War-weary Gazans share images of destruction in Israel
Finally, many Israelis felt what we have felt for 20 months: fear, loss of faith, and displacement
Updated 16 June 2025
Reuters
GAZA: Residents of the Gaza Strip have circulated images of wrecked buildings and charred vehicles hit by Iranian missiles in Israeli cities, and some were hopeful the wider conflict could eventually bring peace to their ruined homeland.
Iranian missiles struck Tel Aviv and the Israeli port city of Haifa before dawn on Monday, killing at least eight people, part of a wave of attacks by Tehran in retaliation for Israel’s strikes targeting its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
“The Iranian response was a surprise to me, to many Palestinians, and the Israelis too. Everyone thought it would be mild and theatrical,” said Mohammed Jamal, 27, a resident of Gaza City.
“Watching rockets fall without the stupid Iron Dome being able to stop them is a joy, and seeing buildings collapsing and fires everywhere reminds me of the destruction the occupation brought on Gaza, yet I can’t even begin to compare,” he said via a chat app.
The Iron Dome is a part of Israel’s multi-layered missile defense system that tackles the kind of short-range rockets and mortars fired by militants from Gaza.
Tahrir, a 34-year-old mother of four, said their house was destroyed in the Shejaia suburb, east of Gaza City, in the early weeks of the war in 2023, and her family has since been displaced several times.
“Finally, many Israelis felt what we have felt for 20 months, fear, loss of faith, and displacement,” she said.
“I hope that this time, they will press their government to end the war in Gaza because all of what is happening with Iran is part of the wider Gaza war.”
With Israel saying its operation could last weeks, fears have grown of a regional conflagration dragging in outside powers.
“I was never a fan of Iran, but seeing them retaliate for real, not a play like in previous times, made me happy, despite all the sadness around me,” said Amr Salah, 29.
“It is nothing compared to what Israel did to Gaza, but at least a taste of it. It is maybe time to end all of this, in Gaza too,” he added.
The war in Gaza erupted 20 months ago. Israel’s military campaign has killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the densely populated strip, which is home to more than 2 million people.
Most of the population is displaced, and malnutrition is widespread.
Palestinian groups praised the retaliatory strikes by Iran.
“Scenes of Iranian missiles striking the strongholds and hideouts of the Zionists carry with them a sense of pride, dignity, and honor that shatters Zionist arrogance and dominance,” said a statement issued in the name of the “Factions of Resistance.”
Sheikh Tamim toured the headquarters to review systems used for monitoring, command and control
A briefing was provided on Monday’s interception of missile attack targeting Al-Udeid Air Base
Updated 25 June 2025
Arab News
LONDON: Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani visited the Joint Operations Command of the armed forces in the Al-Mazrouah area on Wednesday.
Sheikh Tamim toured the headquarters to review the systems utilized for monitoring as well as command and control, Qatar News Agency reported.
During the visit, a briefing was provided regarding the interception of a missile attack targeting Al-Udeid Air Base, which the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps launched on Monday evening.
The Joint Operations Command highlighted the precautionary measures implemented by the armed forces, emphasizing their efficiency and readiness to defend Qatar.
Sheikh Tamim expressed his gratitude and appreciation to everyone working in the military and security sectors. He was accompanied by Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman bin Hassan Al-Thani, Qatar’s deputy prime minister and minister of state for defense affairs, along with several senior military and security commanders.
Trump declares ‘victory for everybody’ with Iran's nuclear sites destroyed
Trump shrugs off US intelligence assessment saying Iran’s nuclear weapon path set back by just months
Speaking at NATO summit, US president says he is confident Tehran will now pursue diplomatic path
Updated 7 min 42 sec ago
Reuters
THE HAGUE/TEL AVIV/ISTANBUL: US President Donald Trump reveled in the swift end to war between Iran and Israel, saying he now expected a relationship with Tehran that would preclude rebuilding its nuclear program despite uncertainty over damage inflicted by US strikes.
As exhausted and anxious Iranians and Israelis both sought to resume normal life after the most intense confrontation ever between the two foes, Iran’s president suggested that the war could lead to reforms at home.
Trump, speaking in The Hague where he attended a NATO summit on Wednesday, said his decision to join Israel’s attacks by targeting Iranian nuclear sites with huge bunker-busting bombs had ended the war, calling it “a victory for everybody.”
He shrugged off an initial assessment by the US Defense Intelligence Agency that Iran’s path to building a nuclear weapon may have been set back only by months, saying the findings were “inconclusive” and he believed the sites had been destroyed.
“It was very severe. It was obliteration,” he said.
He was confident Tehran would not try to rebuild its nuclear sites and would instead pursue a diplomatic path toward reconciliation, he said.
“I’ll tell you, the last thing they want to do is enrich anything right now. They want to recover,” he said.
If Iran tried to rebuild its nuclear program, “We won’t let that happen. Number one, militarily we won’t,” he said, adding that he thought “we’ll end up having something of a relationship with Iran” to resolve the issue.
