AIRSTRIKES by the United States and Israel have killed at least 787 people in Iran since the start of the war, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said Tuesday. The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog on Tuesday said Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment site sustained “some recent damage” amid a US-Israeli airstrike campaign, though there was “no radiological consequence expected” from it. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the damage was focused on “entrance buildings” to the underground portion of the atomic site. Meanwhile, Iranian media said Mansoureh Khojasteh, wife of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, died on Monday. She had been in a coma since Saturday’s strikes on her husband’s office. Khojasteh, 78, was the only wife of Ali Khamenei. They married in 1964. Separately, an Iranian human rights activists’ group cited an Education Ministry spokesperson as saying that 171 students were killed across Iran in the past 48 hours. According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, the Ministry spokesperson said the deadliest strike hit the Shajareh Tayebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, where 168 students died and 95 were injured. Additional casualties included two students in Tehran and a 9-year-old child in Abyek, Qazvin, while three others were injured in separate incidents in two districts of Tehran. Airstrikes targeting an air base in south-eastern Iran killed at least 13 Iranian troops there, local media reported. The semiofficial Tasnim news agency and the ‘Hammihan’ daily newspaper reported the strike in Kerman, 800 kilometres (500 miles) southeast of Iran’s capital, Tehran.

 

As the war in the Middle East intensifies, US President Donald Trump said that the US has “the capability to go far longer” than its projected four-to-five-week time frame for its military operations against Iran. Tehran and its allies have hit back against Israel, neighbouring Gulf states, and targets critical to the world’s production of oil and natural gas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said that Israel and the US struck Iran because Tehran had restarted its nuclear programme and it would have gone “immune within months.” Netanyahu told Fox News early on Tuesday that an attack against Iran was urgently needed because Tehran was building new underground sites to shield its missile and nuclear programmes from attacks. “They started building new sites, new places, underground bunkers that would make their ballistic missile programme and their atomic bomb programme immune within months. If no action was taken now, no action could be taken in the future,” he said. Satellite photos analysed by The Associated Press showed limited activity at two nuclear sites in Iran before the war, with analysts saying it was likely Tehran was trying to assess damage from American strikes in June and possibly salvage what remained there. West Asia conflict: PM Modi speaks to Sultan of Oman, Crown Prince of Kuwait: PRIME Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday spoke to Sultan Haitham bin Tarik of Oman and Crown Prince of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah, and expressed concern over attacks on their countries during the ongoing conflict in West Asia, officials said. In his telephonic conversations, Modi also discussed with the two leaders the welfare and security of the Indian community residing there.

 

“The Prime Minister spoke to two important leaders from the Gulf region on Tuesday afternoon. He had a phone call with the Sultan of Oman, Sultan Haitham bin Tarik, and also had a conversation with the Crown Prince of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah,” an official said. During his talks with the two leaders, Modi expressed concern over the attacks in their respective countries and discussed the welfare and security of the Indian community residing there. The phone calls took place in the wake of a coordinated offensive launched against Iran by the United States and Israel, in which the Islamic country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed. In retaliation, Iran has fired drones and missiles at Israel and US military installations around the Gulf, as also at the global business and aviation hubs of Dubai and Doha. Over the last two days, Modi has spoken to the King of Bahrain and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and condemned recent attacks on the two countries in violation of their sovereignty and territorial integrity, asserting that India stands in solidarity with their people in this difficult hour. The Prime Minister has also spoken to King Abdullah II of Jordan and conveyed deep concern over the evolving situation in the region. Modi has also spoken to United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.