Trump\u2019s ultimatum landed hours after two Iranian missiles struck southern Israel, injuring more than 100 people in the most destructive attack since the war began. <\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate \u201con all fronts\u201d.<\/p>\n
The strikes, which slipped through Israel\u2019s missile defence systems, tore open the facades of residential buildings and carved craters into the ground.<\/p>\n
First responders said 84 people were injured in the town of Arad, 10 of them seriously. <\/p>\n
Hours earlier, 33 were wounded in nearby Dimona, where AFPTV footage showed a large hole gouged into the ground next to piles of rubble and twisted metal.<\/p>\n
Dimona hosts a facility widely believed to be the site of the Middle East\u2019s only nuclear arsenal, although Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
The Israeli Army told AFP there had been a \u201cdirect missile hit on a building\u201d in Dimona, with casualties reported at multiple sites, including a 10-year-old boy in serious condition with shrapnel wounds.<\/p>\n
In Arad, emergency workers combed through the rubble of heavily damaged buildings.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu vowed to continue striking Iran after what he called a \u201cvery difficult evening\u201d and hours later, the Israeli military said its forces launched a wave of strikes on Tehran.<\/p>\n
Iran said the targeting of Dimona was retaliation for Israeli strikes on its Natanz nuclear facility, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) saying forces also targeted other southern Israeli towns as well as military sites in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n
Following the Natanz attack, United Nations nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi reiterated his call for \u201cmilitary restraint to avoid any risk of a nuclear accident\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Natanz facility hosts underground centrifuges used to enrich uranium for Iran\u2019s disputed nuclear programme and sustained damage in the June 2025 war.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military denied it was behind the Natanz strike but said it had struck a facility at a Tehran university that it claimed was being used to develop nuclear weapon components for Iran\u2019s ballistic missile programme.<\/p>\n
This frame grab from AFPTV footage shows Israeli first responders inspecting the site of an Iranian missile strike in Dimona, which hosts a facility widely believed to be the site of the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, although Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons. Photo \/ Jorge Novominsky, AFPTV, AFP <\/p>\n
Hormuz base<\/p>\n
The destruction in Israel capped three weeks of heavy US-Israeli bombardment that appeared to have done little to blunt Iran\u2019s ability to retaliate with missile and drone attacks across the region.<\/p>\n
Iran also launched an unsuccessful ballistic-missile attack on the US-UK base at Diego Garcia, nearly 4000km away, a UK official told AFP – which would have been the longest-range Iranian strike yet had it succeeded.<\/p>\n
The UAE said it faced aerial attacks after Iran warned it against allowing strikes from its territory on disputed islands near the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
Iran has choked off the vital waterway, which carries a fifth of global crude oil trade in peacetime.<\/p>\n
The standoff has sent crude oil prices soaring, with North Sea Brent crude now trading above US$105 a barrel, as long-term consequences for the global economy become an acute concern.<\/p>\n
A joint statement from the leaders of several countries – including the UK, France, Italy, Germany, South Korea, Australia, the UAE and Bahrain – condemned the \u201cde facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian forces\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe express our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
Trump has slammed Nato allies as \u201ccowards\u201d and urged them to secure the strait.<\/p>\n
Remarkable endurance?<\/p>\n
Analysts say Iran\u2019s Government has survived the loss of its top leaders and that its strike capacity is proving more durable than expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re showing a lot of resilience that we didn\u2019t perhaps expect that the US didn\u2019t expect, when it took this on,\u201d Neil Quilliam of Chatham House told the think-tank\u2019s podcast.<\/p>\n
Tehran marked the end of Ramadan as the war entered its fourth week.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader traditionally leads Eid al-Fitr prayers, but Mojtaba Khamenei – who came to power this month after his father Ali Khamenei was killed – has remained out of the public eye.<\/p>\n
Instead, the head of the judiciary, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, attended prayers at central Tehran\u2019s overflowing Imam Khomeini grand mosque.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe atmosphere of the New Year was spreading through the city,\u201d said Farid, an advertising executive reached by AFP through an online message.<\/p>\n
But \u201cthe thought that some people could be dying right at the New Year dinner table was painful\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n
-Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s ultimatum landed hours after two Iranian missiles struck southern Israel, injuring more than 100 people in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[117582,806,89,76701,115961,2178,1667,1872,6637,20733,42,168436,11551,78,1702,16609,5873,1743,3025,43,5493,2572,1230,18533,171,9939,14042,19063,45534,61,1865,40,38,41,39,6699,2179,1237,9938],"class_list":["post-341733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-117582","tag-as","tag-attack","tag-destruction","tag-destructive","tag-donald","tag-energy","tag-face","tag-gave","tag-gives","tag-headlines","tag-hormuz","tag-hours","tag-in","tag-infrastructure","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-launched","tag-most","tag-news","tag-open","tag-president","tag-reopen","tag-shipping","tag-southern","tag-states","tag-strait","tag-strikes","tag-tehran","tag-to","tag-today","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-towns","tag-trump","tag-two","tag-united"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}