ISTANBUL/WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM. — US PRESIDENT Donald Trump said he had “obliterated” Iran’s main nuclear sites in strikes overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East.
Tehran vowed to defend itself and responded with a volley of missiles at Israel that wounded scores of people and destroyed buildings in its commercial hub Tel Aviv.
But, perhaps in an effort to avert all-out war with the superpower, it had yet to follow through on its main threats of retaliation – to target US bases or choke off the quarter of the world’s oil shipments that pass through its waters.
Trump, in a televised address to Americans, called the strikes a “spectacular military success” and warned Tehran against retaliation, saying it would face more devastating attacks if it did not agree to peace.
Iran, which has responded to Israel’s sudden blitz on its nuclear and military apparatus since June 13 with missile fire on Israeli cities, called the US attack a grave violation of international law that would have “everlasting consequences.”
“Iran reserves all options to defend its sovereignty, interest and people,” wrote Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in a social media post, noting that the Israeli and US attacks on Iran came despite ongoing talks between Washington and Tehran.
“The events this morning are outrageous and will have everlasting consequences,” Araqchi said, calling the US strikes a “grave violation” of the UN charter, international law and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Speaking in Istanbul, Araqchi said Tehran was weighing its options for retaliation and would consider diplomacy only after carrying out its response.
“The US showed they have no respect for international law. They only understand the language of threat and force,” he said.
Trump’s decision is the biggest foreign policy gamble of his two presidencies and he was flanked during the announcement by Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
He said US bombing had taken out Iran’s three principal nuclear sites: Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, which are involved in the production or storage of enriched uranium, a material used as fuel for power plants but also to make atomic warheads.
Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity show that six “bunker-buster” bombs were dropped on the deep-underground Fordow facility, while 30 Tomahawk missiles were fired against other nuclear sites.
US B-2 bombers were involved in the strikes, a US official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Reuters had reported the movement of the B-2 bombers, which can be equipped to carry the massive bombs that experts say would be needed to strike Fordow, which is buried beneath a mountain south of Tehran. Given its fortification, it will likely be days, if not longer, before the impact of the strikes is known.
The UN nuclear watchdog said no increases in off-site radiation levels had been reported after the U.S. strikes, and the agency’s head, Rafael Grossi, said he was calling an emergency meeting of its 35-nation board of governors for Monday.
A senior Iranian source told Reuters that most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow had been moved elsewhere before the attack and the number of nuclear personnel there had been reduced to a minimum.
Mohammad Manan Raisi, a member of parliament for Qom, near Fordow, told the semi-official Fars news agency the facility had not been seriously damaged, without elaborating.
Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said it would not allow the development of its “national industry” to be stopped.
The head of the Iranian parliament’s foreign policy committee said Tehran had a legal right to quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the document that allows it rights to a civilian atomic program while barring it from seeking a bomb.
The US strikes, with bunker-buster bombs and Tomahawk missiles, push the Middle East to the brink of a major new conflagration in a region already aflame for more than 20 months with wars in Gaza and Lebanon and a toppled dictator in Syria.
CBS News reported that Washington had contacted Tehran to say it did not aim for regime change. However, Trump said Iran’s future held “either peace or tragedy” and “if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Trump on a “bold decision.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the US strikes a “dangerous escalation in a region already on the edge – and a direct threat to international peace and security.”
US ally Britain said the United States had taken action to alleviate the threat of Iran developing a nuclear weapon. It and Germany urged Iran to sit down for more negotiations on the future of its atomic program.
In the US, Democratic lawmakers and some from Trump’s Republican Party have argued that he must receive permission from Congress before committing the US military to any combat against Iran.
SATELLITE IMAGERY
Satellite images of the mountainous area covering the subterranean Fordow uranium enrichment plant obtained by Reuters appear to show some damage after the US strikes, and possible damage to nearby entryways.
It was largely impossible to assess the extent of the damage inside Iran on Sunday morning. Communication both within Iran and with the outside world has been sharply curtailed in recent days, with internet access shut.
Iran says hundreds of people have been killed in Israeli bombing, most of them civilians.
