DUBAI/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said he wanted a “real end” to the nuclear dispute with Iran and indicated he may send senior American officials to meet with the Islamic Republic as the Israel-Iran air war raged for a fifth day.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said meanwhile that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could face the same fate as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in a U.S.-led invasion and eventually hanged after a trial.
“I warn the Iranian dictator against continuing to commit war crimes and fire missiles at Israeli citizens,” Katz told top Israeli military officials. Shortly after, Iran’s state media reported an explosion was heard in Tehran.
Several explosions were later heard in the east and north of the city of Isfahan in central Iran, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
Speaking to reporters after his early departure from Canada, where he attended the Group of Seven nations summit on Monday, Trump predicted that Israel would not be easing its attacks on Iran.
“You’re going to find out over the next two days. You’re going to find out. Nobody’s slowed up so far,” he said.
Trump said he might send U.S. Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff or Vice President JD Vance to meet with Iranian officials.
Washington has said Trump is still aiming for a nuclear deal with Iran, even as the military confrontation unfolds.
Trump said his departure from the G7 summit had “nothing to do with” working on a deal between Israel and Iran, after French President Emmanuel Macron said the U.S. had initiated a ceasefire proposal.
Something “much bigger” than that was expected, he said on his Truth Social platform late on Monday.
REGIONAL INFLUENCE WEAKENS
Khamenei has seen his main military and security advisers killed by Israeli air strikes, leaving major holes in his inner circle and raising the risk of strategic errors, according to five people familiar with his decision-making process.
Israel’s military said Iran’s military leadership is “on the run” and that it had killed Iran’s wartime chief of staff Ali Shadmani overnight four days into his job after replacing another top commander killed in the strikes.
With Iranian leaders suffering their most dangerous security breach since the 1979 revolution that toppled a U.S.-backed monarch and led to clerical rule, the country’s cyber security command banned officials from using communications devices and mobile phones, Fars news agency reported.
Ever since the Tehran-backed Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023 and triggered the Gaza war, Khamenei’s regional influence has been weakening as Israel has pounded Iran’s proxies – from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq. And Iran’s close ally, Syria’s autocratic president Bashar al-Assad, has been ousted.
Israel launched its air war, its largest ever on Iran, after saying it concluded Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and has pointed to its right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including enrichment, as a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Israel, which is not a party to the NPT, is the only country in the Middle East widely believed to have nuclear weapons. Israel does not deny or confirm that.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stressed that he will not back down until Iran’s nuclear development is disabled, while Trump says the Israeli assault could end if Iran agrees to strict curbs on its nuclear programme.
Before the attack began, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years.
The IAEA said on Tuesday there were indications of direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls at the Natanz facility, and that there was no change to report at the Fordow and Isfahan sites.
Katz said the Iranian nuclear facility at Fordow, where an enrichment site is dug into a mountain, was an issue that will “of course” be addressed.
SHIP COLLISION
Israel says it now has control of Iranian airspace and intends to escalate the campaign in the coming days.
Israel’s advantage leaves few obstacles in the way of its expanding bombardment, though it will struggle to deal a knock-out blow to deeply buried nuclear sites without the U.S. joining the attack, experts say.
Iran has so far fired nearly 400 ballistic missiles and hundreds of drones towards Israel, with about 35 missiles penetrating Israel’s defensive shield and making impact, Israeli officials say.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had hit Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate and spy agency Mossad’s operational centre early on Tuesday. There was no Israeli confirmation of such attacks.
Iranian officials have reported 224 deaths, mostly civilians, while Israel said 24 civilians had been killed.
World oil markets are on high alert for any strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure or elsewhere in the region that could hit global supply.
Two oil tankers collided and caught fire on Tuesday near the Strait of Hormuz, where electronic interference has surged during conflict between Iran and Israel, but there were no injuries to crew or spillage reported. About a fifth of the world’s total oil consumption passes through the waterway.
Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson said Israel’s “uncalculated” attack on Iran’s South Pars gas field was worrying “everyone” but production was steady.
Iran shares the field, the world’s biggest, with Qatar.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Saad Sayeed, William Maclean and Aidan Lewis)
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