Israel said Saturday it had killed three Iranian commanders in its unprecedented bombing campaign across the Islamic republic, which Foreign Minister Gideon Saar claimed had already delayed Tehran’s presumed nuclear plans by two years.
Israel’s military said its fighter jets successfully targeted top Iranian official Saeed Izadi, in charge of coordination with Palestinian militant group Hamas, in Qom south of Tehran and announced the deaths of two other commanders from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
As Israel continued to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities and military targets, in an interview published Saturday, 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,” Saar told German newspaper Bild, asserting Israel’s onslaught would continue.
Israel and Iran have traded wave after wave of devastating strikes, after Israel launched its aerial campaign on June 13, fearing Tehran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon — an ambition Iran has denied.
Israel said it had attacked Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site for a second time after its air force said it had also launched salvos against missile storage and launch sites in central Iran.
US President Donald Trump warned a day earlier Tehran has a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible American air strikes, as Washington weighs whether to join the Israel’s unprecedented bombing campaign.
– ‘Aggression continues’ –
Top diplomats from Britain, France and Germany met their Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi in Geneva on Friday, and urged him to resume talks with the United States that had been derailed by Israel’s attacks.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said “we invited the Iranian minister to consider negotiations with all sides, including the United States, without awaiting the cessation of strikes, which we also hope for.”
But Araghchi told NBC News after the meeting that “we’re not prepared to negotiate with them (the United States) anymore, as long as the aggression continues.”
Trump was dismissive of European diplomatic efforts, telling reporters, “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.”
Trump also said he is unlikely to ask Israel to stop its attacks to get Iran back to the table.
“If somebody’s winning, it’s a little bit harder to do,” he said.
Any US involvement would likely feature powerful bunker-busting bombs that no other country possesses to destroy an underground uranium enrichment facility in Fordo.
On the streets of Tehran, many shops were closed and normally bustling markets largely abandoned on Friday.
A US-based NGO, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, said on Friday that based on its sources and media reports at least 657 people have been killed in Iran, including 263 civilians.
Iran’s health ministry said on Saturday at least 350 people had been killed in the Israeli strikes including military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians.
-‘Perilous moment’-
Iran has responded with barrages which Israeli authorities say have killed at least 25 people. Overnight, Iran said, in an eighteenth wave of strikes, it targeted central Israel with drones and missiles.
A hospital in the Israeli port of Haifa reported 19 wounded, including one person in a serious condition, after the latest Iranian salvo.
Israel’s National Public Diplomacy Directorate said more than 450 missiles have been fired at the country so far, along with about 400 drones.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had targeted military sites and air force bases.
Western powers have repeatedly expressed concerns about the rapid expansion of Iran’s nuclear programme, questioning in particular the country’s accelerated uranium enrichment.
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s chief Rafael Grossi has said that Iran is the only country without nuclear weapons to enrich uranium to 60 percent.
However, it added that there was no evidence Tehran had all the components to make a functioning nuclear warhead.
Grossi told CNN it was “pure speculation” to say how long it would take Iran to develop weapons.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the conflict was at a “perilous moment” and it was “hugely important that we don’t see regional escalation”.
Araghchi arrived in Istanbul on Saturday, according to the Tasnim news agency, for a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to discuss the Iran-Israel conflict.