{"id":233830,"date":"2026-01-12T06:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T06:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/233830\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T06:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T06:37:09","slug":"trump-says-he-is-considering-very-strong-military-options-against-iran-as-protester-death-toll-climbs-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/233830\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says he is considering \u2018very strong\u2019 military options against Iran as protester death toll climbs | Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has claimed Iran has reached out and proposed negotiations, as he considers \u201cvery strong\u201d military action against the regime over a deadly crackdown on protesters<\/a> that has reportedly killed hundreds.<\/p>\n

Asked on Sunday by reporters aboard Air Force One if Iran<\/a> had crossed his previously stated red line of protesters being killed, Trump said \u201cthey\u2019re starting to, it looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking at it very seriously,\u201d the US president said. \u201cThe military is looking at it, and we\u2019re looking at some very strong options. We\u2019ll make a determination.\u201d<\/p>\n

As tensions rise, and against a backdrop of the US plucking Nicol\u00e1s Maduro out of Venezuela, Trump said Iran had proposed negotiations. \u201cI think they\u2019re tired of being beat up by the United States,\u201d he said. \u201cIran wants to negotiate.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least 538 people have been killed in the violence surrounding demonstrations, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, including 490 protesters. The group reported more than 10,600 people were arrested by Iranian authorities.<\/p>\n

Another rights monitor, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group, said on Sunday at least 192 protesters had been killed. Casualty figures varied between rights groups as they struggled to access people within Iran amid the internet blackout in the country, but all are expected to be undercounts. The regime has not supplied its own figures and it was not possible to independently verify them.<\/p>\n

The brutal crackdown has raised the likelihood of US intervention, with Trump saying he would \u201crescue\u201d protesters if the Iranian government killed them. He reiterated his threat to intervene on Saturday night. \u201cIran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!\u201d he said on Truth Social.<\/p>\n

In response, the Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, warned Washington against \u201ca miscalculation\u201d<\/a>, saying that Israel and US interests in the Middle East would be \u201clegitimate targets\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,\u201d said Qalibaf, a former commander in Iran\u2019s elite Revolutionary Guards.<\/p>\n

Iranians gather while blocking a street during a protest in Tehran, Iran last week. Photograph: KHOSHIRAN\/Middle East Images\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Trump is reportedly weighing a range of options including military strikes<\/a>, secret cyber weapons, widening sanctions and providing online help to anti-government sources.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran\u2019s ousted shah, on Sunday urged Iranian security forces and government employees to join the swelling protest movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmployees of state institutions, as well as members of the armed and security forces, have a choice: stand with the people and become allies of the nation, or choose complicity with the murderers of the people,\u201d Pahlavi posted on social media.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, accused arch-foes of Iran of \u201ctrying to escalate this unrest\u201d and bringing \u201cterrorists from abroad into the country\u201d, in an interview broadcast on Sunday by state media.<\/p>\n

Pezeshkian urged people to join a \u201cnational resistance march\u201d on Monday to denounce the violence, state television reported.<\/p>\n

The protest movement in Iran is the most significant unrest the country has experienced in years. Though triggered initially by a sudden slide in the country\u2019s currency, protesters soon demanded political reform and called for the downfall of the government.<\/p>\n

Map showing protests in Iran.<\/a><\/p>\n

Iranian authorities had arrested key members of the protest movement, the national police chief said on Sunday. \u201cLast night, significant arrests were made of the main elements in the riots, who, God willing, will be punished after going through legal procedures,\u201d the police chief, Ahmad-Reza Radan, told state TV, without specifying the number of those arrested.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s attorney general had said earlier that those who were caught protesting, or even helping protesters, could be charged with being \u201can enemy of God\u201d \u2013 which is punished with the death penalty.<\/p>\n

Israeli officials said they were on high alert for any US intervention in Iran, with Israeli media reporting that they are remaining silent on the issue to avoid allowing Iranian authorities to cast the protest movement as foreign-backed.<\/p>\n

Authorities cut off internet access<\/a> in the country on Thursday, imposing a nearly impenetrable nationwide blackout. Human rights groups said Iranian authorities had used the cover of the internet shutdown to expand their crackdown against protesters, using deadly force and live ammunition to disperse demonstrations.<\/p>\n

Messages and videos trickle out of Iran sporadically, mainly ferried by activists who have Starlink satellite internet services.<\/p>\n

A protester in the central Iranian city of Sari, according to messages forwarded via the US-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, said security forces had placed the city under complete martial law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has claimed Iran has reached out and proposed negotiations, as he considers \u201cvery strong\u201d military action…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-233830","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}