Israel Intensifies Attacks on Iran After Trump Allegedly Rejected Strike on Ayatollah

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Key Points

Israel and Iran haved traded deadly strikes, risking wider war and global economic fallout.
Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Benjamin Netanyahu says regime change in Iran may follow strikes on nuclear sites.

Israel and Iran launched fresh attacks on each other overnight, killing scores of civilians and raising fears of a wider conflict, and US President Donald Trump said it could be ended easily while warning Tehran not to strike any US targets.

In Washington, two US officials told Reuters that Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan in recent days to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“Have the Iranians killed an American yet? No. Until they do we’re not even talking about going after the political leadership,” said one of the sources, a senior US administration official.

In Israel, rescue teams combed through rubble of residential buildings destroyed by Iranian missiles, using sniffer dogs and heavy excavators to look for survivors after at least 10 people, including children, were killed, raising the two-day toll to 13.

Sirens rang out across the country after 4pm on Sunday in the first such daylight alert, and fresh explosions could be heard in Tel Aviv.

In Iran, images from the capital showed the night sky lit up by a huge blaze at a fuel depot after Israel began strikes against Iran’s oil and gas sector — raising the stakes for the global economy and the functioning of the Iranian state.

Iran has not given a full death toll but said 78 people were killed on Friday and scores more have died since, including in a single attack that killed 60 on Saturday, half of them children, in a 14-storey apartment block flattened in Tehran.

Trump said the conflict — which has raised fears of a wider conflagration — could be ended easily, while also warning Iran that the US could get involved if Iran hits any American targets.

When asked about the Reuters report on a plan to kill Khamenei, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News on Sunday: “There’s so many false reports of conversations that never happened, and I’m not going to get into that.”

“We do what we need to do,” he told Fox’s Special Report With Bret Baier.

Regime change in Iran could be a result of Israel’s military attacks on the country, Netanyahu said, adding that Israel would do whatever is necessary to remove what he called the “existential threat” posed by Tehran.

Israel’s military spokesperson has said the current goal of the campaign is not a change in regime, but the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and removing its capabilities “to annihilate us”.

Rescue personnel at a building in Bat Yam, Israel, damaged by ballistic missile shot from Iran

Rescue teams inspect a damaged building following a strike by an Iranian ballistic missile in Bat Yam, Israel, south of Tel Aviv, on 15 June 2025. Source: Getty / Gili Yaari

Operation Rising Lion

Israel launched Operation Rising Lion with a surprise attack on Friday morning that wiped out the top echelon of Iran’s military command and damaged its nuclear sites, and says the campaign will continue to escalate in coming days.

Iran has vowed to “open the gates of hell” in retaliation in what has emerged as the biggest ever confrontation between the longstanding enemies.

The Israeli military warned Iranians living near weapons facilities to evacuate.

“Iran will pay a heavy price for the murder of civilians, women and children,” Netanyahu said from a balcony overlooking blown-out apartments in the town of Bat Yam, where six people were killed.

An official said Israel still had a long list of targets in Iran and declined to say how long the offensive would continue. Those attacked on Saturday evening included two “dual-use” fuel sites that supported military and nuclear operations, he said. Israel also said it hit an aerial refuelling aircraft in eastern Iran in its longest-range attack of the conflict.

President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran’s responses will grow “more decisive and severe” if Israel’s hostile actions continue.

Israel launches airstrike on oil warehouse in Tehran

Flames and smoke rise from Tehran’s oil warehouse on 15 June 2024 as Israel continues strikes on Iran’s nuclear program and energy facilities. Source: AAP / Abedin Taherkenareh

Trump warns Iran not to attack

Israeli skies have been streaked with barrages of Iranian missiles and Israeli interceptor rockets. Some 22 of Iran’s 270 ballistic missiles fired over the past two nights breached Israel’s anti-missile shield, Israeli authorities say.

Trump has lauded Israel’s offensive while denying Iranian allegations that the US has taken part in it.

“If we are attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the US Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before,” he said in a message on Truth Social. “However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict.”

Trump had earlier said the US had no role in Israel’s attack and warned Tehran not to widen its retaliation to include US targets. The US military has helped shoot down Iranian missiles that were headed toward Israel, two US officials said on Friday.

Trump has repeatedly said Iran could end the war by agreeing to tough restrictions on its nuclear program, which Iran says is for peaceful purposes but Western countries say could be used to make a bomb.

The latest round of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States, due to be held on Sunday, was scrapped after Tehran said it would not negotiate while under Israeli attack.

Israel has said its operation could last weeks. Netanyahu has openly urged Iran’s people to rise up against their Islamic clerical rulers.