Updates: Iran ready for nuclear talks when ‘Israeli aggression stops’

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You can read our explainer on whether Trump has put off joining the Israel-Iran conflict for two weeks here.

Or if you want to know more about Israel’s continued attacks in Gaza, you can read about it here.

We will soon be closing this live page. Here’s a look at the day’s major events:

• Israel has continued its attacks on Iran, with its military stating that 15 fighter jets and more than 30 weapons were used in its latest wave of strikes.
• Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it fired its 17th wave of missiles at Israeli military facilities, including the Nevatim and Hatzerim bases.
• The Iranian foreign minister said Iran would be open to diplomacy and nuclear talks once Israel’s “aggression” stops.
• At a special meeting at the UN Security Council, Israel’s envoy to the UN said the country would not apologise for its attacks across Iran, pledging to continue “until Iran’s nuclear threat is dismantled”.
• US President Donald Trump told reporters that his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was wrong to suggest there is no evidence Iran is building a nuclear weapon.
• The IAEA reported an acute danger from radiation and chemical substances at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran, which has come under Israeli attacks.
• In Gaza, 82 Palestinians – including dozens of aid seekers – have been killed in Israeli attacks across the besieged enclave, the Health Ministry said.
• The Lebanese News Agency said an Israeli drone targeted a motorcycle in the town of Baraachit in the Bint Jbeil district, killing one person and wounding another.

Iran’s supreme leader has been in hiding since Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran last week, but his social media account has remained active.

In a post on X, he has hailed today’s protests in Iran, saying they “demonstrated the strength of their rationality and spirituality, along with our dear nation’s courage”.

Israeli officials have repeatedly signalled they are seeking to overthrow Iran’s leadership in their military campaign, with defence minister Israel Katz saying yesterday that Khamenei “cannot continue to exist”.

Tulsi Gabbard has responded to Trump’s claim that she was “wrong” when she told members of Congress in March that the US intelligence community assessed that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon.

In a post on X, Gabbard did not directly address Trump’s statement, but claimed that media reports were taking her statements to Congress “out of context and spreading fake news to manufacture division”.

However, Gabbard clearly stated during her testimony that “the IC (intelligence community) continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorised the nuclear weapons programme he suspended in 2003”.

In her post, Gabbard repeated the White House’s position that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon “within weeks to months”, although she did not make such a statement during her March testimony.

Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress, had railed against US military intervention abroad throughout her political career.

The dishonest media is intentionally taking my testimony out of context and spreading fake news as a way to manufacture division. America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the… pic.twitter.com/mYxjpJY2ud

— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) June 20, 2025

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says it is up to the US administration “to show their determination” to reach a negotiated solution.

“Or they have something else in their mind, and they want to attack Iran anyway,” Araghchi said in an interview with NBC News in Geneva, where he took part in talks earlier today with his European counterparts.

“So they had perhaps this plan and they just needed negotiations perhaps to cover it up,” the minister said.

“We don’t know how we can trust them any more,” Araghchi continued. “What they did was in fact a betrayal to diplomacy.”

For months, the Trump administration had engaged with talks to reach a nuclear deal with Iran. But that process was suspended after Israel launched its attacks against Iran, shortly before a new round of nuclear talks were scheduled in Oman.

Iran’s UN ambassador, Amir-Saeid Iravani, stressed the civilian toll of Israel’s attacks on the country during the UN Security Council meeting in New York, at one point holding up photos of Iranian children killed in the bombings.

He said Israel’s attacks constitute “gross violations of international law”, and he urged the UN to take action.

While Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, launched heavy criticism of his Iranian counterpart, accusing him of “playing victim” by urging the UN Security Council to uphold international law and stop Israel’s attacks on Iran.

Chris Van Hollen and Elizabeth Warren, two Democrats in the US Senate, have urged the world to pay attention to what Israel continues to do in Gaza amid its conflict with Iran.

“Don’t look away,” Van Hollen wrote on X. “Since the start of the Israel-Iran war 7 days ago, over 400 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, many shot while seeking food. It’s unconscionable that Netanyahu has not allowed international orgs to resume food delivery.”

