World Iran Vs Israel 2025 War Discussion

[Saif]

Amnesty urges Iran, Israel to spare civilians in their conflict

Amnesty International on Wednesday urged Israel and Iran to spare civilians as their conflict escalates and alarm grows over the death toll. "As the number of deaths and injuries continue to rise, Amnesty International is urging both parties to comply with their obligations and ensure that...

en.prothomalo.com

Amnesty urges Iran, Israel to spare civilians in their conflict

AFP Paris
Published: 18 Jun 2025, 22: 19

Amnesty International on Wednesday urged Israel and Iran to spare civilians as their conflict escalates and alarm grows over the death toll.

"As the number of deaths and injuries continue to rise, Amnesty International is urging both parties to comply with their obligations and ensure that civilians in both countries do not further pay the price of reckless military action," said the global human rights group's0 secretary general Agnes Callamard.

The conflict began Friday, when Israel launched a massive bombing campaign that prompted Iran to respond with missiles and drones.

Iran said on Sunday that Israeli strikes had killed at least 224 people, including military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians. It has not issued an updated toll since then.


At least 24 people have been killed in Israel and hundreds wounded, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Monday.

"Further escalation of these hostilities risks unleashing devastating and far-reaching consequences for civilians across the region and beyond," said Callamard.

She accused the United States and other G7 members of failing to recognise "the catastrophic impact this escalation will have on civilians in both countries".

"Instead of cheering on one party to the conflict over another, as if civilian suffering is a mere sideshow, states must ensure the protection of civilians," she added.

Israel said its surprise air campaign was aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons -- an ambition Tehran denies.​

 

[Saif]

Khamenei says Iran will never surrender, warns off US

The speech came six days into the conflict, with Trump demanding Iran's "unconditional surrender"

en.prothomalo.com

Khamenei says Iran will never surrender, warns off US
AFP Tehran
Published: 18 Jun 2025, 17: 48

A handout picture provided by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's office shows him speaking during the Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran on 4 October, 2024 AFP

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday the nation would never surrender as demanded by President Donald Trump and warned the United States it would face "irreparable damage" if it intervenes in support of its ally.

The speech came six days into the conflict, with Trump demanding Iran's "unconditional surrender" while boasting the United States could kill Khamenei and fuelling speculation about a possible intervention.

The long-range blitz began Friday, when Israel launched a massive bombing campaign that prompted Iran to respond with missiles and drones.

"This nation will never surrender," Khamenei said in a speech read on state television, in which he called Trump's ultimatum "unacceptable".

"America should know that any military intervention will undoubtedly result in irreparable damage," he said.

Khamenei, in power since 1989 and the final arbiter of all matters of state in Iran, had earlier vowed the country would show "no mercy" towards Israel's leaders.

The speech followed a night of strikes, with Israeli attacks destroying two buildings making centrifuge components for Iran's nuclear programme near Tehran, according to the UN nuclear watchdog.

"More than 50 Israeli Air Force fighter jets... carried out a series of air strikes in the Tehran area over the past few hours," the Israeli military said, adding that several weapons manufacturing facilities were hit.

"As part of the broad effort to disrupt Iran's nuclear weapons development programme, a centrifuge production facility in Tehran was targeted."

Centrifuges are vital for uranium enrichment, the sensitive process that can produce fuel for reactors or, in highly extended form, the core of a nuclear warhead.

The strikes destroyed two buildings making centrifuge components for Iran's nuclear programme in Karaj, a satellite city of Tehran, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

In another strike on a site in Tehran, "one building was hit where advanced centrifuge rotors were manufactured and tested", the agency added in a post on X.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had launched hypersonic Fattah-1 missiles at Tel Aviv.

Hypersonic missiles travel at more than five times the speed of sound and can manoeuvre mid-flight, making them harder to track and intercept.

No missile struck Tel Aviv overnight, though AFP photos showed Israel's air defence systems activated to intercept missiles over the commercial hub.

Iran also sent a "swarm of drones" towards Israel, while the Israeli military said it had intercepted a total of 10 drones launched from Iran.

It said one of its own drones had been shot down over Iran.

Trump fuelled speculation about US intervention when he made a hasty exit from the G7 summit in Canada, where the leaders of the club of wealthy democracies called for de-escalation but backed Israel's "right to defend itself".

He boasted that the United States could easily assassinate Khamenei.

"We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there -- We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Trump met with his National Security Council to discuss the conflict. There was no immediate public statement after the hour and 20 minute meeting.

