Trump claims Iran’s nuclear capabilities ‘obliterated’ despite UN watchdog comments – as it happened

The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards command centre, Ali Shadmani, died of wounds sustained during Israel’s military strikes on the country, Iranian state media said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

The guards’ command centre vowed “harsh revenge” for his killing, state media added.

Israel’s armed forces had said on 17 June that it killed Shadmani, who it identified as Iran’s wartime chief of staff and most senior military commander.

Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the US has not given up its maximum pressure on Iran - including restrictions on sales of Iranian oil - but signaled a potential easing in enforcement to help the country rebuild, Reuters reports.

When asked if he was easing oil sanctions on Iran, Trump said at a news conference at the Nato Summit :

They’re going to need money to put that country back into shape. We want to see that happen,”

Trump said a day earlier that China can continue to purchase Iranian oil after Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire, but the White House later clarified that his comments did not indicate a relaxation of US sanctions.

Iran’s move to hang three men convicted of spying for Israel has amplified fears for the life of Swedish-Iranian dual national Ahmadreza Djalali, who has been on death row for seven-and-a-half years after being convicted of spying for Israel which his family vehemently denies.

The executions also bring to nine the number of people executed by Iran on espionage charges since the start of 2025, with activists accusing the Islamic republic of using capital punishment as a means to instil fear in society.

Idris Ali, Rasoul Ahmad Rasoul and Azad Shojai were executed earlier Wednesday in the northwestern city of Urmia, the judiciary said, the day after a truce between the Islamic republic and Israel came into effect.

“The Islamic Republic sentenced Idris Ali, Rasoul Ahmad Rasoul, and Azad Shojai to death without a fair trial and based on confessions obtained under torture, accusing them of espionage,” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), told AFP.

The White House on Wednesday shared what it said was a statement from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission - that country’s nuclear regulator - assessing that Iran’s nuclear program had been set back by “many years.”

Al Jazeera quoted an Iranian official on Wednesday saying that the country’s nuclear installations had been “badly damaged.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that the ceasefire between Iran and Israel is “volatile and fragile,” and urged renewed diplomatic negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.

After a NATO summit in the Netherlands attended by US President Donald Trump, Macron said he hopes that the ceasefire holds.

Asked by The Associated Press about next steps, he said “we should resume diplomatic and technical work on the nuclear question” with Iran, the US and European countries. “In the coming weeks we will have a choice to make on this issue,” he said.

Macron is meeting later Wednesday with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Paris. Iran’s parliament has approved a bill to suspend cooperation with the IAEA for refusing to condemn the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

We have some more detail from the Iranian foreign ministry (see earlier post) regarding their assesment of the damage to the country’s nuclear sites.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei told Al Jazeera English on Wednesday.

Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, thats for sure, because it has come under repeated attacks by Israeli and American aggressors.

Donald Trump said on Wednesday that “great progress” was being made to end the war in Gaza, AFP reports.

“I think great progress is being made on Gaza,” Trump told reporters ahead of a Nato summit in the Netherlands, adding that his special envoy Steve Witkoff had told him “Gaza is very close.”

He linked his optimism about imminent “very good news” for the Gaza Strip to a ceasefire agreed on Tuesday between Israel and Iran to end their 12-day war.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson says its nuclear installations were “badly damaged” by US military strikes, the Associated Press reports.

We have an update on the number of troops killed in Gaza (see earlier post), according to the Israeli military.

Seven soldiers were killed in Gaza after an attack on their armoured vehicle, Israel said on Wednesday, in one of the deadliest incidents for its forces in the more than 20-month war.

The troops were operating in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis on Tuesday when their vehicle caught fire after assailants attached an explosive device to it, the Israeli military said.

The army’s website listed the names of the seven soldiers, including a platoon commander from the battalion who “fell during combat in the southern Gaza Strip”, Reuters reports.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was “a difficult day for the people of Israel... Our heroic fighters fell in a battle to defeat Hamas and release our hostages”.

The dollar pushed higher against the yen but struggled to regain ground against other currencies on Wednesday as investors decided to take on more risk following a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran.

Markets regained some stability, with an index of global stocks hitting a record high overnight as the truce brokered by US President Donald Trump took hold between Iran and Israel.

