Israel-Iran conflict LIVE updates: Trump goes to ground after National Security Council meeting, weighs US involvement; Iranian nuclear, weapons facilities attacked in Israeli strikes

Thank you for following our ongoing live coverage of the rapidly developing conflict between Israel and Iran.

Here’s a quick overview of the latest developments from today:

• The Israel-Iran conflict has intensified, with both nations exchanging missile strikes. Iran has reportedly launched missiles targeting Israeli cities, while Israel claims to have killed a senior Iranian general.
• CBS News has reported the US is considering military involvement, including potential strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. President Donald Trump has demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender” and warned Tehran residents to evacuate.
• At the G7 summit in Canada, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent after Trump’s early departure. Albanese criticised US tariffs, saying they harmed US consumers more than Australian exporters. He also announced that Australia would begin negotiations with the European Union on a security and defence partnership.
• Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 585 people and wounded 1326 others, a human rights group says. Iran has not been publishing regular death tolls during the conflict and has minimised casualties in the past. Its last update, issued on Monday, put the death toll at 224 people killed and 1277 wounded.
• In response to the escalating conflict, about1000 Australians in Israel and 870 in Iran are seeking help to leave, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.
• The New York Times is reporting that Iran is preparing missiles to strike US bases in the Middle East should Trump join the conflict.

US President Donald Trump on Air Force One on Monday.Credit: AP

• Trump posted on Truth Social that the US knew where Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was hiding. “He is an easy target, but is safe there. We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump wrote about 2.30am. Trump also posted on social media: “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
• Iranian news websites are reporting Israeli strikes have targeted Imam Hossein University in eastern Tehran. Israel warned earlier today that it could strike a neighbourhood south of Mehrabad International Airport, which includes residential areas, military installations, pharmaceutical companies and industrial firms.
• Meanwhile, in Gaza, more than 50 people were reportedly killed by Israeli tank shellfire after they tried to get aid from trucks in Khan Younis.

You can catch up with everything we know about the Israel and Iran conflict on our regularly updated “what we know so far” page.

The precise quotes from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s statement are trickling in via translators now.

“Any form of US military intervention will undoubtedly be met with irreparable harm,” his statement says, according to the BBC.

“Wise people who know Iran, its people, and its history never speak to this nation in the language of threats, because Iranians are not those who surrender.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has made a broadcasted statement, saying any US strike would have serious and irreparable consequences.

The Supreme Leader, whose statement was read by a presenter on state-run television minutes ago, was quoted by local media as saying the US should know Iran would not surrender.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Credit: Bloomberg, Getty, AP

Referring to Donald Trump’s threats to Iran, Khamenei was quoted as saying those who knew Iran’s history knew that Iranians did not answer well to the language of threat.

Khamenei said Israel made a huge mistake, and would be punished for that, according to local media.

Iran would not accept an imposed peace or war, he said.

Reuters

Israel and Iran have both deployed weapons old and new as the fighting between them rages on.

As part of its surprise attack, launched last week while Iran was negotiating a nuclear deal with the US, Israel has flown sorties using the F-35, one of the most-advanced aircraft in the world, as well as launching drone strikes from deep inside Iranian territory.

The site of a ballistic missile strike in Tel Aviv on Monday.Credit: Bloomberg

Iran has struck back with a combination of conventional ballistic missiles and drones in an effort to overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome air-defence system.

But as the conflict continues, focus has switched to a weapon neither side possesses: the US’s 13-tonne GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the only aerial weapon reportedly capable of destroying Iran’s fortified nuclear enrichment site.

Read the full story from Liam Mannix here.

Israel and Iran continue to exchange missile fire in the Middle East’s latest battleground – and the world awaits a decision from Donald Trump.

The US president has long sworn off getting involved in wars like this. Indeed, he’s touted himself as the peacemaker.

But now he faces a critical decision, and a key test for his presidency. Meanwhile, Trump told leaders at the G7 summit that he would been open involving Russian President Vladimir Putin as a mediator.

In our Morning Edition podcast, political and international editor Peter Hartcher examines what Putin’s growing influence over Trump means for foreign policy. You can listen below, or click here.

Iran’s ambassador to Australia has warned of “very bad consequences” if governments refuse to condemn Israel’s attack on the country.

Speaking on ABC’s 7.30 program, Ahmad Sadeghi defended Iran’s response to Israel’s “unprovoked” June 13 attack as “its inalienable right to just defensive measures”.

Iran’s ambassador to Australia, Ahmad Sadeghi.Credit: Rohan Thomson

He called on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to condemn the attack.

“You have to have the punishment of the aggressor,” Sadeghi told 7.30.

“If you let it go unpunished [and] the prime minister of this regime [Benjamin Netanyahu] declared publicly and arrogantly that ‘I ordered such an attack against Iran’.

