By SAM MEDNICK, NATALIE MELZER, and JON GAMBRELL, Related Press
BEERSHEBA, Israel (AP) — Israel’s protection minister threatened Iran’s supreme chief on Thursday after Iranian missiles crashed into a serious hospital in southern Israel and hit residential buildings close to Tel Aviv, wounding a minimum of 240 folks. As rescuers wheeled sufferers out of the smoldering hospital, Israeli warplanes launched their newest assault on the nation’s nuclear program.
Israeli Protection Minister Israel Katz blamed Iranian Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for Thursday’s barrage and mentioned the army “has been instructed and is aware of that so as to obtain all of its objectives, this man completely mustn’t live on.”
From Washington, the White Home introduced that U.S. President Donald Trump will determine whether or not to affix Israel’s marketing campaign in opposition to Iran’s army and nuclear program inside two weeks, saying that Trump nonetheless sees a window for diplomacy to handle Israeli and U.S. calls for on Iran’s nuclear program.
“Based mostly on the truth that there’s a considerable likelihood of negotiations that will or might not happen with Iran within the close to future, I’ll make my choice whether or not or to not go inside the subsequent two weeks,” Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, informed reporters, quoting Trump.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned he trusted that Trump would “do what’s greatest for America.”
“I can inform you that they’re already serving to lots,” Netanyahu mentioned from the rubble and shattered glass across the Soroka Medical Middle in Israel’s southern metropolis of Beersheba.
U.S. officers mentioned earlier this week that Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei. Trump later mentioned there have been no plans to kill him, “a minimum of not for now.”
The U.S. has been weighing whether or not to affix Israel’s assault by hanging Iran’s well-defended Fordo uranium enrichment facility, which is buried beneath a mountain and extensively thought of to be out of attain of all however America’s “bunker-buster” bombs.
The open battle between Israel and Iran erupted final Friday with a shock wave of Israeli airstrikes focusing on nuclear and army websites, prime generals and nuclear scientists. No less than 639 folks, together with 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and greater than 1,300 wounded, in response to a Washington-based Iranian human rights group.
Iran has retaliated by firing a whole bunch of missiles and drones, killing a minimum of 24 folks in Israel and wounding a whole bunch.
Private objects on the web site of a direct hit from an Iranian missile strike in an condo in Ramat Gan, Israel, Thursday, June 19, 2025. (AP Picture/Oded Balilty)
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Private objects on the web site of a direct hit from an Iranian missile strike in an condo in Ramat Gan, Israel, Thursday, June 19, 2025. (AP Picture/Oded Balilty)
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Greater than 200 wounded, together with dozens within the hospital strike
No less than 240 folks have been wounded by the newest Iranian assault on Israel, together with 80 sufferers and medical staff wounded within the strike on the Soroka Medical Middle. The overwhelming majority have been frivolously wounded, as a lot of the hospital constructing had been evacuated in current days.
Israel’s Dwelling Entrance Command mentioned that one of many Iranian ballistic missiles fired Thursday morning had been rigged with fragmenting cluster munitions. Slightly than a traditional warhead, such a missile carries dozens of submunitions that may explode on affect, showering small bomblets round a big space and posing main security dangers on the bottom.
The Israeli army didn’t say the place the missile with the cluster munition warhead had been fired.
Iranian officers insisted that they’d not sought to strike the hospital and claimed the assault hit a facility belonging to the Israeli army’s elite technological unit, referred to as C4i. The web site for the Gav-Yam Negev superior applied sciences park, some 2 miles from the hospital, mentioned C4i had a department campus within the space.
The Israeli military didn’t reply to a request for remark. An Israeli army official, talking on situation of anonymity in step with rules, acknowledged that there was no particular intelligence that Iran had deliberate to focus on the hospital.
Many hospitals in Israel, together with Soroka, had activated emergency plans previously week. They transformed underground parking garages to wards and transferred susceptible sufferers to basement areas.