The long-time Middle East adversaries signalled the air war between them was over, at least for now, after Trump publicly scolded both sides for violating a ceasefire he announced.

Investors heavily sold the dollar following the news, having piled into the US currency after pouring into the safe-haven currency during the 12 days of war between Israel and Iran that also saw the US bomb Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities.

Iranian authorities said internet restrictions had been necessary because Israel had waged a “widespread cyber war” against it during the 12-day conflict.

Strict internet curbs had been gradually imposed since June 13, when Israel launched a major attack on Iran, which hit back with waves of missile strikes. A ceasefire that came into force on Tuesday appears to be holding.

“The communication network is gradually returning to its previous state,” the Revolutionary Guards’ cyber unit said in a statement carried by state media.

It said Israel had waged a “widespread cyber war” with the goal of disrupting digital services and “abusing the network infrastructure to collect information and intensify the aggression”.

Pop music blared from a Tel Aviv school on Wednesday as children arrived for their first day back after 12 days of air war with Iran kept them confined to safe rooms and bomb shelters with stressed parents.

The sight of children carrying or wheeling their colourful backpacks into school was one of the most vivid signs of life returning to routine in Israel after days and nights of huddling indoors in fear of being hit by an Iranian missile.

Avi Behagen looked euphoric after dropping off his 9-year-old twin boy and girl.

“In one word? Thank you, God!” he said, raising his eyes and hands to the heavens.

“It’s good to bring the kids back to school, good for us the parents, and also good for the kids, because they don’t admit it, but they do miss the school. And I have twins, so it’s a double happiness.”

During the conflict with Iran, many families with safe rooms within their homes spent most of their time there, while those reliant on public shelters would run there every time there was an alert, disrupting nighttime sleep and daytime routines.

Amir hasn’t slept much in days. From his apartment in northern Tehran, the 23-year-old spends his nights searching for proxy links, fragile digital lifelines that briefly break through the internet blackout.

Iran was under a near-total internet shutdown, severely limiting access to information. During the blackout, a group of young Iranians was working non-stop to ensure their voices reach the outside world.

Desperate for news on war with Israel, people searched for proxy links to route messages through servers outside Iran, as Deepa Parent reported:

Speaking alongside the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, Donald Trump compared the US strikes on Iran to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, saying: “This was essentially the same thing: that ended that war; this ended the war.”

Trump’s comments came after a Pentagon report that said the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites only set the programme back by months. Trump has rejected these claims.

Iranian authorities on Wednesday announced the gradual easing of internet restrictions imposed during the 12-day war with Israel, following the implementation of a ceasefire between the longtime foes.

“The communication network is gradually returning to its previous state,” said the Revolutionary Guards’ cyber security command in a statement carried by state media.

The country’s communications minister, Sattar Hashemi, said in a post on X: “With the normalisation of conditions, the state of communication access has returned to its previous conditions”.

Euro area government bond yields were mixed on Wednesday as investors weighed expectations that the Iran-Israel ceasefire would hold alongside concerns about increased fiscal spending across the euro area.

Closely watched oil prices held near multi-week lows on the prospect that crude flows would not be disrupted, after a ceasefire between Iran and Israel.

“Financial markets have priced in an Iran-Israel ceasefire holding,” said Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management.

However, intelligence reports suggesting the U.S. failed to destroy Iran’s nuclear program will probably keep tensions high in the region, he added.

According to Israeli government-run Kan Radio, IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said Operation Rising Lion yielded significant achievements and struck a serious blow to Iran’s nuclear program.

“We met all the goals for the operation that were spelled out for us. Even better than we expected. I say this with all due modesty, because it is still too early to draw conclusions”, he said.

“We are [still] investigating and checking things out. [But I can say that] the IDF Intelligence Directorate and the IAF intelligence branch have proven themselves to be accurate these past few weeks. I can say right now that the estimate is that we struck a significant blow to [Iran’s] nuclear infrastructure. I can say that we pushed them years backward.”

Iraqi authorities said they arrested a political commentator on Wednesday over a post alleging that a military radar system struck by a drone had been used to help Israel in its war against Iran.

