Israel’s Military Warns Iranians to Evacuate Arms-Making Facilities, Signaling Possible New Strikes

Rescue personnel work at a residential building following missile attack from Iran on Israel, at central Israel June 15, 2025.  REUTERS/Yossi Zeliger
Rescue personnel work at a residential building following missile attack from Iran on Israel, at central Israel June 15, 2025. REUTERS/Yossi Zeliger
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Israel’s Military Warns Iranians to Evacuate Arms-Making Facilities, Signaling Possible New Strikes

Rescue personnel work at a residential building following missile attack from Iran on Israel, at central Israel June 15, 2025.  REUTERS/Yossi Zeliger
Rescue personnel work at a residential building following missile attack from Iran on Israel, at central Israel June 15, 2025. REUTERS/Yossi Zeliger

The Israeli military warned Iranians on Sunday to immediately evacuate “military weapons production factories,” likely signaling new strikes are coming. 

Col. Avichay Adraee, a military spokesperson, posted the warning on the social platform X in Iran’s Farsi language. 

Adraee in the past has signaled other strikes in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Yemen amid the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. 

His warning came just after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi signaled Tehran would stop its attacks on Israel if Israel stopped its strikes. 

Israel unleashed airstrikes across Iran for a third day on Sunday and threatened even greater force as some Iranian missiles evaded Israeli air defenses to strike buildings in the heart of the country. Planned talks on Iran's nuclear program, which could provide an off-ramp, were called off. 

The region braced for a protracted conflict after Israel's surprise bombardment of Iran's nuclear and military sites on Friday killed several top generals and nuclear scientists, and neither side showed any sign of backing down. Iran said Israel struck two oil refineries, raising the prospect of a broader assault on Iran's heavily sanctioned energy industry that could affect global markets. 

US President Donald Trump has expressed full support for Israel's actions while warning Iran that it can only avoid further destruction by agreeing to a new nuclear deal. 

Araghchi said Sunday that if the Israeli strikes on Iran stop, then “our responses will also stop." 

Explosions in Tehran  

New explosions echoed across Tehran and were reported elsewhere in the country early Sunday, but there was no update to a death toll put out the day before by Iran's UN ambassador, who said 78 people had been killed and more than 320 wounded. 

In Israel, at least 10 people were killed in Iranian strikes overnight and into Sunday, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service, bringing the country’s total death toll to 13. The country's main international airport and airspace remained closed for a third day. 

Israeli strikes targeted Iran's Defense Ministry early Sunday after hitting air defenses, military bases and sites associated with its nuclear program. The killing of several top generals and nuclear scientists in targeted strikes indicated that Israeli intelligence has penetrated Iran at the highest levels. 

Death toll mounts in Israel 

In Israel, at least six people, including a 10-year-old and a 9-year-old, were killed when a missile hit an apartment building in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv. Daniel Hadad, a local police commander, said 180 people were wounded and seven are still missing. 

An Associated Press reporter saw streets lined with damaged and destroyed buildings, bombed out cars and shards of glass. Responders used a drone at points to look for survivors. Some people could be seen leaving the area with suitcases. 

Another four people, including a 13-year-old, were killed and 24 wounded when a missile struck a building in the Arab town of Tamra in northern Israel. A strike on the central city of Rehovot wounded 42. 

The Weizmann Institute of Science, an important center for research in Rehovot, said “there were a number of hits to buildings on the campus.” It said no one was harmed. 

Israel has sophisticated multi-tiered air defenses that are able to detect and intercept missiles fired at populated areas or key infrastructure, but officials acknowledge it is imperfect. 

Urgent calls to de-escalate  

World leaders made urgent calls to de-escalate. The attack on nuclear sites set a “dangerous precedent,” China's foreign minister said. The region is already on edge as Israel seeks to annihilate Hamas, an Iranian ally, in the Gaza Strip, where the war is still raging after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed off such calls, saying Israel’s strikes so far are “nothing compared to what they will feel under the sway of our forces in the coming days.” 

Israel, the sole though undeclared nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, said it launched the attack to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. The two countries have been regional adversaries for decades. 

Iran has always said its nuclear program was peaceful, and the US and others have assessed it has not pursued a weapon since 2003. But it has enriched ever larger stockpiles of uranium to near weapons-grade levels in recent years and was believed to have been able to develop multiple weapons within months if it chose to do so. 

The UN’s atomic watchdog censured Iran last week for not complying with its obligations. 

Araghchi, Iran's top diplomat, said Israel had targeted an oil refinery near Tehran and another in the country’s Bushehr province on the Arabian Gulf. He said Iran had also targeted “economic” sites in Israel, without elaborating. 

Araghchi was speaking to diplomats in his first public appearance since the initial Israeli strikes. 

Semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported that an Israeli drone strike had caused a “strong explosion” at an Iranian natural-gas processing plant. Israel's military did not immediately comment. 

The extent of damage at the South Pars natural gas field was not immediately clear. Such sites have air defense systems around them, which Israel has been targeting. 

Iran calls nuclear talks ‘unjustifiable’ 

Oman, which has been mediating indirect talks between the US and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program, said a sixth round planned for Sunday would not take place. 

“We remain committed to talks and hope the Iranians will come to the table soon,” a senior US official said on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks. 

In a post on his Truth Social account early Sunday, Trump reiterated that the US was not involved in the attacks on Iran and warned that any retaliation directed against it would bring an American response “at levels never seen before.” 

“However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict!!!” he wrote. 

‘More than a few weeks’ to repair nuclear facilities  

In Iran, satellite photos analyzed by AP show extensive damage at Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz. The images shot Saturday by Planet Labs PBC show multiple buildings damaged or destroyed. The structures hit include buildings identified by experts as supplying power to the facility. 

UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that the above-ground section of the Natanz facility was destroyed. The main centrifuge facility underground did not appear to have been hit, but the loss of power could have damaged infrastructure there, he said. 

Israel also struck a nuclear research facility in Isfahan. The International Atomic Energy Agency said four “critical buildings” were damaged, including its uranium conversion facility. It said there was no sign of increased radiation at Natanz or Isfahan. 

An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with official procedures, said that according to the army's initial assessment “it will take much more than a few weeks” for Iran to repair the damage to the Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites.  

The official said the army had “concrete intelligence that production in Isfahan was for military purposes.” 



Nearly 450,000 Afghans Left Iran since June 1, Says IOM

Afghans in their thousands have streamed over the border from Iran at the Islam Qala border point in Afghanistan's Herat province in recent weeks. Mohsen KARIMI / AFP
Afghans in their thousands have streamed over the border from Iran at the Islam Qala border point in Afghanistan's Herat province in recent weeks. Mohsen KARIMI / AFP
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Nearly 450,000 Afghans Left Iran since June 1, Says IOM

Afghans in their thousands have streamed over the border from Iran at the Islam Qala border point in Afghanistan's Herat province in recent weeks. Mohsen KARIMI / AFP
Afghans in their thousands have streamed over the border from Iran at the Islam Qala border point in Afghanistan's Herat province in recent weeks. Mohsen KARIMI / AFP

Nearly 450,000 Afghans have returned from Iran since the start of June, the UN's refugee agency said on Monday, after Tehran ordered those without documentation to leave by July 6.

The influx comes as the country is already struggling to integrate streams of Afghans who have returned under pressure from traditional migrant and refugee hosts Pakistan and Iran since 2023, said AFP.

The country is facing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises after decades of war.

This year alone, more than 1.4 million people have "returned or been forced to return to Afghanistan", the United Nations refugees agency UNHCR said.

In late May, Iran ordered undocumented Afghans to leave the country by July 6, potentially impacting four million people out of the around six million Afghans Tehran says live in the country.

Numbers of people crossing the border surged from mid-June, with some days seeing around 40,000 people crossing, UN agencies have said.

From June 1 to July 5, 449,218 Afghans returned from Iran, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration told AFP on Monday, bringing the total this year to 906,326.

Many people crossing reported pressure from authorities or arrest and deportation, as well as losing already limited finances in the rush to leave quickly.

Massive foreign aid cuts have impacted the response to the crisis, with the UN, international non-governmental groups and Taliban officials calling for more funding to support the returnees.

The UN has warned the influx could destabilize the country already grappling with entrenched poverty, unemployment and climate change-related shocks and urged nations not to forcibly return Afghans.

"Forcing or pressuring Afghans to return risks further instability in the region, and onward movement towards Europe," the UN refugees agency UNHCR said in a statement on Friday.

Taliban officials have repeatedly called for Afghans to be given a "dignified" return.

Iranian media regularly reports mass arrests of "illegal" Afghans in various regions.

Iran's deputy interior minister Ali Akbar Pourjamshidian said on Thursday that while Afghans illegally in the country were "respected neighbors and brothers in faith", Iran's "capacities also have limits".

That the ministry's return process "will be implemented gradually", he said on state TV.

Many Afghans travelled to Iran to look for work, sending crucial funds back to their families in Afghanistan.

"If I can find a job here that covers our daily expenses, I'll stay here," returnee Ahmad Mohammadi told AFP on Saturday, as he waited for support in high winds and dust at the IOM-run reception center at the Islam Qala border point in western Herat province.

"But if that's not possible, we'll be forced to go to Iran again, or Pakistan, or some other country."