“If you just let them go free, it has very bad consequences.

“We ask Australia, as a friendly nation that we are in the good relation with, they have to condemn.”

Host David Speers pressed the ambassador about whether Iran was working towards a nuclear weapon.

“Of course not. It has been prohibited by our Supreme Leader,” Sadeghi said.

Sadeghi said the process of cooperation between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency was long-lasting and continuous.

“Suspicions should be removed by diplomacy talks and cooperation,” he said.

“Iran declared quite a few times that it does not have any nuclear program in terms of military aspects.”

As we reported earlier, countries have begun evacuating their citizens from Israel and Iran, and Chinese nationals are making their way by road.

The first Chinese evacuees from Iran have started sharing on social media their desperate efforts to reach the Islamic republic’s borders and the safety of Turkmenistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The first group of Bulgarian citizens evacuated from Israel, along with dozens of foreign nationals from Slovenia, the US, Belgium, Albania, Kosovo and Romania, arrive at Vassil Levsky airport in Sofia on Wednesday.Credit: AP

Several thousand Chinese nationals are thought to reside in oil-rich Iran, according to state media reports.

“My heart was pounding but amid the haze of war, everything became clear: I packed my bags and tried to evacuate to the embassy,” a Chinese travel blogger under the alias Shuishui Crusoe wrote.

Evacuees on the tarmac.Credit: AP

China started evacuating its citizens from Tehran to Turkmenistan by overland bus on Tuesday, a distance of 1150 kilometres, state-run China News Service reported.

The first Polish flights with repatriated citizens landed in Warsaw earlier today, flying from Tel Aviv via Egypt.

Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski welcomed the Polish nationals home on social media, saying: “Tomorrow, another flight. Come back safely.”

Some yacht owners in Cyprus have reportedly offered to take Israelis home.

Reuters

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations says Israel’s attacks on Iranian nuclear sites represent an act of “war against humanity”, exposing people to the risk of hazardous leaks.

“The deliberate targeting of Iran’s nuclear facilities not only constitutes a grave violation of international law and UN charter, but also risks exposition of all people in our neighbourhood to possible hazardous leak,” ambassador Ali Bahreini said at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“This is not an act of war against our country, it is war against humanity,”

The ambassador criticised the failure of states to condemn Israel’s attacks. “We are hearing almost nothing from those self-proclaimed champions of human rights,” he said.

Bahreini said Iran had conveyed to Washington that it would respond firmly to the US if it became directly involved in Israel’s military campaign.

He told reporters that he saw the US as “complicit in what Israel is doing”.

The US has so far only taken indirect actions in the current conflict with Iran, including helping to shoot down missiles fired toward Israel.

It is deploying more fighter aircraft to the Middle East and extending the deployment of other warplanes, three US officials told Reuters.

Bahreini said Iran would also respond strongly to Israeli strikes.

“We will not show any reluctance in defending our people, security and land – we will respond seriously and strongly, without restraint,” he told reporters.

Reuters

As we reported earlier, an advanced Israeli Hermes drone was allegedly shot down over Iran today.

Local media showed the purported wreck in a broadcast, as the large drone lay in sand with parts of it smashed off.

Israel has reportedly confirmed one of its drones was shot down.

“During operational activity, a surface-to-air missile was launched at an air force unmanned aerial vehicle,” the Israel Defence Forces said, according to the Times of Israel.

The outlet said the military confirmed the drone crashed in Iran, but said there was “no fear of information leaking”.

Hacker group Predatory Sparrow claims it has levied another attack at Iran’s financial infrastructure, this time targeting cryptocurrency exchange Nobitex.

Nobitex is one of Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, and the hacking group – also known by its Persian name, Gonjeshke Darande – has threatened to release the company’s internal data and source code within 24 hours, Iranian media reported.

Nobitex has reportedly acknowledged the breach, saying its technical team detected unauthorised access to its communication infrastructure and part of its “hot wallet” system.

The apparent breach comes after the hacking group yesterday claimed it had destroyed Iranian Bank Sepah’s data.

Iran and Israel continue to exchange missiles six days after Israel first struck Iran, with speculation growing that the United States will join Israel’s war after President Donald Trump left the G7 summit early to meet his National Security Council in Washington.

Bronte Gossling and Jamie Brown have mapped out the conflict, pinpointing key nuclear sites, targets and US military bases.

In addition to targeting vital Iranian oil, gas and nuclear facilities, Israel has also hit residential areas. A building used by the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network, part of Iran’s state television broadcaster, was also struck by a missile on Monday, with at least two employees reportedly killed in the attack.

By Wednesday morning, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps released a statement claiming they had “gained complete control over the skies of the occupied territories” after launching two missile barrages at Israel overnight. According to live broadcasts, however, Israel’s Iron Dome was still intercepting missiles.

Click here to read the full story.