Jun 20, 2025 06:44 AM IST
Iran is set to engage in nuclear talks with foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany and the European Union’s top diplomat in Geneva on Friday.
Israel and Iran traded missile strikes on Thursday with both the countries inflicting heavy damage on each other. In one of the biggest escalations of the conflict so far, Iran launched a barrage of missiles that hit southern Israel’s largest hospital, however, Iran said that the strikes were meant for the country’s military infrastructure. The strikes injured hundreds of people across Israel. Parallelly, Israel struck the Arak heavy water reactor, one of Iran’s key nuclear sites, hours after issuing an evacuation order.
Track live updates of Israel-Iran conflict here.
Iran’s relentless strikes on Israel came after being asked to surrender, a call that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei firmly rejected. After Thursday’s strike on the hospital, Israel vowed revenge and said that Khamenei will be held responsible for the attack.
Also read: White House reveals when Donald Trump will decide on possible US strike on Iran amid war with Israel
Here are top 10 updates on the Israel-Iran conflict:
- Some 240 people were injured in Iranian strikes on Thursday that hit Soroka hospital in southern Israel and some residential buildings in Tel Aviv, which also caused extensive damage, reported AP.
- Following Iran’s strikes, one of the biggest attacks so far in the ongoing conflict, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be held responsible for it. He added that the Israeli military “has been instructed and knows that in order to achieve all of its goals, this man absolutely should not continue to exist.”
- Continuing its attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, Israel attacked the Arak heavy water reactor on Thursday. According to Iranian state television, there was no radiation leak. The nuclear facility was also evacuated before the attack.
- In an email to Reuters on Thursday, Israel’s Embassy in Washington said, “Earlier today, Iranian armed forces launched a missile equipped with cluster bomblets toward a densely populated civilian area in Israel.” The email did not disclose the exact location of the said attack.
- “By targeting residential zones with such wide-impact weapons, Iran has intentionally and unlawfully escalated the threat to civilian lives,” the statement read further. This is the first reported use of cluster munitions in the ongoing conflict.
- United States President Donald Trump will decide in the next two weeks whether to enter the ongoing Middle East conflict offensively and strike Iran, according to the White House. It added that Trump sees a “substantial” chance that demands of the US and Israel on Iran’s nuclear program can be achieved through negotiations.
- Iran is set to engage in nuclear talks with foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany and the European Union’s top diplomat in Geneva on Friday. It is not known so far whether the United States will join these talks or not.
- Confirming the meeting with UK and EU leaders, Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said, “We will meet with the European delegation in Geneva on Friday,” according to a statement carried by state news agency IRNA.
- Britain’s foreign minister David Lammy met his United States counterpart Marco Rubio on Thursday along with the White House Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and they discussed the ongoing Middle East conflict while reiterating that Iran can not have nuclear weapons.
- “We are determined that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon… A window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution…Now is the time to put a stop to the grave scenes in the Middle East and prevent a regional escalation that would benefit no one,” said Lammy in a statement.
With agency inputs.
