Iran’s leader warns of ‘irreparable damage’ if Trump attacks

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Wednesday to help mediate an end to the conflict between Israel and Iran, suggesting Moscow could help negotiate a settlement that could allow Tehran to pursue a peaceful atomic program while assuaging Israeli security concerns.

Speaking at a roundtable session with senior news leaders of international news agencies, Putin said he had shared Moscow’s proposals with Iran, Israel and the United States.

“We are not imposing anything on anyone, we are simply talking about how we see a possible way out of the situation. But the decision, of course, is up to the political leadership of all these countries, primarily Iran and Israel,” the Russian leader added.

The British official said the U.S. is sending resources including the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and putting refueling tankers in Spain and Greece, adding that the U.S. has fighter jets and B-52 bombers at Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter freely.

They said there could be a U.S. request to station jets at RAF base Akrotiri, the British base in Cyprus, but that the U.K. has not received one yet. The U.S. would normally have to inform the U.K. if it wanted to conduct offensive operations from either the U.K. base in Cyprus or Diego Garcia, which is a joint U.S.-U.K. base.

A British official with knowledge of the situation in the Middle East said there “isn’t complete clarity” about the American plan in the region. The official said they understand the U.S. is still debating what to do but believe that “all options” are on the table.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely on the matter, said Trump wants to put pressure on Iran to do a deal and suggested he does not want to go to war.

The British official said the U.S. is mounting a “very strong defensive response,” which allows a lot of choice “whichever way this goes,” but emphasized that the U.S. is framing the current operation as “primarily defensive.” That includes protecting U.S. bases and personnel in the Middle East.

The high-ranking officials from Germany, France and the United Kingdom as well as the European Union’s top diplomat will gather for the meeting with Iran in Switzerland.

That’s according to a European official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

It comes as Trump is weighing approval U.S. military to join Israel in carrying out strikes on Iran’s nuclear program.

Two U.S. officials said a government plane evacuated a number of diplomats and family members who had asked to leave Israel on Wednesday.

That took place shortly before U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee announced on X that the embassy was making plans for evacuation flights and ships for private American citizens.

There’s no indication of how many diplomats and family members departed on the flight.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive diplomatic movements.

Social media users reported that regular broadcasts on state TV were briefly interrupted and replaced with an anti-government video urging people to take to streets.

After the normal broadcast was resumed, a message displayed on screen read: “If you see an irrelevant message on the screen, it’s due to a cyber attack by the Zionist regime.”

Both Oman and Egypt have played key roles in mediating recent regional conflicts and high-stakes diplomacy.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday told both the Egyptian and Omani foreign ministers that Beijing is willing to work with Egypt, Oman and other regional countries to restore peace, according to state media.

The president has insisted he doesn’t want the U.S. to get involved in a war with Iran, and he’s insisted that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon.

On Wednesday in the Oval Office, Trump conceded that he may not be able to have it both ways.

“I’m not looking to fight. But if it’s a choice between fighting and them having a nuclear weapon, you have to do what you have to do,” he said.

At another point, Trump said “you may have to fight.”

The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford will sail from the East Coast for Europe on a regularly scheduled deployment. But its presence also gives President Donald Trump a third aircraft carrier option as he weighs what sort of military response the U.S. should provide amid escalating strikes between Israel and Iran.

The Ford was previously deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean as a show of strength and to provide options to Israel following the October 2023 attacks by Hamas. The U.S. Navy already has the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, and is sending the USS Nimitz to sail toward the Mideast from the Indo-Pacific.

Sirens sounded in Israeli communities in the annexed Golan Heights after a drone infiltrated the area late Wednesday, the military said, but it was intercepted by the air force.

For the second day in a row, communications and internet service has been cut off in south and central Gaza because of an outage caused by Israeli attacks on a key piece of infrastructure, according to the Ramallah-based Telecommunications Regulatory Authority.

