A day of talks involving representatives of Iran and Europe on Friday in Geneva broke up with no signs of a breakthrough, as top diplomats mounted an effort to avert a dangerous escalation in the weeklong conflict between Israel and Iran even as the sides pummeled each other from the air.
Iran sent a barrage of missiles into Israel on Friday that struck in several cities, according to Israeli broadcasters and the country’s main emergency service. Earlier, Israel announced it had conducted overnight strikes on missile factories and a research center linked to Iran’s nuclear program.
Both sides traded fire even as diplomats from Britain, France, Germany and the European Union were meeting with an Iranian delegation in Switzerland to try to cool the conflict. Expectations for the meeting were restrained, given the ongoing strikes in Israel and Iran and the wide gaps between Iran and the United States in their now-suspended negotiations about limits on Iran’s nuclear program.
Before the talks began, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Tehran was not interested in negotiating an end to the war until Israel stopped its attacks. The meeting ended hours later with statements that appeared to signal both optimism and urgency.
“We are keen to continue ongoing discussions and negotiations with Iran, and we urge Iran to continue their talks with the United States,” said Britain’s foreign secretary, David Lammy. “This is a perilous moment, and it is hugely important that we don’t see regional escalation of this conflict.”
France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, spoke in similarly general terms, declaring it was important to pursue a dialogue with Iran because, he said, “we believe there is no definitive military solution to the Iranian nuclear problem.”
With President Trump setting a new deadline of two weeks before he decides whether to join Israel’s aerial campaign against military and nuclear sites in Iran, the European diplomats planned to deliver an urgent message to Mr. Araghchi that his government must make significant concessions in its nuclear program.
Israel and Iran launch fresh attacks amid diplomatic push.
Israel and Iran traded intensive fire for the eighth consecutive day on Friday, with Iranian missiles striking Israeli cities and Israeli jets pounding targets across Iran, despite diplomatic efforts to contain the conflict.
A missile launched from Iran early Friday morning damaged several buildings in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, where a strike the day before had hit a major medical center that had been largely evacuated. About nine hours later, a missile from a volley of some 35 struck an abandoned building in downtown Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, causing extensive damage to surrounding buildings, including a mosque.
There were no direct fatalities from the strikes on Friday in Israel, though 23 people were wounded in Haifa, according to Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency service, and dozens more in strikes across the country. A woman died after she had a heart attack in a shelter in northern Israel while sirens warning of incoming missiles were blaring, the service said.
In the Iranian capital, Tehran, large crowds took to the streets for a prayer march in support of the Iranian regime, while a resident interviewed by The Times described thinning traffic and closed shops amid ongoing Israeli strikes.
Iranian government websites remained inaccessible from outside the country on Friday and had not been updated, making it impossible to confirm the number of casualties there. The communication blackout was part of a countrywide internet shutdown now in its fourth day.
The Israeli military said air force jets had struck military and nuclear sites in Tehran overnight. Iran’s state broadcaster reported early Friday morning that Israeli strikes had targeted an industrial complex in the Sefid-Rud area in the northern provinces along the Caspian Sea coast, and large blasts were also reported in the northern city of Rasht and north of Tehran.
Later on Friday, the Israeli military said it had struck missile storage and launch sites in the regions of Tabriz and Kermanshah, as well as surface-to-air missile batteries in southwestern Iran. Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said on Thursday that he had ordered the military to increase attacks on Iranian government targets to “destabilize the regime.”
The exchanges continued even as Iran’s top diplomat was meeting on Friday in Geneva with European foreign ministers for talks aimed at reaching a diplomatic compromise. The talks broke up without any evident breakthrough.
The talks followed President Trump’s announcement Thursday that he would delay a decision on whether to join Israel’s attacks, saying he would make up his mind “within the next two weeks.”
Just as I predicted on these pages a few days ago, Israel, the US, and their friends are begging for negotiations (“We are keen to…” lol) while Iran has no interest in talks – they are letting their missiles do the talking.
Why would anyone trust talks with Trump, Witkoff, and the Israeli aggressors? These clowns are known for murdering negotiators like they did with Haniyeh. They murdered Solimani by luring him with peace talks. Why would the party with the upper hand – the Iranians – want to talk to the weaker party, who are the aggressors? If the Zionists want to talk, they have to unilaterally cease fire.
