Trump has approved Iran attack plan but is yet to hit go, US media reports

Washington/Dubai/Jerusalem: An Iranian missile slammed into the main hospital in southern Israel on Thursday, while Israel struck a key Iranian nuclear site amid reports that President Donald Trump had approved plans for the United States to join the conflict but was yet to make a final decision on doing so.

A week of Israeli air and missile strikes against its major rival has wiped out the top echelon of Iran’s military command, damaged its nuclear capabilities and killed hundreds of people, while Iranian retaliatory strikes have killed at least two dozen civilians in Israel.

Emergency services respond to the scene of an Iranian missile strike in Ramat Gan.Credit: Getty Images

A senior intelligence source told US broadcaster CBS on Thursday that the president had approved a plan to attack Iran but was yet to give his final order because he wanted to give Iran more time to agree to a deal to end its nuclear program.

“I have ideas on what to do, but I haven’t made a final – I like to make the final decision one second before it’s due,” Trump said.

American involvement would probably involve destroying Iran’s Fordow nuclear site, which is buried in a mountain that only a US bunker-busting bomb could possibly reach.

Senior US officials are preparing for the possibility of a strike as early as the weekend, sources told Bloomberg, noting that the situation could change. Top leaders at a handful of federal agencies have also begun getting ready for an attack, one person said.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi warned against any direct US involvement in the conflict, telling Iranian state media that Iran had “all the necessary options on the table”.

“If the US wants to actively intervene in support of Israel, Iran will have no other option but to use its tools to teach aggressors a lesson and defend itself … our military decision-makers have all necessary options on the table,” he said, according to state media.

In Israel, at least 40 people were wounded by Iranian missile strikes on populated areas on Thursday morning, including at Soroka Medical Centre in Beersheba, where people suffered minor injuries when a missile that Iran said was aimed at Israeli military and intelligence headquarters hit the 1000-plus-bed hospital nearby instead.

Smoke rises from the Soroka Hospital complex after an Iranian missile strike.Credit: AP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the strike and vowed a response, saying: “We will exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran.”

Emergency services said five people had been seriously injured in the attacks in three separate locations, and people were still trapped in a building in a south Tel Aviv neighbourhood. Images showed buildings extensively damaged in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv and emergency workers helping residents, including children.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said he and Netanyahu had instructed the IDF to increase the intensity of attacks against strategic and government targets in Iran.

“These are war crimes of the most serious kind – and [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei will be held accountable for his crimes,” he wrote.

“The cowardly Iranian dictator sits in the depths of the fortified bunker and fires aimed shots at hospitals and residential buildings in Israel,” Katz said in a post to X.

The Israeli military said earlier it had targeted the Khondab nuclear reactor in Iran overnight, in the latest attack on the country’s sprawling nuclear program.

The strike included Khondab’s partially built heavy-water research reactor. Heavy-water reactors pose a nuclear proliferation risk because they can easily produce plutonium, which, like enriched uranium, can be used to make the core of an atom bomb.

Iranian media reported two projectiles hitting an area near the facility, which had been evacuated. There were no reports of radiation threats.

Israel’s military said it also struck a site in the area of Natanz, which it said contains components and specialised equipment used to advance nuclear weapons development.

The worst conflict between the two regional powers has raised fears that it will draw in world powers and further destabilise the Middle East.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rebuked Trump’s earlier call for Iran to surrender in a recorded speech played on television, his first appearance since Friday.

“Any US military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage,” he said. “The Iranian nation will not surrender.”

Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons and says its program is for peaceful purposes only. The International Atomic Energy Agency said last week Tehran was in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in 20 years.

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain plan to hold nuclear talks with their Iranian counterpart on Friday in Geneva to urge Iran to return to the negotiating table, a German diplomatic source told Reuters.

Israel, which is not a party to the international Non-Proliferation Treaty, is the only country in the Middle East believed to have nuclear weapons, but has never confirmed or denied having them.

Trump has veered from proposing a swift diplomatic end to the war to suggesting the United States might join it.

The prospect of an American strike on Iran has exposed divisions in the coalition of supporters that brought Trump to power, with some of his base urging him not to get involved in a new Middle East war.

Senior US Senate Democrats urged Trump to prioritise diplomacy and seek a binding agreement to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons, while expressing concern about his administration’s approach.

Trump says he has not yet made a final decision on whether to join Israel’s campaign.Credit: AP

“We are alarmed by the Trump administration’s failure to provide answers to fundamental questions. By law, the president must consult Congress and seek authorisation if he is considering taking the country to war,” they said in a statement.

“He owes Congress and the American people a strategy for US engagement in the region.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, asked what his reaction would be if Israel were to kill Iran’s supreme leader with the assistance of the United States, said: “I do not even want to discuss this possibility. I do not want to.”

Putin said all sides should look for ways to end hostilities in a way that ensured both Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear power and Israel’s right to the unconditional security of the Jewish state.

Since Friday, Iran has fired about 400 missiles at Israel, some 40 of which have pierced air defences, killing 24 people, all of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities.

The Iranian missile salvos mark the first time in decades of shadow war and proxy conflict that a significant number of projectiles fired from Iran have penetrated defences, killing Israelis in their homes.

Iran has reported at least 224 deaths in Israeli attacks, mostly civilians, but has not updated that toll for days.

US-based Iranian activist news agency HRANA said 639 people had been killed in the Israeli attacks and 1329 injured as of June 18. Reuters could not independently verify the report.

Reuters, Bloomberg, AP

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