Khamenei vows ‘no mercy’ for Israel as Iran claims firing hypersonic missiles on 6th day of war

Iran claimed firing hypersonic missiles at Israel on Wednesday as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed his country would show “no mercy” to its longtime archfoe, hours after US President Donald Trump demanded Tehran’s “unconditional surrender”.

Israel launched wide-scale air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, military sites and private residences on Friday, killing top commanders, scientists, and civilians. It claimed the strikes are part of a broader operation codenamed ‘Rising Lion’ to deter Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, which the latter has consistently denied, saying its uranium enrichment programme is for civilian purposes.

Latest developments:

• Death toll in Iran rises to nearly 600, US-based rights group says
• IRGC says it used hypersonic Fattah-1 missiles in “11th wave” of strikes; Israel claims hitting centrifuge production site in Tehran
• Trump’s National Security Council meets but officials say no decision yet
• Options under consideration by US reportedly include using giant ‘bunker-buster’ bombs
• Evacuation of foreign nationals continues; some Israelis return

“We must give a strong response to the terrorist Zionist regime. We will show the Zionists no mercy,” Khamenei posted on X.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said that hypersonic missiles were used during the latest attack on Israel..

“The 11th wave of the proud Operation Honest Promise 3 using Fattah-1 missiles” was carried out, the IRGC said in a statement carried by state television, claiming that Iranian forces “have gained complete control over the skies of the occupied territories”.

Hypersonic missiles travel at more than five times the speed of sound and can manoeuvre mid-flight, making them harder to track and intercept.

Iran also sent a “swarm of drones” towards Israel, where the army said it intercepted two over the Dead Sea area. The Israeli military said two barrages of Iranian missiles were launched toward Israel in the first two hours of Wednesday morning. Explosions were heard over Tel Aviv.

Israel told residents in the area of Tehran to evacuate so its air force could strike Iranian military installations.

The Israeli military later said it struck weapons manufacturing sites and a facility used to make centrifuges in Tehran. Iranian news websites said explosions were heard in Tehran and the city of Karaj, west of the capital.

Meanwhile, Trump met with his National Security Council to discuss the conflict, ending after an hour and 20 minutes with no immediate public statement.

While he has repeatedly vowed to avoid wading into the “forever wars” of the Middle East, Trump ordered the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier to the region along with a number of US military aircraft.

US officials stressed he has not yet made a decision about any intervention, according to AFP.

Thomas Massie from Trump’s Republican Party said that he introduced an Iran War Powers Resolution with fellow lawmaker Ro Khanna to prohibit US involvement in the Israel-Iran war.

“This is not our war. Even if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our constitution,” he said. Democratic Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Greg Casar were among several lawmakers who voiced their support for the resolution.

Death toll in Iran rises to nearly 600: rights group

Washington-based group Human Rights Activists put the total death toll in Iran at 585 people, with 1,326 other wounded, Washington Post reported. The group added that it had identified 239 of those killed in Israeli strikes as civilians and 126 as security personnel.

In its last update on Monday, Iran’s health ministry had said 224 Iranians had been killed and over 1,000 injured, most of them civilians.

So far, 24 people have been killed in Israel, more than 800 have been wounded and over 3,800 have been evacuated from their homes, CNN quotes a statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office as saying.

Iran has launched more than 400 missiles and hundreds of drones towards Israel since Friday, the office said. It added that the strikes have hit 40 sites across Israel, resulting in nearly 19,000 damage claims submitted to the tax authority.

The IRGC last night claimed hitting a “major centre” of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency in Tel Aviv, Tasnim reported.

Iran’s police forces intercepted 14 drones and identified hostile drone-producing workshops and drone-carrying vehicles across various provinces, police spokesperson Saeed Montazerolmahdi said today, according to the Iranian Labour News Agency.

On the other hand, Israel is running low on defensive “Arrow” missile interceptors, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing an unnamed US official, raising concerns about the country’s ability to counter long-range ballistic missiles from Iran.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.

A cyberattack yesterday crippled Sepah Bank, one of Iran’s main state-owned banks, the Fars news agency reported.

With air raid sirens regularly screaming over Tel Aviv, some people relocated to an underground parking lot below a shopping mall.

“We’ve decided to permanently set camp here until it’s all clear, I guess,” 30-year-old Mali Papirany told AFP.

Iran also said it had detained five suspected Mossad agents on charges of tarnishing the country’s image online, Iranian news agencies reported.

“These mercenaries sought to sow fear among the public and tarnish the image of the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran through their calculated activities online,” the Tasnim and Isna news agencies quoted a statement from the IRGC as saying.

They added that the arrests had been made in the western province of Lorestan.

Evacuations from Iran, Israel continue

Meanwhile, China joined the list of countries evacuating their nationals from Iran.

“Currently … 791 Chinese nationals have been relocated from Iran to safe areas,” foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a regular news conference, adding some Chinese nationals have also safely evacuated from Israel.

The first batch of Chinese citizens departed from Tehran via land route into Turkmenistan on Tuesday, according to China News Service.

The Japanese government has also started making arrangements to send a military plane to Djibouti as part of its effort to help Japanese nationals in Iran and Israel evacuate, commercial broadcaster Fuji Television Network said.

The families of Russian diplomats left Israel as well, Russia’s ambassador to Tel Aviv Anatoly Viktorov was quoted as saying by Times of Israel.

