The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) says it carried out dozens of strikes overnight, targeting several sites in Tehran with more than 60 Israeli fighter jets.

Around 120 munitions were used to carry out the strikes, which targeted military missile production sites and a nuclear research centre, which Israel's military says was involved in Iran's nuclear weapons development.

Overnight, the IDF also said that Iran carried out strikes on Israel, with reports of hits in the south of the country.

Iran has not commented on these strikes.

Raffi Berg
Middle East digital editor

Image source, EPA

The conflict between Israel and Iran follows decades of hostility between the two arch-foes. But, until the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran and Israel were close allies with extensive economic and military ties.

The revolution brought to power in Iran a radical Shia Muslim regime whose ideology was deeply anti-Western and anti-Israel.

Under its new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran rejected Israel's right to exist, depicting it as a symbol of oppression and Western imperialism.

The regime cut off relations with Israel, threw its support behind the Palestinians, and became a chief sponsor of anti-Israel armed groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen.

Israel, for its part, has branded Iran the world's chief sponsor of terrorism and has worked closely with the US and other allies to impose sanctions and exert diplomatic pressure over Iran's nuclear programme and military activities.

It has also carried out years of covert operations against Iran - part of a long "shadow war" between the two countries before it broke out into the open.

Azadeh Moshiri
BBC News Pakistan correspondent

Image source, EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Pakistan is treading a difficult line.

The meeting on Wednesday between Field Marshal Asim Munir, the most powerful figure in Pakistan today, and US President Donald Trump, was meant to be framed as somewhat of a victory lap.

One clear outcome of the recent conflict with India is a public rapprochement between the United States and Pakistan. Under the Biden administration, Islamabad couldn’t even get a phone call from the US president.

But the timing of the visit to the White House happened as Trump mulls entering a battle with Iran that Pakistan has condemned from the start, and supporting a state, Israel, whose actions Pakistan has called “barbaric”. The country is also in the midst of an evacuation operation that has repatriated nearly 3,000 Pakistani nationals from Iran. Pakistan shares a border with Iran.

In the end, the two-hour meeting was off-camera.

Pakistan’s statement mentioned that Iran was discussed, but what exactly the two leaders said is anyone’s guess. So, there were some uncomfortable questions in the foreign ministry briefing today.

Perhaps the most brazen had nothing to do with Iran at all.

Was there a civilian Pakistani politician in the room, followed by “are we a democratic country”?

Amid some laughter, the spokesperson, smiling, insisted Pakistan is “unambiguously” democratic, and referred the foreign press corps to the military for any other details on the Field Marshal’s meeting.

Image source, Reuters

It's just past 05:00 in Israel and 05:30 in Iran (03:00 BST).

If you're just joining us, let's take a look at what's happened over the past few hours:

• US President Donald Trump has said he will make a decision on whether to launch a military strike on Iran "within the next two weeks"
• Trump has set the two-week window because of a "substantial chance of negotiations" with Iran, a move which has lowered the temperature on tensions, writes the BBC's Chief North America correspondent
• At least 71 people were injured in an Iranian strike on an Israeli hospital, an attack which Israel's Defence Minister said meant Iran's supreme leader "can no longer be allowed to exist"
• Iran has imposed a nationwide shutdown on internet communications, which has been described as the worst in the country's history
• The US and UK agree that Iran can never "acquire a nuclear weapon", following a meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy
• Lammy is due to meet with his French, German, EU and Iranian counterparts in Geneva later on Friday

Image source, Reuters

Several countries have suspended embassy operations in Tehran since conflict between Iran and Israel began, including the Czech Republic, New Zealand, Switzerland and Australia, as we just reported.

But with Iranian airspace shut - and Israel's main international airport closed to passenger traffic - many countries are also conducting complex operations to evacuate citizens from the two countries.

Australia

Australia is evacuating around 1,500 people from Iran and 1,200 people from Israel. Some Australians have already left Israel on a ship to Cyprus. Others are being evacuated via land crossings.