Meanwhile up north in Gaza City, Al-Quds Hospital was able to report that it received the bodies of four people and treated more than 54 wounded Wednesday morning following Israeli shelling across neighborhoods in the city, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Since the war began on October 2023, a total of 55,637 people have been killed and nearly 130,000 others were injured, Gaza’s Health Ministry says. That count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but it says women and children make up more than half the dead.

The toll includes 5,334 people killed and more than 17,000 wounded since Israel ended a ceasefire three months ago.

Israeli strikes across the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis killed 22 people, including two children, and injured 90 others since dawn Wednesday, according to records from Nasser Hospital, where the bodies were taken.

Eight were killed sheltering in tents and five others killed while trying to get aid, according to hospital records obtained by an AP contributor.

Dozens gathered at Nasser Hospital to mourn their loved ones placed in body bags, including Ahmed Abu Rizk, a boy who cried and screamed in disbelief at losing his father, who was fatally shot when they were getting aid at the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution center in Rafah.

Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that hospitals across the territory took in 144 bodies and treated 560 wounded people within a 24-hour period.

Three top officials at the Washington-based Arms Control Association are strongly urging Trump and members of Congress “to choose nuclear nonproliferation diplomacy over war.”

They warned in a statement Wednesday that military strikes can’t destroy Iran’s extensive nuclear knowledge, and while they can set back its nuclear program, attacks can also spur Tehran to pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and possibly pursue nuclear weapons.

Israel, which is believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal, is not a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty.

According to U.S. intelligence, the experts said, there was no imminent threat that Iran was moving toward producing nuclear weapons before Israel’s attack.

The mix of speed and agility gives defenders less time to react, making the missiles hard to stop.

“It comes over the horizon, you suddenly see it, and then it’s over,” said Jack Watling, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute.

The missile Iran has launched, the Fattah 1, has had minimal success. Israel says Iran has fired over 400 missiles, with over 40 causing damage or casualties.

That’s because “speed is not crucial,” said Yehoshua Kalisky, a senior researcher at the Israeli think tank INSS.

“What is important is the maneuverability of the incoming missiles, and so far the maneuverability of these missiles is limited,” said Kalisky.

He said Iran has two fast and maneuverable missiles, the Khorramshahr and Fattah 2, that would be “more difficult” to intercept. But neither have been deployed.

Simply put, hypersonic weapons are any missile that travels beyond Mach 5, five times the speed of sound. Ballistic missiles, fired high up or outside the earth’s atmosphere, routinely reach this speed.

However, they must also be able to maneuver midflight to qualify as true hypersonic weapons. That’s a capability Iran isn’t believed to possesses, as the missiles must have advanced navigation systems and withstand the temperature and momentum stresses.

Experts say the U.S. and China are the only countries that have developed new-generation hypersonic missiles, but neither have used them in battle. Other nations such as Russia, North Korea and Pakistan have tested or used missiles with similar but less sophisticated technology.

▶ Read more about hypersonic missiles

Iran’s police says a number of its forces have been injured during a strike by Israel on its central command buildings in Tehran. An official statement by police public relations called the attack “cowardly and blind.”

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said he’s spoken to Trump and believes the president could “quite reasonably” intervene in the conflict by striking an Iranian nuclear facility that’s deep underground.

Cruz did not respond to a question about whether such actions risked drawing the U.S. into a wider regional war.

“In terms of U.S. involvement in military action, there is zero possibility of American boots on the ground in Iran,” he said.

Cruz also said he believes Iran was working to build a nuclear bomb intended to threaten America. Experts and the U.S. intelligence community have assessed that Iran was not actively working on such a weapon before Israel’s strikes.

French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his concerns about “Israeli strikes increasingly targeting sites unrelated to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic programs, and a growing number of civilian casualties in Iran and Israel.”

“We urgently need to put an end to these military operations,” a statement by Macron’s office said Wednesday, following a special security meeting at the presidential palace in Paris.

Macron asked France’s foreign minister to work with European partners to propose a negotiated settlement of the conflict in the coming days.

He also asked the government to take measures to facilitate the departure of French nationals who want to leave Israel and Iran.

Saying he is “profoundly alarmed” at the military escalation between the two countries, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also strongly appealed to all parties “to avoid any further internationalization of the conflict.”

