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Donald Trump has said he is not seeking a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Iran but instead wants to see “a real end” to Iran’s nuclear programme, with Tehran abandoning it “entirely”.
The US president predicted Israel would not let up in its bombing campaign and suggested a decisive moment in that campaign was imminent, though he made clear he expected Israel to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities without US help.
“You’re going to find out over the next two days … Nobody’s slowed up so far,” he told CBS News, after abruptly abandonning a G7 summit in the Canadian Rockies, saying he was returning to the White House to deal with the conflict.
Speaking to reporters on the way back to Washington, Trump said he was seeking “an end, a real end, not a ceasefire”.
That would involve a “complete give-up” by Iran, he said. Trump’s negotiating position before the Israeli attack was that Iran should stop uranium enrichment entirely, and he blamed Tehran for not accepting that proposal.
Trump also stressed that any Iranian attack on Americans or US bases, which Iran has threatened, would be met with overwhelming force, saying: “We’ll come down so hard, it’d be gloves off.”
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Iran was open to resuming talks with the US about its nuclear programme. “If President Trump is genuine about diplomacy and interested in stopping this war, next steps are consequential,” Araghchi said in a statement.
Asked whether he would dispatch envoy Steve Witkoff or the vice-president, JD Vance, for direct talks with Iran, Trump was noncommittal, however, saying it would depend “on what happens when I get back”. He later said: “I’m not too much in the mood to negotiate.”
Benjamin Netanyahu was also dismissive of the idea of diplomacy. “Of course they want to stop. They want to stop, and to keep producing the tools of death. We gave that a chance,” the Israeli prime minister said, laying out a new, expanded set of war aims.
“We want three central results: eliminating the nuclear programme, eliminating the ability to produce ballistic missiles and eliminating the axis of terror. We will obviously do what we must to achieve these objectives, and we have been coordinating well with the United States.”
On his Truth Social online platform overnight, Trump was even more threatening than the Israelis, declaring: “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”, after an Israeli evacuation order to part of northern Tehran affecting a third of a million people, warning of the imminent bombing of the district.
The Israeli online order was modelled on those routinely issued to Palestinians in Gaza, where bombing by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has flattened entire residential neighbourhoods over the course of a 20-month conflict.
The Israeli ultimatum on Monday said the bombing of Tehran would be aimed at “military infrastructure”, but one of the targets hit was a state television station, killing three staff and ending live broadcasts. Israel has also been bombing Iran’s oil and gas installations, and Iran has retaliated with strikes on Haifa, damaging a power station and a refinery in the Mediterranean port.
Israeli airstrikes killed at least 24 Iranians across the country on Tuesday morning, bringing the toll since Friday’s surprise attack to at least 224 people dead and more than 1,400 injured, its health ministry said. The scale of destruction and the threats from the IDF and Trump triggered an exodus of Tehranis jamming the roads out of the capital overnight.
In Israel, the death toll by Tuesday morning was 24, with about 600 injured. Iran fired a total of 20 to 30 missiles on Tuesday morning, according to the IDF, lightly wounding five people, marking a significant drop in the tempo of its attack compared with the previous few days.
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The IDF said Iran had used 370 missiles in eight salvos out of a US-estimated arsenal of 3,000 ballistic missiles. The IDF further claims to have destroyed 200 of Iran’s missile launchers, half the total, and to be hunting the remainder, continually constricting Tehran’s ability to retaliate.
Israel has also struck a severe blow to Iran’s chain of command, killing at least 11 top generals, and in some cases, their replacements. On Tuesday, the IDF said it had killed the acting armed forces commander, Maj Gen Ali Shadmani, who had been in the post for only four days, after his predecessor was targeted in the first wave of strikes on Friday morning.
“Iran is completely naked and we have full freedom of action. This is an unprecedented achievement,” an IDF general staff officer told the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
If IDF claims of its dominance are borne out, it will leave Iran with few cards to play. The Iranian parliament has prepared a bill that would withdraw Iran from the 1968 nuclear non-proliferation treaty, so that it would no longer be legally bound to forgo nuclear weapons, but the government insists it remains opposed to all weapons of mass destruction.
State TV has also aired calls from hardline politicians suggesting that Iran block the strategic Strait of Hormuz, potentially stopping the passage of more than 17m barrels of oil a day, and producing a dramatic spike in world oil prices and global inflation.
Trump’s abrupt departure from the G7 summit in Canada, coupled with the eastward deployment of significant numbers of US military aircraft, had provoked speculation that Trump was contemplating US participation in the offensive, contributing bombers and huge penetrating munitions that experts say are necessary to destroy deeply buried Iranian uranium enrichment plants.
When asked about US involvement, Trump responded that the Iranian nuclear programme “is wiped out long before that”.
A White House spokesperson, Alex Pfeiffer, denied reports of US participation in Israeli offensive operations.
“American forces are maintaining their defensive posture, and that has not changed. We will defend American interests,” Pfeiffer wrote.
