DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel claimed Tuesday to have killed a top Iranian general as it traded more strikes with its longtime foe, and U.S. President Donald Trump warned residents of Tehran to evacuate while demanding that Iran surrender without conditions.
Trump left the Group of Seven summit in Canada a day early to deal with the conflict between Israel and Iran, telling reporters on Air Force One during the flight back to Washington: “I’m not looking at a ceasefire. We’re looking at better than a ceasefire.”
When asked to explain, he said the U.S. wanted to see "a real end" to the conflict that could involve Iran “giving up entirely." He added: “I’m not too much in the mood to negotiate.”
Later, he warned Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the U.S. knows where he is hiding and called for Iran's “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER."
Iran offered no immediate response to the president's posts, but the country’s military leaders vowed that Israel would soon see more attacks.
“The operations carried out so far have been solely for the purpose of warning and deterrence,” Gen. Abdul Rahim Mousavi, the commander in chief of Iran’s army, said in a video. “The punishment operation will be carried out soon.”
Trump's hard line added to the uncertainty roiling the region on the fifth day of Israel's air campaign aimed at Iran's military and nuclear program. Residents of Tehran fled their homes in droves, and the U.N. nuclear watchdog for the first time said Israeli strikes on Iran's main uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz had also damaged its main underground section, not just an above-ground facility, as previously acknowledged.
Israel says its sweeping assault is necessary to prevent its adversary from getting any closer to building an atomic weapon. The strikes have killed at least 224 people in Iran.
Iran has retaliated by launching some 400 missiles and hundreds of drones at Israel. So far, 24 people have been killed in Israel.
Israel targets more Iranian leaders
The Israeli military claimed to have killed another top Iranian general in a strike on Tehran.
Iran did not immediately comment on the reported killing of Gen. Ali Shadmani, whom Israel described as the most senior military commander in Iran.
Shadmani was little-known in the country before being appointed last week to a chief-of-staff-like role as head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters. That appointment followed the killing of his predecessor, Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, in an Israeli strike.
The Israeli military warned the population to stay close to shelters as Iran fired new salvos of missiles, but officials said most were intercepted. Sirens blared in southern Israel, including in the desert town of Dimona, the heart of Israel's never-acknowledged nuclear arms program.
Iran has fired fewer missiles in each of its barrages, with just a handful launched late Tuesday. It has not explained the drop in missiles fired, but the decline comes after Israel targeted many Iranian launchers.
Israeli military spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin announced a new wave of strikes on Iran on Tuesday evening as explosions and anti-aircraft fire boomed throughout Tehran, shaking buildings across the capital. The Israeli military said its warplanes had targeted 12 missile launch sites and storage facilities.
Shops closed, lines for gas in Iran’s capital
Echoing an earlier Israeli military call for some 330,000 residents of a neighborhood in downtown Tehran to evacuate, Trump warned on social media that “everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran.”
Tehran is one of the largest cities in the Middle East, with around 10 million people, roughly equivalent to the entire population of Israel. People have been fleeing since hostilities began.
Asked why he had urged the evacuation of Tehran, Trump said: “I just want people to be safe.”
Downtown Tehran emptied out early Tuesday, with many shops shuttered, even the ancient Grand Bazaar, which has closed only in times of crisis, such as during the 2022 anti-government protests and the coronavirus pandemic.
On the roads out of Tehran to the west, traffic stood bumper to bumper. Many middle- and upper-class Iranians were headed to the Caspian Sea, a popular getaway spot. Long lines snaked from Tehran’s gas stations.
Signs that Iran is restricting access to outside world
Iranian authorities appeared to be curbing the public's access to the outside world. Phone and internet service was disrupted, with landline phones unable to receive or dial international calls. NetBlocks, an internet monitoring group, reported that it had detected a significant drop in internet traffic from the country.
Iran, which has crippled important communications tools in past nationwide protests and during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, did not acknowledge any restrictions.
International websites appeared to be blocked, but local websites were functioning, likely signaling that Iran had turned on the so-called “halal net,” its own locally controlled version of the internet aimed at restricting what the public can see.
Iran's state TV on Tuesday urged the public to remove the messaging app WhatsApp from their cellphones, alleging without evidence that the app gathered user information to send to Israel.
In a statement, WhatsApp said it was concerned that "these false reports will be an excuse for our services to be blocked at a time when people need them the most.”
Nuclear agency reports more damage to enrichment site
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Tuesday that it believed that Israel’s first aerial attacks on Iran’s Natanz enrichment site had directly affected the facility’s underground centrifuge facility.
Satellite imagery collected after Friday’s attacks showed “additional elements that indicate direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls,” the watchdog said.
Located 220 kilometers (135 miles) southeast of Tehran, the Natanz facility was fortified by anti-aircraft batteries, fencing and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
The IAEA earlier reported that Israeli strikes had destroyed an above-ground enrichment hall at Natanz and knocked out electrical equipment that powered the facility.
However, most of Iran's enrichment takes place underground to protect from airstrikes.
Israel has struck Natanz repeatedly and claims to have hurt its underground facilities, which experts assess contain 10,000 centrifuges that enrich uranium up to 60%. But Tuesday's IAEA statement marked the first time the agency has acknowledged damage there.
Iran maintains its nuclear program is peaceful, and the U.S. and others have assessed that Tehran has not had an organized effort to pursue a nuclear weapon since 2003. But the IAEA has repeatedly warned that the country has enough enriched uranium to make several nuclear bombs should it choose to do so.
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Monday that Israeli strikes on Iran's nuclear sites have set the country's nuclear program back a “very, very long time," Israel has not been able to reach Iran’s Fordo uranium enrichment facility, which is built deep into a mountainside.
Hitting Fordo would require the U.S. to get involved militarily and deploy B-2 stealth bombers to drop its bunker-busting bomb. The 30,000-pound (14,000-kilogram) GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator uses its weight and sheer kinetic force to reach deeply buried targets.
Trump leaves G7 early to focus on conflict
Before leaving the summit in Canada, Trump joined the other leaders in a joint statement saying that Iran “can never have a nuclear weapon” and calling for a “de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, including a ceasefire in Gaza.”
French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters that discussions were underway on a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, but Trump shot that down in his comments on social media.
Macron “mistakenly said that I left the G7 Summit, in Canada, to go back to D.C. to work on a ‘cease fire’ between Israel and Iran," Trump wrote. "Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that.”
Trump posted that there were no plans to kill Khamenei “at least not for now.” Despite warning that U.S. “patience is wearing thin,” he indicated that diplomatic talks remained an option.
He said he could send Vice President JD Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with the Iranians.
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Melzer reported from Nahariya, Israel. Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; and Tara Copp in Washington contributed to this report.
Joseph Krauss, Jon Gambrell And Natalie Melzer, The Associated Press
