Iran and Israel traded daytime missile attacks on Friday to cap a week of relentless bombing as talks involving Iran’s foreign minister and his European counterparts showed no sign of a breakthrough.
Abbas Araghchi said Iran would not negotiate with the US as long as Israel continued to carry out airstrikes, and insisted his country’s nuclear programme was entirely peaceful.
Israeli emergency services reported that at least 17 people were injured, including a teenager who is in a serious condition, after Iranian ballistic missiles on Friday slammed into a building near the port city of Haifa in the early afternoon. Israel said it had conducted multiple strikes on Iran earlier in the day.
After the attack on Haifa, images from the scene showed the building in ruins as people were stretchered away. Moments earlier, Iran’s religious ruler, Ali Khamenei, had posted on social media warning that Israel was about to see revenge. “The Zionist enemy is getting his comeuppance; he is getting his comeuppance now,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
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Israel’s military issued a rare nationwide warning on social media following Ayatollah Khamenei’s post as it urged civilians to head for shelters. It later said Iran had fired around 25 ballistic missiles. Israeli cabinet secretary Yossi Fuchs said Iran had fired a total of 525 missiles at Israel over the past week.
There were reports of additional impacts in southern and central Israel. In Tel Aviv, after authorities gave the all-clear, people emerged from bomb shelters into an early Friday evening but to none of the partying for which the city is best known. That atmosphere has vanished, blown away by Iran’s missiles and, for a minority, the growing horror at what continues to unfold in Gaza, where the Israeli military ordered Palestinians to flee Gaza City to “sheltered” areas in the west of the enclave. There are no “sheltered” or safe areas for Gaza’s populations.
Israel said it had conducted airstrikes on Iran, with more than 60 aircraft hitting what it said were industrial sites used to manufacture missiles.
It said it had hit the headquarters of Iran’s Organisation for Defensive Innovation and Research, known by its initials in Farsi, SPND. The US has previously linked that agency to alleged Iranian research and testing tied to the possible development of nuclear explosive devices.
Israel also carried out airstrikes targeting the areas around Kermanshah and Tabriz in western Iran, where the military said 25 fighter jets had struck “missile storage and launch infrastructure components”. There had been reports of anti-aircraft fire in the areas.
“We are strengthening our air control in the region and advancing our air offensive,” Israeli military spokesperson Brigadier General Effie Defrin told reporters. “We have more sites to strike in Tehran, western Iran and other places.”
The Washington-based human rights organisation Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) estimates that 639 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Iran. Israeli officials say two dozen Israelis have been killed in Iranian strikes.
The UK said it was temporarily withdrawing staff from its embassy in Iran due to the ongoing threat of strikes. The families of British embassy diplomats in Tel Aviv have also been removed as a precaution, but the officials themselves are remaining.
The attacks by each side came as Mr Araghchi arrived in the Swiss city of Geneva for negotiations with the European Union and the UK focused on a diplomatic solution to the escalating crisis.
The European leaders were seeking to set up a settlement before Mr Trump decides on whether to take military action against Tehran.
Israel and Iran have been exchanging fire for eight days after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched airstrikes, he said, were aimed at preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
However, after several hours of talks on Friday, there was no sign of a breakthrough.
Mr Araghchi said he supported continuing the negotiations, but said his country would only be ready for diplomacy with the US if Israel stopped its attacks.
“Iran is ready to consider diplomacy if aggression ceases and the aggressor is held accountable for its committed crimes,” Mr Araghchi said. “We support the continuation of discussion... and express our readiness to meet again in the near future.”
Speaking after the meeting, UK foreign secretary David Lammy called the situation “perilous”.
He told reporters: “It is still clear to me, as President Trump indicated yesterday, that there is a window of within two weeks where we can see a diplomatic solution.”
Urging Iran to “take that off ramp” and talk to the Americans, he said: “We have a window of time. This is perilous and deadly serious.”
An Israeli government official said intelligence showed that three months ago “the Iranians had the equivalent for six nuclear bombs”, but that the figure had now increased to nine.
Late on Friday night, President Trump told media that he believed Iran was “weeks” away from having a nuclear weapon. “We can’t let that happen,” he said. His statements contradict his own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who recently said there was no evidence that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon.
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