June 25, 2025 – Israel-Iran conflict

• Trump weighs in on intel: President Donald Trump disputed an early US intelligence report on the effectiveness of the US’s strikes on Iran over the weekend. He also said the US will meet with Iran “next week.”

• Impacts on Iran’s nuclear sites: An Iranian official said the country’s nuclear installations were “badly damaged” following “repeated attacks” by Israel and the US. Additionally, an early US intelligence assessment found the US’s weekend strikes on three nuclear sites did not destroy the core components of Iran’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to sources briefed on the report.

• Truce holding: A ceasefire between Iran and Israel appears to be holding Wednesday, despite both sides accusing the other of violating the truce in the hours immediately after it was announced.

Our live coverage of the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran has moved here.

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia on Wednesday said the Trump administration’s plans to limit its sharing of classified information with Congress is “troubling.”

While the latest move comes after CNN reported on an early US intelligence assessment suggesting strikes on Iran did not destroy nuclear sites, Kaine told CNN the administration had already limited intelligence sharing with some Democrats ahead of the US strikes on Iran over the weekend.

Kaine said that while he trusts intelligence information from the US intelligence community, he does not trust Trump’s characterization of it.

“Now, in the aftermath of the attack, the US bombing on Saturday, some are saying we’ve destroyed the program and others are saying we’ve set it back a few months,” he said. “I mean, if we’ve learned anything in the last 20 years, the US should not be lied into a war.”

He also noted that “this is going to be a major focus of the questions” to Trump administration officials at an intelligence briefing on Thursday, when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe will brief the Senate on Iran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency must be allowed to resume its “urgent” monitoring work in Iran, French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday.

The IAEA has pushed for a resumption of its relationship with Iran that was halted by Israel’s unprecedented strikes on nuclear facilities in the country beginning June 13.

Iran’s parliament voted Wednesday to suspend the country’s cooperation with the United Nations nuclear watchdog, according to state media.

The decision by Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly, known as the Majles, will need to be ratified by the Supreme National Security Council chaired by President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Iran is still a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), an agreement designed to monitor and prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons as well as promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology. Any signatories to the treaty without nuclear weapons are prohibited from pursuing them.

The IAEA is tasked with monitoring adherence to the NPT.

CNN’s Jake Tapper offers a harsh rebuke to US President Donald Trump’s attack on media outlets for reporting on a preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency report from the Pentagon that found US strikes likely may have only set Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon back by a matter of months. Trump and his administration have repeatedly said that the strikes “obliterated” Iran’s ability to produce a weapon.

You can also watch this video on YouTube.

US President Donald Trump is defending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against the ongoing corruption trial against the Israeli prime minister, calling it a “witch hunt” and saying the United States will save him.

“It was the United States of America that saved Israel, and now it is going to be the United States of America that saves Bibi Netanyahu,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

A turnaround of public comments: Trump’s statement comes a day after he had harsh words for Israel as a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran hung in the balance.

“Israel, as soon as we made the deal they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I’ve never seen before,” Trump said as he departed Washington for the Netherlands on Tuesday. He was “exceptionally firm and direct” in a later phone call with Netanyahu, a White House official said, and later said the ceasefire was holding firm.

In his Wednesday message, Trump praised Netanyahu, calling him a “Great War Time Prime Minister.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will hold a news conference at 8 a.m. ET tomorrow at the Pentagon, President Donald Trump announced on social media.

“Secretary of Defense (War!) Pete Hegseth, together with Military Representatives, will be holding a Major News Conference tomorrow morning at 8 A.M. EST at The Pentagon, in order to fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“The News Conference will prove both interesting and irrefutable. Enjoy!” he added.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Wednesday issued a statement saying that the agency had obtained “a body of credible evidence (that) indicates Iran’s Nuclear Program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted strikes.”

“This includes new intelligence from a historically reliable source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years,” Ratcliffe said.

The statement comes a day after CNN and other outlets reporting a preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency analysis produced roughly 24 hours after the strikes that found that the US bombing likely only set Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon back by a matter of months.

The White House has pushed back on that assessment, calling it “wrong.” President Donald Trump has said that the strikes “obliterated” Iran’s ability to produce a weapon.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard also posted on X on Wednesday that “new intelligence” supported the notion that Iran’s nuclear facilities were “destroyed” in the strikes.

“New intelligence confirms what @POTUS has stated numerous times: Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed,” Gabbard posted on X on Wednesday without providing evidence. “If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do.”