For her part, Warren said the Israeli prime minister “may think no one will notice what he’s doing in Gaza while he bombs Iran”.

“People face starvation. 55,000 killed. Aid workers and doctors turned away at the border. Shooting at innocent people desperate for food. The world sees you, Benjamin Netanyahu,” she wrote.

Israel's Prime Minister may think no one will notice what he's doing in Gaza while he bombs Iran.

People face starvation. 55,000 killed. Aid workers and doctors turned away at the border. Shooting at innocent people desperate for food.

The world sees you, Benjamin Netanyahu.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 20, 2025

Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting that the village of al-Lubban Asharqiya, near Nablus in the north of the occupied West Bank, has been raided six times by the Israeli military.

Local sources told Wafa that several young Palestinian men were detained during the raids. Israeli soldiers also fired live ammunition and stun grenades, according to the report.

Palestinians in the West Bank have experienced a surge in Israeli military and settler violence amid the war in Gaza.

The northern West Bank has been particularly hard-hit, with thousands of people forcibly displaced from their homes.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says Washington needs to make a deal with Tehran – and to do it, it needs to drop its demand that Iran agree to zero uranium enrichment.

“All the president needs to do to make a deal with Iran is drop the Israeli government’s poison pill demand that Iran completely give up its right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to enrich uranium at low levels only suitable for civilian nuclear energy,” the group said.

“Everyone knows that the Israeli government’s zero enrichment demand was meant to make a deal impossible. President Trump can easily make a deal with independent monitoring and civilian-level enrichment that verifiably prevents Iran from making a nuclear weapon. War is not necessary.”

As we’ve been reporting, Trump has insisted that Iran is close to having a nuclear weapon despite US intelligence, UN energy agency and other assessments concluding that is false.

“The manufactured hysteria about Iran echoes the false claims that Netanyahu and others made when pushing our nation to invade Iraq based on the weapons of mass destruction lie 20 years ago,” CAIR said.

“President Trump should drop the poison pill demand and make a nuclear deal that averts an unnecessary and disastrous US war with Iran.”

They say Israel’s attacks “represent a flagrant violation” of international law.

“Israel’s attack and Iran’s response – with successive waves of attacks against each other’s territory – have resulted in many civilian casualties, confirming our grave concerns about this destructive cycle of violence,” the experts said in a statement.

“We are particularly alarmed by reports of the deaths and injuries of women and children, who are among the most vulnerable in armed conflict and disproportionately bear the brunt of such violence.”

The experts also questioned the timing of Israel’s first attacks on Iran, shortly before US and Iranian representatives were set to take part in nuclear talks.

“This aggravates the charges against Israel of posing a threat to peace and security in the region and beyond,” they said.

Earlier, we reported that the Israeli military claimed it had attacked Hezbollah military sites and rocket launchers in southern Lebanon.

Now, the Lebanese News Agency says an Israeli drone targeted a motorcycle in the town of Baraachit in the Bint Jbeil district, killing one person and wounding another.

Videos posted by local news sources and verified by Al Jazeera show a motorcycle on fire and surrounded by a crowd of people in southern Lebanon.

مشاهد للغارة على بلدة برعشيت pic.twitter.com/nOVkxdo3lt

— Lebanon Debate (@lebanondebate) June 20, 2025

Translation: Scenes from the raid on the town of Baraachit.

Fu Cong, speaking at the UN Security Council earlier, said that Israel should “cease fire as soon as possible” to prevent the situation from escalating.

Cong said Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities set a “dangerous precedent” that could have “catastrophic consequences”.

He said the nuclear issue must be returned “to the track of dialogue and negotiation”.

In its latest war update, the Israeli air force claims to have intercepted more than 15 unmanned aerial vehicles launched from Iran towards Israel in the past 24 hours.

It stated that they were intercepted by air defence systems, fighter jets, and helicopters.

Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons, but the US and its allies in the West paint it as the biggest threat to the region.

Meanwhile, they fully support Israel, the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, as it carries out a genocide in Gaza and attacks Iran.

Tony Karon, managing editor of AJ+, breaks down how this double standard is fuelling regional instability – and strengthening the case in Iran for seeking nuclear weapons as a deterrent. Check it out below.

 

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