Iran fires more missiles into Israel and casts doubt on Europe-led talks

TEHRAN – Iran sent a barrage of missiles into Israel on June 20 that struck several places, according to Israeli broadcasters and the country’s main emergency service.

Two people were severely injured in the northern city of Haifa, the service’s director said in a television interview, and broadcast footage showed debris near one of the impact sites in central Haifa.

Both sides traded fire even as European ministers

were meeting with Iran’s top diplomat

in Switzerland to try to cool the week-old conflict.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran was not interested in negotiating an end to the war until Israel stopped its attacks.

A day after US President Donald Trump said he would

put off a decision

on whether to join Israel’s attacks for two weeks to give diplomacy a chance, Mr Araghchi said in an interview with Iranian state broadcaster IRIB that “we have clearly said that there is no room for talking until this aggression stops”.

Earlier, Israel announced overnight strikes on missile factories and a research centre linked to Iran’s nuclear programme.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said he has ordered the Israeli military to increase its attacks on Iranian government targets to “destabilise the regime”, deter it from firing at Israel and displace the population of Tehran, the Iranian capital.

The Iranian missile barrage on June 20 wounded at least 17 people, three of them seriously, according to Magen David Adom, Israel’s main emergency service.

The Israeli fire and rescue service said it dispatched teams to seven places in southern Israel where it received reports that missiles or missile fragments fell.

In a demonstration after Friday prayers in Tehran,

thousands of people protested

over the Israeli attacks, with some trampling or burning American and Israeli flags, video from the scene showed.

In the eighth day of the fighting, the war’s trajectory remained uncertain.

Mr Trump walked back suggestions on June 19 that the United States was about to join Israel’s attacks, announcing a window of up to two weeks to reach a diplomatic solution.

That dashed Israeli hopes of a swift climax to the war.

Israel seeks to destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, and its leaders had hoped Mr Trump would soon send US bombers to destroy an underground enrichment site deemed largely impermeable to the kinds of munitions in Israel’s arsenal.

Now, Israel must decide whether to wait for US military support or use its own, less powerful missiles to attack the site.

The talks in Geneva on June 20 are aimed at reaching a third option: a grand diplomatic compromise in which Iran would agree to enough limits on its nuclear programme to satisfy Israel.

Mr Araghchi was meeting with his counterparts from Britain, France and Germany, as well as the European Union’s top diplomat.

In the interview on June 20, Mr Araghchi said his country would not talk to the US, calling it “a partner in this crime”.

But he said he was willing to hear what the European officials had to say. NYTIMES