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Here’s the latest from the Middle East and the G7 summit:
- US President Donald Trump is leaving the G7 summit in Canada a day earlier than planned and will not meet with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. A spokesperson for the prime minister said given the unfolding conflict in the Middle East, Trump’s decision was understandable.
- Trump is trying to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Iran – and reports say he is trying to use the US’s stockpile of bunker-busting munitions as leverage to force Iran to the negotiating table.
- Trump said on social media that people should immediately evacuate the Iranian capital, Tehran.
- In Iran, state media says more than 224 Iranians have been killed, most of them civilians. Separately, Washington-based Iranian advocacy group Human Rights Activists reports that 406 people have been killed, including 197 civilians. In Israel, the death toll is 24, all civilians.
- You can catch up with everything we know at our regularly updated “What we know so far” page.
G7 leaders have released a statement describing Iran as the “principal source of regional instability and terror”, and also reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself.
Here is the statement in full: “We, the leaders of the G7, reiterate our commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East. In this context, we affirm that Israel has a right to defend itself.
From left: European Council President Antonio Costa, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, US President Donald Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pose for a photo during the G7 summit, in Kananaskis, Alberta on Monday (Alberta time).Credit: AP
“We reiterate our support for the security of Israel. We also affirm the importance of the protection of civilians. Iran is the principal source of regional instability and terror.
“We have been consistently clear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. We urge that the resolution of the Iranian crisis leads to a broader de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, including a ceasefire in Gaza. We will remain vigilant to the implications for international energy markets and stand ready to co-ordinate, including with like-minded partners, to safeguard market stability.”
Here’s the latest from the Middle East and the G7 summit:
- US President Donald Trump is leaving the G7 summit in Canada a day earlier than planned and will not meet with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. A spokesperson for the prime minister said given the unfolding conflict in the Middle East, Trump’s decision was understandable.
- Trump is trying to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Iran – and reports say he is trying to use the US’s stockpile of bunker-busting munitions as leverage to force Iran to the negotiating table.
- Trump said on social media that people should immediately evacuate the Iranian capital, Tehran.
- In Iran, state media says more than 224 Iranians have been killed, most of them civilians. Separately, Washington-based Iranian advocacy group Human Rights Activists reports that 406 people have been killed, including 197 civilians. In Israel, the death toll is 24, all civilians.
- You can catch up with everything we know at our regularly updated “What we know so far” page.
China has warned that the Iran-Israel conflict may lead to wider instability in the Middle East.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi communicated with both countries as the days-old conflict showed no sign of ending.
“If the conflict between Israel and Iran continues to escalate or even spill over, the other countries in the Middle East will inevitably bear the brunt,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said in a briefing on Monday.
“China will continue to maintain communication with relevant parties and promote talks for peace so as to prevent more turmoil in the region.”
The comments follow China’s earlier condemnation of Israel’s attack on Iran. China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday that the nation “explicitly condemns Israel’s violation of Iran’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity”, and “firmly opposes the reckless attacks targeting Iranian officials and causing civilian casualties”.
With Bloomberg
The US is discussing with Iran the possibility of a meeting this week between US envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to discuss a nuclear deal and an end to the war between Israel and Iran, Axios reported on Monday citing four sources briefed on the issue.
The report has not been independently verified by other news wires at this stage.
The Axios report focusses on bunker busters – special munitions designed to penetrate hardened facilities, like Iran’s underground enrichment facility at Fordow. The US has these weapons and Israel does not, Axios reports, and President Donald Trump is hoping to use them as leverage.
From the Axios report:
Describing the decision on bunker busters as an “inflection point,” the official said Trump “thinks in terms of deals and leverage. And this is leverage.
“They do want to talk,” the senior official continued. “But what we don’t know is, ‘have they been brought to their knees fully so that they realise that in order to have a country, they have to talk?’ And assuming they get there, is there any degree of enrichment you would allow them to have?”
The New York Times earlier carried a similar report, noting Fordo was probably only reachable with America’s very largest bunker buster, carried by American B-2 bombers.
An Israeli jet, seen here flying across northern Israel, in 2024.Credit: AP
US President Donald Trump has made an offer for a ceasefire between Iran and Israel, Reuters is reporting.
The newswire quoted French President Emmanuel Macron saying at the G7: “There is indeed an offer to meet and exchange. An offer was made especially to get a ceasefire and to then kick-start broader discussions.”
“We have to see now whether the sides will follow.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and US President Donald Trump at the G7 summit on Monday.Credit: AP
Israel’s ambassador to the United States has flagged a potential future operation this week that would make the state’s highly complex pager attack in Lebanon last year “almost seem simple”.
In September, Israel simultaneously detonated thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon, an act labelled a war crime by more than a dozen United Nations legal experts.
