Key events
The United Nations high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, has urged more international support for Syria to speed up reconstruction and enable further refugee returns after 14 years of civil war, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“I am here also to really make an appeal to the international community to provide more help, more assistance to the Syrian government in this big challenge of recovery of the country,” Grandi told reporters on Friday on the sidelines of a visit to Damascus.
Syrians who had been displaced internally or fled abroad have begun gradually returning home since the December overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, whose brutal repression of peaceful anti-government protests in 2011 triggered war.
But the wide-scale destruction, including to basic infrastructure, remains a major barrier to returns. Grandi said more than two million people had returned to their areas of origin, including about 1.5 million internally displaced people, while 600,000 others have come back from neighbouring countries including Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.
“Two million of course is only a fraction of the very big number of Syrian refugees and displaced, but it is a very big figure,” he said, reports AFP. According to UNHCR, 13.5 million Syrians remain displaced internally or abroad.
Grandi said that after Assad’s toppling, the main obstacle to returns was “a lack of services, lack of housing, lack of work”, adding that his agency was working with Syrian authorities and governments in the region “to help people go back”.
He said he discussed the importance of the sustainability of returns with Syrian foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani, including ensuring “that people don’t move again because they don’t have a house or they don’t have a job or they don’t have electricity” or other services such as health.
Sustainable returns “can only happen if there is recovery, reconstruction in Syria, not just for the returnees, for all Syrians”, he said. He added that he also discussed with Shaibani how to “encourage donors to give more resources for this sustainability”.
With the recent lifting of western sanctions, the new Syrian authorities hope for international support to launch reconstruction, which the UN estimates could cost more than $400bn.
Ben Doherty
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican) has described the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran as a “terrifying reminder of how close the world remains to nuclear disaster”, arguing Australia should condemn illegal military attacks and ratify the global treaty banning nuclear weapons.
Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities violate international law, Ican has alleged, and could cause radioactive contamination with long-term consequences for human health and the environment.
“The prospect of radiation release, the erosion of non-proliferation norms, and the emboldening of nuclear-armed states to act without accountability – this is the deadly logic of nuclear deterrence playing out in real time,” said Gem Romuld, the Australian director of Ican, a Nobel prize-winning anti-nuclear group.
“We need urgent de-escalation and a return to diplomacy. Australia should press its allies, particularly the United States, to act responsibly and stop enabling this cycle of violence.”
Israel, the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, is widely believed to be modernising its arsenal. It remains outside the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), but is estimated to have 90 nuclear warheads. Israel has never officially acknowledged that it possesses nuclear weapons.
Iran, which had previously proposed a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, is a state party to the NPT but has now threatened to withdraw. The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, insisted Iran’s nuclear programme was peaceful and that it sought an end to hostilities:
Iran is ready to consider diplomacy once again – once the aggression is stopped and the aggressor is held accountable for the crimes committed.
Police in Iran’s Qom province said on Saturday that 22 people “linked to Israeli spy services” had been arrested since 13 June, Fars news agency reported.
“Twenty two people were identified and arrested on charges of being linked to the Zionist regime’s spy services, disturbing public opinion and supporting the criminal regime,” the agency said, citing the head of police intelligence in Iran’s Qom province.
It came after Iranian police announced the arrest on Thursday of 24 people accused of spying for Israel and of seeking to tarnish the country’s image, according to a statement carried by Tasnim news agency.
A European national was also arrested for spying, Tasnim reported on Friday, without giving their nationality or the date of the arrest.
Iran regularly announces arrests of suspected spies. Several have been executed in recent weeks.
Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said at least 223 people have been arrested nationwide on charges related to collaboration with Israel, cautioning that the actual figure was likely higher.
Five Revolutionary Guards killed in Israeli attacks – reports
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards says five of its members have been killed in Israeli strikes in the city of Khorramabad on Saturday, Reuters is citing Iranian media is saying.
Israel’s military says its navy has hit a Hezbollah “infrastructure site” near the southern Lebanese city of Naqoura, a day after Israel’s foreign minister warned the Lebanese armed group against entering the Iran-Israel war.
The military claimed the site was used by Hezbollah’s Radwan Force “to advance terror attacks against Israeli civilians”, AFP reports.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has arrived in Istanbul, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reports, for a meeting with Arab League diplomats to discuss Tehran’s escalating conflict with Israel.
About 40 diplomats are slated to join the weekend gathering of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as Israel and Iran continue to exchange missile strikes, Agence France-Presse reports.
Araghchi’s arrival in Turkey on Saturday morning comes after he met with his counterparts from Britain, France and Germany in Geneva on Friday.
“At this meeting, at the suggestion of Iran, the issue of the Zionist regime’s attack on our country will be specifically addressed,” Tasnim quoted Araghchi as saying.
Araghchi said on Friday that Tehran was ready to “consider diplomacy” again only if Israel’s “aggression is stopped”.
The Arab League ministers are expected to release a statement after their meeting, Turkish state news agency Anadolu said.
Israel says it killed a Revolutionary Guards chief in apartment attack
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz has said the military killed a veteran commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ overseas arm in a strike in an apartment in Qom, Iran.
The veteran commander, Saeed Izadi, had led the Palestine Corps of the Quds Force, Katz said in a statement on Saturday quoted by Reuters.
There was no confirmation from the Revolutionary Guards.