US officials stressed Trump has not yet made a decision about any intervention.

Evacuations

Israel's attacks have hit nuclear and military facilities around Iran, as well as residential areas.

Residential areas in Israel have also been hit, and foreign governments have scrambled to evacuate their citizens from both countries.

Many Israelis spent another night disrupted by air raid warnings, with residents of coastal hub Tel Aviv repeatedly heading for shelters when sirens rang out warning of incoming Iranian missiles.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, perched at 800 metres (2,600 feet) above sea level and with a view over Tel Aviv, some residents gathered on rooftops and balconies to watch.

An AFP journalist reported cheers and whistles as dozens of missiles flew overhead, with Israeli air defences activating to intercept them, causing mid-air explosions which lit up the sky.

Since Friday, at least 24 people have been killed in Israel and hundreds wounded, according to Netanyahu's office.

Iran said on Sunday that Israeli strikes had killed at least 224 people, including military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians. It has not issued an updated toll since then.

On Tuesday in Tehran, long queues stretched outside bakeries and petrol stations as people rushed to stock up on fuel and basic supplies.

Iran's ISNA and Tasnim news agencies on Wednesday reported that five suspected agents of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency had been detained, on charges of tarnishing the country's image online.

Nuclear facilities

After a prolonged shadow war, Israel said its surprise air campaign was aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons -- an ambition Tehran denies.

The UN nuclear watchdog said there appeared to have been "direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls" at Iran's Natanz facility.

Israel has maintained ambiguity regarding its own atomic activities, but the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says it has 90 nuclear warheads.

The conflict derailed a running series of nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington, with Iran saying after the start of Israel's campaign that it would not negotiate with the United States while under attack.​

 

[Saif]

Debate rages over legality of Israel's attack on Iran

When it comes to discussing whether Israel's initial attack on Iran was justified or not, the arguments on both sides are strident and emotional. Israel broke international law by attacking another country, one side says. It's a rogue state, bombing across borders with impunity, they claim.

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Debate rages over legality of Israel's attack on Iran
Israel says it struck Iran in self-defense, fearing a nuclear threat. But international law covering self-defense by states is very strict — fueling heated debate about the legality of Israel's initial attack.

Deutsche Welle
Updated: 18 Jun 2025, 19: 16

Israel launched strikes at Iran on June 13, saying they were aimed at degrading the country's ability to make a nuclear weapon.

When it comes to discussing whether Israel's initial attack on Iran was justified or not, the arguments on both sides are strident and emotional.

Israel broke international law by attacking another country, one side says. It's a rogue state, bombing across borders with impunity, they claim.

But Israel has been threatened by Iran for years and Iran was on the verge of making a nuclear bomb, the other side argues. That poses an existential threat, they insist.

But which side does international law — unswayed by emotion — come down on?

Iranian leaders have been threatening Israel for years but in legal terms, the question must be whether they were making a nuclear bomb they would fire at Tel Aviv, experts say.

How do analysts view legality of Israeli strikes?

Senior Israeli politicians described their country's attack on Iran on 13 June as a "preemptive, precise" attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, arguing it was self-defense because they feared a future nuclear attack by Iran.

Under international law, there are very specific rules about self-defense, for example Articles 2 and 51 of the United Nations Charter, and it's more likely this was what's known as a "preventive" attack.

"My impression is that the majority of legal analysts see [Israel's attack] as a case of 'prohibited self-defense'," Matthias Goldmann, a law professor and international law expert at EBS University Wiesbaden, told DW.

"Because the requirements for self-defense are rather strict. They require an imminent attack that cannot be fended off in any other way. If you apply that requirement, you come to the conclusion that there was no attack imminent from Iran."

The timing alone makes that clear, Goldmann and others argue. On 12 June, the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, issued a statement saying that Iran was not fully cooperating with it. But Israel has not presented any evidence as to why they believed a nuclear threat from Iran was so close and US intelligence suggests Iran was possibly three years away from a bomb.

There have been years of threatening rhetoric between Iran and Israel but it's deemed highly unlikely that Iran would fire a nuclear weapon at Israel later this month.

"Look back at the Cold War," Goldmann suggested. "Both sides had nuclear weapons and relied on the principle of mutually assured destruction — where you don't use your nuclear weapon because you know the counterstrike would be fatal. That's why the mere fact of possessing nuclear weapons in itself cannot be considered an imminent attack."

Israel itself already has an unspecified number of nuclear weapons but never signed the UN's Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and does not allow international inspections.

