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This blog is closed. Follow our new blog here for live updates on the Israel-Iran conflict
Israel-Iran conflict: live updates
Full report: Trump demands Iran’s ‘unconditional surrender’
Living in Israel: how have you been affected?
Living in Iran: how have you been affected?
Donald Trump has encouraged vice president JD Vance and his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to offer to meet the Iranians this week, the New York Times has reported, citing a US official.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi had earlier indicated that Tehran was open to negotiations, also suggesting Trump could stop the war with “one phone call” to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. In a post on X he wrote:
If President Trump is genuine about diplomacy and interested in stopping this war, next steps are consequential. Israel must halt its aggression, and absent a total cessation of military aggression against us, our responses will continue.
It takes one phone call from Washington to muzzle someone like Netany..

It is not just Trump’s funding cuts that have led the country to a health crisis. The real collapse comes from a lack of political courage to act
No one should be surprised that the health system in South Africa is straining in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s cruel gutting of HIV funding. What is shocking is the political will to pretend otherwise.
As public health workers, researchers, academics, people living with HIV and civil society organisations, we reject the narrative put forward by the government that things are “under control”. Testing has dropped. Frontline workers are being dismissed. Clinics that served our most marginalised communities have closed or are struggling to keep their doors open. And those most affected, such as transgender people, sex workers and drug users, have not been meaningfully included in any transition planning. The National Treasury and the Department of Health are at odds with each other. Officials within the health department are at odds with each ..

Monitoring group says high death rate in two months indicates change in US policy that could affect Iran
• Middle East crisis – live updates
The US bombing campaign of Yemen under Donald Trump led to the deaths of almost as many civilians in two months as in the previous 23 years of US attacks on Islamists and militants in the country.
An analysis of Operation Rough Rider by the monitoring group Airwars has concluded that 224 civilians were killed between March and the end of the campaign in May, compared with 258 between 2002 and 2024.
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Israel is the main source of terror and instability in the Middle East. But the west continually turns away from this reality
As the G7 issues a statement declaring that Israel has a “right to defend itself”, you have a right to ask if you are losing your mind. Israel launched an unprovoked onslaught on Iran. Its excuse – that Tehran may acquire a nuclear weapon – renders its attack illegal under the UN charter, which forbids wars justified by the claim of a future threat.
“Iran is the principal source of regional instability and terror,” declares the G7 statement. Even though Donald Trump’s intelligence chief testified three months ago that the US intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon”. Even though it’s Israel that actually possesses nuclear weapons, while refusing to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and refusing International Atomic Energy Agency inspections. Even though, as progress was being made in nuclear talks between Ira..

Here we are, on the brink of another Middle East conflict with Iran – one that was entirely preventable
As the United States inches closer to direct military confrontation with Iran, it is critical to recognize how avoidable this escalation has been. “We knew everything [about Israel’s plans to strike Iran], and I tried to save Iran humiliation and death,” said Donald Trump on Friday. “I tried to save them very hard because I would have loved to have seen a deal worked out.”
As two of the last analysts from an American thinktank to visit Iran, just three weeks ago, we can report that Iran’s own foreign ministry and members of the nuclear negotiating team were eager to work out a deal with Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, and showed no indication they were interested in slow-walking talks.
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Findings show public appetite for peaceful approach to aim of forcing Iran to give up ambition of acquiring nuclear arms
A majority of supporters of Donald Trump are against US military involvement in Israel’s conflict with Iran, a poll published on Wednesday found, reflecting a growing Republican backlash to the president’s threats to utilize American firepower.
A wide-ranging Economist/YouGov poll conducted over the weekend revealed that 53% of voters who backed Trump in the 2024 presidential election do not want the country to join in Israel’s strikes.
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President Donald Trump has declined to say whether the US is planning to strike Iran or its nuclear facilities. He said the Iranians had reached out but he felt ‘it’s very late to be talking … There’s a big difference between now and a week ago. Nobody knows what I’m going to do’
US politics live – latest updates
Middle East crisis – live updates
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Donald Trump initially appeared to discourage attacks but Israeli officials claim they always had his support
Along the Ayalon highway, in the centre of Tel Aviv, two huge illuminated signs have appeared, portraying Donald Trump against a billowing stars-and-stripes backdrop and bearing the blunt appeal: “Mr President, finish the job!”
Israel’s attack on Iran may have been carried out with Trump’s approval, as government officials in Israel claim, but it appears to have been unleashed only in the expectation – rather than any certainty – that the US will ultimately be drawn into the war.
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As Israel and Iran trade escalating blows, and the horrific situation in Gaza continues, Trump has suggested the US could get directly involved. So how is Keir Starmer going to handle all this? And what could it mean for millions of Iranians? John Harris speaks to the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, and an Iranian woman who now lives in the UK.
Plus, it’s a rare week in British politics, with the House of Commons voting on two big social issues: abortion and assisted dying. Deputy political editor Jessica Elgot joins John to discuss
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‘We want freedom on our own terms,’ says one Tehran resident, while another writes, ‘Someone is helping us’
Despite a substantial internet blackout, news spread quickly in Iran on Tuesday night: the US was considering joining Israel in its war on Iran.
The US president, Donald Trump, wrote on Truth Social: “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 … Our patience is wearing thin.” Three minutes later, in a second post, he added: “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
When Mehnaz*, a 24-year-old student activist in east Tehran, heard the news, she did not think of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Instead, she thought of her fellow students who were detained, shot and executed by Iranian security forces during the “woman, life, liberty” protests in 2022.
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