Live: Iran holds funeral for top military, nuclear figures killed in Israeli strikes

 Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest developments from Israel's war on Iran:

• China hosted defence ministers from Iran and Russia for a meeting in its eastern seaside city of Qingdao on Thursday against the backdrop of war in the Middle East and a summit of Nato countries in Europe that agreed to boost military spending.

• President Donald Trump's administration hit back Wednesday at accounts Iran may have moved enriched uranium before US bombing, as a row grew on how much the strikes set back Tehran's nuclear programme.

• Iran's intelligence services have arrested 26 people, accusing them of collaborating with Israel, Fars state news agency reported, days after a ceasefire between the two countries was announced.

• Iran on Wednesday reopened the airspace over the country's east, state media reported, following a ceasefire with Israel that ended 12 days of fighting.

• US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would likely seek a commitment from Iran to end its nuclear ambitions at talks next week and credited US strikes on Iran with bringing a swift end to the war Israel's war on Iran.

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  Israel continued “malign” activities inside the country, despite an ongoing ceasefire, Fars reported, citing Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence.

• The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Esmail Qaani, has “appeared” during celebrations in Tehran despite claims he was assassinated by Israel, Al Jazeera reported.

Our live blog will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are the day's key developments:

- In an unusual move on Wednesday, CIA director John Ratcliffe released a statement confirming that the US strikes on Iran's three nuclear sites last week "severely damaged" the facilities. This follows US media reports that US intelligence assessments found the strikes only set Iran back a few months - reporting which infuriated US President Donald Trump.

- French President Emmanuel Macron said France is conducting its own assessments of the damage to Iran's nuclear facilities inflicted by US and Israeli air strikes, though he did not specify how. 

- Trump said that his administration plans to resume talks with Iran next week, but he doesn’t care if a nuclear agreement is signed because Iran’s facilities have been “blown up to kingdom come”.

- Trump acknowledged that "Israel was hit really hard, especially in the last couple of days. Those ballistic missiles, boy, they took out a lot of buildings."

- Trump also compared his attacks on Iran's nuclear programme to the bombing of Hiroshima, as Nato leaders praised him as a "man of peace" at the alliance's summit.

- Iranian authorities announced on Wednesday the gradual easing of internet restrictions imposed during Israel's 12-day war on the country, following the implementation of a ceasefire between the longtime foes.

US President Donald Trump says he doesn’t need a nuclear agreement with Iran, but the fact is that Iran, Israel and the United States are all back to posturing for talks after a nasty 12-day conflict between the two arch foes culminated in the USbombing three Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend.

Iran’s foreign minister on Wednesday hinted that his country could pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran’s tightly controlled parliament symbolically voted to ban inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from the country.

Current and former US officials tell Middle East Eye they are reading the Iranian moves as setting up bargaining chips for negotiations that Trump said will take place next week.

Read more: Not to be outdone, Trump, a self-declared master negotiator, is playing it cool

In an unusual move on Wednesday, CIA director John Ratcliffe released a statement confirming that the US strikes on Iran's three nuclear sites last week "severely damaged" the facilities.

This follows US media reports that US intelligence assessments found the strikes only set Iran back a few months. That reporting had visibly angered US President Donald Trump, who maintains the sites were "totally obliterated". 

"CIA can confirm that a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran's Nuclear Program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted strikes," Ratcliffe said.

"This includes new intelligence from an historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years," he added.

"CIA continues to collect additional reliably sourced information to keep appropriate decision-makers and oversight bodies fully informed. When possible, we will also provide updates and information to the American public, given the national importance of this matter and in every
attempt to provide transparency." 

French President Emmanuel Macron said he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday and had reaffirmed to him the importance of both Israel and Iran respecting their recent ceasefire deal.

Macron added he had also reaffirmed to Netanyahu the need for a ceasefire deal in Gaza.

- Reporting by Reuters

The Israeli military on Wednesday said that damage to Iran's nuclear sites from what US President Donald Trump has termed the "12-day war" has set it back "years".

The declaration contradicts US intelligence documents reviewed by CNN and The New York Times one day earlier, in which the sites were deemed to have only been set back a few months. 

"Based on the assessment of senior officials in the Intelligence Directorate of the Israeli Army, the damage to the nuclear program is not a pinpoint damage but a systemic one - the cumulative achievement allows us to say that Iran's nuclear project has suffered serious, extensive, and deep damage and has been set back by years - we will not allow Iran to produce weapons of mass destruction," the Israeli military said on its Farsi-language account on X. 

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his administration plans to resume talks with Iran next week, but he doesn’t care if a nuclear agreement is signed because Iran’s facilities have been “blown up to kingdom come”.

“We are going to talk to them next week, with Iran. We may sign an agreement. I don’t know…I don’t care if I have an agreement or not,” he said.

