The Latest: Trump muses about regime change in Iran after U.S. strikes on nuclear facilities

Israel’s military said Monday it was striking around Iran’s western city of Kermanshah, as fears of a wider regional conflict loomed large after the United States inserted itself into Israel’s war by attacking Iranian nuclear sites.

The operation raised urgent questions about what remained of Tehran’s nuclear program and how its weakened military might respond. The as financial markets reacted.

Iran lashed out at the U.S. for crossing “a very big red line” with its to strike the three sites with missiles and 30,000-pound .

President Donald Trump, who has warned of additional strikes if Tehran retaliates against U.S. forces, has mused about the ″ in Iran, despite administration officials earlier indicating they wanted to restart talks with Iran. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in an interview with CBS, said: “Let’s meet directly.”

Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said any country used by the U.S. to strike Iran ”will be a legitimate target for our armed forces,” the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

Tens of thousands of American troops are based in the Middle East.

Here is the latest:

Sirens sound again in Israel and Jordan

Sirens sounded again in Israel over detected missile launches from Iran.

Sirens were also heard again in Amman, Jordan’s capital.

Israeli airstrikes hit around Tehran

Around noon, witnesses said Israeli airstrikes hit areas around Iran’s capital, Tehran.

It wasn’t immediately clear what had been targeted.

Hospital says Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 13 Palestinians

A hospital said Monday it received the bodies of 13 Palestinians who were killed in Israeli strikes in northern Gaza.

One strike early Monday hit a group of people waiting for aid trucks close to the Zikim crossing, in northwestern Gaza, killing at least nine people, the Shifa hospital said.

Another strike hit a house in Gaza City late Sunday, killing two women and two men, it said.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The strikes were the latest in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza which has killed about 56,000 Palestinians, according to the strip’s health ministry.

Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 251 hostages.

Most of the hostages were released by ceasefire agreements.

German FM calls again for direct Iran-US talks

Germany’s foreign minister is renewing calls for Iran to agree to direct talks with the United States but says Europe still has a role to play.

Johann Wadephul, his French and British counterparts and the European Union’s foreign policy chief met the Iranian foreign minister in Geneva on Friday.

He said Monday: “We already made it very clear to the Iranian side that a real precondition for a settlement to the conflict is that Iran be ready to negotiate directly with the U.S.

“Iran says it only wants to negotiate with Europe, and that is a good sign for us, but we say that isn’t enough – we want to have the United States of America included.”

EU focuses on diplomacy

The European Union is “very much focused on the diplomatic solution” for Iran, the bloc’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said Monday following U.S. strikes on Iran over the weekend.

“The concerns of retaliation and this war escalating are huge,” Kallas said at the start of a foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels where Iran has jumped to the top of the agenda.

“Especially closing of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran is something that would be extremely dangerous and not good for anybody,” Kallas said, referring to a maritime route crucial for oil transport.

The EU has been a key player in diplomatic negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

France FM rejects leadership change in Iran through force

France’s foreign minister says it would be “illusory and dangerous” to try to bring about a change of government in Iran through military force.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot delivered the French assessment on Monday after President Donald Trump mused on social media about the future of Iran’s ruling theocracy.

Barrot did not mention Trump by name or his post but said: “We reject all attempts to organize a change of regime by force.”

“It would illusory and dangerous to think that such a change can be provoked through force and bombs,” the French minister said.

Iranian attack targets Haifa and Tel Aviv

Iran described the new missile barrage targeting Israel as a new wave of its operation “True Promise 3,” saying it is targeting Haifa and Tel Aviv.

Iranian state television said Tehran used a mix of missiles and drones.

UK's Lammy says US not going after Iran's ‘civilian leadership’

Britain’s foreign minister says he is confident the U.S. is not seeking to overthrow Iran’s government despite a social media post from President Donald Trump suggesting it might be a good idea.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Monday that “it’s clear from Israel and the United States that they’re not going after the civilian leadership” in Tehran. He said “that’s not what’s under consideration at this time.”

