DUBAI/JERUSALEM: Iran said on Friday it would not discuss the future of its nuclear programme while under attack by Israel, as Europe tried to coax Tehran back into negotiations and the United States considers whether to get involved in the conflict.
A week into its campaign, Israel said it had struck dozens of military targets overnight, including missile production sites, a research body it said was involved in nuclear weapons development in Tehran and military facilities in western and central Iran.
The Israel Defense Forces later said they had also struck surface-to-air missile batteries in southwestern Iran as part of efforts to achieve air superiority over the country.
At least five people were injured when Israel hit a five-storey building in Tehran housing a bakery and a hairdresser’s, Fars news agency reported.
Iran fired missiles at Beersheba in southern Israel early on Friday and Israeli media said initial reports pointed to missile impacts in Tel Aviv, the Negev and Haifa after further attacks hours later.
The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog warned against attacks on nuclear facilities and called for maximum restraint.
“Armed attack on nuclear facilities… could result in radioactive releases with great consequences within and beyond the boundaries of the state which has been attacked,” Rafael Grossi, director of the International Agency for Atomic Energy, told the U.N. Security Council on Friday.
He spoke a day after an Israeli military official said it had been “a mistake” for a military spokesperson to have said Israel had struck Bushehr, Iran’s only nuclear power plant. He said he could neither confirm nor deny that Russian-built Bushehr, located on the Gulf coast, had been hit.
Iran said on Friday its air defences had been activated in Bushehr, without elaborating.
Israel says it is determined to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities but that it wants to avoid any nuclear disaster.
‘GIVE PEACE A CHANCE’
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, also speaking at the world body’s Security Council, said the Iran-Israel conflict could ignite a fire no one can control and called on all parties to “give peace a chance”.
The White House said on Thursday President Donald Trump would decide on U.S. involvement in the conflict in the next two weeks.
Fars news agency quoted an Iranian military spokesman as saying Tehran’s missile and drone attacks on Friday had used long-range and ultra-heavy missiles against military sites, defence industries and command and control centres.
About 20 missiles were fired in those latest Iranian strikes, an Israeli military official said, and at least two people were hurt, according to the Israeli ambulance service.
In a sign of increasing concern about any strikes on energy facilities in Iran or elsewhere in the Gulf that could affect supplies, Qatar held crisis talks this week with energy majors, an industry source and a diplomat in the region told Reuters.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said there was no room for negotiations with the U.S. “until Israeli aggression stops”. But he later arrived in Geneva for talks with European foreign ministers at which Europe hopes to establish a path back to diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Before the meeting with France, Britain, Germany and the European Union’s foreign policy chief, two diplomats said Araqchi would be told the U.S. is still open to direct talks. But expectations for a breakthrough are low, diplomats say.
URANIUM ENRICHMENT
A senior Iranian official told Reuters Iran was ready to discuss limitations on uranium enrichment but that any proposal for zero enrichment – not being able to enrich uranium at all – would be rejected, “especially now under Israel’s strikes”.
Israel began attacking Iran last Friday, saying its longtime enemy was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran, which says its nuclear programme is only for peaceful purposes, retaliated with missile and drone strikes on Israel.
Israel is widely assumed to possess nuclear weapons. It neither confirms nor denies this.
Israeli air attacks have killed 639 people in Iran, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, a U.S.-based human rights organisation that tracks Iran. The dead include the military’s top echelon and nuclear scientists.
In Israel, 24 civilians have been killed in Iranian missile attacks, according to authorities.
Trump has alternated between threatening Tehran and urging it to resume nuclear talks. His special envoy to the region, Steve Witkoff, has spoken to Araqchi several times since last week, sources say.
The Trump administration announced on Friday fresh Iran-related sanctions against various entities with the aim of disrupting Tehran’s efforts to obtain dual-use technology.
Western and regional officials say Israel is trying to shatter the government of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iranian opposition groups think their time may be near, but activists involved in previous protests say they are unwilling to unleash mass unrest with their nation under attack.
Iranian state media reported rallies in several cities, describing them as rallies of “solidarity and resistance”.
-Parisa Hafezi, Crispian Balmer and Jana Choukeir
