DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) ā Intense Israeli airstrikes targeted Iranās capital early Wednesday a day after U.S. President Donald Trump demanded āunconditional surrender.ā
As the U.S. sent warplanes to the Middle East, Trump made a series of statements about the conflict, including warning that the U.S. knows where he is hiding but that there were no plans to kill him āat least not for now.ā
His statements fueled confusion about the U.S.'s role in the conflict as Tehran residents flee their homes on the sixth day of Israelās air campaign aimed at Iranās military and nuclear program.
Israel asserts its sweeping assault is necessary to prevent Iran from getting any closer to . The strikes have in Iran.
Iran has retaliated by at Israel. So far, 24 people have been killed in Israel.
The conflict erupted as , where there have been near-daily shootings since last week near where desperate Palestinians are being directed to collect food.
Israel hammers Tehran
A major explosion could be heard around 5 a.m. in Tehran Wednesday morning, following other explosions that boomed earlier in the predawn darkness.
Authorities in Iran offered no acknowledgement of the attacks, which has become increasingly common as the Israeli airstrike campaign has intensified since they began on Friday.
At least one strike appeared to target Tehranās eastern neighborhood of Hakimiyeh, where the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has an academy.
The Israelis earlier warned they could strike a neighborhood south of Mehrabad International Airport, which includes residential neighborhoods, military installations, pharmaceutical companies and industrial firms.
Israel also claimed that it had killed Iranās Gen. Ali Shadmani, whom Israel described as the countryās most senior remaining military commander, in Tehran.
Shadmani was little known in the country before being appointed last week to a chief-of-staff-like role as head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guardās Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters following the killing of his predecessor, Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, in an Israeli strike.
Trump demands Iranian surrender
Trump left the to deal with the conflict between Israel and Iran, telling reporters: āIām not looking at a ceasefire. Weāre looking at better than a ceasefire.ā
When asked to explain, he said the U.S. wanted to see āa real endā to the conflict that could involve Iran āgiving up entirely.ā He added: āIām not too much in the mood to negotiate.ā
But he also indicated that diplomatic talks remained an option, and said he could send Vice President JD Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with the Iranians.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is into and around the Middle East to protect Israel from Iranian attacks and respond to Iran's threats to target U.S. military installations.
Satellite images analyzed Wednesday by The Associated Press appeared to show no vessels anchored off the headquarters of the U.S. Navyās 5th Fleet in Bahrain. Dispersing ships is a common safety technique employed by navies around the world in times of trouble.
Trump and spoke about the evolving situation over the phone on Tuesday, according to a White House official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Iran vows further attacks
Iran offered no immediate response to the president's posts, but the countryās military leaders vowed that Israel would soon see more attacks.
āThe operations carried out so far have been solely for the purpose of warning and deterrence,ā Gen. Abdul Rahim Mousavi, the commander in chief of Iranās army, said in a video. āThe punishment operation will be carried out soon.ā
Israelās military warned the population to stay close to shelters as Iran fired new salvos of missiles Wednesday, but officials said most were intercepted and Israel's rescue services had no immediate reports of injuries. Sirens blared in southern Israel, including in the desert town of Dimona, the heart of Israelās never-acknowledged nuclear arms program.
The U.S. State Department announced that the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem will remain closed through Friday.
Iran has fired fewer missiles in each of its barrages, with a just handful launched into Wednesday. It has not explained the drop in missiles fired, but the decline comes after Israel targeted many Iranian launchers.
Shops closed, lines for gas in Iranās capital
Trump warned on social media that āeveryone should immediately evacuate Tehran," echoing an earlier Israeli military call for some 330,000 residents of a downtown neighborhood there to evacuate.
Tehran is one of the largest cities in the Middle East, with around 10 million people, roughly equivalent to Israel's entire population. People have been fleeing since hostilities began.
Asked why he had urged the evacuation, Trump said: āI just want people to be safe.ā
Downtown Tehran emptied out early Tuesday, with many shops shuttered, as well as the ancient Grand Bazaar, which has closed only in times of crisis, such as and the .
On the roads out of Tehran to the west, traffic stood bumper to bumper.
Signs that Iran is restricting access to outside world
Iranian authorities appeared to be curbing the public's access to the outside world. Phone and internet service was disrupted, with landline phones unable to receive or dial international calls. NetBlocks, an internet monitoring group, reported that it had detected a significant drop in internet traffic from the country.
Iranās Cyber Security Command acknowledged the internet restrictions and in a statement carried by Iranian state television said the move was meant to stop enemies from ācontinuing to exploit infrastructure to carry out cyber and military operations."
Iran has restricted important communications tools in past nationwide protests and during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.
International websites appeared to be blocked, but local websites were functioning, likely signaling that Iran had turned on the so-called āhalal net,ā its locally controlled version of the internet aimed at limiting what the public can see.
Iran's state TV on Tuesday urged the public to from their cellphones, alleging without evidence that the app gathered user information to send to Israel.
In a statement, WhatsApp said it was concerned that "these false reports will be an excuse for our services to be blocked at a time when people need them the most.ā
Nuclear agency reports more damage to enrichment site
The International Atomic Energy Agency said it believed that Israelās first aerial attacks on Iranās Natanz enrichment site had directly affected the facilityās underground centrifuge facility.
Satellite imagery collected after Fridayās attacks showed āadditional elements that indicate direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls,ā the watchdog said.
The IAEA earlier reported that Israeli strikes had destroyed an above-ground enrichment hall at Natanz and knocked out electrical equipment that powered the facility, which is 220 kilometers (135 miles) southeast of Tehran.
Most of Iran's enrichment takes place underground to protect from airstrikes.
Israel has struck Natanz repeatedly and claims to have hurt its underground facilities, which experts assess contain 10,000 centrifuges that enrich uranium up to 60%.
Iran maintains its nuclear program is peaceful, and the U.S. and others have assessed that Tehran has not had an organized effort to pursue a nuclear weapon since 2003. But the IAEA has that the country has enough enriched uranium should it choose to do so.
While Netanyahu claimed Monday that Israeli strikes on Iran's nuclear sites have set back a āvery, very long time," Israel has not been , which is built deep into a mountainside.
Hitting Fordo would likely require the U.S.'s own B-2 stealth bombers to drop bunker-busting bombs. The 30,000-pound (14,000-kilogram) GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator uses its weight and sheer kinetic force to reach deeply buried targets.
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Melzer reported from Nahariya, Israel. Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; and Tara Copp and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
Joseph Krauss, Jon Gambrell And Natalie Melzer, The Associated Press