Israel’s bombing campaign, launched with a surprise attack on June 13, wiped out the top echelon of Iran’s military leadership and killed its leading nuclear scientists. Iran responded with missiles that pierced Israel’s defenses in large numbers for the first time.
Iranian authorities said 610 people were killed and nearly 5,000 injured in Iran, where the extent of the damage could not be independently confirmed because of tight restrictions on media. Twenty-eight people were killed in Israel.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio listen as President Donald Trump addresses a press conference at the NATO summit in The Hague on Wednesday. (AFP)
Both Iran and Israel declared victory: Israel claiming to have achieved its goals of destroying Iran’s nuclear sites and missiles, and Iran claiming to have forced the end of the war by penetrating Israeli defenses with its retaliation.
But Israel’s demonstration that it could target Iran’s senior leadership seemingly at will poses perhaps the biggest challenge ever for Iran’s clerical rulers, at a critical juncture when they must find a successor for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, now 86 and in power for 36 years.
President Masoud Pezeshkian, a relative moderate elected last year in a challenge to years of dominance by hard-liners, said the atmosphere of national solidarity during the Israeli attacks would spur domestic reform.
“This war and the empathy that it fostered between the people and officials is an opportunity to change the outlook of management and the behavior of officials so that they can create unity,” he said in a statement carried by state media.
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Still, Iran’s authorities moved swiftly to demonstrate their control. The judiciary announced the execution of three men on Wednesday convicted of collaborating with Israel’s Mossad spy agency and smuggling equipment used in an assassination. Iran had arrested 700 people accused of ties with Israel during the conflict, the state-affiliated Nournews reported.
During the war, both Netanyahu and Trump publicly suggested that it could end with the toppling of Iran’s entire system of clerical rule, established in its 1979 revolution.
But after the ceasefire, Trump said he did not want to see “regime change” in Iran, which he said would bring chaos at a time when he wanted the situation to settle down.
A rapprochement between Tehran and the West would still require a deal governing Iran’s long-term nuclear ambitions in return for lifting US and international sanctions. Iran has always denied seeking an atomic weapon, which Western countries have accused it of pursuing for decades.
The head of the UN’s IAEA nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, said his top priority was ensuring international inspectors could return to Iran’s nuclear sites, dismissing what he called the “hourglass approach” of trying to assess the damage in terms of the months it would take Iran to rebuild.
“In any case, the technological knowledge is there and the industrial capacity is there. That, no one can deny. So we need to work together with them,” he said.
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said late on Tuesday that talks between the United States and Iran were “promising” and Washington was hopeful for “a long-term peace agreement that resurrects Iran.”
Iran’s parliament approved a bill on Wednesday to suspend cooperation with the IAEA, state-affiliated news outlet Nournews reported, though it said such a move would require approval of Iran’s top security body.
Qatari emir briefed on Iranian missile interception
Sheikh Tamim toured the headquarters to review the systems utilized for monitoring as well as command and control, Qatar News Agency reported.
During the visit, a briefing was provided regarding the interception of a missile attack targeting Al-Udeid Air Base, which the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps launched on Monday evening.
The Joint Operations Command highlighted the precautionary measures implemented by the armed forces, emphasizing their efficiency and readiness to defend Qatar.
Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed the Iran-Israel ceasefire and urged “close dialogue” to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as he held talks with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of a NATO summit late Tuesday.
The Turkish president “expressed his satisfaction with the ceasefire achieved between Israel and Iran through President Trump’s efforts, hoping it would be permanent,” his office said.
Erdogan also stressed the need for Ankara and Washington to work closely to end the war in Gaza and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Netanyahu claims Iran will not have a nuclear weapon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a “historic victory” against Iran despite a US intelligence report concluding that American strikes set back Tehran’s nuclear program by just a few months.
In an address to the nation after the ceasefire announcement, Netanyahu said “Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”
“We have thwarted Iran’s nuclear project,” he said. “And if anyone in Iran tries to rebuild it, we will act with the same determination, with the same intensity, to foil any attempt.”
Israel had said its bombing campaign, which began on June 13, was aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, an ambition Tehran has consistently denied.
US intel says strikes did not destroy Iran nuclear program
A classified preliminary US intelligence report has concluded that American strikes on Iran set back Tehran’s nuclear program by just a few months — rather than destroying it as claimed by President Donald Trump.
US media on Tuesday cited people familiar with the Defense Intelligence Agency findings as saying the weekend strikes did not fully eliminate Iran’s centrifuges or stockpile of enriched uranium.
The strikes sealed off entrances to some facilities without destroying underground buildings, according to the report.
White House Press Secretary Karline Leavitt confirmed the authenticity of the assessment but said it was “flat-out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret’ but was still leaked.”