In defense of Israel

In a text for the website Just Security, Israeli law professors Amichai Cohen and Yuval Shany agree an attack in self-defense would have been illegal.

But, they say, the attack on Iran should actually be seen as part of the larger conflict. "That changes the legal arguments because the attack would have happened in a differently defined context," they say.

In another opinion published this week on the US military academy West Point's website, Articles of War, Michael Schmitt, an American professor of public law, argues that the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat means the concept of self-defense could be interpreted more liberally.

But Schmitt admits this is a "tough case" because there were still other options than force. Another of the preconditions to attacking in self-defense is that a country must have exhausted all other options — and Schmitt notes nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran were ongoing at the time of the attack.

There's another reason why most legal experts believe Israel's attack was illegal, says Marko Milanovic, a professor of international law at the UK's University of Reading. Ultimately the law on this is built to be restrictive, he says. "It's about minimizing the need to resort to force. It's not about creating loopholes that any state that likes to bomb others can exploit," he told DW.

Laws of combat

All is not fair in war, once the fighting starts," says Tom Dannenbaum, a professor of international law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Boston's Tufts University. "There is a carefully calibrated legal framework which applies equally to both sides."

Parties cannot target civilians or civilian objects, Dannenbaum told DW. "Objects only become military objectives when, by their nature, purpose, location, or use, they make an effective contribution to military action."

The Israeli Ministry of Defense and the headquarters of the Israeli Defense forces is in central Tel Aviv and surrounding civilian buildings were damaged in recent Iranian attacks.

For example, this relates to Israeli targeting of Iranian nuclear scientists in their homes: Many lawyers explained that simply working on a weapons programme doesn't make you a combatant.

Meanwhile, Iran's bombing has also killed civilians in Tel Aviv. "Even when targeting military objectives, parties must take all feasible precautions to minimize civilian harm," Dannenbaum explains, "and must not attack if expected civilian harm would be excessive in relation to anticipated military advantage."

It's hard to say if cases like this will ever be argued in court though. Goldmann, Dannenbaum and Milanovic say there's potential for related cases to eventually be heard at the International Court of Justice or perhaps at the European Court of Human Rights.

"But most of these types of issues on use of force don't end up in court," Milanovic said. "They get resolved in other ways. They're too political, or too large." Usually international diplomacy ends up resolving the issue, he noted.

Degrading international law

For many legal experts, one of the most worrying aspects is what appears to be implicit state support for Israel's most-likely-illegal definition of self-defense.

For example, while not referring specifically to the 13 June attack on Iran, statements by Germany's government have all contained some form of the phrase, "Israel has the right to defend itself."

"Of course, Israel does have a right to defend itself — but that right is limited by international law," Milanovic argues.

The rules on self-defense are strict for a reason, he and Goldmann explain.

If you start expanding their definition — for instance, saying you have the right to attack another state because they attacked you several years ago, or might attack you a few years from now — the rules are eroded, along with the whole system of international law.

In the past, the international community has spoken out, for example, amid the controversy surrounding the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 based on claims that it possessed "weapons of mass destruction," Goldmann noted.

"The legal argument Russia made [for invading Ukraine] is also actually very similar to this Israeli argument," Milanovic pointed out.

"If you read [Vladimir] Putin's speech on the eve of the 2022 invasion, it basically said that at some point in the future Ukraine and NATO are going to attack us and that's why we're doing this. But that's really not about self-defense," he concludes.

"That's about, say, you don't like somebody, you think they're a threat and therefore you think you have the right to go to war with them. Which is simply not what international law says."​

 

[Lulldapull]

Iran's gained the initiative here despite all odds days ago now.

Its business as usual now, with Iran messing Israel up...... unless the US attacks, then it will tip da scales.

All bets are off if da US jumps in.......

Iran can easily beat Israel into submission, which these other muzlim two bit itty bitty countries can't even dream of ever doing.

 

[Lulldapull]

@Lulldapull

Ye Christy X-Tian saalay manhoos in ka mazhab Parsion ne banaya.......do rupay k khabees.

In ko chhorray ga nahi Iran.

Just watch doc, in ka kya hashar karta hae Iran.

 

[Lulldapull]

comrade Burny Sander bhi aa gaya, inhi ka intejaar tha !



bilkul theek baat saying but

He's a total Zionist asset just like Mubarak Hussain Obama.......

In sub key gaandd maarnay ka time aagya hae.......All a bunch of Shysters.

