US president Donald Trump said he wanted a “real end” to the nuclear problem with Iran, with Iran “giving up entirely” on nuclear weapons, according to comments that were posted by a CBS News reporter on X.
Trump made the comments during his midnight departure from Canada, where he attended the Group of Seven nations summit on Monday, the CBS News reporter said early on Tuesday.
Trump predicted that Israel would not be slowing its attacks on Iran.
He said:
You’re going to find out over the next two days. You’re going to find out. Nobody’s slowed up so far.
The president added that he “may” send US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff or vice-president JD Vance to meet with Iran.
However, he added that “it depends what happens when I get back”. Asked on whether US involvement would destroy the Iranian nuclear programme, he said he hoped their programme would be “wiped out long before that”.
Key events
Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chinese president Xi Jinping will discuss the situation in the Middle East in a phone call in the coming days, the Interfax news agency cited a Kremlin aide as saying on Tuesday.
The aide, Yuri Ushakov, was also quoted by TASS as saying that Putin and Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan had agreed to intensify contacts between their respective foreign and defence ministries in light of the war between Israel and Iran.
More than 600 people of 17 nationalities have fled into Azerbaijan from Iran in the five days since the start of the air war between Israel and Iran, an Azerbaijani source with knowledge of the situation said on Tuesday.
The source said they included citizens of Russia, the United States, Germany, Spain, Italy, Serbia, Romania, Portugal, China, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, Georgia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Azerbaijan has kept land borders closed since the Covid-19 pandemic, but it allowed the foreigners to enter via a “humanitarian corridor” crossing at Astara in its southeast corner.
The source said people were being taken by bus to the capital Baku to catch flights to home countries.
The Israeli military said its forces struck on Tuesday several locations in western Iran, hitting “dozens” of missile launchers as the arch-foes traded fire for a fifth straight day, AFP reports.
The Israeli air force “completed a series of strikes in western Iran” in which “a number of sites and dozens of surface-to-surface missile launchers were struck”, a military statement said, hours after announcing “several extensive strikes” overnight on military targets in the Islamic republic’s west.
Israel’s El Al Airlines said on Tuesday it had received the government’s permission to start flights to bring back people stranded abroad during the conflict with Iran.
The Israeli flag carrier was referring to people who had flights to Israel cancelled when its airspace was closed.
It said it expects to operate flights on Wednesday from Larnaca, Athens, Rome, Milan and Paris to bring people to Israel.
El Al said that no flights from Israel to foreign countries had yet taken place since flights were grounded.
A Slovak government plane with 73 passengers – mostly Slovaks, but also Poles, Czechs, Austrians, Slovenians and others – landed in Bratislava on Monday before 17:00 GMT after leaving Israel, said Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Slovakia is sending another plane on Tuesday and then on Wednesday, with both expected to bring back Slovaks and foreigners.
One day later, a Czech government plane carrying 66 people from Israel landed in Prague.
A Czech government plane carrying 66 people from Israel landed in Prague on Tuesday morning, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
“I am glad they are all OK. The transport was really demanding in the difficult environment,” Czech defence minister Jana Cernochova said about the Czech flight on social media site X.
Israel closed its airspace last Friday after conducting strikes on Iran.
The defence ministry said most of the 66 evacuees were Czech nationals. It said in a statement that it was “not possible” to send the army plane straight to Israel, citing the airspace closure.
The ministry said:
The evacuees were taken to the airport in the neighbouring country by buses. They crossed the border on foot.
Czech media said a convoy with the evacuees had left Tel Aviv on Monday morning and boarded the plane in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt.
WHO warns Gaza’s health system is at ‘breaking point’
The World Health Organization pleaded on Tuesday for fuel to be allowed into Gaza to keep its remaining hospitals running, warning the Palestinian territory’s health system was at “breaking point”, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative in the Palestinian territories, said:
For over 100 days, no fuel has entered Gaza and attempts to retrieve stocks from evacuation zones have been denied.