After a court issued a warrant, the defence ministry said that Iraqi forces arrested Abbas al-Ardawi for sharing content online that included “incitement intended to insult and defame the security institution”.

In a post on X, which was later deleted but has circulated on social media as a screenshot, Ardawi told his more than 90,000 followers that “a French radar in the Taji base served the Israeli aggression” and was eliminated.

Early Tuesday, hours before a ceasefire ended the 12-day Iran-Israel war, unidentified drones struck radar systems at two military bases in Taji, north of Baghdad, and in southern Iraq, officials have said.

Iran executed three more prisoners on Wednesday over allegedly spying for Israel, its state-run IRNA news agency reported, the latest hangings connected to its war with Israel.

Iran identified the three men as Azad Shojaei, Edris Aali and Iraqi national Rasoul Ahmad Rasoul.

Iran is one of the world’s top executioners. After the brutal 1980s Iran-Iraq war, Iran carried out the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners and others, raising concerns among activists about a similar wave coming after the war with Israel.

The hangings happened in Urmia Prison in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) did not immediately comment on the Iranian parliament’s approval of the bill to suspend cooperation with the nuclear watchdog.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday he was seeking the return of inspectors to Iranian sites including the plants where it was enriching uranium until Israel launched strikes on June 13.

The full extent of the damage done to nuclear sites during the Israeli attacks and US bombing of underground Iranian nuclear facilities is not yet clear.

“I think that our view on our nuclear programme and the non-proliferation regime will witness changes, but it is not possible to say in what direction,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Qatar’s Al-Araby Al-Jadeed this week.

Israel’s defence minister on Wednesday designated Iran’s central bank a “terror organisation”, saying the move was aimed at halting financing for Iran-backed militant groups the day after a ceasefire between the two foes took hold.

Minister Israel Katz “signed a special order designating Iran’s central bank, two additional Iranian banks (and) an Iranian armed forces-affiliated company... as terror organisations,” a statement from his office said.

“Part of Israel’s broader campaign against Iran”, the move aimed “to target the heart of the Iranian regime’s terror financing system, which funds, arms and directs terror throughout the Middle East”, it added.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that it thought it was too early for anyone to have a realistic picture of damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear facilities by US airstrikes.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was responding to a question about damage assessments offered by President Donald Trump who has suggested that the US attack obliterated Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Peskov said that Moscow viewed the attacks on Iran as unprovoked and the situation as concerning.

Russia had indications that Washington and Tehran had open communications channels though, he said, and Moscow was closely monitoring developments and still talking to Iran itself.

Pope Leo XIV urged the warring sides in the Israel-Iran war to “reject the logic of bullying and revenge” and choose a path of dialogue and diplomacy to reach peace as he expressed solidarity with all Christians in the Middle East.

Speaking at his weekly Wednesday general audience, the American pope said he was following “with attention and hope” recent developments in the war. He cited the biblical exhortation: “A national shall not raise the sword against another nation.”

A ceasefire is holding in the 12-day Iran-Israel conflict, which involved Israel targeting Iranian nuclear and military sites and the US intervening by dropping bunker-buster bombs on Iranian nuclear sites. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful.

US President Donald Trump also said on Wednesday that the intelligence following the strikes on Iranian nuclear sites was inconclusive, but suggested the damage could have been severe.

“The intelligence was very inconclusive. The intelligence says we don’t know. It could’ve been very severe. That’s what the intelligence suggests,” Trump told reporters ahead of meeting with world leaders at a NATO summit.

“It was very severe. There was obliteration,” he added. In the same remarks, he had said the attack on Iran had been “devastating”.

Donald Trump has called US strikes on Iran “a devastating attack”, as he reiterated his criticism of media outlets which reported Iran’s nuclear programme had not been set back more than by a few months.

The US President, speaking at the Hague, said: “Nobody talks about this, we shot 30 Tomahawks from submarines – in particular one submarine that was 400 miles away – and every one of those Tomahawks hit within a foot of where they were supposed to hit, took out a lot of building that Israel wasn’t able to get.

“This was a devastating attack and it knocked them for a loop and you know if it didn’t they wouldn’t have settled.”