China

China has evacuated more than 1,600 citizens from Iran and several hundred more from Israel, according to its foreign ministry.

Beijing has advised its citizens to leave the country via land routes to Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Armenia or Iraq.

India

Around 110 students who fled Iran to Armenia by land have arrived back in Delhi.

India plans to evacuate any of its citizens in Israel who wish to leave the country. There are around 30,000 Indians in Israel.

Japan

Japan is sending two military aircraft to Djibouti in preparation for the evacuation of its citizens from Iran and Israel.

There are around 1,000 Japanese nationals in Israel, and 280 in Iran.

Pakistan

Around 3,000 Pakistanis have left Iran since hostiles began.

Parizad Nobakht
BBC Persian

Image source, Reuters

In recent days, many Iranians have voiced frustration over the stark contrast in global media coverage of two similar tragedies. A hospital bombing in Beersheba, Israel, received swift, extensive international attention. A hospital in Kermanshah, Iran, was struck three days earlier — and went largely unnoticed.

Among the reasons for this is that Israel grants media access: foreign journalists are quickly taken to sites, briefed by officials, and allowed to report freely. In contrast, Iran blocks journalists, censors domestic media, and restricts internet access — leaving only blurry, unofficial footage from civilians.

In Israel, officials quickly released casualty figures and regular updates. In Iran, two days after the first Israeli strikes, authorities released a nationwide death toll at 224 with no breakdown by location. The Kermanshah hospital was hit the following day, but no detailed update followed.

Image source, EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

With no media access or transparency, Iran’s narrative has been lost. Grieving families have tried to fill the void online, but personal posts cannot replace coordinated coverage.

In a war where perception shapes response, the silence around Kermanshah shows how censorship and isolation can erase even the most devastating tragedies from global view.

Image source, EPA

Australia says that is it suspending operations at its embassy in Tehran because of a "deteriorating security environment".

"At this stage, our ability to provide consular services is extremely limited due to the situation on the ground. The airspace remains closed," Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said.

Australia has also directed the departure of all its officials and dependents from Iran.

Consular staff are being redeployed to neighbouring Azerbaijan. Australia's ambassador will remain in the region to assist the government's response to the crisis, Wong said.

At least 1,500 Australians and their families in Iran have sought assistance to leave Iran.

Image source, Reuters

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy is travelling to Geneva for a meeting with his French and German counterparts, as well as Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas is also expected to attend.

If they go ahead, the talks will be the first between Iranian and Western leaders since Israel began its strikes a week ago, and are expected to focus on bringing Iran to the negotiating table.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the talks were "aimed at obtaining from Iran a lasting rollback of its nuclear and ballistic missiles programs".

In a statement on X, Lammy said: "Now is the time to put a stop to the grave scenes in the Middle East and prevent a regional escalation that would benefit no one."

During Lammy's meeting with Rubio, the two agreed that “Iran can never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon”, as we reported earlier.

Image source, Reuters

Seven days ago - on 12 June - US Secretary of State Marco Rubio released a brief statement soon after news of Israel's military strikes on Iran broke.

He used it to put distance between the US and, what he described as, "unilateral action" by his country's close ally.

Rubio said: "We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region".

Soon after - on 13 June - US President Donald Trump shared a post on his Truth Social platform in which said he had given Iran "chance after chance" to agree to a deal over its nuclear programme, but "no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn't get it done".

Now, speaking on 19 June, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared this message from the president:

"Based on the fact that there's a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks."

Image source, Reuters

We've got statements now reflecting on the meeting between UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and his US counterpart Marco Rubio.

Lammy described the situation in the Middle East as "perilous" and said the two had talked about how to "resolve the nuclear issue for the long term".

"A window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution," he added.

The pair also agreed that "Iran can never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon", according to Rubio's spokesperson.

US President Donald Trump has said that he would make a decision on US involvement in Iran within two weeks.