Iranian state media, which broadcast vivid footage of damage to civilian targets in the first days of Israeli bombardment, have stopped showing regular images of damage. Much of Tehran, a city of 10 million people, has emptied, with residents fleeing into the countryside as Israel pounded the capital.
Gulf Arab states, which have in recent years tried to cool long-time rivalries with Iran and fear their crucial energy exports could be targeted in any expanded conflict, expressed concern at the escalation.
ISRAELI CITIES
Iranian missile fire on Israel appeared heavier overnight, witnesses in the country said, with the health ministry reporting 86 people injured.
Iranians contacted by Reuters described their fear at the prospect of an enlarged war involving the United States.
“Our future is dark. We have nowhere to go – it’s like living in a horror movie,” Bita, 36, a teacher from the central city of Kashan, said before the phone line was cut.
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards said they had fired 40 missiles at Israel overnight and, warning of more to come, added that they had not yet made the main part of their capabilities operational.
Iran has repeatedly targeted Tel Aviv, the country’s business and economic hub and home to a metropolitan population of 4 million, and several critical military sites. Air raid sirens sounded across most of Israel, sending millions of people to safe rooms and bomb shelters as explosions rang out and missile interceptions were seen above Jerusalem and in other parts of the country.
Aviad Chernovsky, 40, emerged from a bomb shelter to find his house had been destroyed in a direct hit. “It’s not easy to live now in Israel (right now), but we are very strong. We know that we will win,” he said.
It was not immediately clear how many missiles had pierced Israel’s air defense systems. Police confirmed at least three impact sites in residential areas of central and northern Israel.
Israel’s Health Ministry said 86 people were injured on Sunday morning, most of them lightly.
Video from Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv and the port city of Haifa further north showed rescue teams combing through debris, apartments reduced to rubble, mangled cars along a street filled with debris and medics evacuating injured people from a row of blown-out houses.
A Yemeni Houthi official said on Sunday that the Iran-aligned group’s response to the US attack on Iran was “only a matter of time.”
Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi movement’s political bureau, told Al Jazeera Mubasher TV that its ceasefire deal with Washington was before the “war” on Iran.
The group has been launching attacks on shipping lanes and Israel in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza during the Israeli war. It agreed on a ceasefire deal with the United States in May to stop attacking US ships in exchange for an end to Washington’s bombings of the group.
Most airlines continued to avoid large parts of the Middle East after the US intervention in the conflict. Israel’s Airport Authority said Israeli airspace would open for six hours on Sunday.
Israel and Iran have been engaged in more than a week of aerial combat that has resulted in deaths and injuries in both countries. Israel launched its attacks on June 13, saying Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons.
Iran says its uranium enrichment program is for peaceful purposes only. Israel is widely assumed to possess nuclear weapons, which it neither confirms nor denies.
Maryam Rajavi, head of the Paris-based opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran, said on Sunday that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was responsible for the nuclear program that had now “gone up in smoke” and needed to go.
“Now Khamenei must go. The Iranian people welcome the end of the war and seek peace and freedom,” she said in a statement.
“Khamenei is responsible for an unpatriotic project that, in addition to costing countless lives, has cost the Iranian people at least $2 trillion—and now, it has all gone up in smoke.”
Diplomatic efforts by Western nations to defuse the hostilities have so far failed.
At least 430 people have been killed and 3,500 injured in Iran since Israel began its attacks, the Iranian state-run Nour News said, citing the health ministry.
In Israel, 24 civilians have been killed and 1,272 people injured, according to local authorities.
IAEA
Iran wants an investigation of the US strikes on its nuclear sites, its nuclear chief, Mohammad Eslami, said in a letter to International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi, urging him to condemn the US action and take appropriate measures, according to Iran’s SNN news network.
Eslami criticized Grossi for his “inaction and complicity,” and added that Iran would pursue appropriate legal measures to tackle the matter.
Grossi said on Sunday that he was calling an emergency meeting of his agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors after the US said it carried out military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Parliament Foreign Policy Committee head Abbas Golroo said on X on Sunday that Iran has the legal right to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) based on its Article 10 following US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities.
Article 10 states that an NPT member has “the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country.”