And in an indirect warning to Trump, who is debating whether to intervene to support Israel, Guterres said: “Any additional military interventions could have enormous consequences, not only for those involved but for the whole region and for international peace and security at large.”

In a statement Wednesday, he stressed that “Diplomacy remains the best and only way to address concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program and regional security issues.”

The secretary-general also condemned “the tragic and unnecessary loss of lives and injuries to civilians and damage to homes and critical civilian infrastructure.”

Some of the strongest moves on Wall Street were again in the oil market, where crude prices dropped after Trump said it’s not “too late” for Iran to give up its nuclear program.

Oil prices have been yo-yoing for days because of rising and ebbing fears that Israel’s fighting with Iran could disrupt the global flow of crude.

During his 2024 run for the White House, Trump promised voters he would quickly end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and keep the U.S. out of costly conflicts.

Steve Bannon, who served as a senior adviser to Trump during his first administration, on Wednesday said the administration should tread carefully.

“This is not something you play around with,” Bannon told reporters. “You have to think this through. And the American people have to be on board. You can’t just dump it on them.”

Trump has pushed back at that notion, saying: “My supporters are more in love with me today, and I’m in love with them more than they were even at election time when we had a total landslide.”

Trump says Iranian officials continue to reach out. “They’ve suggested that they come to the White House — that’s, you know, courageous.”

Iran’s mission to the United Nations refuted Trump’s claim in a statement on social media: “No Iranian official has ever asked to grovel at the gates of the White House. The only thing more despicable than his lies is his cowardly threat to ‘take out’ Iran’s Supreme Leader.”

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Wednesday that Moscow has cautioned Washington against offering direct military assistance to Israel.

“We are warning Washington against even speculative, hypothetical considerations of the sort,” Ryabkov said, according to the Interfax news agency. “That would be a step drastically destabilizing the situation as a whole.”

Trump said earlier this week that Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to serve a mediator with. But the U.S. president said he told Putin to keep focused on finding an endgame to his own conflict with Ukraine.

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Luggage of evacuees from Israel are seen outside of a Jews community center, after their arrival from Israel to the port of Larnaca, Cyprus, Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

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Evacuees from Israel eat food at a Jews community center after they arrived from Israel with a ship, at the port of Larnaca, Cyprus, Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

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Carrie Best-Lary was among hundreds of Jews who had traveled to Israel on a trip that was supposed to be about culture and Jewish roots, only to find herself fleeing on a cruise ship to Cyprus. She is in one of two groups that have converged on the Mediterranean island — one leaving Israel and the other trying to get back in.

At a scary time, the two groups that never expected their paths to cross are coming together, seeking shelter and sharing kosher meals.

Cyprus has become a transit point for those being evacuated from Israel or Israelis wishing to return home after being stranded abroad, with thousands now in Cyprus trying to reach Israel.

▶ Read more about Israelis in Cyprus

Witnesses say there have been more than 10 powerful explosions in central Tehran as Israel continues its campaign, with white smoke rising into the air. Iranian officials did not immediately acknowledge the strikes.

The Israeli military urged people to head to shelters after it said it identified missile launches in Iran on Wednesday evening.

Israel had eased some restrictions for civilians earlier in the day, as Iranian missile attacks have been waning.

There were no immediate reports of injuries, according to Israel’s emergency rescue service.

“I may do it, I may not do it,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters at the White House . “I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.”

Iran’s supreme leader issued a fresh warning Wednesday that U.S. direct involvement in Israel’s military operations be greeted with stiff retaliation.

The “bunker-buster” bombs believed necessary to significantly damage Iran’s underground nuclear sites would have to be dropped from an American aircraft.

The denial by Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei comes after three planes flew to Muscat, Oman, from Iran on Wednesday, despite Iranian airspace being closed.

The U.S. State Department is making plans to evacuate American citizens from Israel by flights and cruise ships, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said on Wednesday.