Flights took off for Israel today from Cyprus, ferrying home Israelis stranded abroad during the conflict with Iran, Reuters reported, citing airport sources and web flight tracking sites.

Israel’s airspace has been closed since the two countries began trading attacks on Friday, stranding tens of thousands whose flights to Tel Aviv were cancelled.

Israel announced special flights for the repatriation of its nationals on Tuesday. Its Transportation Ministry has said as many as 150,000 Israelis are abroad, with about a third trying to get home.

Trump says ‘we now have total control’ of Iran skies

In a series of posts on Truth Social, Trump’s increasingly irate tone and choice of words indicated that the US was not far from intervening to support Israel, its closest ally in the region.

“We now have completely and total control of the skies over Iran,” he posted, prompting many to question what he meant by “we”.

The US president has maintained that his country is not involved in the Iran-Israel conflict yet, but threatened Iran with severe consequences if it targeted US troops and assets in the Middle East.

He then posted “unconditional surrender”, an apparent demand addressed at Tehran.

Trump also made a veiled threat against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying “we know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding … We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now”.

Trump’s sometimes contradictory and cryptic messaging about the conflict between close US ally Israel and longtime foe Iran has deepened the uncertainty surrounding the crisis. His public comments have ranged from military threats to diplomatic overtures, not uncommon for a president known for an often erratic approach to foreign policy.

The most likely option under consideration by Trump would be the use of giant US “bunker-buster” bombs against Iran’s deeply buried Fordow nuclear facility that Israel’s bombs cannot reach.

“Bunker buster” is a broad term used to describe bombs that can penetrate about 61 metres below the surface before exploding, according to the Associated Press. Therefore, the precision-guided bombs are used to attack “deeply buried and hardened bunkers and tunnels”.

The BBC’s Frank Gardner termed it the “30,000lb question”; the US has them but Israel does not, he noted. The New York Times said Trump was also considering allowing US tanker aircraft to refuel Israeli combat jets so they could carry out long-range missions.

Reuters reported yesterday that the US military was deploying more fighter aircraft to the Middle East and extending the deployment of other warplanes.

The deployments include F-16, F-22 and F-35 fighter aircraft, and officials said had so far been used to shoot down drones and projectiles targeting Israel.

Four US Stratofortress bombers are currently stationed at a remote US base in the Indian Ocean, an AFP analysis of satellite imagery indicated. The four B52H bombers, which can carry nuclear weapons or other precision-guided munitions, were spotted on a southern tarmac at Diego Garcia on Monday at 2:22pm PKT.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth also described the deployments as defensive in nature. A White House official said Trump spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone on Tuesday.

The US already has a sizeable force in the Middle East, with nearly 40,000 troops in the region, including air defence systems, fighter aircraft and warships that can detect and shoot down enemy missiles.

A large majority of Americans say the United States should not get involved in the fighting, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll.

Sixty per cent of those surveyed say they do not support US involvement in the hostilities, while 16pc say they back it, according to Newsmax. The rest of 24pc said they were unsure whether they supported American military action.

British PM Keir Starmer, speaking at the Group of Seven nations summit in Canada that Trump left early, said there was no indication the US was about to enter the conflict.

The US said that it will close its embassy in Jerusalem until Friday amid the growing military conflict between Israel and Iran, as speculation mounts about possible American intervention.

“Given the security situation and in compliance with Israel Home Front Command guidance, the US Embassy in Jerusalem will be closed tomorrow (Wednesday, June 18) through Friday (June 20),” the embassy said in a statement posted on Tuesday to its website.

Regional influence weakens

Khamenei’s main military and security advisers have been killed by Israeli strikes, hollowing out his inner circle and raising the risk of strategic errors, according to five people familiar with his decision-making process.

With Iranian leaders suffering their most dangerous security breach since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the country’s cybersecurity command banned officials from using communications devices and mobile phones, Fars news agency reported.

State television appealed to Iranians on Tuesday to delete WhatsApp from their phones, charging that the messaging app gathers users’ location and personal data and “communicates them to the Zionist enemy”.

Israel launched its air war, its largest ever on Iran, on Friday after saying it concluded Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and has pointed to its right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including enrichment, as a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Israel, which is not a party to the NPT, is the only country in the Middle East believed to have nuclear weapons. Israel does not deny or confirm that.

Netanyahu has stressed that he will not back down until Iran’s nuclear development is disabled, while Trump says the Israeli assault could end if Iran agrees to strict curbs on enrichment.

Before Israel’s attack began, the 35-nation board of governors of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years.

However, a US intelligence assessment found that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon programme and was “years away from producing one”, a report from CNN released on Tuesday said.

The IAEA said on Tuesday that an Israeli strike directly hit the underground enrichment halls at the Natanz facility.

Israel says it now has control of Iranian airspace and intends to escalate the campaign in coming days.

But Israel will struggle to deal a knock-out blow to deeply buried nuclear sites like Fordow, which is dug beneath a mountain, without the US joining the attack.

According to a report by Israeli publication Haaretz, the marina in Herzliya — a coastal town on the outskirts of Tel Aviv — and others like it in Haifa and Ashkelon, are now becoming gathering spots for many who want to leave Israel using flotillas.

Global oil markets are on high alert following strikes on sites including the world’s biggest gas field, South Pars, shared by Iran and Qatar.