Israel-Iran live updates: Trump weighs negotiations; European ministers meet for Iran talks

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared his support for Iran’s nuclear power industry. “Russia defends Iran’s right to a peaceful atom, has built a nuclear reactor in Iran and, despite some danger, continues to work at the plant and does not remove its employees,” he said. Israeli and U.S. leaders have guaranteed the safety of Russian employees at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant, he added.

The Israel Defense Forces shared video of an explosion from an Iranian missile that fell near a children’s center in Southern Israel. Footage showed smoke and debris filling an evacuated room.

A reporter from Israel’s i24NEWS said the child care center was in Be’er Sheva.

Iran has been disconnected from the global internet for 48 hours, according to NetBlocks, a monitoring group that tracks internet outages. In a post on social media, NetBlocks said the shutdown has left “loved ones out of touch and citizens ill-informed about the state of conflict with Israel.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said European diplomats meeting Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva on Friday will make a “comprehensive, diplomatic and technical offer of negotiation” to Tehran. As the United States weighs an attack on Iran, the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany have scrambled to negotiate a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

“We need to regain control on [Iran’s nuclear] program through technical expertise and negotiation,” Macron told reporters Friday.

The United Nations Security Council is holding a meeting at the request of Iran. “Give peace a chance,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said in his opening remarks. “I appeal for an end to the fighting and the return to serious negotiations.”

This follows an emergency Security Council meeting last Friday in response to the initial Israeli strikes on Iran.

Nineteen individuals — two in moderate to serious condition — arrived at Rambam Medical Center after an explosion near government buildings in Northern Israel’s Haifa Bay, a spokesperson for the medical facility confirmed.

Israel Fire and Rescue Services and Israeli police also said they received reports of explosions in southern and central Israel.

An Iranian missile hit in Israel’s Coastal District, according to a spokesperson for Israeli police. There are initial reports of injuries and property damage at the scene, the spokesperson added.

Images and footage from the blast showed an explosion in Haifa Bay.

Over the past week, Israel has pummeled Iran with airstrikes and Iran has sent barrages of ballistic missiles and drones toward Israel. At least 24 people in Israel and 224 people in Iran have been killed in attacks since June 13, their governments have reported.

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The U.S. has not publicly called for regime change in the current conflict, but over 70 years ago, it played a key role in ousting Tehran’s government — although the historical circumstances were very different.

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European officials — including the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Britain, plus the European Union’s top diplomat — have been conferring over lunch at the German consul’s office in Geneva before a meeting with the Iranian foreign minister at a hotel here later Friday.

GENEVA — Key European foreign ministers will hold talks with their Iranian counterpart in Geneva on Friday in a bid to carve out a diplomatic path that can de-escalate the conflict between Israel and Iran before President Donald Trump decides whether the United States will bomb Iranian nuclear sites. European leaders have been thrown off balance by Trump, who initially rejected U.S. involvement in Israel’s attack only to warn days later that he might join the Israeli military campaign, which has spiraled into a prolonged and deadly tit-for-tat with mounting civilian casualties and a risk of inflaming the region.

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Iran’s state broadcaster said Friday that Ali Shamkhani, a top political adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who was involved in nuclear talks, is alive and in a stable condition. Some international media reports last Friday said that he was killed in Israeli strikes. The broadcaster quoted a statement from Shamkhani addressed to Khamenei and Iran, in which he said he is “alive and ready to sacrifice” himself.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia is “extremely concerned” about the situation in the Middle East because the whole region “is now plunging into an abyss of instability and war.” Speaking to journalists at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Peskov reiterated President Vladimir Putin’s offer to mediate between Israel and Iran, citing open channels of communication with each country. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, also at the forum, added that “we are literally centimeters away from a nuclear catastrophe.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency said on social media Friday that key buildings at Iran’s Khondab heavy water research reactor in Arak, including the distillation unit, were hit. Israel said it struck the site the previous day. The IAEA added that damage at the reactor had not initially been visible. It said Thursday that the site was not operational and contained no nuclear material.

BEERSHEBA, Israel — An office building at the Gav-Yam Negev Advanced Technologies Park, a hub for tech companies in Beersheba, Israel, was damaged in an attack as Iran said it was targeting the area.