Combined with critical supply shortages, this is pushing the health system closer to the brink of collapse.
Peeperkorn said only 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were currently minimally to partially functional.
They have a total of about 1,500 beds – about 45% fewer than before the conflict began.
He said all hospitals and primary health centres in north Gaza were currently out of service.
In Rafah in southern Gaza, health services are provided through the Red Cross field hospital and two partially functioning medical points.
Speaking from Jerusalem, he said the 17 partially functioning hospitals and seven field hospitals were barely running on a minimum amount of daily fuel and “will soon have none left”.
WHO trauma surgeon and emergency officer Thanos Gargavanis, said from the Strip:
We are walking already the fine line that separates disaster from saving lives. The shrinking humanitarian space makes every health activity way more difficult than the previous day.
An image of Iranian state TV presenter Sahar Emami, who was targeted live on air during an Israeli attack, has been displayed on a banner in Veliasr Square in Tehran.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that her image, with her finger raised in defiance, was paired with a verse from the Persian poet Ferdowsi, celebrating the courage of women “on the battlefield”.
The presenter has been declared a “hero” in the country. Iranian media reported that she was showered with rubble and her studio filled with dust live on air when an Israeli strike hit the Iranian state broadcaster IRIB.
Footage showed the newsreader fleeing from her desk late on Monday. The station later said its building was hit by four bombs.
The strike killed a staffer, Masoumeh Azimi, who succumbed to severe injuries caused by the shockwave from the attack, Press TV, which is owned by IRIB, reported. Several other journalists were also injured, it said.
It was not possible to independently confirm the report.
A banner of Sahar Emami in Veliasr Square in Tehran, Iran, on Tuesday. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Qatar said on Tuesday its gas production at the South Pars field is steady and supply is proceeding normally, after the world’s largest gas field was struck by Israel on Saturday, prompting Iran to partially suspend its production, Reuters reports.
Qatar, the world’s third biggest liquefied natural gas exporter after the US and Australia, shares the South Pars gas field with Iran. Iran partially suspended production at the field after an Israeli strike caused a fire on Saturday.
Qatar foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said during a weekly press briefing in Doha:
So far, gas supplies are proceeding normally. However, the ill-advised targeting raises concerns for everyone regarding gas supplies.
This is a reckless move … The companies operating in the fields are international, and there is a global presence, especially in the North Field.
The South Pars field is located offshore in Iran’s southern Bushehr province and is responsible for the bulk of gas production in Iran, the world’s third largest gas producer after the US and Russia.
Israeli airstrikes make ‘direct impacts’ on Iran’s underground enrichment site
The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Tuesday that it believes Israeli airstrikes on Iran’s Natanz enrichment site have had “direct impacts” on the facility’s underground centrifuge halls, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
The strikes are part of an air campaign Israel launched against its longtime foe five days ago, targeting Iran’s military and nuclear programme.
This marks the first time the UN nuclear watchdog has assessed damage from the strikes in the underground parts of Natanz, which is the main enrichment facility of Iran’s nuclear programme.
The agency said:
Based on continued analysis of high-resolution satellite imagery collected after Friday’s attacks, the IAEA has identified additional elements that indicate direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls at Natanz.
Already, an above-ground enrichment hall had been destroyed, as well as electrical equipment that powered the facility.
Julian Borger
In videos seen by the Guardian, dozens of bodies can be seen lying on the streets of Khan Younis following Israeli tank shellfire, with some having been loaded on to trucks.
Pools of blood can be seen as individuals flee the scene while others carry bodies. Damaged vehicles, including vans and trucks, are also visibly parked on the street.
Dr Mohammed Saqer, head of nursing at Nasser hospital, said the videos had been taken on Tuesday after “tanks attacked the people who were waiting for food” near an aid distribution site in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
He said:
All of these murdered and wounded were brought to Nasser medical hospital.
