Donald Trump has demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender” as the US and Israel vowed to intensify strikes on Tehran and Beirut.
As the Middle East conflict enters its second week, hostilites show no sign of abating, with US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth saying American strikes were “about to surge dramatically” and Israel Defence Forces chief of staff Eyal Zamir pledging to “further dismantle the [Iranian] regime and its military capabilites”.
Iran war live updates: For the latest news on the Middle East crisis read our blog.
Taking to Truth Social, the US president appeared to rule out any deal with Tehran, just hours after Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, had claimed mediation efforts were under way.
“There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!,” the president wrote.
“After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. IRAN WILL HAVE A GREAT FUTURE. “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!).”
Mr Trump’s latest statement appeared to end the prospect of a diplomatic end to the war, coming directly after Mr Pezeshkian’s post on X, which said “some countries have begun mediation efforts”.
“Mediation should address those who underestimated the Iranian people and ignited this conflict,” he said.
Mr Trump told journalists earlier in the week that the reported frontrunner to be Iran’s next supreme leader, the son of assassinated leader Ali Khamenei, Mojtaba Khamenei, would not be acceptable to the White House.
Bombing continues as death toll rises
The death toll continues to rise with at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 217 in Lebanon and around a dozen in Israel have been killed, according to officials in those countries.
Six US troops have also been killed.
Israel’s military posted footage purportedly showing the destruction of an underground bunker below the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s sprawling Beit-e Rahbari leadership compound in Tehran.
In a statement, the IDF said the bunker had been used by the former supreme leader to command Iranian forces during emergency situations, and had been used by other senior officials since his death.
Tehran and other Iranian cities continued to face a barrage of US and Israeli bombs throughout Friday.
Meanwhile, Iranian missiles exploded above Doha, Abu Dhabi, Al Kharj and Tel Aviv, while hotels and an oil refinery in Bahrain were also targeted.
Read more about the Iran war:
Basra International Airport was hit by a drone, according to Al Jazeera, making Iraq the latest country to be targeted by Iran or one of its proxies.
Azerbaijan is withdrawing its diplomats from Tehran ahead of potential retaliation for alleged drone strikes.
UN calls situation in Lebanon ‘major humanitarian emergency’
Israel heavily bombarded southern Beirut on Friday, leaving nearly 100,000 people now displaced in shelters.
The United Nations refugee agency has labelled the situation in Lebanon as a “major humanitarian emergency”.
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday. (AP: Hussein Malla)
Israel issued large-scale evacuation orders for southern and eastern Lebanon and parts of Beirut amid hostilities with the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah.
The Israeli military said it carried out 26 waves of strikes.
“What we saw in the last couple of days is, I would say … unprecedented in terms of the scale here in Lebanon of the warnings, the displacement orders, and the reaction, the panic also, that this has all created,” Imran Riza, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Lebanon, told Reuters.
“At the moment, there are about 100,000 people that are, as of this morning, in some 477 collective shelters. There are some 57 shelters that still have some space, but basically the capacity is being reached very, very quickly,” Riza said.
People displaced from the southern suburbs of Beirut after the Israeli army’s warning to evacuate gather at Martyrs’ Square in Beirut, Lebanon on Thursday evening. (Reuters: Khalil Ashawi)
The agency added that more than 33,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon have returned home.
Overall, it said more than 330,000 people have been displaced by recent hostilities in the Middle East and beyond.
The son of Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is among the soldiers injured during military activity on the border with Lebanon, Israel’s Minister of Defense Israel Katz has confirmed in a post on X.
Rescue workers check a destroyed building that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Nabatiyeh town, south Lebanon, on Thursday. (AP: Mohammed Zaatari)
It comes a day after Mr Smotrich posted a video on X warning Dahiyeh, a suburb in the south of Beirut, would soon resemble parts of Gaza.
“You wanted to bring hell on us, but you have brought hell upon yourselves. The Dahiyeh will look like Khan Younis,” Mr Smotrich who sits on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, said.
LoadingMilitary investigation into strike on Iranian girls’ school
American military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for an apparent strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed scores of children on Saturday but have not yet reached a final conclusion or completed their investigation, two US officials have told news agency Reuters.
Reuters was unable to determine more details about the investigation, including what evidence contributed to the tentative assessment, what type of munition was used, who was responsible or why the US might have struck the school.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth acknowledged the US military was investigating the incident.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not rule out the possibility that new evidence could emerge that absolves the US of responsibility and points to another responsible party in the incident.
The girls’ school in Minab, in southern Iran, was hit on Saturday during the first day of US and Israeli attacks on the country.
Iran’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva Ali Bahreini said the strike killed 150 students.
Inside Iran
Pro-regime Iranians protested America and Israel after Friday prayers in Tehran, the first such prayers since the war broke out last Saturday.
Demonstrators marched through the streets of the capital, chanting anti-American slogans and holding up pictures of assassinated former Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Government supporters march against the on going US–Israeli military campaign after Friday prayers at the Imam Khomeini Grand mosque in Tehran on Friday. (AP: Vahid Salemi)
The son of the late shah of Iran has condemned Iran’s attacks on its neighbours and said in the future Tehran would be “true partners” of countries in the region.
Reza Pahlavi, who has positioned himself as an alternative if the Islamic republic falls, said in a post on X that Iran’s missile attacks on Gulf neighbours “are unacceptable and we condemn them.”
Pro-government demonstrators chant slogans as they hold pictures of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a protest after Friday prayers at the Imam Khomeini Grand mosque in Tehran on Friday. (AP: Vahid Salemi)
Pahlavi is the son of the shah toppled in Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. He vowed, “We will be true partners again.”
Loading…