah – coupled with Israel’s grimly effective targeted killing of Iran’s top military commanders – have left Iran struggling to respond militarily and ...

Events

5 h. ago Trump warns Iran: ‘I will make my decision whether or not to go within two weeks’

Sheds first light on a timeline for whether or not president will draw US forces into the conflict between Israel and iran

Events

7 h. ago Iran's cratered nuclear reactor after Israel's precision strike revealed as Tel Aviv threatens to assassinate supreme leader and Trump considers joining war: Live updates

Benjamin Netanyahu has declared 'no one is immune' from an Israeli attack after his defence minister insisted Iran 's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei 'can no longer be allowed to exist'.

Events

8 h. ago Here’s what happens next if Trump launches his attack plan on Iran: report

President still mulling joining Israeli assault against Tehran to stop its nuclear program

Politics

9 h. ago Iran's cratered nuclear reactor after Israel's precision strike revealed as Tel Aviv threatens to assassinate supreme leader and Trump considers joining war

Benjamin Netanyahu has declared 'no one is immune' from an Israeli attack after his defence minister insisted Iran 's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei 'can no longer be allowed to exist'.

Events

9 h. ago Netanyahu makes chilling threat to Ayatollah after Israeli minister said Iran's leader 'cannot continue to exist'

Benjamin Netanyahu has declared 'no one is immune' from an Israeli attack after his defence minister insisted Iran 's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei 'can no longer be allowed to exist'.

Politics

11 h. ago Mapped: Where Iran and Israel’s missiles have struck as Tehran hits major hospital

Tensions escalate after Israel launches largest bombardment on Iran in decades early on Friday

Events

15 h. ago 'Strong case' for Donald Trump to attack Iran's nuclear sites with bunker

Sir John Sawers, head of the Secret Intelligence Service from 2009 to 2014, believes it may be better if the US president ‘got on with it’

Events

15 h. ago Trump approved Iran attack plans on Tuesday but then decided to hold off, report says

President still weighing U.S. intervention in Middle East in hope Tehran will back down

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17 h. ago Israeli hospital hit by Iranian missile as Trump 'approves Iran attack plan' but yet to decide whether to strike

A number of people have been wounded in the attack on Soroka Medical Centre, according to a hospital spokesperson

Events

19 h. ago Europe must stand without the US – but the latest war in the Middle East shows it has no idea how | Nathalie Tocci

If Europe was not so in hock to Washington, it would sanction Israel over Gaza and condemn its unilateral attack on IranThe rupture in the transatlantic relationship has left European leaders struggling to know how to think, let alone act, with any autonomy. Europe most urgently needs a mind of its own on the Middle East.Tragically, EU governments were just beginning to turn the page after a year and a half of complicity with the Israeli government’s war crimes in Gaza. Donald Trump’s obscene plans for a Gaza “riviera” and “humanitarian” initiatives that breach humanitarian principles were creating distance with the US, and European governments were starting to craft their own course.Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading...

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22 h. ago Iran braces for incoming barrage as air defenses activated in advance of Israeli attack and US military awaits orders to strike: Live updates

Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatened an attack on U.S. naval ships and troops if Donald Trump authorizes strikes on its nuclear bunkers as Israel is hit with a sixth day of bombing.

Events

25 h. ago British, German and French foreign ministers plan meeting with Iranian counterpart

The meeting in Geneva would be the first face-to-face diplomatic communication with Iran since Israel’s attackThe foreign ministers of the UK, France and Germany are planning to meet the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, in what could represent a potential diplomatic breakthrough after five days of Israeli bombing.The meeting is due to take place in Geneva on Friday but final confirmation from Tehran is still pending; if confirmed it would represent the first face-to-face diplomatic meeting since Benjamin Netanyahu launched Israel’s attack on Iran’s military and nuclear sites. Continue reading...

Politics

29 h. ago The Guardian view on Israel, the US and Iran: you can’t bomb your way out of nuclear proliferation | Editorial

The age of disarmament is over. But military action only increases the dangers instead of ending the threatEighty years after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and 40 years after the US and Soviet Union pledged to reduce their arsenals, the threat of nuclear war has resurged with a vengeance. The age of disarmament is over, a prominent thinktank warned this week: “We see a clear trend of growing nuclear arsenals, sharpened nuclear rhetoric and the abandonment of arms control agreements,” said Hans M Kristensen of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.The world’s nine nuclear-armed states have amassed the equivalent of 145,000 Hiroshima bombs. Israel’s illegal attack upon Iran is purportedly a last-ditch attempt to prevent it joining this club – as Israel did long ago, though does not admit it. While Tehran possesses the capacity to develop a nuclear weapon if it chose to, US intelligence believes it has not made that decision – and would stil...

Events

29 h. ago Trump undecided on joining war on Iran as Khamenei warns him not to attack

‘I may do it, I may not do it,’ US president says as Tehran reportedly prepares to strike US bases in responseDonald Trump said he had not decided whether or not to take his country into Israel’s new war, as Iran’s supreme leader said the US would face “irreparable damage” if it deployed its military to attack.Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Israel had made a “huge mistake” by launching the war, in his first comments since Friday. “The Americans should know that any US military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage,” he said in a statement read out by a presenter on state TV. Continue reading...

Events

31 h. ago Keir Starmer holds Cobra meeting on Middle East fighting as UK evacuates families of Israel embassy staff

The Prime Minister gathered ministers and outside experts including military leaders after returning from the G7 summit in Canada, where he met Donald Trump.

Politics

32 h. ago Tucker Carlson confronts Ted Cruz on Iran as Maga rift erupts into public view

Public spat reflects fracture among Trump’s coalition over whether US should join Israel’s escalating conflict with IranUS politics live – latest updatesTed Cruz, the US senator from Texas, and conservative media personality Tucker Carlson have clashed over US military involvement in the Middle East, with the latter shouting: “You don’t know anything about Iran!” in a heated interview that exposes a sharp division within Donald Trump’s coalition as the president considers joining Israel in attacking Iran.In the confrontation, a short excerpt released ahead of an approximately two-hour interview set to air today, Carlson – an acolyte of the Maga movement which generally argues for American isolationism from foreign wars – challenged Cruz’s knowledge of Iran, which the Republican hawk has advocated attacking. Continue reading...

Politics

32 h. ago Israel’s assumption US would get drawn into Iran war is being put to the test

President Donald Trump initially appeared to discourage attacks but Israeli officials claim they always had his supportIsrael’s attack on Iran was carried out with Donald Trump’s approval, government officials in Israel claim, and it appears to have been unleashed in the expectation – but not certainty – that the US would ultimately get drawn into the war.That assumption is now being put to the test as the US president weighs a decision on whether to join an assault he has increasingly embraced in his public pronouncements. Continue reading...

Politics

33 h. ago Putin wades in: Russia warns Trump against bombing Iran and says Israel is 'millimetres away' from sparking nuclear 'catastrophe' with its airstrikes as Trump considers US military attack

Fears that the United States could wade into yet another war in the Middle East grew yesterday when a security source revealed Trump was considering joining Israel in strikes on Iran

Events

34 h. ago Keir Starmer to hold Cobra meeting on Middle East fighting as UK evacuates families of Israel embassy staff

Sir Keir Starmer will chair a meeting of the emergency Cobra committee on Wednesday to discuss the security situation in the Middle East, amid fears that the US will join Israel's attack on Iran.

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