US secretary of defence Pete Hegseth added that the damage in Iran is “moderate to severe” and said the FBI is investigating nuclear sites leaks. He said leakers had characterised the attack in a way that was “completely false”.

As the fragile Iran-Israel truce took hold, there was no letup in Turkey’s diplomatic efforts on Wednesday to prevent any return to a conflict fraught with risk for Ankara’s domestic and regional policies.

Hours after US President Donald Trump announced the ceasefire, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met him for talks on the sidelines of a Nato summit for their third conversation in 10 days.

Erdogan’s “intensive diplomatic efforts” to curb the conflict also involved calls with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian and top Middle Eastern leaders.

“Turkey has been trying very hard to de-escalate the situation, but it’s not seen as a credible mediator, neither by Iran nor by Israel,” Gonul Tol of the Washington-based Middle East Institute told AFP.

Iran’s lawmakers chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” after they voted on Wednesday in favour of suspending cooperation with the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, state TV reported.

The decision still requires the approval of the Guardian Council, a body empowered to vet legislation.

In parliament, 221 lawmakers voted in favour and one abstained, with no votes against from those present in in the 290-seat legislature, according to state TV.

A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry has commented on Donald Trump’s Truth Social post, in which the US President said China can continue to purchase Iranian oil.

Guo Jiakun said on Wednesday that China would adopt reasonable energy security measures in accordance with its own national interests, when asked about the Trump post at a regular press briefing.

Larger purchases of Iranian oil by China and other consumers could upset US ally Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter. The impact of US sanctions on Iran’s exports, however, has been limited since Trump’s first administration when he cracked down harder on Tehran.

China has long opposed what it has called Washington’s “abuse of illegal unilateral sanctions.”

Nuclear weapons are front of mind for many people after the US struck a number of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons sites.

But how many countries have nuclear weapons? Which countries are capable of building nuclear weapons? What is the non-proliferation treaty? And why are some countries allowed to have nuclear weapons and not others?

Guardian Australia’s Matilda Boseley explains:

It was as close as Donald Trump might get to a lucid statement of his governing doctrine. “I may do it. I may not do it,” the president said to reporters on the White House lawn. “Nobody knows what I’m going to do.”

The question was about joining Israeli air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Days later, US bombers were on their way. Some expected it to happen. Others, including Keir Starmer, had gone on record to say they didn’t. No one had known. The unpredictability doctrine wouldn’t have been violated either way.

In the Middle East as in Ukraine, the president is discovering that simple bullying tricks don’t resolve complex international crises, Rafael Behr writes:

Oil prices edged higher on Wednesday, finding some respite after plummeting in the last two sessions, as investors assessed the stability of the ceasefire and the diminished prospect of an Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Israel’s military lifted restrictions on activity across the country at 8 p.m. local time (1700 GMT) on Tuesday, and officials said Ben Gurion Airport, the country’s main airport near Tel Aviv, had reopened. Iran’s airspace likewise will be reopened, state-affiliated Nournews reported.

The truce appears fragile: Both Israel and Iran took hours to acknowledge they had accepted the ceasefire and accused each other of violating it.

The dollar struggled to regain lost ground on Wednesday as investors decided to take on more risk following a fragile truce between Israel and Iran.

Markets were jubilant and an index of global shares hit a record high overnight as a shaky ceasefire brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump took hold between Iran and Israel.

The two nations signalled that the air war between them had ended, at least for now, after Trump publicly scolded them for violating a ceasefire he announced.

At the Nato summit in the Netherlands, tensions between Israel and Iran could dominate discussions among world leaders amid the fragile ceasefire.

Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, is among those in The Hague for the gathering, having called on Middle Eastern nations to maintain the pause in hostilities.

In a conversation with the French and German leaders at the summit on Tuesday, Starmer “reflected on the volatile situation in the Middle East”, according to a Downing Street spokeswoman. The leaders agreed that “now was the time for diplomacy and for Iran to come to the negotiating table”.

PA Media also reports that earlier on Tuesday Starmer said the US had helped in “alleviating” the threat of nuclear capability for Iran with its strikes on Saturday.