“The only thing we would be asking for is what we were asking for before…we want no nuclear, but we destroyed the nuclear… it’s blown up to kingdom come. I don’t care very strongly about it. If we got a document, it wouldn’t be bad.”

Trump’s comments during a Nato summit in the Netherlands come amid conflicting reports about the damage US strikes did to Iran’s Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear facilities over the weekend.

Read more: Iran’s foreign ministry said the country’s nuclear facilities had been “badly damaged” by the American strikes

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the administration plans to have talks with Iran next week, with a possible agreement on the table about Tehran's nuclear programme.

"We're going to talk to them next week with Iran, we may sign an agreement, I don't know," said Trump.

Reporting by AFP

Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte told reporters at the summit in the Hague that President Donald Trump was like a "daddy" intervening in a schoolyard fight.

Trump had compared fighting between Iran and Israel to children quarrelling.

"They've had a big fight, like two kids in a schoolyard. You know, they fight like hell, you can't stop them. Let them fight for about two to three minutes, then it's easy to stop them," he said at a press conference.

Rutte laughed and added: "And then daddy has to sometimes use strong language to get (them to) stop."

On Tuesday, following a ceasefire deal between Iran and Israel, Trump said Israel and Iran had been fighting "so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing".

Asked by a journalist whether he might be pouring too much praise and flattery on Trump, Rutte said: "No, I don't think so. I think it's a bit of a question of taste."

He described Trump as a "good friend" for more than a decade and then praised the US president's role in making the Nato summit a success by "finally" getting Europe to boost military spending.

"So doesn't he deserve some praise?" Rutte asked.

Reporting by Reuters

US President Donald Trump has compared his attacks on Iran's nuclear programme to the bombing of Hiroshima, as Nato leaders praised him as a "man of peace" at the alliance's summit.

The summit's main session on Wednesday was overshadowed by the aftermath of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran and the ongoing war on Gaza.

Trump dismissed reports that downplayed the effectiveness of his strikes on Iran, describing the operation as a "tremendous success".

"Two Iranians went down to see it and they said this place is gone," he said, presumably referring to one of Iran's nuclear research sites.

He told the summit "that hit ended the war". 

Read more: 'It ended the war': Trump likens Iran strikes to Hiroshima bombing

The Co-operative Group, one of the UK's biggest supermarket chains, will stop sourcing goods from Israel, Iran, Russia and 14 other countries where it says there are "internationally recognised" rights violations.

The Co-op, which operates about 2,300 grocery shops in the UK, has listed about 100 products which it will stop sourcing - including Israeli carrots.

The retailer has announced it will gradually implement its ban - which covers countries including Syria, Belarus, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Sudan - over the next month.

It said the list has been compiled based on "where there is agreement across respected assessments, such as by the UN and others, that there is consistent behaviour which would constitute community-wide human rights abuses or violations of international law".

This comes after members of the Co-op voted to remove Israeli products from its shelves last month.

Read more: Co-op supermarket chain to stop sourcing goods from Israel, Iran and 15 other countries

French President Emmanuel Macron said France is conducting its own assessments of the damage to Iran's nuclear facilities inflicted by US and Israeli air strikes.

Trump had said earlier on Wednesday that the damage from the strikes was severe and "there was obliteration", though he also conceded that US intelligence had been inconclusive.

Meanwhile, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei, said that Iran's nuclear facilities were "badly damaged", according to an Al Jazeera report.

Reporting by Reuters

Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, said that Iran's nuclear facilities were 'badly damaged' in the US strikes on Sunday, Al Jazeera is reporting.

"Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure," Baghaei said on Wednesday, according to the report.

Iranian authorities announced on Wednesday the gradual easing of internet restrictions imposed during Israel's 12-day war on the country, following the implementation of a ceasefire between the longtime foes.

"The communication network is gradually returning to its previous state," said the Revolutionary Guards' cyber security command in a statement carried by state media.

The country's communications minister, Sattar Hashemi, said in a post on X: "With the normalisation of conditions, the state of communication access has returned to its previous conditions". 

US Secretary of Defence, Pete Hegseth, said on Wednesday that the leaked intelligence report stating that the US attacks did not obliterate the nuclear sites was "top secret", "preliminary and low confidence", rejecting that the US strikes failed their mission.

An early US intelligence assessment indicated that the US military strikes on three of Iran's nuclear facilities last week did not destroy the core components of Tehran's nuclear programme and likely only set it back by months, CNN reported on Tuesday, citing three people briefed on it. 

"We believe far more likely that the impact was severe and obliterated. People who build the bombs understand what those bombs can do and deliver those bombs. They landed precisely where they should be - it was a flawless mission," Hegseth said.

"We’re doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now. This information was for internal purposes. CNN and others are trying to spin it to make the president look bad when there was an overwhelming success."

Reporting by MEE news editor Sondos Asem in The Hague