 

[Lulldapull]

what else do they don't got ?

some suspect they even got the bumb !

also, kinda related, maybe:

Navigation Error Suspected in VLCC-Suezmax Crash Off Fujairah Amid Rising Gulf Tensions

A VLCC supertanker and a Suezmax tanker collided in the Gulf of Oman early Tuesday morning, resulting in fires aboard both vessels but no reported injuries or pollution, according to...

gcaptain.com

VLCC takkrao'd with Suzemax

accident ho gaya, rabba rabba !

Ye jang ager barrhi sharma.......it'll tank da global economy.

I bet you money trump sahb telling Iran to stop it and get compensation cuz Shetan-yahu is incompetent.

 

[Saif]

Stop Netanyahu before he gets us all killed

FOR nearly 30 years, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has driven the Middle East into war and destruction. The man is a powder keg of violence. Throughout all the wars that he has championed, Netanyahu has always dreamed of the big one: to defeat and overthrow the Iranian Government...

www.newagebd.net

Stop Netanyahu before he gets us all killed
Jeffrey D Sachs and Sybil Fares 18 June, 2025, 00:00

A woman holds a sign that reads ‘Wanted for crimes against humanity, Benjamin Netanyahu’ during a ‘Red Line For Gaza’ demonstration on June 15, 2025 in Brussels, Belgium. | commondreams/Luis Miguel Caceres

FOR nearly 30 years, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has driven the Middle East into war and destruction. The man is a powder keg of violence. Throughout all the wars that he has championed, Netanyahu has always dreamed of the big one: to defeat and overthrow the Iranian Government. His long-sought war, just launched, might just get us all killed in a nuclear Armageddon, unless Netanyahu is stopped.

Netanyahu’s fixation on war goes back to his extremist mentors, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin. The older generation believed that Zionists should use whatever violence–wars, assassinations, terror–is needed to achieve their aims of eliminating any Palestinian claim to a homeland.

The founders of Netanyahu’s political movement, the Likud, called for exclusive Zionist control over all of what had been British Mandatory Palestine. At the start of the British Mandate in the early 1920s, the Muslim and Christian Arabs constituted roughly 87 per cent of the population and owned ten times more land than the Jewish population. As of 1948, the Arabs still outnumbered the Jews roughly two to one. Nonetheless, the founding charter of Likud (1977) declared that ‘between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.’ The now infamous chant, ‘from the river to the sea,’ which is characterised as anti-Semitic, turns out to be the anti-Palestinian rallying call of the Likud.

The challenge for Likud was how to pursue its maximalist aims despite their blatant illegality under international law and morality, both of which call for a two-state solution.

In 1996, Netanyahu and his American advisors devised a ‘clean break’ strategy. They advocated that Israel would not withdraw from the Palestinian lands captured in the 1967 war in exchange for regional peace. Instead, Israel would reshape the Middle East to its liking. Crucially, the strategy envisioned the US as the main force to achieve these aims — waging wars in the region to dismantle governments opposed to Israel’s dominance over Palestine. The US was called upon to fight wars on Israel’s behalf.

The Clean Break strategy was effectively carried out by the US and Israel after 9/11. As NATO Supreme Commander General Wesley Clark revealed, soon after 9/11, the US planned to ‘attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years — starting with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.’

The first of the wars, in early 2003, was to topple the Iraqi government. Plans for further wars were delayed as the US became mired in Iraq. Still, the US supported Sudan’s split in 2005, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006, and Ethiopia’s incursion into Somalia that same year. In 2011, the Obama administration launched CIA operation Timber Sycamore against Syria and, with the UK and France, overthrew Libya’s government through a 2011 bombing campaign. Today, these countries lie in ruins, and many are now embroiled in civil wars.

Netanyahu was a cheerleader of these wars of choice–either in public or behind the scenes–together with his neocon allies in the US government including Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Victoria Nuland, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams and others.

Testifying in the US Congress in 2002, Netanyahu pitched for the disastrous war in Iraq, declaring ‘If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.’ He continued, ‘and I think that people sitting right next door in Iran, young people, and many others, will say the time of such regimes, of such despots is gone.’ He also falsely told Congress, ‘There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking, is working, is advancing towards to the development of nuclear weapons.’

The slogan to remake a ‘new Middle East’ provides the slogan for these wars. Initially stated in 1996 through ‘clean break,’ it was popularised by secretary Condoleezza Rice in 2006. As Israel was brutally bombarded Lebanon, Rice stated:

‘What we’re seeing here, in a sense, is the growing -- the birth pangs of a new Middle East and whatever we do we have to be certain that we’re pushing forward to the new Middle East not going back to the old one.’