In a post on X, he said Americans interested in leaving Israel should enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) for updates. The link is: https://t.co/rXymPRTQJJ

Huckabee’s post comes just a day after the State Department said it had stood up a special task force to assist Americans wanting to leave Israel and other Mideast countries.

There are some 700,000 Americans, many of them dual U.S.-Israeli citizens, now in Israel and thousands more in other Mideast countries, including Iran.

A top leader of the Houthi rebels in Yemen, one of Iran’s allies, say they will keep up their support for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip until Israeli “aggression stops, and the siege is lifted.”

“Our operations in support of Gaza will not cease, no matter the sacrifices,” said Houthi-backed president Mahdi al-Mashat in a statement Wednesday.

The Houthis are the last militant group in Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” that is capable of regularly attacking Israel.

They’ve been firing long-range missiles at Israel in the months since it resumed the war in Gaza, setting off air raid sirens but generally causing few casualties. They’re also been attacking shipping in Mideast waters.

Republican U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn, whose district covers Iowa’s capital and suburbs, said the U.S. would back up nuclear negotiations with firm consequences.

“This is something that needs to be on the negotiating table to make the Iranians aware: that there’s a real threat here if they refuse to negotiate a peaceful end to their nuclear program, the U.S. has the ability to eliminate it for them,” Nunn told the AP in Dubai on Wednesday.

He’s one of four U.S. representatives — two Democrats and two Republicans — visiting wealthy Persian Gulf allies, including Saudi Arabia.

Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider said they’re working to get a sense of the challenges facing the so-called Abraham Accords, in which four Arab countries normalized relations with Israel in 2020.

The members of the U.S. House of Representatives are visiting the United Arab Emirates, a key ally in the Gulf, as the conflict between Israel and Iran has frozen nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran.

“A nuclear-armed Iran is an existential threat,” Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider told the AP in Dubai.

Schneider represents northern Illinois’ wealthy and working-class communities along Lake Michigan and is a classic swing district with a large number of Jewish voters.

Highlighting deterrence, Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said: “If Iran attacks our forces, I will guarantee you that there will be a very hard response.”

Bacon also hails from a swing district that includes Omaha and which voted for Kamala Harris last fall while sending the Republican back to Congress.

Speaking to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for a general audience, Pope Leo XIV urged: “We must not get used to war. On the contrary, we must reject as a temptation the allure of powerful and sophisticated weapons.”

The pope said Tuesday that “the heart of the church is torn by the cries rising from places of war, especially Ukraine, Iran, Israel and Gaza,” and appealed for peace “in the name of human dignity and international law.”

In the year and a half before his death, Leo’s predecessor Pope Francis became increasingly outspoken in his criticism of the Israeli military’s harsh tactics in Gaza. Francis also advocated freeing the hostages held by Hamas, meeting with their families.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — An Iranian semiofficial news agency has denied “rumors” that an Israeli airstrike targeted the home of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

It’s the first time media in Iran has explicitly acknowledged the Islamic Republic’s paramount leader was a target.

The report came from the Fars news agency, believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

Fars described the rumors as showing “the U.S. and the Zionist regime’s anger and confusion in the face of the supreme leader’s firm statements made today.”

Three aircraft took off from Iran for Muscat, Oman’s capital, on Wednesday. The flights come as Iranian airspace has been closed for days. Their flight trackers all turned on in southeastern Iran, meaning it wasn’t immediately clear from where the aircraft took off.

Iran offered no explanation for the flights and Oman did not immediately acknowledge any arrival of Iranian officials to the sultanate.

Oman has been a key mediator between Iran and the United States during their five rounds of talks over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei earlier Wednesday warned that the United States that strikes targeting Iran will “result in irreparable damage for them” and that his country would not heed to Trump’s call for surrender.

“I say good luck,” Trump said when asked about the supreme leader’s refusal to surrender.

“Nothing’s too late,” Trump said when asked about whether direct U.S. involvement in Israel’s military operations against Iran was becoming inevitable. He added. “I can tell you this. Iran’s got a lot of trouble.”

Trump’s comments came as during an event on the White House South Lawn to watch the raising of a new flagpole.

