Iran strikes Tel Aviv amid plans to quit NPT, with conflict to dominate G7 talks

TOP HEADLINES:

• Iranian missiles struck Israel's Tel Aviv and the port city of Haifa before dawn on Monday, killing at least eight people and destroying homes. READ MORE BELOW

• Israel Defense Minister Israel Katz partially retracted an earlier threat that the residents of Tehran will "pay the price and soon" after Iranian attacks on Tel Aviv.  READ MORE BELOW

• UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi saying there was no sign of further damage at Iran's Natanz or Fordow nuclear enrichment sites.

• Iran has executed a man found guilty of spying for Israel's intelligence agency Mossad, Fars news agency reported, identifying the man as Esmail Fekri.

• Iran said its parliament was preparing a bill to leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), adding that Tehran remains opposed to developing weapons of mass destruction. READ MORE BELOW

• The intelligence chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Kazemi, and his deputy were killed in Israel's attacks on Tehran on Sunday, Iran's Tasnim news agency said.

• Iran has told mediators Qatar and Oman that it is not open to negotiating a ceasefire while under Israeli attack.

• Group of Seven leaders gathered in the Canadian Rockies with the Israel-Iran conflict expected to be a top priority.

• Oil prices edged down on Monday, after surging 7 percent on Friday, as the military strikes by Israel and Iran over the weekend avoided oil production and export facilities.

• Russia remains ready to act as a mediator in the conflict and Moscow's previous proposals to store Iranian uranium in Russia remain on the table, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

• French President Emmanuel Macron retorted that Russia lacked the credibility to mediate the crisis, as U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested.

• Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian in a phone call that his country was ready to play a facilitator role to return to nuclear negotiations and end the conflict with Israel.

• Israel's El Al Airlines has suspended all flights until at least June 19, with additional cancellations to many European cities extending to June 23.

• U.S. Democratic senator Tim Kaine introduced legislation to prevent President Trump from using military force against Iran without Congress's authorization.

IN DETAIL

Iranian missile hit Tel Aviv

Iranian missiles struck Israel's Tel Aviv and the port city of Haifa before dawn on Monday, killing at least eight people and destroying homes. 

Israeli authorities said a total of seven missiles of the fewer than 100 fired by Iran overnight had landed in Israel. A military spokesman also said Israel had destroyed more than a third of Iran's surface-to-surface missile launchers.

At least 100 people were wounded in Israel in the overnight blitz, part of a wave of attacks by Tehran in retaliation for Israel's strikes targeting the nuclear and ballistic missile programmes of sworn enemy Iran.

The dangers of further escalation loomed over a meeting of G7 leaders in Canada, with U.S. President Trump expressing hope on Sunday that a deal could be done but no sign of the fighting abating on a fourth day of war.

Geopolitical stability in the Middle East has already been undermined by spillover effects of the Gaza war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.

In total, 24 people in Israel have been killed so far in the Iranian missile attacks, all of them civilians. The death toll in Iran was already at least 224, with 90 percent of the casualties reported to be civilians, an Iranian health ministry spokesperson said.

Search and rescue operations were underway in Haifa where some 30 people were wounded, emergency services said, as dozens of first responders rushed to the strike zones. Fires were seen burning at a power plant near the port, media reported.

Several residential buildings in a densely populated neighbourhood of Tel Aviv were destroyed in a strike that blew out the windows of hotels and homes near the U.S. Embassy branch in the city. The U.S. ambassador said the building sustained minor damage, but there were no injuries to personnel.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said the latest attack employed a new method that caused Israel's multi-layered defense systems to target each other and allowed Tehran to successfully hit many targets, without providing further details.

Israeli defense minister rows back on apparent civilian threat

Israel has no intention of deliberately harming the residents of Tehran, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said, walking back earlier comments he had made on Monday.

"I wish to clarify the obvious: there is no intention to physically harm the residents of Tehran as the murderous dictator does to the residents of Israel," Katz said in a statement.

"The residents of Tehran will have to pay the price of dictatorship and evacuate their homes from areas where it will be necessary to attack regime targets and security infrastructures in Tehran."

Iranian NPT exit reportedly planned

Iranian parliamentarians are preparing a bill that could push Tehran toward exiting the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the foreign ministry said, while reiterating Tehran's official stance against developing nuclear weapons.

"In light of recent developments, we will take an appropriate decision. Government has to enforce parliament bills but such a proposal is just being prepared and we will coordinate in the later stages with parliament," the ministry's spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said, when asked at a news conference about Tehran potentially leaving the NPT.

The NPT, which Iran ratified in 1970, guarantees countries the right to pursue civilian nuclear power in return for requiring them to forego atomic weapons and cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.

Israel began bombing Iran last week, saying Tehran was on the verge of building a nuclear bomb. Iran has always said its nuclear program is peaceful, although the IAEA declared last week that Tehran was in violation of its NPT obligations.

President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated on Monday that nuclear weapons were against a religious edict by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran's state media said that no decision on quitting the NPT had yet been made by parliament, while a parliamentarian said that the proposal was at the initial stages of the legal process.

China willing to help de-escalate conflict

China's foreign ministry reiterated that Beijing is willing to play a role in helping to de-escalate Israel-Iran conflict.

"China Foreign Minister Wang Yi had a phone call with the Israeli Foreign Minister in the weekend, urging both Iran and Israel to resolve their differences through dialogue," said ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun. "China will continue to play its role in resolving the current Iran-Israel conflict."

"I would like to emphasize that China has always advocated a peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue through political and diplomatic means, is willing to continue to maintain communication and coordination with relevant parties, play a constructive role in cooling down the situation, and create a good external environment for promoting a political and diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear issue."