The Albany Gazette - Iran threatens 'more devastating' response to Israel's attacks

Israel said on Saturday it had killed three more Iranian commanders in its unprecedented offensive, while Foreign Minister Gideon Saar claimed the campaign had delayed Tehran's alleged progress towards a nuclear weapon by two years.

"We will do everything that we can do there in order to remove this threat," Saar told the German newspaper Bild, asserting Israel would keep up its onslaught.

Israel and Iran have traded wave after wave of devastating strikes since Israel launched its aerial campaign on June 13, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran denies seeking an atomic bomb, and on Saturday Pezeshkian said its right to pursue a civilian nuclear programme "cannot be taken away... by threats or war".

In a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, Pezeshkian said Iran was "ready to discuss and cooperate to build confidence in the field of peaceful nuclear activities".

"However, we do not agree to reduce nuclear activities to zero under any circumstances," he added, according to Iran's official IRNA news agency.

Referring to the Israeli attacks, he said: "Our response to the continued aggression of the Zionist regime will be more devastating."

Israel's military earlier said that a strike in Qom, south of Tehran, killed Saeed Izadi, a top Revolutionary Guards official in charge of coordination with Palestinian militant group Hamas. Two other commanders were killed overnight, it added.

Israel said it had also attacked Iran's Isfahan nuclear site for a second time, with the UN nuclear watchdog later reporting that a centrifuge manufacturing workshop had been hit.

US President Donald Trump warned on Friday that Tehran had a "maximum" of two weeks to avoid possible American air strikes as Washington weighed whether to join Israel's campaign.

- 'Not prepared to negotiate' -

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Istanbul on Saturday for a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to discuss the conflict.

Top diplomats from Britain, France and Germany met Araghchi in Geneva on Friday and urged him to resume nuclear talks with the United States that had been derailed by the war.

But Araghchi told NBC News that "we're not prepared to negotiate with them (the Americans) anymore, as long as the aggression continues".

Trump, dismissive of European diplomatic efforts, said he was unlikely to ask Israel to stop its attacks to get Iran back to the table.

"If somebody's winning, it's a little bit harder to do," he said of Israel's campaign.

Any US involvement would likely feature powerful bunker-busting bombs that no other country possesses to destroy an underground uranium enrichment facility in Fordo.

Iran's Huthi allies in Yemen on Saturday threatened to resume their attacks on US vessels in the Red Sea if Washington joined the war, despite a recent ceasefire agreement.

At a Tehran hospital, Nasrin, a 39-year-old woman who gave only her first name, said she had been thrown across a room in her home by an Israeli strike.

"I just hit the wall. I don't know how long I was unconscious. When I woke up, I was covered in blood from head to toe," she told AFP from her hospital bed.

- Hundreds killed -

A US-based NGO, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, said on Friday that based on its sources and media reports at least 657 people have been killed in Iran, including 263 civilians.

Iran's health ministry on Saturday gave a toll of more than 400 people killed and 3,056 in the Israeli strikes.

Iran's retaliatory strikes have killed at least 25 people in Israel, according to official figures.

Overnight, Iran said it targeted central Israel with drones and missiles. Israeli rescuers said there were no casualties after an Iranian drone struck a residential building.

On the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, Israel said Saturday that an Iranian terror plot targeting Israeli citizens had been "thwarted".

- 'Tired' -

Israel's National Public Diplomacy Directorate said more than 450 missiles had been fired at the country so far, along with about 400 drones.

In Tel Aviv, where residents have faced regular Iranian strikes for nine days, some expressed growing fatigue under the constant threat from Iran.

"In the middle of the night, we have to wake the children and take them to the shelter," Omer, who gave only his first name, told AFP.

Western powers have repeatedly expressed concerns about the expansion of Iran's nuclear programme, questioning in particular the country's accelerated uranium enrichment.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi has said Iran is the only country without nuclear weapons to enrich uranium to 60 percent.

However, his agency had "no indication" of the existence of a "systematic programme" in Iran to produce a bomb.

Grossi told CNN it was "pure speculation" to say how long it would take Iran to develop weapons.

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(N.Miller--TAG)