In September 2023, Netanyahu presented at UN General Assembly a map of the ‘new Middle East’ completely erasing a Palestinian state. In September 2024, he elaborated on this plan by showing two maps: one part of the Middle East a ‘blessing,’ and the other–including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran–a curse, as he advocated regime change in the latter countries.

Israel’s war on Iran is the final move in a decades-old strategy. We are witnessing the culmination of decades of extremist Zionist manipulation of US foreign policy.

The premise of Israel’s attack on Iran is the claim that Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. Such a claim is fatuous since Iran has repeatedly called for negotiations precisely to remove the nuclear option in return for an end to the decades of US sanctions.

Since 1992, Netanyahu and his supporters have claimed that Iran will become a nuclear power ‘in a few years.’ In 1995, Israeli officials and their US backers declared a 5-year timeline. In 2003, Israel’s Director of Military Intelligence said that Iran will be a nuclear power ‘by the summer of 2004.’ In 2005, the head of Mossad said that Iran could build the bomb in less than 3 years. In 2012, Netanyahu claimed at the United Nations that ‘it’s only a few months, possibly a few weeks before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb.’ And on and on.

This 30-year-plus pattern of shifting deadlines has marked a deliberate strategy, not a failure in prophecy. The claims are propaganda; there is always an ‘existential threat.’ More importantly, there is Netanyahu’s phony claim that negotiations with Iran are useless.

Iran has repeatedly said that it does not want a nuclear weapon and that it has long been prepared to negotiate. In October 2003, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa forbidding the production and use of nuclear arms — a ruling later officially cited by Iran at an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting in Vienna in August 2005 and referenced since as a religious and legal barrier to pursuing nuclear weapons.

Even for those skeptical of Iran’s intentions, Iran has consistently advocated for a negotiated agreement supported by independent international verification. In contrast, the Zionist lobby has opposed any such settlements, urging the US to maintain sanctions and reject deals that would allow strict International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring in exchange for lifting sanctions.

In 2016, the Obama Administration, together with the UK, France, Germany, China and Russia, reached the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran — a landmark agreement to strictly monitor Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Yet, under relentless pressure from Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby, President Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018. Predictably, when Iran responded by expanding its uranium enrichment, it was blamed for violating an agreement that the US itself had abandoned. The double-standard and propaganda is hard to miss.

On April 11, 2021, Israel’s Mossad attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities in Natanz. Following the attack, on April 16, Iran announced that it would increase its uranium enrichment further, as bargaining leverage, while repeatedly appealing for renewed negotiations on a deal like the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The Biden Administration rejected all such negotiations.

At the start of his second term, Trump agreed to open a new negotiation with Iran. Iran pledged to renounce nuclear arms and to be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections but reserved the right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. The Trump Administration appeared to agree to this point but then reversed itself. Since then, there have been five rounds of negotiations, with both sides reporting progress on each occasion.

The sixth round was ostensibly to take place on Sunday, June 15. Instead, Israel launched a preemptive war on Iran on June 12. Trump confirmed that the US knew of the attack in advance, even as the administration was speaking publicly of the upcoming negotiations.

Israel’s attack was made not only in the midst of negotiations that were making progress, but days before a scheduled UN Conference on Palestine that would have advanced the cause of the two-state solution. That conference has now been postponed.

Israel’s attack on Iran now threatens to escalate to a full-fledged war that draws in the US and Europe on the side of Israel and Russia and perhaps Pakistan on the side of Iran. We could soon see several nuclear powers pitted against each other and dragging the world closer to nuclear annihilation. The Doomsday Clock is at 89 seconds to midnight, the closest to nuclear Armageddon since the clock was launched in 1947.

Over the past 30 years, Netanyahu and his US backers have destroyed or destabilized a 4,000-km swath of countries stretching across North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Western Asia. Their aim has been to block a Palestinian State by overthrowing governments supporting the Palestinian cause. The world deserves better than this extremism. More than 180 countries in the UN have called for the two-state solution and regional stability. That makes more sense than Israel bringing the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon in pursuit of its illegal and extremist aims.

Commondreams.org, June 16. Jeffrey D Sachs is a university professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. Sybil Fares is a specialist and adviser in Middle East policy and sustainable development at Sustainable Development Solutions Network.​