Israel-Iran conflict LIVE updates: Trump goes to ground after National Security Council meeting, weighs US involvement; Iranian nuclear, weapons facilities attacked in Israeli strikes

US President Donald Trump has demanded the “unconditional surrender” of Iran, but went to ground after convening a meeting of his national security team, leaving the world and the MAGA universe wondering whether the world’s most powerful military would become directly involved in the Israel-Iran conflict.

As those two countries exchanged missiles again in the early hours of Wednesday, the White House confirmed Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had spoken by phone, but would not divulge details of the call – and Trump unusually refrained from posting about it on social media.

Although there is mounting speculation the US will step up its involvement in the conflict, the White House has given no update throughout today, other than to acknowledge the National Security Council meeting in the Situation Room and the phone call with Netanyahu.

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More than 50 Israeli air force jets carried out strikes in Iran overnight targeting what the Israeli military has alleged is an Iranian “centrifuge” production site as well as several weapons production sites.

In a statement posted to X, the military said the latest attack was “part of the extensive effort to disrupt the Iranian regime’s nuclear weapons development program.”

“It should be emphasised that nuclear development for civilian purposes does not require enrichment at these levels,” it said.

The statement said the attacks were guided by “precise intelligence”, and that a site producing raw materials and components for assembling “ground-to-ground missiles” was also attacked.

Trump met his national security team in Washington for more than an hour on Tuesday, US time, to discuss the escalating Middle East conflict, according to people familiar with the matter, fuelling fresh speculation that the US is on the verge of joining Israel’s attack on Iran.

Trump spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the meeting, according to a White House official.

White House officials declined to comment or issue a statement.

Both Israel and Iran have indicated that they planned to ratchet up the days-long conflict.

Bloomberg

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is returning to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for the last in a series of often combative hearings before lawmakers, who have pressed him on everything from a ban on transgender troops to his use of a Signal chat to share sensitive military plans.

The questions – which also have touched on his firings of top military leaders and even some of his inner circle of advisers – may be dominated by the escalation of airstrikes between Iran and Israel that threaten a potentially devastating regional war. But he is still expected to face sharp questions about his chaotic tenure, his opposition to women in combat jobs and efforts to shift funding from troop housing to border security.

The US has shifted significant numbers of refuelling tanker and fighter aircraft so they can respond to the conflict if needed, in the event of possible evacuations or airstrikes. Hegseth said this week that was done to protect US personnel and airbases.

“We are postured defensively in the region to be strong in pursuit of a peace deal. And we certainly hope that’s what happens here,” he told Fox News Channel. “And ‘America first’ means we’re going to defend American personnel and American interests.”

AP

As Iran’s president gathered his cabinet on Sunday afternoon to praise the armed forces for their performance, Tehran residents were filling their social media feeds with pictures and videos of fresh Israeli airstrikes that had destroyed buildings.

It was a dramatic split-screen moment, demonstrating how Iran’s government has tried to portray strength since Israel began its attack on the country on Friday morning even as a terrified population has decried the absence of adequate safety instructions and evacuation orders.

That President Masoud Pezeshkian convened such a meeting of top officials in a single location – just days after Israeli forces had wiped out much of Iran’s top military brass – showed an “arrogance and lack of adherence to basic security protocol”, Mohammad Ali Shabani, an Iranian-born scholar of the Middle East, wrote on X.

“They don’t even need to look abroad for lessons at this point, yet refuse to learn,” he wrote.

Throughout Sunday and Monday, Iranian state television played clips of pro-government rallies and focused coverage on the damage in Israel wrought by Iran’s retaliatory missile barrages. On Sunday, however, Tehran residents began a mass exodus from the capital city for fear of being caught up in the conflict.

Even after Israel issued an evacuation warning on Monday for part of Tehran, Iran’s state-run television, whose offices are within that zone, continued as normal, airing videos of children singing patriotic songs and images of Iranian missiles hitting Israeli targets – up until the moment an Israeli strike hit the television studio. The news host sprang up from her chair, and a man, expressing defiance, could be heard saying “God is great” on air.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

Iran’s state television has urged citizens to remove WhatsApp from their smartphones, alleging that the messaging app has gathered user information to send to Israel.

In a statement on Tuesday, WhatsApp said it was “concerned these false reports will be an excuse for our services to be blocked at a time when people need them the most”.

WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, meaning a service provider in the middle can’t read a message. Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, owns the app.

“We do not track your precise location, we don’t keep logs of who everyone is messaging, and we do not track the personal messages people are sending one another,” it added. “We do not provide bulk information to any government.”

Iran has blocked access to various social media platforms over the years, but many people in the country use proxies and virtual private networks, or VPNs, to access them. It banned WhatsApp and Google Play in 2022 during mass protests against the government over the death of a woman held by the country’s morality police. That ban was lifted late last year.

AP

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni sought to rally the G7 leaders to support a ceasefire in Gaza, renewing the push amid an escalation of hostilities between Iran and Israel.

“This is a moment in which we can agree to a ceasefire in Gaza,” she told reporters at the G7 summit in Canada on Tuesday.

“I have shared this sentiment with everyone I’ve spoken to these days and I have found agreement – so much so that this common position is in the ‘allied nations’ Middle East statement.”

Israel has been engaged in a war against Gaza since October 2023, when Hamas launched a multipronged onslaught on Israel from the strip, killing 1200. Gaza authorities say the death toll there has topped 57,000 casualties, while the UN has warned of catastrophic humanitarian conditions.

Some of Israel’s closest European allies, including Germany, the UK and France, have grown increasingly critical of its prosecution of the war, which has destroyed much of the coastal strip and sparked what international aid agencies say is a hunger crisis.

“We must push for this result,” Meloni said.

“I have always backed the reconstruction plan put forward by Arab countries. I think the Gulf countries’ role in this phase in the region is fundamental, and we have to support their role as much as possible in trying to find a solution.”

She said the possibility of Russian President Vladimir Putin negotiating peace between Iran and Israel – an option put forward by US President Donald Trump earlier this week – was “not on the table”.

“Giving a mediating role in another war to a nation already at war doesn’t seem like one of the best options to me,” she said.

Bloomberg

The Israeli Air Force has issued an update just now in which it says it intercepted a “suspicious aerial target” launched from the east of Israel.

In a post to X, The IAF said sirens rang out in the northern part of the country after the target entered its airspace between 5.55am and 5.57am local time.