But in an interview on the American Merit Street television channel, founded by television personality Dr Phil, Israel’s ambassador Yechiel Leiter said Israel had “some surprises up our sleeves”.
“We’ve pulled off a number of surprises. When the dust settles, you’re going to see some surprises on Thursday night and Friday that will make the beeper operation almost seem simple,” he said.
Israel was aiming to “completely [demolish] the nuclear weapons infrastructure in Iran”, and would do “whatever we have to do to ensure that’s the end game”.
“What we’re doing in the Middle East is to prevent wars. This is a war to end wars, this is a war to engender peace in the Middle East.”
US President Donald Trump is weighing a critical decision in the five-day-old war between Israel and Iran: whether to enter the fray by helping Israel destroy Iran’s deeply buried nuclear enrichment facility at Fordo, which only US “bunker busters” dropped by US B-2 bombers, can reach.
If he decides to go ahead, the United States will become a direct participant in a new conflict in the Middle East, taking on Iran in exactly the kind of war Trump has sworn, in two campaigns, he would avoid. Iranian officials have warned that American participation in an attack on its facilities will imperil any remaining chance of the nuclear disarmament deal that Trump insists he is still interested in pursuing.
Trump has encouraged Vice President J.D. Vance and his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to offer to meet the Iranians this week, according to a US official. The offer may be well received.
Trump, at the Group of Seven summit in Canada, on Tuesday (AEST), said: “I think Iran basically is at the negotiating table, they want to make a deal.”
Read the full story here.
The New York Times
The Australian sharemarket was treading cautiously this morning after US President Donald Trump called for the evacuation of Tehran, in comments that contrasted with earlier optimism that Israel’s war against Iran wouldn’t escalate into a wider conflict.
The S&P/ASX 200 edged up 10.3 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 8558.70 as of 11.01am AEST after swinging between minor gains and losses in the first hour of trading. It added just 1 point yesterday. The Australian dollar gave up some of its 0.7 per cent jump overnight and was down 0.2 per cent at 65.13 US cents at the same time.
US futures were down and oil climbed almost 2 per cent following Trump’s comments in a social media post from the G7 summit in Alberta, Canada. It wasn’t clear what he was referring to but hours earlier, Trump had said Iran wanted to make a deal, sparking hopes the fighting could remain contained and pushing Wall Street higher in its session overnight.
Gold miners rose as Trump’s warning boosted demand for havens.
with AP and Bloomberg
This is the view of airspace over the Middle East at the moment, via the flight tracking website FlightRadar24.
With Iran’s airspace shut down, there are virtually no planes travelling across Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Gaza or Lebanon.
But if you look closely you’ll see it looks like a plane is currently flying just above Iran’s capital city, Tehran. Flight CLX7441 is currently the most-viewed flight in the world. But what’s really happening? That requires more digging.
The Flightradar24 radar over the Middle East just before 12pm.Credit: Flightradar24
Flight data shows the plane – which is said to be travelling from Shanghai, China, to Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan – as being owned by the Luxembourg cargo carrier CargoLux. And CargoLux says it’s absolutely not operating in Iranian airspace.
“Cargolux would like to categorically state that none of its flights utilise Iranian airspace,” the airline says in a statement on its website.
“Other airlines may similarly be impacted by the incorrect data being shown on such publicly available application. … Our flight tracking systems provide real-time data, which confirms that no flight entered Iranian airspace. Any claims to the contrary are completely unfounded.”
The airline first issued the statement more than a day ago, indicating there was something wrong with the data being used by public flight tracking apps.
It’s not clear why data shows the flight as tracking through the area, but it could be based on regular journeys made by the carrier (when that airspace isn’t closed) or relate to issues with GPS jamming, which Flightradar24 says is occurring throughout the Middle East.
As dawn breaks in Tehran, the city wakes after a night of more explosions and heavy air defence fire, Iranian media reports.
Air defences were activated also in Natanz, home to key nuclear installations 320 kilometres away, the Asriran news website reported. Roads leading out of Tehran were gridlocked as residents tried to flee the city which has a population of 10 million. Iran International reported witness accounts of explosions across Iran’s southerns provinces, including the cities of Ahvaz, Bushehr, Dezful and Bandar Abbas.
Iranian officials reported 224 deaths, mostly civilians, in five days.
In Israel, air raid sirens wailed in Tel Aviv during the night and an explosion was heard as Iranian missiles targeted the country again. Iran sent three waves of missiles towards Israel in about four hours this morning, but no details on their impact were given by Israel. Footage shared online by state-run media showed Israeli air defence apparently failing to prevent an Iranian strike. Israel said 24 civilians had been killed in the conflict so far.
As US President Donald Trump departs the G7 for Washington to address the escalating conflict, a White House aide said it was not true that the US was attacking Iran – as unverified reports circulated on social media.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News that Trump was still aiming for a nuclear deal with Iran, while adding the US would defend its assets in the region.