The office building displayed the logo of an Israeli military school for software and cyberdefense, according to a Washington Post reporter on the ground.

As President Donald Trump considers launching an attack on Iran, Tehran has warned of swift retaliation. If the United States attacks, Iranian Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh warned this month, “all U.S. bases are within our reach and we will boldly target them.” Tens of thousands of U.S. troops are stationed in the Middle East. Here are some of the U.S. bases and troop deployments in the region that could participate in such a strike — and face reprisal.

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Moshe Carmon, a resident of the Israeli city of Beersheba, told The Washington Post that his apartment, located on the first floor of a residential building, was damaged by Friday’s Iranian missile launch toward southern Israel.

At 6 a.m., they heard the siren and ran to the safe room in their apartment. “It was my wife and me, our daughter, and her three children,” he said. “When we came out of the safe room, we saw that the shutters and windows had been destroyed.”

“Radiation knows no borders,” warned the head of Russia’s atomic agency, Rosatom, Alexander Likhachev, amid fears of a strike against Iran’s Bushehr reactor, on the Persian Gulf. He said a strike against the facility wouldn’t make military sense since it doesn’t enrich uranium and would “lead to disaster not only for Iran, but also for a large number of countries including Israel.” He later told Reuters the situation at the plant was normal and Russian specialists were still working there.

Israel and Iran are engaged in their most sustained, direct fighting ever, as the strikes between the two regional powers raise fears that the conflict could spread.

The two sides have been enemies for decades, but the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, and the ensuing start of Israel’s war in Gaza have pitted Iran and its regional proxies against Israel in a much more open confrontation. Here’s a quick timeline of the conflict between the two rivals.

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What do Americans think about the possibility of launching U.S. airstrikes against Iran, which President Donald Trump threatened this week unless the country dismantles its nuclear program? The Washington Post texted more than 1,000 people on Wednesday to ask.

The poll finds Americans opposing U.S. airstrikes against Iran by a 20 percentage-point margin — 45 percent to 25 percent — with a sizable 30 percent saying they are unsure.

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The most intense faceoff in the history of the Israel-Iran conflict began Friday, when Israel launched an air campaign targeting Iran’s nuclear program and its military leaders, and has since escalated, prompting President Donald Trump to consider possible U.S. involvement.

Here is a detailed look at the sites Iran and Israel have hit in their escalating direct conflict.

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BEERSHEBA, Israel — An Iranian ballistic missile struck the largest hospital in southern Israel on Thursday. The roof of the surgical inpatient building, which took a direct hit, crumpled like cardboard, and windows shattered across the sprawling Soroka Medical Center.

About 80 people were lightly injured, hospital officials said. Soroka said it had moved some operations underground in recent days, a step taken by many Israeli hospitals since hostilities with Iran flared.

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BRUSSELS — European foreign ministers will hold talks with their Iranian counterpart on Friday in Geneva, a meeting being coordinated with Washington, two officials familiar with the planning said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive plans.

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain will meet with E.U. foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and then hold talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the officials said.

A six-story building in southern Israel was damaged during a missile barrage from Iran early Friday, Israel’s emergency services said. Sirens sounded in Beersheba, where a hospital was hit the previous day; IRNA, Iran’s official news agency, said the country was targeting nearby Israeli military facilities. A train station close to the hospital was closed after Friday’s barrage due to blast damage, Israel Railways said.

The Israeli military said Friday it attacked dozens of targets in Tehran overnight as well as another site in Iran involved in producing components for the country’s nuclear program.

Iranian semiofficial media reported an explosion in an industrial area of Rasht in northern Iran early Friday, hours after the Israeli military had issued an evacuation order for the Sefidrood industrial park outside the city.

President Donald Trump will wait as much as two weeks to decide whether to attack Iran’s nuclear program, the White House said Thursday, dialing back rhetoric about Iran having missed its window to reach a deal.

In a statement read by his press secretary, Trump said he believes there is now a “substantial chance of negotiations” with Iran — a sharp contrast with his bellicose comments on Iran in recent days.

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