Israel additionally has a fortified, subterranean blood financial institution that kicked into motion after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, assault ignited the continued conflict within the Gaza Strip.
Medical doctors at Soroka Medical Middle mentioned that the Iranian missile struck nearly instantly after air raid sirens went off, inflicting a loud explosion that may very well be heard from a protected room. The strike inflicted the best harm on an previous surgical procedure constructing and affected key infrastructure, together with gasoline, water and air-conditioning programs, the medical middle mentioned.
The hospital, which supplies companies to round 1 million residents of Israel’s south, had been caring for 700 sufferers on the time of the assault. Of the 80 frivolously wounded within the strike, half have been hospital workers, it mentioned. Afterward, the hospital closed to all sufferers apart from life-threatening circumstances.
Iran has fired a whole bunch of missiles and drones at Israel, although most have been shot down by Israel’s multitiered air defenses.
Iran rejects calls to give up or finish its nuclear program
Iran has lengthy maintained its nuclear program is for peaceable functions. Nevertheless, along with having a nuclear energy plant, it additionally enriches uranium as much as 60%, a brief, technical step away from weapons-grade ranges of 90%. Iran is the one non-nuclear-weapon state to complement at that degree.
Israel is extensively believed to be the one nuclear-armed state the Center East, however doesn’t acknowledge having such arms.
Iran’s supreme chief on Wednesday rejected U.S. requires give up and warned that any American army involvement by the Individuals would trigger “irreparable harm to them.”
Already, Israel’s marketing campaign has focused Iran’s enrichment web site at Natanz, centrifuge workshops round Tehran, and a nuclear web site in Isfahan.
On Thursday, anti-aircraft artillery was clearly audible throughout Tehran and witnesses within the central metropolis of Isfahan reported anti-aircraft hearth after dusk.
An Israeli army official, talking on situation of anonymity in step with rules, mentioned Israeli airstrikes have destroyed round two-thirds of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers, leaving simply over 100 operational launchers. The losses have contributed to the regular decline in Iranian assaults because the begin of the battle, the military assesses.
Iran’s Overseas Minister Abbas Araghchi mentioned he would journey to Geneva for conferences along with his counterparts from the UK, France and Germany, in addition to the European Union’s prime diplomat, indicating a brand new diplomatic initiative could be underway.
Iran agreed to revamp Arak to handle nuclear considerations
Israel’s army mentioned Thursday its fighter jets focused the Arak heavy water reactor, some 155 miles southwest of Tehran, so as to forestall it from getting used to provide plutonium.
Iranian state TV mentioned there was “no radiation hazard by any means” across the Arak web site, which it mentioned had been evacuated forward of the strike.
Heavy water helps cool nuclear reactors, but it surely produces plutonium as a byproduct that may doubtlessly be utilized in nuclear weapons. That would offer Iran one other path to the bomb past enriched uranium, ought to it select to pursue the weapon.
Iran had agreed beneath its 2015 nuclear cope with world powers to revamp the ability to alleviate proliferation considerations. That work was by no means accomplished.
The reactor turned some extent of rivalry after Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018. Ali Akbar Salehi, a high-ranking nuclear official in Iran, mentioned in 2019 that Tehran purchased further elements to exchange a portion of the reactor that it had poured concrete into beneath the deal.
Israel mentioned strikes have been carried out “so as to forestall the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons growth.”
The Worldwide Atomic Power Company, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, has been urging Israel to not strike Iranian nuclear websites. IAEA inspectors reportedly final visited Arak on Might 14.
On account of restrictions Iran imposed on inspectors, the IAEA has mentioned it misplaced “continuity of data” about Iran’s heavy water manufacturing — which means it couldn’t completely confirm Tehran’s manufacturing and stockpile.
Melzer reported from Tel Aviv, Israel, and Gambrell from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Related Press author Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv contributed.
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