Asked on his visit to The Hague whether he personally felt safe with Donald Trump in the White House and why others should, Starmer told Channel 5 News:

Look, I think what we’ve seen over the last few days is the Americans alleviating a threat to nuclear weaponry by the Iranians and bringing about a ceasefire in the early hours of today.

I think now what needs to happen is that ceasefire needs to be maintained, and that will be the focus of our attention, our engagement, our discussions, because that ceasefire provides the space for the negotiations that need to take place.

The UK has continued to evacuate Britons out of Israel, and a second flight left Tel Aviv on Tuesday.

Iran executed three men on Wednesday after they were convicted of collaborating with Israeli spy agency the Mossad and smuggling equipment used in an assassination, Reuters cited the the judiciary’s Mizan news agency as reporting.

Iran has launched a wave of arrests against so-called spies and collaborators since Israel launched its attacks on the country two weeks ago. The Guardian has been unable to verify the claims from Iran.

The Israeli military says six soldiers have been killed during combat in southern Gaza, Reuters just reported.

Turning to Gaza, the Trump administration has authorised a $30m grant to the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), making the United States a direct backer of an aid organisation that is closely linked to private security contractors and has been accused by critics of “politicising” the distribution of humanitarian aid in the Palestinian territory, Andrew Roth reports.

According to a document seen by the Guardian, the state department has already disbursed $7m to GHF, a US- and Israeli-backed aid organisation that has been given preferential access to operate in Gaza because it says it can deliver millions of meals to starving people without that food falling into the hands of Hamas.

Roth’s report continues:

But its rollout has been chaotic, with Israeli forces killing hundreds of people near distribution centres policed by private military contractors and Israeli soldiers, resignations by senior leadership who have said the humanitarian organisation’s mission was “politicised”, and reports of close ties and collaboration with the Israeli government.

Insiders said the application for the grant was rushed through the state department unusually quickly, especially for a first-time applicant that should undergo an audit to receive USAID funding.

“It was pushed through over the technical and ethical objections of career staff,” a source told the Guardian.

You can read the full report here:

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has weighed in on Donald Trump swearing after becoming frustrated that Iran and Israel violated a ceasefire brokered by the US president.

Trump attacked both nations for breaching the agreement in the early stages, saying on live television “they don’t know what the fuck they are doing”.

Albanese said Trump’s views on the situation in the Middle East were obvious, while also calling for the ceasefire agreement to remain in effect, Australian Associated Press reports.

“President Trump made some pretty clear statements. I don’t think it needs any further reflection,” Albanese told reporters on Wednesday. “I think that he stated his views pretty abruptly and I think they were very clear.”

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said Australians shouldn’t be concerned about the words used. “Far be it from for Australians to quibble with that kind of language,” he told Sky News.

We heard some blunt speak from the president, and I think that just reflects the fact that the stakes are high in the Middle East.

I think those who haven’t used that word privately can cast the first stone.

Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy has said talks between the US and Iran are “promising” and that Washington is hopeful for a long-term peace deal.

“We are already talking to each other, not just directly but also through interlocutors,” Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday. “I think that the conversations are promising. We are hopeful that we can have a long-term peace agreement that resurrects Iran,” he told a Fox News show.

Now it’s for us to sit down with the Iranians and get to a comprehensive peace agreement, and I am very confident that we are going to achieve that.

Reuters also reports that since April, Iran and the US have held indirect talks aimed at finding a new diplomatic solution over Iran’s nuclear program. Israel is the only country in the Middle East widely believed to have nuclear weapons. Iran is a party to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty while Israel is not.

Donald Trump’s administration told the UN security council on Tuesday that its weekend strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities had “degraded” Iran’s nuclear program – short of the US president’s earlier assertion that the facilities had been “obliterated”.

The US’s acting envoy to the UN, Dorothy Shea, said in a statement to the security council that the US strikes “effectively fulfilled our narrow objective: to degrade Iran’s capacity to produce a nuclear weapon”.

Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that in its 12 days of war with Iran, Israel removed the threat of nuclear annihilation and was determined to stop any Iranian attempt to revive its program.

“We have removed two immediate existential threats to us: the threat of nuclear annihilation and the threat of annihilation by 20,000 ballistic missiles,” he said in video remarks issued by his office.

Iran has insisted its uranium enrichment program is for peaceful purposes.