Image source, EPA

For the last few days, the world has been watching closely to see whether Donald Trump would decide to involve the US in the Israel-Iran conflict.

In a message delivered by press secretary Karoline Leavitt a few hours ago, the US president said he would make a decision on US involvement "within two weeks" - a statement that has opened a window of diplomacy and lowered the temperature in the region, writes BBC's Chief North America correspondent Gary O'Donoghue.

Meanwhile, Israel and Iran entered their seventh consecutive day of exchanging fire.

Israel's defence minister has said Iran's supreme leader "can no longer be allowed to exist" after a hospital in Beersheba was hit in an Iranian strike. At least 71 people were injured, Israel's health ministry says.

Image source, Reuters

Iran has rejected targeting the hospital, saying that its attack was aimed at a nearby military site - BBC Verify has analysed the footage.

Meanwhile overnight, Israeli forces attacked Iran’s nuclear sites, including the Arak heavy water reactor. Iranian officials have not given an update on casualties in the country today.

Hezbollah's Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem says the group will "act as it sees fit" in the conflict between Israel and Iran.

In a statement posted on Telegram, Qassem says Hezbollah is "not neutral" in this conflict, describing it as "brutal Israeli-American aggression".

It comes after the US special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, warned Hezbollah not to get involved.

"I can say on behalf of President Trump, which he has been very clear in expressing... that would be a very, very, very bad decision," Barrack said.

Hezbollah has been involved in a number of violent conflicts with Israel.

The group has strong backing from Iran and opposes Israel's right to exist. It is considered a terrorist organisation by Israel and many other nations - including the UK and US.

Image source, Reuters

While the spotlight has been on the conflict between Israel and Iran, there's been another deadly incident near an aid site in Gaza.

At least 12 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while waiting for aid in central Gaza, according to rescuers and medics.

Reports say the group was killed by gunfire near an aid distribution site run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) on Thursday.

The GHF has denied there were any incidents near its site. The Israeli military told Reuters that "suspects" had attempted to approach forces in the area of Netzarim, and that soldiers had fired warning shots. It said it was unaware of any injuries.

The incident is the latest in almost daily shootings near such aid sites in Gaza.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed since late May, when the GHF took over aid distribution in Gaza in an attempt by Israel to bypass the UN as the main supplier of aid.

• Read more about the deadly incident and the reaction

Joe Tidy
Cyber correspondent

Digital rights campaigners have described the ongoing internet shutdown in Iran as the worst ever in the country’s history of internet control.

It has now been over 24 hours since the government imposed a nationwide shutdown curtailing communications with the outside world for the vast majority of the country’s 91m people.

“This is the worst internet shutdown in the country’s history,” says Amir Rashidi, from Miaan Group - an advocacy organisation for Iranian human rights.

“It’s worse than in November 2019. Back then, inbound internet traffic to Iran was not completely blocked. But since last night, even inbound traffic has been cut off,” he says in a post on social media.

A total shutdown means that no websites or services can be accessed at all. Even people with VPNs on their phones - most of which are banned already in Iran - are unable to get online.

Ghoncheh Habibiazad
BBC Persian, World Service reporter

I have finally managed to talk to a resident of Tehran after several hours of not hearing anything from anyone in the country, because of internet restrictions imposed by the authorities.

The BBC is keeping some details of the conversation vague to protect their safety.

On a secure messaging app, they tell me that one of their VPN configurations, used to circumvent the restrictions, “worked after several hours of trying”.

They tell me that they heard explosions in Tehran today. Iranian outlets earlier said today that Iran's air defences have been active in east and north Tehran, without specifying where.

“It might cut off at any moment. How are we supposed to know when to evacuate now with these internet restrictions?” they say.

Israel has issued a number of evacuation orders for residents of Tehran - orders often posted on the IDF’s social media accounts.