The Quds Force built up a network of Arab allies known as the Axis of Resistance, establishing Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1982 and supporting Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But the Iran-aligned network has suffered major blows over the past two years as Israeli offensives have weakened Hamas and Hezbollah.
Katz said Izadi financed and armed Hamas during its October 2023 attacks on Israel, describing the commander’s killing as a “major achievement for Israeli intelligence and the air force”.
Izadi was sanctioned by the US and the UK over what they said were his ties to Hamas and Palestinian militant faction Islamic Jihad.
Iran’s Fars news agency has said the Isfahan nuclear facility – one of the country’s biggest – has been targeted in Israel’s latest attacks but there is no leakage of hazardous materials.
Iranian media also said Israel attacked a building in the city of Qom, with initial reports of a 16-year-old killed and two people injured.
Israeli bombing has killed at least 639 people and wounded 1,326, according to Iranian media, while Iranian missiles have killed at least 25 people and wounded hundreds in Israel.
As fighting continues to escalate, the Israeli military chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, said Israelis must prepare for “difficult days” ahead.
“To remove a threat of such magnitude, against such an enemy, we must be ready for a prolonged campaign,” he said on Friday. “Day by day, our freedom to operate is expanding and the enemy’s is narrowing.”
This and other key developments are in our latest full report here:
More here on Israel claiming it has already set back Iran’s presumed nuclear programme by at least two years.
Israel said on Saturday its air force had launched fresh airstrikes against missile storage and launch sites in central Iran, Agence France-Presse reports, as it kept up a wave of attacks it says are aimed at preventing its rival from developing nuclear weapons – an ambition Tehran denies.
“According to the assessment we hear, we already delayed for at least two or three years the possibility for them to have a nuclear bomb,” Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said in an interview published in Germany’s Bild newspaper on Saturday.
He said Israel’s week-long onslaught would continue.
We will do everything that we can do there in order to remove this threat.
The comments come a day after US president Donald Trump warned Tehran it has a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible American air strikes.
Opening summary
Welcome to our continuing live coverage of the Israel-Iran war.
The two countries exchanged fresh attacks early on Saturday, a day after Tehran said it would not negotiate over its nuclear programme while under threat and Europe tried to keep peace talks alive.
Shortly after 2.30am in Israel the military warned of an incoming missile barrage from Iran, triggering air raid sirens across parts of central Israel including Tel Aviv, as well as in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Explosions echoed over Tel Aviv as Israel’s air defence systems responded.
At the same time, Israel launched a new wave of attacks against missile storage and launch infrastructure sites in Iran, the Israeli military said.
An Israeli military official said Iran had fired five ballistic missiles and there were no immediate indications of any missile impacts or reports of casualties.
The new attacks came as Israel’s foreign minister said its strikes on Iran had delayed Tehran’s potential to develop a nuclear weapon by “at least two or three years”. Israel’s offensive has produced “very significant” results, Gideon Saar told German newspaper Bild in an interview published on Saturday.
At the United Nations on Friday, Israeli ambassador Danny Danon vowed that his country would not stop its attacks on Iran until the country’s nuclear threat was dismantled, while Iran said it would continue to defend itself against Israel.
“We will not stop,” Danon said during a UN security council session in New York. “Not until Iran’s nuclear threat is dismantled, not until its war machine is disarmed, not until our people and yours are safe.”
Iran’s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, urged the security council to take action, saying: “Israel apparently declared that it will continue this strike for as many days as it takes. We are alarmed by credible report that the United States … may be joining this war.”
In other developments:
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The UN secretary general warned on Friday that expansion of the Israel-Iran conflict could “ignite a fire no one can control”. António Guterres called on both sides to “give peace a chance” and said the conflict must not be allowed to expand.
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Donald Trump said Europe would not be able to help much in the Iran-Israel war. “Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe, they want to speak to us,” the US president said. “Europe is not going to be able to help in this one.” European foreign ministers urged Iran on Friday to engage with Washington over its nuclear program after talks in Geneva aimed at opening negotiations for a new nuclear deal ended with little sign of progress.
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The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency warned that attacks on nuclear facilities could result in “radioactive releases with great consequences within and beyond boundaries” of the state attacked. Rafael Grossi also called for maximum restraint.
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Donald Trump said his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was wrong in suggesting there was no evidence Iran was building a nuclear weapon. Later on Friday Gabbard said on social media that the media had taken her words “out of context” and that she agreed with the president.
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Israeli fire killed at least 44 Palestinians in Gaza on Friday, many who were seeking food aid, local officials said. At least 25 people awaiting aid trucks were killed by Israeli action south of Netzarim in central Gaza, the Hamas-run local health authority said. The Israeli military said troops fired warning shots at suspected militants who advanced in a crowd towards them and the Israeli aircraft then fired a missile and “eliminated the suspects”.
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The UN’s children’s agency said the scarcity of drinking water in Gaza was at a crisis point and “children will begin to die of thirst”. Unicef said a shortage of fuel to operate wells and desalination plants in the territory meant it “is facing what would amount to a man-made drought”.
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The European Union has said “there are indications” that Israel is in breach of human rights obligations over its conduct in Gaza, but stopped short of calling for immediate sanctions. The leaked document from the EU’s foreign policy service, seen by the Guardian, represents a significant moment in Europe’s relations towards a longstanding ally.