A week into their war, Israel and Iran launch new strikes even as diplomatic effort gets underway

A man walks in the damaged headquarters of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Iranian state television, in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, June 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Israel and Iran traded strikes a week into their war on Friday as U.S. President Donald Trump weighed U.S. military involvement and key European ministers met with Iran’s top diplomat in Geneva in a scramble to de-escalate the conflict.

But the first face-to-face meeting between Western and Iranian officials in the weeklong war concluded after four hours with no sign of an immediate breakthrough.

To give diplomacy a chance, Trump said he would put off deciding for up to two weeks whether to join Israel’s air campaign against Iran. U.S. participation would most likely involve strikes against Iran’s underground Fordo uranium enrichment facility, considered to be out of reach to all but America’s “bunker-buster” bombs.

Whether or not the U.S. joins, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s military operation in Iran would continue “for as long as it takes” to eliminate what he called the existential threat of Iran’s nuclear program and arsenal of ballistic missiles. Israel’s top general echoed the warning, saying the Israeli military was ready “for a prolonged campaign.”

As negotiations ended in Switzerland, European officials expressed hope for future negotiations. Iran’s top diplomat said he was open to further dialogue.

But Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi emphasized that Tehran had no interest in negotiating with the U.S. while Israel continued attacking.

“Iran is ready to consider diplomacy if aggression ceases and the aggressor is held accountable for its committed crimes,” he told reporters.

No date was set for the next round of talks.

Iran previously agreed to limit its uranium enrichment and allow international inspectors access to its nuclear sites under a 2015 deal with the U.S., France, China, Russia, Britain and Germany in exchange for sanctions relief. But after Trump pulled the U.S. unilaterally out of the deal during his first term, Iran began enriching uranium up to 60 per cent — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent — and restricting access to its nuclear facilities.

After Israel said its warplanes hit dozens of military targets across Iran, including missile-manufacturing facilities, an Iranian missile crashed into Israel’s northern city of Haifa, sending plumes of smoke billowing over the Mediterranean port and wounding at least 31 people.

The war between Israel and Iran erupted June 13, with Israeli airstrikes targeting nuclear and military sites, top generals and nuclear scientists. At least 657 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 2,000 wounded, according to a Washington-based Iranian human rights group.

Iran has retaliated by firing 450 missiles and 1,000 drones at Israel, according to Israeli army estimates. Most have been shot down by Israel’s multitiered air defenses, but at least 24 people in Israel have been killed and hundreds wounded.

Worries rise over the perils of attacking Iran’s nuclear reactors

Addressing an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency warned against attacks on Iran’s nuclear reactors, particularly its only commercial nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr.

“I want to make it absolutely and completely clear: In case of an attack on the Bushehr nuclear power plant, a direct hit would result in a very high release of radioactivity to the environment,” said Rafael Grossi, chief of the UN nuclear watchdog. “This is the nuclear site in Iran where the consequences could be most serious.”

Israel has not targeted Iran’s nuclear reactors, instead focusing its strikes on the main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, centrifuge workshops near Tehran, laboratories in Isfahan and the country’s Arak heavy water reactor southwest of the capital. Grossi has warned repeatedly that such sites should not be military targets.

After initially reporting no visible damage from Israel’s Thursday strikes on the Arak heavy water reactor, the IAEA on Friday said it had assessed “key buildings at the facility were damaged,” including the distillation unit.

The reactor was not operational and contained no nuclear material, so the damage posed no risk of contamination, the watchdog said.

Although strikes on uranium enrichment facilities like Natanz can carry the risk of radiological contamination, experts say the chance of a serious incident is far lower than at reactors such as the Russian-built Bushehr power plant.

After a call with Netanyahu, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he has secured Israel’s promise to keep Russian workers at the plant out of harm’s way.

Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

But it is the only non-nuclear-weapon state to enrich uranium up to 60 per cent. Israel is widely believed to be the only Middle Eastern country with a nuclear weapons program but has never acknowledged it.

Israel says ‘difficult days’ ahead

Dozens of Israeli warplanes struck targets across the country early Friday, including industrial sites in the north, missile storage and launchers in the west and the headquarters of an advanced research institute in Tehran, known by its acronym SPND.

The U.S alleges SPND has conducted research and testing that could be applicable to the development of nuclear explosive devices.

Iranian state media reported explosions from Israeli strikes in an industrial area of Rasht, along the coast of the Caspian Sea. Israel’s military had warned the public to evacuate the area around Rasht’s Industrial City, southwest of the city’s downtown. But with Iran’s internet shut off — now for more than 48 hours — it’s unclear just how many people could see the message.

While praising the Israeli military’s “significant achievements” in the conflict with Iran, army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir warned that “difficult days still lie ahead.”

“We are preparing for a wide range of possible developments,” he said in recorded remarks, describing the offensive against Iran as the most complex in Israeli history. “The campaign is not over.”

From the ruins of the Weizmann Institute of Science hit in an Iranian missile barrage this week, Netanyahu also vowed that Israel would fight as long as necessary to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, calling it an “existential danger.”

Iran has insisted on its right to enrich uranium — albeit at lower levels — in recent talks over its nuclear program. But Trump, like Israel, has demanded Iran end its enrichment program altogether.

Asked about Iran developing civilian nuclear plants for energy, Trump was skeptical.

“You’re sitting on one of the largest oil piles anywhere in the world,” he said Friday. “It’s a little bit hard to see why you’d need that.”

More Iranian missiles damage buildings in Israel

The Israeli military believes it has destroyed most of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers, contributing to the steady decline in Iranian attacks.

But several of the roughly three dozen missiles that Israel said Iran fired on Friday slipped through the country’s vaunted aerial defense system, setting off air-raid sirens across the country and sending shrapnel flying into a residential area in the southern city of Beersheba, a frequent target of Iranian missiles where a hospital was hit Thursday.

A handful of cars were set ablaze in the attack but no one was seriously wounded, as residents had hunkered down in bomb shelters. The Israeli military said Iran had fired a missile rigged with fragmenting cluster munitions in its attack on Beersheba Friday for the second time.

In northern Israel, a projectile fell in downtown Haifa, wounding at least 31 people, according to the city’s Rambam Medical Center. Black smoke rose over the city’s main port. The windows and walls of several buildings, including a mosque, were blown out by the blast.

Israeli President Issac Herzog shared photos of the destruction and said the strike injured several Muslim clerics and worshippers.

Gambrell and Rising reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Sylvie Corbet in Paris; and Josh Boak in Morristown, New Jersey, contributed to this report