Shayan Sardarizadeh
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Maxar Technologies

New high-resolution satellite images published today by Maxar Technologies shows damage to Iran’s heavy water reactor complex near the city of Arak, about 230km (140 miles) southwest of the capital, Tehran.

Before and after images captured on 18 and 19 June show severe damage to the main dome of the reactor with a large hole clearly visible in the top of the structure.

Image source, Maxar Technologies

The images released by Maxar also show damage to a number of towers and structures at the complex.

At least two towers appear partially damaged while two structures in their vicinity seem to be almost entirely destroyed.

Both Israel and Iran confirmed earlier today that the Arak reactor had been the targeted.

Image source, Maxar Technologies

Trump has used two-week deadlines many times in the pastpublished at 19:29 British Summer Time 19 June

19:29 BST 19 June

Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent

Donald Trump said on Thursday that he will make a decision on whether to launch a military strike on Iran “within the next two weeks”.

If there’s one thing this president likes, it’s two-week deadlines.

Three and a half weeks ago, Trump said that Russia had two weeks to demonstrate a willingness to end the war in Ukraine or face new economic sanctions. He has yet to announce his decision.

A week ago, Trump said that in about two weeks the US would be sending letters out informing America’s trading partners of their new tariff levels. Back in May, he set a similar “two to three weeks” timeframe for new import duties only for the mark to pass without action.

Back in 2020, the president said he would unveil a “full and complete health care plan” in two weeks. No such plan was ever released.

It was just one of a grab bag of two-week policy deadlines Trump set and then discarded during his first presidential term - on issues ranging from infrastructure to taxes to withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord.

Trump eventually followed through on some of these – and decisions on war and peace are some of the most consequential ones a president can make. But history suggests that for Trump a two-week deadline is seldom set in stone.

Temperature lowers and window for diplomacy openspublished at 19:07 British Summer Time 19 June

19:07 BST 19 June

Gary O'Donoghue
Chief North America correspondent, reporting from Washington DC

So, in the space of one short sentence, the temperature over possible US strikes on Iran has seemingly been lowered several degrees.

Very deliberately, Donald Trump’s press secretary told a room full of reporters at the White House that she had a message from the president: “I have a message directly from the president, and I quote: 'Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.'”

With everyone speculating that President Trump would come to a decision within a day or two, the window for diplomacy has been opened – not quite thrown open wide, but more than a chink.

European foreign ministers will meet their Iranian counterpart in Switzerland on Friday, and the press secretary said that correspondence between American negotiators and the Iranians was continuing.

There will be many who will be breathing at least a partial sigh of relief at this hiatus - though others will be taking a much more 'wait and see' approach.

Experience tells us that this president can upend what we think he thinks in a moment, through a few short words on social media.

Trump administration seeks to maintain an air of strategic ambiguitypublished at 18:55 British Summer Time 19 June

18:55 BST 19 June

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from the White House

Image source, Reuters

Karoline Leavitt has so far repeatedly declined to discuss "hypotheticals", including on whether Iranian officials could come to the White House, or whether Trump would seek approval from Congress over any US involvement.

For the last several days, Trump and his administration have sought to maintain an air of strategic ambiguity, not revealing much publicly about their thinking or potential courses of action.

"I may do it," he told reporters yesterday. "I may not do it."

The only constant has so far been the administration's stance that it believes that Iran has "never been closer" to successfully building a nuclear weapon.

Trump has also dismissed intelligence assessments - including some given by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in Congress earlier this year - that Iran was not planning to do so.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from the White House

Asked what the message is for "everyday Trump supporters" who have concerns about US involvement, Leavitt says to "trust in President Trump".

She also praises the president's instincts and claims he kept the world safe with "peace through strength" during his first term.

She adds that overtures with Iran have continued, but would not say why Trump believes there is still a "substantial chance" of negotiations.

Asked about the administration's stance on a regime change in Iran, Leavitt says that the president's "top priority" is ensuring that it does not successfully construct a nuclear weapon.