Israel steps up strikes, killing 3 Iranian commanders and hitting nuclear sites

WASHINGTON - Israel said on June 21 that it had killed three Iranian commanders as the countries traded attacks, a day after

Tehran said it would not negotiate

over its nuclear programme while under threat and Europe tried to keep peace talks alive.

Mr Saeed Izadi, who led the Palestine Corps of the Quds Force, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ overseas arm, was killed in a strike in an apartment in the Iranian city of Qom, said Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz.

Calling the killing of Mr Izadi a “major achievement for Israeli intelligence and the Air Force”, Mr Katz said in a statement that the veteran commander had financed and armed the Palestinian militant group Hamas ahead of its Oct 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza.

As Israel continued to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities and military targets, in an interview published June 21, Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar said by the country’s own assessment it had “already delayed for at least two or three years the possibility for them to have a nuclear bomb”.

“We will do everything that we can do there in order to remove this threat,” Mr Saar told German newspaper Bild, asserting Israel’s onslaught would continue.

Earlier on June 21, the Revolutionary Guards said five of its members had been killed in attacks on Khorramabad, according to Iranian media reports that did not mention Mr Izadi, who was on US and British sanctions lists.

The Israeli military later said that it killed a second commander of the Guards’ overseas arm, who it identified as Mr Benham Shariyari, during a strike on his vehicle overnight in western Tehran.

It said the commander “was responsible for all weapons transfers from the Iranian regime to its proxies across the Middle East”.

Mr Shariyari supplied missiles and rockets launched at Israel to Hezbollah, Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis, according to the Israeli military.

There was no confirmation from the IRGC on the killing of the three commanders.

Meanwhile, ISNA, a news agency run by Iranian university students, reported that “four people have died as martyrs and three others were wounded in an Israeli attack against a training camp of the Revolutionary Guards in Tabriz”.

The Quds Force built up a network of Arab allies known as the Axis of Resistance, establishing Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1982 and supporting the Palestinian militant Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

But the Iran-aligned network has suffered major blows over the last two years, as Israeli offensives since Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023, attacks on Israel have weakened both the Palestinian group and Hezbollah.

Iranian media had said earlier on June 21 that Israel had attacked a building in Qom, with initial reports of a 16-year-old killed and two people injured.

Israel strikes Isfahan nuclear site

Israel targeted “two centrifuge production sites” at Iran’s Isfahan nuclear facility overnight in a second wave of strikes on the location since the start of the war, a military official said.

“Isfahan, we targeted in the first 24 hours of our operation, but we carried out a second wave of strikes there overnight, deepening our achievements and advancing the damage to the facility,” the military official told reporters during a briefing on condition of anonymity.

The repeated raids by the Israeli air force have “dealt a severe blow to Iran’s centrifuge production capabilities”, the official added.

The Israeli military said it had launched a wave of attacks against missile storage and launch infrastructure sites in Iran.

Mr Ali Shamkhani, a close ally of Iran’s supreme leader, said he had survived an Israeli attack.

“It was my fate to stay with a wounded body, so I stay to continue to be the reason for the enemy’s hostility,” he said in a message carried by state media.

Early on June 21, the Israeli military warned of an incoming missile barrage from Iran, triggering air raid sirens across parts of central Israel, including Tel Aviv, as well as in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Interceptions were visible in the sky over Tel Aviv, with explosions echoing across the metropolitan area as Israel’s air defence systems responded. There were no reports of casualties.

Iran’s nuclear programme

Israel began attacking Iran on June 13

, saying its long-time enemy was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran, which says its nuclear programme is only for peaceful purposes, retaliated with missile and drone strikes on Israel.

Israel is widely assumed to possess nuclear weapons. It neither confirms nor denies this.

Its air attacks have killed 639 people in Iran, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, a US-based human rights organisation that tracks Iran. The dead include the military’s top echelon and nuclear scientists.

Iran’s Health Minister Mohammadreza Zafarqandi said on June 21 that Israel has attacked three hospitals during the conflict, killing two health workers and a child, and has targeted six ambulances, according to Fars News Agency.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An Iranian missile hit a hospital in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba on June 19.

Iran’s Nour News on June 21 named 15 air defence officers and soldiers it said had been killed in the conflict with Israel.

At least 430 people were killed and 3,500 were wounded in Iran since the start of the Israeli-Iranian conflict on June 13, Nour News reported on June 21, citing the country’s health ministry.

In Israel, 24 civilians have been killed in Iranian missile attacks, according to the Israeli authorities.

US President Donald Trump said on June 20 he thought Iran would be able to have a nuclear weapon “within a matter of weeks, or certainly within a matter of months”.

He told reporters at the airport in Morristown, New Jersey: “We can’t let that happen.”

He said his director of national intelligence, Ms Tulsi Gabbard, was wrong in suggesting there was no evidence Iran is building a nuclear weapon.

Iran arrests 22 over Israeli spy links

Police in Iran’s Qom province said 22 people “linked to Israeli spy services” had been arrested since June 13.

Citing the head of police intelligence in Iran’s Qom province, Fars news agency reported that “22 people were identified and arrested on charges of being linked to the Zionist regime’s spy services, disturbing public opinion and supporting the criminal regime”.

A European national was also arrested for spying, Tasnim reported on June 20, without giving their nationality or the date of the arrest.

Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said at least 223 people have been arrested nationwide on charges related to collaboration with Israel, cautioning that the actual figure was likely higher.

Scant progress in Geneva

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said there was no room for negotiations with the US “until Israeli aggression stops”. But he arrived in Geneva on June 20 for talks with European foreign ministers, at which Europe hopes to establish a path back to diplomacy.

Mr Trump reiterated that he would take up to two weeks to decide whether the United States should enter the conflict on Israel’s side, enough time “to see whether or not people come to their senses”, he said.

Mr Trump said he was unlikely to press Israel to scale back its airstrikes to allow negotiations to continue.

“I think it’s very hard to make that request right now. If somebody is winning, it’s a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing, but we’re ready, willing and able, and we’ve been speaking to Iran, and we’ll see what happens,” he said.

The Geneva talks produced little signs of progress, and Mr Trump said he doubted negotiators would be able to secure a ceasefire.

“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this one,” Mr Trump said.

Hundreds of US citizens have fled Iran since the air war began, according to a US State Department cable seen by Reuters.

Israel’s envoy to the United Nations, Mr Danny Danon, told the Security Council on June 20 his country would not stop its attacks “until Iran’s nuclear threat is dismantled”.

Iran’s UN envoy Amir Saeid Iravani called for Security Council action and said Tehran was alarmed by reports that the US might join the war.

Russia and China demanded immediate de-escalation.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Iran was ready to discuss limitations on uranium enrichment but that it would reject any proposal that barred it from enriching uranium completely, “especially now under Israel’s strikes”. REUTERS, AFP