Iran’s foreign minister will meet with European counterparts in Geneva as an Israeli airstrike marketing campaign continues to focus on his nation, state media reported Thursday (June 19, 2025).
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will journey to Geneva for the conferences Friday (June 20, 2025), the state-run IRNA information company report.
Israeli missile assault on Iran’s heavy water reactor
An Iranian missile slammed into the primary hospital in southern Israel early Thursday, inflicting “extensive damage” but no serious injuries, according to the medical facility. Other missiles hit a high-rise building and several other residential buildings near Tel Aviv.
At least 40 people were wounded in the attacks, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service. Black smoke rose from the Soroka Medical Center in the southern city of Beersheba as emergency teams evacuated patients.
Israel, meanwhile, carried out strikes on Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor, in its latest attack on the country’s sprawling nuclear program, on the seventh day of a conflict that began with a surprise wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting military sites, senior officers and nuclear scientists.
A Washington-based Iranian human rights group said at least 639 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 1,300 wounded. In retaliation, Iran has fired some 400 missiles and hundreds of drones, killing at least 24 people in Israel and wounding hundreds.
Two doctors told The Associated Press that the missile struck almost immediately after air raid sirens went off, causing a loud explosion that could be heard from a safe room. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The hospital said the main impact was on an old surgery building that had been evacuated in recent days. After the strike, the medical facility was closed to all patients except for life-threatening cases, it said. Soroka has over 1,000 beds and provides services to around 1 million residents of Israel’s south.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the strike on the hospital and vowed a response, saying: “We will exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran.”
Iran has fired lots of of missiles and drones at Israel, although most have been shot down by Israel’s multi-tiered air defenses, which detect incoming fireplace and shoot down missiles heading towards inhabitants facilities and demanding infrastructure. Israeli officers acknowledge it’s imperfect.
Haim Bublil, a neighborhood police commander, informed reporters that a number of folks have been evenly wounded within the strike.
Many hospitals in Israel activated emergency plans up to now week, changing underground parking to hospital flooring and shifting sufferers underground, particularly those that are on ventilators or are troublesome to maneuver shortly.
Israel additionally boasts a fortified, subterranean blood financial institution that kicked into motion after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 assault ignited the continued battle within the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s army stated its fighter jets focused the Arak facility and its reactor core seal to halt it from getting used to provide plutonium.
“The strike targeted the component intended for plutonium production, in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development,” the army stated. Israel individually claimed to have struck one other website round Natanz it described as being associated to Iran’s nuclear program.
“No radiation danger whatsoever”
Iranian state TV said there was “no radiation danger whatsoever” from the attack on the Arak site. An Iranian state television reporter, speaking live in the nearby town of Khondab, said the facility had been evacuated and there was no damage to civilian areas around the reactor.
Israel had warned earlier Thursday morning it would attack the facility and urged the public to flee the area.
Iran has long maintained its program is for peaceful purposes. However, it also enriches uranium up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon state to enrich at that level.
Israel is the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East but does not acknowledge having such weapons.
The strikes came a day after Iran’s supreme leader rejected U.S. calls for surrender and warned that any military involvement by the Americans would cause “irreparable damage to them.” Israel had lifted some restrictions on daily life Wednesday, suggesting the missile threat from Iran on its territory was easing.
Already, Israel’s campaign has targeted Iran’s enrichment site at Natanz, centrifuge workshops around Tehran and a nuclear site in Isfahan. Its strikes have also killed top generals and nuclear scientists.
The Arak heavy water reactor is 250 kilometers (155 miles) southwest of Tehran.
Heavy water helps cool nuclear reactors, but it produces plutonium as a byproduct that can potentially be used in nuclear weapons. That would provide Iran another path to the bomb beyond enriched uranium, should it choose to pursue the weapon.
Iran had agreed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to redesign the facility over proliferation concerns.
The reactor became a point of contention after President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018. Ali Akbar Salehi, a high-ranking nuclear official in Iran, said in 2019 that Tehran bought extra parts to replace a portion of the reactor that it had poured concrete into to render it unusable under the deal.
Israel, in conducting its strike, signaled it remained concerned the facility could be used to produce plutonium again one day.
“The strike targeted the component intended for plutonium production, in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, has been urging Israel not to strike Iranian nuclear sites. IAEA inspectors reportedly last visited Arak on May 14.
Due to restrictions Iran imposed on inspectors, the IAEA has said it lost “continuity of knowledge” about Iran’s heavy water production — meaning it could not absolutely verify Tehran’s production and stockpile.
Published – June 19, 2025 04:18 pm IST
