Trump looking for a ‘real end’ to Israel-Iran conflict
US president Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he was aiming for a “real end” to the conflict between arch-rivals Israel and Iran, and not just a ceasefire, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Trump told reporters shortly after arriving back in the US from a G7 summit in Canada:
I’m not looking for a ceasefire, we’re looking at better than a ceasefire.
The president said he was looking for “an end, a real end, not a ceasefire,” adding that he wanted a “complete give-up” by Iran.
Trump also said on Truth Social that he had not reached out to Iran for peace talks in any “way, shape, or form”, adding that the country “should have taken the deal that was on the table”.
Key events
The US president, Donald Trump, said he was aiming for a ‘real end’ to the conflict between Israel and Iran, and not just a ceasefire.
He told reporters shortly after arriving back in the US from a G7 summit: “I’m not looking for a ceasefire, we’re looking at better than a ceasefire.”
Israeli minister warns Khamenei he could face same fate as Saddam
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could face the same fate as Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in a US-led invasion and was eventually hanged after a trial.
“I warn the Iranian dictator against continuing to commit war crimes and fire missiles at Israeli citizens,” Katz told top Israeli military officials.
Donald Trump has also dismissed congressional testimony from the National Intelligence Director of the US, Tulsi Gabbard, who told lawmakers in March that US spy agencies did not believe Iran was building a nuclear weapon, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
The US president said:
I don’t care what she said,
I think they were very close to having it.
Gabbard told the Senate intelligence committee on 25 March that the American intelligence community had assessed that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon.
Israel’s attacks on Iran have broadened its conflicts in the region to a level that poses a global threat, Jordan’s King Abdullah said in a speech in European parliament on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
The Jordanian monarch said:
With Israel’s expansion of its offensive to include Iran, there is no telling where the boundaries of this battleground will end,
And that is a threat to people everywhere. Ultimately, this conflict must end.
Two oil tankers collided and caught fire on Tuesday near the strait of Hormuz, where electronic interference has surged during conflict between Iran and Israel, Reuters reports.
The agency added that there were no injuries to crew or spillage reported.
With Iran and Israel firing missiles at each other since Friday, interference has disrupted navigation systems near the vital sea route between Iran and Oman, which handles about a fifth of the world’s oil.
The strait of Hormuz links the Gulf to the north-west with the Gulf of Oman to the south-east and the Arabian Sea beyond.
Between the start of 2022 and last month, roughly 17.8m to 20.8m barrels of crude, condensate and fuels flowed through daily, according to data from Vortexa.
Tehran has in the past threatened to close the strait to traffic in retaliation for Western pressure.
The multinational, US-led Combined Maritime Force’s JMIC information centre said in an advisory this week that it had received reports of electronic interference stemming from the vicinity of Iran’s Port of Bandar Abbas and other areas in the Gulf region.
Iran has not commented about Tuesday’s collision or reports of electronic interference.
Here are some pictures of foreign nationals gathering to leave Israel coming through on the wires:
Iran claims to have attacked Mossad centre in Tel Aviv
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they struck a centre of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
In a statement aired on state television, the Guards said they “struck the military intelligence centre of the Zionist regime’s army, Aman, and the Zionist regime’s terrorist operations planning centre, the Mossad, in Tel Aviv”.
The Guards added that the centre was “currently on fire”.
A cyber-attack on Tuesday crippled Sepah Bank, one of Iran’s main state-owned banks, according to Fars news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
The agency said:
A cyberattack targeted the infrastructure of Sepah Bank, causing disruptions to the institution’s online services.
It added that the issue was expected to be resolved within the next few hours.
Trump looking for a ‘real end’ to Israel-Iran conflict
US president Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he was aiming for a “real end” to the conflict between arch-rivals Israel and Iran, and not just a ceasefire, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Trump told reporters shortly after arriving back in the US from a G7 summit in Canada:
I’m not looking for a ceasefire, we’re looking at better than a ceasefire.
The president said he was looking for “an end, a real end, not a ceasefire,” adding that he wanted a “complete give-up” by Iran.
Trump also said on Truth Social that he had not reached out to Iran for peace talks in any “way, shape, or form”, adding that the country “should have taken the deal that was on the table”.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that more than 600 foreign nationals have crossed from Iran into neighbouring Azerbaijan since Israel began striking the country last Friday, a government official in Baku said.
The government source told AFP on Tuesday:
Since the start of the military escalation between Israel and Iran, more than 600 citizens of 17 countries have been evacuated from Iran via Azerbaijan.
Evacuees are transported from the border to Baku International Airport and flown to their home countries on international flights.
The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip while waiting for UN and commercial trucks to enter the territory has since risen to 51 according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and a local hospital, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
The agency added that over 200 people had been wounded.
Palestinian witnesses told the AP that Israeli forces carried out an airstrike on a nearby home before opening fire toward the crowd in the southern city of Khan Younis.
The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