Trump sees ‘progress’ on Gaza, raising hopes for ceasefire
“I think great progress is being made on Gaza,” Trump told reporters
“Our communications with the brother mediators in Egypt and Qatar have not stopped and have intensified in recent hours,” Hamas official Taher Al-Nunu said
Updated 25 June 2025
AFP
JERUSALEM: US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that “great progress” was being made to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza as a new ceasefire push began more than 20 months since the start of the conflict.
“I think great progress is being made on Gaza,” Trump told reporters ahead of a NATO summit in the Netherlands, adding that his special envoy Steve Witkoff had told him “Gaza is very close.”
He linked his optimism about imminent “very good news” for the Gaza Strip to a ceasefire agreed on Tuesday between Israel and Hamas backer Iran to end their 12-day war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also suggested that Israel’s blitz of Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities, as well as its security forces linked to overseas militant groups, could help end the Gaza conflict.
Netanyahu faces growing calls from opposition politicians, relatives of hostages being held in Gaza and even members of his ruling coalition to bring an end to the fighting, triggered by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
In one of the war’s deadliest incidents for the Israeli army, it said seven of its soldiers were killed on Tuesday in southern Gaza.
Key mediator Qatar announced Tuesday that it would launch a new push for a ceasefire, with Hamas on Wednesday saying talks had “intensified.”
“Our communications with the brother mediators in Egypt and Qatar have not stopped and have intensified in recent hours,” Hamas official Taher Al-Nunu told AFP.
He cautioned, however, that the group had “not yet received any new proposals” to end the war.
The Israeli government declined to comment on any new ceasefire talks beyond saying that efforts to return Israeli hostages in Gaza were ongoing “on the battlefield and via negotiations.”
Israel sent forces into Gaza to root out Iran-linked Hamas and rescue hostages after the Hamas attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 56,156 people, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.
The latest Israeli military losses led to rare criticism of the war effort by the leader of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, a partner in Netanyahu’s coalition government.
“I still don’t understand why we are fighting there... Soldiers are getting killed all the time,” lawmaker Moshe Gafni told a hearing in the Israeli parliament on Wednesday.
The slain soldiers were from the Israeli combat engineering corps and were conducting a reconnaissance mission in the Khan Yunis area in southern Gaza when their vehicle was targeted with an explosive device, according to a military statement.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the main group representing relatives of those held in Gaza, endorsed Gafni’s criticism of the war.
“On this difficult morning, Gafni tells it like it is... The war in Gaza has run its course, it is being conducted with no clear purpose and no concrete plan,” the group said in a statement.
Of the 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the Hamas attack, 49 are still held in Gaza including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Rights groups say Gaza and its population of more than two million face famine-like conditions due to Israeli restrictions, with near-daily deaths of people queuing for food aid.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said Wednesday that Israeli fire killed at least another 20 people, including six who were waiting for aid.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that a crowd of aid-seekers was hit by Israeli “bullets and tank shells” in an area of central Gaza where Palestinians have gathered each night in the hope of collecting rations.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was “not aware of any incident this morning with casualties in the central Gaza Strip.”
The United Nations on Tuesday condemned the “weaponization of food” in Gaza and slammed a US- and Israeli-backed foundation that has largely replaced established humanitarian organizations there.
The privately run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was brought into the Palestinian territory at the end of May but its operations have been marred by chaotic scenes, deaths and neutrality concerns.
The GHF has denied responsibility for deaths near its aid points.
The Gaza health ministry says that since late May, nearly 550 people have been killed near aid centers while seeking scarce supplies.
The civil defense agency said Israeli forces killed 46 people waiting for aid on Tuesday.
Palestinian president asks Trump to help ‘achieve what seemed impossible’ — comprehensive peace, Gaza ceasefire
Mahmoud Abbas called on the US president to stop the war in the Gaza Strip, ongoing since October 2023
Letter to Trump expresses his confidence in Trump’s abilities to restore peace
Updated 25 June 2025
Arab News
LONDON: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has praised US President Donald Trump for his efforts to achieve a ceasefire between Iran and Israel and prevent a potential full-scale war in the Middle East.
In a letter, Abbas also called on the US president to stop the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, which began in October 2023 and which has resulted in the killing of more than 54,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and the displacement of millions.
He said a US-sponsored ceasefire in Gaza would “give hope to the peoples of the region that peace can be achieved and that justice can prevail, if the will and leadership you represent are present.”
He added the Palestinian Authority was prepared to collaborate with the US, Saudi Arabia and other Arab, Islamic and European nations to achieve a just and comprehensive peace between Palestinians and Israelis. It was prepared to negotiate to end the Israeli occupation and create a Palestinian state, he said.
“With you, we can achieve what seemed impossible: a recognized, free, sovereign and secure Palestine; a recognized and secure Israel; and a region that enjoys peace, prosperity, and integration,” Abbas wrote.
“We are filled with hope and confidence in your ability to create a new history for our region, restoring the peace that has been lost for generations.”
