The Times of Israel is liveblogging Wednesday’s events as they happen.
FBI shifts some agents back to counter-terrorism following Iran strike
The FBI has ramped up its efforts to monitor potential threats to the US from Iran following US President Donald Trump’s decision to attack the country’s nuclear facilities, two people briefed on the matter tell Reuters.
FBI officials have informed some agents in recent days that they will be exempt from a mandate to focus part of their time on immigration enforcement given the elevated threat level from Iran, the people say.
The directive relates to counter-terrorism, counterintelligence and cyber security agents who work on issues connected to Iran.
FBI field offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Philadelphia have canceled rotations for agents to work on immigration issues, one of the sources says.
NBC News and the Wall Street Journal earlier reported the shift in FBI resources.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards deny reports of drone attack in Tabriz
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards denies earlier reports today that there was a drone attack in the northwestern city of Tabriz, three Iranian news sites report.
Earlier today, Iranian media said air defenses were activated in the area amid a shaky ceasefire between Israel and Iran.
Trump says Israel won’t face consequences for violating Iran ceasefire because it ‘didn’t do anything’
US President Donald Trump said earlier today that there would not be any consequences for Israel because it “didn’t do anything” against Iran after the ceasefire came into place this morning.
Speaking to reporters while en route to the Netherlands on Air Force One, Trump said Israel would have struck Iran had he not issued a statement on Truth Social warning against it.
Israel did end up hitting an Iranian radar target, but reportedly held back a much more expansive strike after a call Trump held with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump says he’s confident that there won’t be additional violations because “they’re both tired of it. I don’t think they want it to happen again.”
He insists that Iran won’t be able to have a nuclear weapon, but dodges two questions about whether he secured a commitment from Tehran that it won’t try to enrich uranium again.
“They’re not going to have enrichment, and they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon. They’re going to get on to being the great trading nation. They have a lot of oil,” he says.
Asked whether he’s concerned about Iranian sleeper cells in the US, Trump says that he is because former US president Joe Biden led them in. He doesn’t provide proof.
“But hopefully, we’ll take care of them,” he adds.
Trump mediator says Israel-Hamas ceasefire-hostage deal possible ‘within days’
The Palestinian-American political activist who has been mediating between the Trump administration and Hamas says it is possible to reach a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal “within days.”
Bishara Bahbah, who is mediating alongside Egypt and Qatar, says in an interview with the Al Ghad TV channel that he is optimistic about the chances for a deal following today’s ceasefire between Israel and Iran, which returns Gaza to the top of the regional agenda.
A senior Arab diplomat tells The Times of Israel that he is not as optimistic, saying that Israel has not budged from its refusal to provide an upfront commitment to permanently end the war. Israel has instead offered to spread out the release of hostages throughout the temporary ceasefire on the table, but the sequencing of the releases is not a critical issue blocking a deal, the Arab diplomat says.
While Bahbah clarifies that the Israel-Iran war is not linked to the Israel-Hamas war, he tells Al Ghad that Qatari and Egyptian mediators are now determined to secure a deal that ends the latter conflict now that the former one has been settled.
He asserts that there are very few disagreements remaining between Israel and Hamas and that the main one is about the wording of a particular sentence — an ostensible reference to the clause pertaining to the end of the temporary ceasefire and whether it is extended if the sides haven’t reached an agreement on the terms of a permanent ceasefire by then, as Hamas is demanding.
The interview is held in Egypt where Bahbah is now stationed in order to advance an agreement. He says he met with senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad in order to discuss remaining gaps in the talks.
Bahbah says there are several hostage deal proposals being discussed, with some being comprehensive and others being partial. He stresses that one of the key goals is to secure a surge of humanitarian aid into the Strip, given that Israel has only been allowing an average of roughly 60 trucks per day over the past month — far below the hundreds that the UN says is needed to address the humanitarian crisis.
US tells UN that strikes degraded Iran’s capacity to build nuclear weapon
US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities “effectively fulfilled our narrow objective: to degrade Iran’s capacity to produce a nuclear weapon,” acting US envoy to the UN Dorothy Shea tells the United Nations Security Council.
“These strikes – in accordance with the inherent right to collective self-defense, consistent with the UN Charter – aimed to mitigate the threat posed by Iran to Israel, the region and to, more broadly, international peace and security,” Shea tells the 15-member council.
US President Donald Trump has said the strikes over the weekend “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities. Earlier today, he announced that a ceasefire between Iran and Israel had started.
“I think it’s still early to assess all the strikes. We know we were able to push back the [nuclear] program. We were able to remove the imminent threat that we had,” Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon tells reporters.
The UN Security Council met to discuss the implementation of a resolution adopted in 2015 to enshrine Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, which lifted sanctions on Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.
Trump quit the deal in 2018, during his first term, and restored all US sanctions on Tehran. In response, Iran began moving away from its nuclear-related commitments under the accord.
UN political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo tells the Security Council that the objectives of the Iran nuclear deal and the UN resolution “have yet to be fully realized,” adding: “This is regrettable.”
Israeli intel assesses that Iran’s nuclear program set back ‘several years,’ but not destroyed — official
Israeli intelligence assesses that US and Israeli strikes set back Iran’s nuclear program by “several years,” but did not completely destroy it, as US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed, a senior Israeli official tells The Times of Israel.
The Israeli intelligence assessment is constantly being updated and refined, and a more concrete understanding of the status of Iran’s nuclear program will be available in the coming weeks, the senior Israeli official says.
The Israeli official argues that the military strikes were still worthwhile because the negotiations that the US had previously been pursuing with Iran would not have been able to achieve such results.
Moreover, the strikes on the nuclear program along with other military targets in Iran will serve as a deterrent against the Islamic Republic again trying to enrich uranium.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir also said this evening, “We have set Iran’s nuclear project back by years, and the same goes for its missile program.”