Israeli warplanes pounded Iran’s capital overnight and into Wednesday as Iran launched a small barrage of missiles at Israel with no reports of casualties.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei delivered a warning in an interview with Al Jazeera English, saying “any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region.”
What to know:
U.S. reaction: President Donald Trump in a social media post called for Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” as the six-day conflict continued and warned Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the U.S. knows where he is hiding but that there were no plans to kill him “at least not for now.”
Casualties mount in Iran: Human Rights Activists said it had identified 239 of those killed in Israeli strikes as civilians and 126 as security personnel. The group, which also provided detailed casualty figures during 2022 protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, crosschecks local reports against a network of sources it has developed in the country.
Over 400 EU citizens evacuated from Israel
The European Union has helped evacuate about 400 of its citizens out of Israel via Jordan and Egypt as part of its efforts to coordinate emergency response to the conflict within the 27 nations of the bloc.
“Up till now, we have an estimate that over 400 EU citizens were repatriated via this civil protection mechanism of the EU,” said Eva Hrncirova in Brussels on Wednesday.
She said the EU was fielding requests by Slovakia, Lithuania, Greece and Poland for assistance in evacuating from the Middle East.
“Member states coordinate the list and we co-finance these flights up to the 75% of the transport costs,” she said.
Iran’s supreme leader says God will make his nation ‘victorious’
In the message, Khamenei also urged officials to “continue their work with strength and trust in God.”
“God will certainly and surely make the Iranian nation ... victorious,” he said.
State television said that a video of Khamenei giving the same address would be aired later.
Khamenei’s last message to the nation, which was released late Friday after the start of the Israeli campaign, was also first read out on television before he appeared himself reading it a while later. It may be a security measure to protect Khamenei, whose exact location isn’t public knowledge.
Iran’s supreme leader warns US that joining Israeli strikes will ‘result in irreparable damage for them’
Iran’s supreme leader has warned the United States that joining the Israeli strikes targeting the Islamic Republic will “result in irreparable damage for them.”
The comments by 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei came in a statement read out by a state television anchor against a still image of the leader. It wasn’t clear why Khamenei did not appear himself on screen, as he has done earlier since the Israeli attacks began on Friday.
“Any military involvement by the U.S. in this field will undoubtedly result in irreparable damage for them,” the statement said.