And when they do finally talk, the losers (Israel and the US) won’t have any cards. They can’t destroy Iran’s nuclear program. Their missile defenses can’t stand up to Iran’s superior regional missile strength which includes hypersonics and new generation missiles with 80+ warheads on each missile. Iran says it has only used 30% of its missiles and Russia has confirmed that Iranian underground missile factories are working non-stop to create more. At last count, the Chinese have landed two cargo planes of military gear in Tehran with more on the way.
Israel continues to shoot dozens/hundreds of people lined up for food aid in Gaza, and has now initiated a ground invasion of Syria as well. With Iran’s unwillingness to talk, we might be finally headed to a much more positive conclusion – a complete flattening of all military, commercial, and infrastructure targets in Israel. The path to peace is paved with dead IDF and dead Israelis. The world wants peace.
Excellent observations.
Surprising the AVA tolerates you, given its obvious Zionist sympathies.
My comments are mostly banned, and it’ll be a real surprise if this one isn’t too.
Only when you get into straight-up anti-Semitism and racism, apparently your life’s work.
Bruce,
Most of the world by now perceives Israel as a terrorist state, practicing full-blown genocide and endless wars of aggression which Western countries always get sucked into.
I admire your fortitude, carrying on without seeking pity for your serious health problems.
So I don’t expect you to expansively cover the latest (& perhaps closest) brush we’re having with WWIII. But seriously — you’re using Sulzbergers’ NYT as your sole source for Israel news! WTF??
Your cheap shots directed at me are frankly juvenile. I readily give credit where it’s due. I’m “anti-Semitic”?? I sure as hell didn’t vote for the brain-dead crook or the narcissistic bloviator. I gladly wrote in a brilliantly insightful Jew (mere “tokenism,” right, Bruce?).
I don’t think Mr. Editor has Zionist sympathies, and to his credit he hasn’t voted D or R in a presidential election since 1972 (he can correct me if I got that wrong). But he is from a generation that has been pounded over the head with Zionist propaganda equating Zionism with Jewishness, and anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
An analogy: Imagine a world where 80% of white people are in the KKK, or even just straight-up Nazis. It would be hard for me to avoid blaming “the whites” for things if that were the case, even if I knew that there were good white people that existed.
Years ago I was dating a woman whose father fought in the Pacific theater during WWII. We had been dating long enough that she wanted to introduce me to her family over dinner. At one point her father started going off about “The Japs.” Afterwards she apologized to me profusely for his use of the slur, but I wasn’t bothered by it. If you’ve been in a deadly combat situation with people, maybe they can be granted a little leeway. Finkelstein talks about this too – how his parents (Holocaust survivors who fought in the Warsaw uprising) had a seething hatred for Germans and Poles, not just Nazis. It’s the same for Palestinians today who want to destroy “The Jews” – who can blame them given what they are experiencing at the hands of those who claim to define Jewishness? Today, our country is under a different kind of assault by Jewish supremacists.
The irony of course is that Zionism is deeply antisemitic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herzl%27s_Mauschel_and_Zionist_antisemitism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_antisemitism
There is gray area and nuance in everything. It’s part of what make politics hard to discuss. If it were me, I would tend to allow the broadest possible window of speech, though I would be less likely to publish things written by obvious Zionists (cough). It’s the Editor’s paper, and therefore his rules.
Never in the course of history, have so many owed so much to so few.
Thank you, Iranians!
Exhibit A but here Kittle disguises his obsession in an oblique and typically stupid remark.
I think Iran does deserve our – and the world’s – gratitude.
They have not aggressed against another country in over 300 years. Meanwhile they have –
defended themselves against Iraqi/US aggression
defended Lebanon from Israeli/US aggression via Hezbollah
defended Yemen against Saudi/US aggression and genocide via The Houthis
defended Iraq and Syria against ISIS
defended Palestine against Israeli/US aggression and genocide via Hamas
defended themselves against Israel/US aggression
It’s not like I’d want to sit down and smoke a joint or drink a beer with the mullahs – I’m not a fan of their religion and that’s putting it mildly – but gratitude they do deserve.