NetBlocks, a group which monitors government-caused internet interference, said Iran was “in the midst of a near-total national internet blackout.”

“The incident follows a series of earlier partial disruptions and comes amid escalating military tensions with Israel after days of back-and-forth missile strike,” it said in a post on the social media platform X.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Raja Khatib, whose wife and two daughters were killed in a strike Saturday, said his tragedy showed Jews and Arabs had a shared destiny on the land.

“We have a common future. We need to understand that we have a common destiny,” said Khatib, whose home in the Palestinian city of Tamra in northern Israel was struck. “So let’s end all the wars ... and live in peace.”

Israel has roughly 2 million Palestinian citizens.

Khatib described a scene of devastation in his home the night of the strike.

“I heard a huge, big bomb. Then, it became completely dark and dusty,” Khatib said. He tried to ascend to the top floor where his loved ones were killed, “but everything was destroyed.” Khatib’s sister-in-law was also killed in the strike.

The Israeli military is urging members of the Iranian security services to contact Israel’s Mossad intelligence service, claiming they had been receiving messages from officials worried about Iran’s “uncertain future.”

There was no immediate way to independently verify the claim.

In a post on the social platform X in Farsi, the Israeli military provided a website and urged users to employ a virtual private network before attempting contact.

“Even those who identify themselves as members of the regime’s security institutions express their fear, despair, and anger at what is happening in Iran and ask us to contact Israeli authorities - so that Iran does not suffer the same fate as Lebanon and Gaza,” the message added.

The message did not elaborate. However, it comes as Iran is in a frenzy over spies, prompting warnings to officials to abandon certain devices, apps and web services.

Late Wednesday afternoon, internet access across Iran crashed. Authorities offered no immediate explanation.

Just after 4 p.m. local time, a likely Israeli airstrike sent a giant plume of gray smoke skyward in the eastern reaches of Tehran.

It wasn’t immediately clear what was targeted.

Israel is easing some restrictions for civilians that have frozen the country in place over the past week, the military announced on Wednesday, six days into the confrontation with Iran.

While schools are still closed, people will begin returning to workplaces where there is access to shelters.

Restrictions are being eased further in areas along Israel’s periphery, which have been targeted fewer times than the country’s center.

“This decision to gradually open the economy in the various regions is a message of victory over the Iranian enemy,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday. Iran has fired fewer missiles as the conflict has worn on, allowing Israeli air defense systems greater accuracy with interceptions.

State television has aired footage of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei giving a statement that was read out by a TV anchor a short while ago.

The footage strikingly contrasted against the high-quality recording typically produced of his speeches, with his voice echoing as he sat in a room with beige curtains behind him.

A portrait of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who Khamenei succeeded, was over his left shoulder, with an Iranian flag to his right.

Khamenei warned the United States that joining the Israeli strikes targeting the Islamic Republic will “result in irreparable damage for them.”

Germany’s foreign minister has underlined European countries’ willingness to talk to Iran about a solution to the crisis over its nuclear program. But he says there needs to be movement from Tehran.

Johann Wadephul said Wednesday that “it is never too late to come to the negotiating table, if you come with honest intentions.”

He spoke two days after he held a call with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi along with his French and British counterparts and the European Union foreign policy chief.

Wadephul said the European officials made clear that their countries –- which were part of Iran’s 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers –- “still stand ready to negotiate on a solution.”

But he added that “Iran must now move urgently. Iran must take confidence-building and verifiable measures,” including a credible statement that Tehran is not striving for a nuclear weapon.

The European Union says it has helped evacuate about 400 of its citizens out of Israel via Jordan and Egypt as part of its efforts to coordinate emergency response to the conflict within the 27 nations of the bloc.

“Up till now, we have an estimate that over 400 EU citizens were repatriated via this civil protection mechanism of the EU,” said Eva Hrncirova in Brussels on Wednesday.

She said the EU was fielding requests by Slovakia, Lithuania, Greece and Poland for assistance in evacuating from the Middle East.

“Member states coordinate the list and we co-finance these flights up to the 75% of the transport costs,” she said.