Donald Trump has claimed Iran was weeks away from having a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile Iran’s mission to the UN has branded him a “has-been warmonger clinging to relevance”. Listen to the latest episode of The World as you scroll.
Thursday 19 June 2025 01:00, UK
Thank you for following the latest updates on the aerial war between Israel and Iran.
Before you go, here’s a summary of today’s key updates:
Watch: Trump demands Iran’s surrender
Watch: Supreme leader’s warning to US
Watch: Can Iran’s leadership be toppled?
A hacking group with possible ties to Israel says it has attacked one of Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges and destroyed nearly $90m (£67m) in crypto.
Gonjeshke Darande, or “Predatory Sparrow,” claimed the attack on Nobitex, which it claimed helps the Iranian government avoid sanctions and finance illicit operations around the world.
In a post on X Nobitex said it had pulled its website and app offline as it reviewed “unauthorised access” to its systems.
The funds were moved to hacker-controlled wallets denouncing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to blockchain analysis firm TRM Labs, which said the total theft amounted to $90m across multiple types of cryptocurrencies.
The way the hacker-controlled wallets were created suggests the hackers would to be able to access the stolen money, meaning they “effectively burned the funds in order to send Nobitex a political message,” blockchain analysis firm Elliptic said in a blog post.
Elliptic’s post shared evidence suggesting Nobitex had sent and received funds from cryptocurrency wallets controlled by groups in Gaza such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as the Houthis in Yemen.
It was Gonjeshke Darande’s second operation in two days, with the group claiming to have destroyed data at Iran’s state-owned Bank Sepah yesterday.
Israel’s air strikes on Iran have likely set the country’s nuclear programme back by a few months, Sky News’s US partner NBC News reports.
Over the last week Israel has hit centrifuge plants used to enrich uranium and labs used to convert uranium gas into a metal, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency and Israeli officials.
The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany plan to hold nuclear talks with their Iranian counterpart in Geneva on Friday, Reuters reports.
A German source told the news agency the ministers will first meet with the European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, before holding a joint meeting with the Iranian foreign minister.
The aim of the talks is to persuade the Iranian side to firmly guarantee it will use its nuclear programme solely for civilian purposes, the source said.
Iran has summoned the Swiss envoy to Tehran as a representative of the United States in the country to protest Donald Trump’s “provocative” remarks, Iranian media has reported.
There is no official US embassy in Iran, after diplomatic ties were severed following the Iran hostage crisis in 1979, when a group of Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and took 66 American diplomats and citizens hostage.
It came after Trump demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender” earlier today (see 06.42 post).
Tehran also summoned the German ambassador in Iran to protest Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s “offensive remarks,” Iranian media reported.
Yesterday the German chancellor said the complete destruction of Iran’s nuclear weapons programme could be on the agenda if Tehran does not back down and return to the negotiating table.
Benjamin Netanyahu has called Donald Trump “a great friend of Israel” and thanked him for “defending the skies of Israel”.
In a video address to the nation, the Israeli prime minister said he and the US president “speak constantly, including last night”.
“We had a very warm conversation,” he said.
Netanyahu added: “We control the skies over Tehran. We are striking the Ayatollahs’ regime with tremendous force.
“We are striking the nuclear weapons, the missiles, the headquarters, the symbols of power.”
Israel launched three waves of aerial attacks on Iran in the last 24 hours, military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin has said.
Israel deployed dozens of warplanes to strike over 60 targets in Tehran and western Iran, including missile launchers and missile-production sites, he said.
“The aim of the operation is to eliminate the existential threat to the State of Israel, significantly damage Iran’s nuclear program in all its components, and severely impact its missile array,” he explained.
Vladimir Putin has said all sides should look for ways to end the fighting between Israel and Iran.
The Russian president said Moscow had conveyed its ideas on how to achieve peace to the parties involved.
He said he was in contact with Donald Trump and Israel on the conflict.
Putin said Iranian society was “consolidating around its political leadership” and Russia and Iran “would be able to continue work in nuclear energy”.
It comes as North Korea denounced Israel’s attack on Iran, state media said.
Donald Trump has told senior aides he approves of US attack plans for Iran, but was holding off on giving the go-ahead to see if Tehran will abandon its nuclear programme, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Three sources told the paper the US president is hoping that threatening to join Israel’s strikes on Iran will make Tehran agree to his demands.
Earlier, the US president said: “I may do it. I may not do it.”
The US has begun evacuating nonessential diplomats and their families from the US embassy in Israel as the air war between Israel and Iran intensifies.
A government plane evacuated a number of diplomats and their family members who had asked to leave the country, two US officials told the Associated Press.
The evacuations happened shortly before US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, announced on X that the embassy was making plans for evacuation flights and ships for American citizens (see 16.59 post).
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