Lammy said he spoke to Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday, and the U.K. is pushing to “get the Iranians back to serious diplomacy.”

Lammy told the BBC he has “not seen an assessment yet” of whether the strikes “seriously degraded Iran’s ability to come up with a nuclear program.”

He added that “ultimately this has to be dealt with by diplomacy.”

Sirens sounded in Jordan

and in central Israel

Israel’s military said there was a barrage of missiles from Iran heading to Israel later Monday morning.

Iran launched an additional barrage, the Israeli military later warned.

Iran has a ‘free hand’ to act against US interests, top general says

Iranian Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi, the chief of joint staff of armed forces, warned the U.S. on Monday that its strikes gave a "free hand" to Iranian armed forces to “act against U.S. interests and its army.”

Mousavi stressed Iran would not hesitate to do so after the U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday.

He described the American attack as violating Iran’s sovereignty, entering the Israeli war on the country and being tantamount to invading the country.

The state-run IRNA news agency reported Mousavi’s remarks.

Israeli drone downed in Iran

The Israeli military said one of its drones was downed during an operation on Monday morning in Iran.

The military also said 15 fighter jets struck missile launchers and storage sites in western Iran, close to the border with Iraq.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Sunday Israel was “very close to achieving our goals” in removing Iran’s nuclear and missile threats.

Iran's judiciary says it executed another alleged Mossad spy

Iran on Monday hanged a third man accused of being a spy of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service since Israel’s war on the Islamic Republic began.

Activists fear more people will be executed in Iran, particularly after its theocracy issued a Sunday deadline for people to turn themselves in over spying.

The judiciary’s Mizan news agency identified the executed man as Mohammad Amin Mahdavi Shayesteh. Amnesty International previously had raised his case, saying he was held in Ghezal Hesar prison in Iran’s Alborz province.

On Sunday, Iran hanged another man, Majid Mossayebi, whose case only became public after his execution.

On June 16, Iran hanged Esmail Fekri.

North Korea condemns U.S. strikes on Iran

North Korea says it “strongly condemns” the U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, calling it an egregious violation of Iran’s territorial integrity and security interests.

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Monday that the United States and Israel were escalating tensions in the Middle East through the use of military force, and called on the “just-minded international community” to raise a unified voice against their “confrontational behavior.”

During his first term, U.S. President Donald Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times in 2018 and 2019, but their diplomacy collapsed over disagreements in exchanging the release of U.S.-led sanctions against North Korea and the North’s steps to wind down its nuclear and missile program.

Kim has since accelerated his arms development while ignoring talk offers by Washington and Seoul.

He has shifted the priority of his foreign policy to Russia, sending thousands of troops and huge shipments of military equipment to fuel Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.

Trump claims ‘monumental damage’ inflicted on Iranian nuclear sites

President Donald Trump asserted on his Truth Social platform that Iran’s nuclear sites sustained “monumental damage” in the American attack, though a U.S. assessment on the strikes is still underway.

“The biggest damage took place far below ground level. Bullseye!!!” he wrote.

U.S. defense officials have said they are working to determine about just how much damage the strikes did.

Iran as well has not said how much damage was done in the attack, though Tehran has not offered any details so far on the strikes it has faced from Israel in its war with that country.

Iran likely filled in tunnels at nuclear sites ahead of U.S. strikes

An analysis of satellite photos by a nuclear nonproliferation group based in Washington shows Iran likely filled in tunnels at its nuclear site at Isfahan ahead of U.S. strikes early Sunday.

The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security published satellite images taken by Airbus it assessed showed trucks dumping soil into tunnels at the site on Friday.

The U.S. attack likely targeted the tunnel entries, the group said.

“At least three of the four tunnel entrances are collapsed,” it said. “The status of the fourth one is unclear.”