You can’t imagine the situation. They treat us as animals. They shoot hundreds of people – women, men, children.
Dr Saqer previously said that nearly 700 casualties had been reported as being treated in hospitals across Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
He said over 300 casualties had arrived at Nasser hospital following the attacks, including 50 who had died.
Palestinians who were injured in Israeli fire as they gathered near a food aid centre receive care at Khan Yunis’ Nasser hospital in the southern Gaza Strip on 17 June 2025. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
The EU said on Tuesday that diplomacy was the best path to tackle Tehran’s nuclear programme, after emergency talks between its 27 foreign ministers on the conflict between Israel and Iran, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said following a video call:
We all agreed the urgent need for de-escalation. Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, and diplomacy is the solution to prevent this, and (the) EU will play its part.
Europe has been left largely on the sidelines in efforts to curb the violence between the two Middle East foes after Israel unleashed its initial strikes on Iran.
Europe played a key role in negotiating and overseeing a 2015 agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme that Trump tore up during his first term in office.
Trump’s administration had been trying to agree a new deal with Tehran before Israel kicked off the latest strikes, and talks are now on hold.
“As the Iran and US talks have run into some kind of standstill”, Europe “has more to say”, Kallas said, adding that she had spoken on Monday to Iran’s foreign minister and key European counterparts.
Kallas said European countries were coordinating efforts to evacuate citizens who wanted to leave the region.
“We have member states that have planes leaving, we have member states who don’t have planes, and we coordinate the efforts so that our citizens are safe,” she said.
The EU’s top diplomat said she had received reassurances from US counterpart Marco Rubio that Washington was not looking to join in Israel’s attacks on Iran, saying that it was in “nobody’s interest”.
Israel has Iran’s military leadership on the run, military official says
Israel struck dozens of targets linked to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes overnight and has got Iran’s military leadership “on the run”, an Israeli military official said on Tuesday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the Israeli air force had not targeted Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear facility, but said that still might happen, Reuters reported.
He added that Israel was taking precautions to avoid triggering a nuclear disaster.
The official said Iran has so far launched about 400 ballistic missiles and hundreds of drones at Israel, targeting both civilian and military sites. He said an overnight fall-off in the number of missiles fired showed that Israel had succeeded in damaging Iran’s ability to launch missiles.
US intelligence suggests Iran was ‘years away’ from nuclear weapon – CNN
US intelligence assessments have found Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon and would have been up to three years away from being able to deliver one, CNN is reporting.
The assessments, sourced to four people familiar with them, are in stark contrast to the narrative being pushed by Israel that Iran was fast approaching a point of no return in acquiring nuclear weapons.
CNN reported:
When Israel launched its series of strikes against Iran last week, it also issued a number of dire warnings about the country’s nuclear program, suggesting Iran was fast approaching a point of no return in its quest to obtain nuclear weapons and that the strikes were necessary to preempt that outcome.
But US intelligence assessments had reached a different conclusion – not only was Iran not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, it was also up to three years away from being able to produce and deliver one to a target of its choosing, according to four people familiar with the assessment.
Another senior US official told CNN that Iran is “about as close as you can get before building (a nuclear weapon). If Iran wanted one, they have all the things they need.”
Meanwhile, after days of Israeli airstrikes, US intelligence officials believe that so far, Israel may have set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a matter of months.
Donald Trump has previously dismissed congressional testimony from the National Intelligence Director of the US, Tulsi Gabbard, who told lawmakers in March that US spy agencies did not believe Iran was building a nuclear weapon (see post 12.08).
The US president, Donald Trump, said he was aiming for a ‘real end’ to the conflict between Israel and Iran, and not just a ceasefire.
He told reporters shortly after arriving back in the US from a G7 summit: “I’m not looking for a ceasefire, we’re looking at better than a ceasefire.”
Donald Trump says he wants ‘real end’ to Iran-Israel conflict – video