The Trump administration will limit its sharing of classified information with Congress after CNN reported on an early US intelligence assessment suggesting strikes on Iran did not destroy nuclear sites.

A senior White House official told CNN the administration believes the early Defense Intelligence Agency report was leaked after the assessment was posted to CAPNET — a system used for sharing classified intelligence with Congress — Monday night and therefore will be sharing less on the system. The administration said it’s also conducting a leak investigation.

Axios was first to report the details of the administration’s decision to limit intelligence shared with Congress.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe will brief the Senate on Iran Thursday, the official told CNN.

The all-Senate classified briefing on the situation in Iran has been scheduled for 2 p.m. ET Thursday, after being rescheduled from earlier in the week, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The Trump administration has faced criticism from top Democrats on House and Senate Intelligence Committees, who have expressed frustration at the lack of communication about the US strikes in Iran. Some have warned the administration against manipulating facts ahead of the briefings.

The House is expected to be briefed on Friday.

Iran’s Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh arrived in China for a two-day visit, Iranian state media outlet IRIB reported on Wednesday.

Nasirzadeh “arrived in China and was welcomed by Chinese officials, to attend the meeting of defense ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member countries,” IRIB reported.

The SCO is a regional security grouping led by Beijing and Moscow that — in addition to China and Russia — includes India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus.

Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun “held individual meetings in east China’s Qingdao city with his counterparts from Belarus, Iran, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia,” China’s official Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

Nasirzadeh’s visit comes soon after US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel.

Iran’s nuclear installations were “badly damaged” after “repeated attacks” by Israel and the US, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said in a televised interview.

“Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure, because it has come under repeated attacks by Israeli and American aggressors,” Baghaei told Al Jazeera.

Here’s what else we know about the impact of Israeli and US strikes in Iran:

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte denied calling President Donald Trump “daddy” in an exclusive interview with Reuters today.

Rutte explained that he used the word “daddy” during an earlier news conference with Trump, where the US president described the conflict between Iran and Israel as two children fighting, because he sometimes hears countries asking him if the US will stay with NATO.

“And I said, that sounds a little bit like a small child asking his daddy, ‘hey, are you still staying with the family?’ So, in that sense, I use ‘daddy,’ not that I was calling President Trump daddy,” he continued.

More on Rutte’s comments: Earlier, Rutte offered a vivid description of Trump’s handling of the Middle East crisis during their talks today.

After Trump compared the fighting sides — in this case, Israel and Iran — to “two kids in a school yard,” Rutte chimed in with his own analogy.

“Then daddy has to sometimes use strong language,” he said.

Later, Rutte dismissed a question about his “weak” and “demeaning” approach to Trump as a “matter of taste” after referring to Trump as “daddy.”

At least 90 Qatar Airways flights traveling to Doha with 20,000 passengers on board “were forced to divert immediately” when Iran attacked the US-run Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Monday, the airline’s CEO Badr Mohammed Al-Meer revealed on Wednesday.

“Twenty-five flights diverted into airports across Saudi Arabia, 18 into Turkey, 15 into India, 13 into Oman, and five into the United Arab Emirates. The remaining aircraft were re-routed to major hubs including London, Barcelona, and others across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East,” Al-Meer said in a statement.

All departures from Doha were suspended until Tuesday, according to Al-Meer.

Inside Hamad International Airport in Doha, more than “10,000 passengers were already in transit, expecting to depart when the escalation occurred. They found themselves caught in the middle of one of the most severe and complex operational challenges in modern aviation history,” the CEO said.

Israeli ground commando units operated covertly deep inside Iran during the 12-day conflict between the nations, according to the Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir.

He said the commando units, along with the Israeli Air Force, carried out “deception” tactics that helped Israel gain control of Iran’s airspace and other areas.

Israel’s military chief of staff has said Iran’s nuclear program suffered “systemic” damage and was set back years during the 12-day conflict between the nations.

He added that Israel had completed its goal of removing what he called an “immediate existential threat” from Iran.

His comments come a day after CNN reported that an early assessment from the US Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm, had found US strikes in Iran did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to people briefed on the assessment.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday undercut the assessment. “Last weekend, the United States successfully carried out a massive precision strike on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities and it was very, very successful,” Trump said.

Here’s what Trump said when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked him whether the US was relying on Israeli intelligence:

At least 35 Air Defense Force personnel were killed in the Israeli attacks between June 13 and Tuesday, Iran’s semi-official Student News Network (SNN) said today.

SNN published the names of those who were killed. Among them were two brigadier generals, seven colonels and three lieutenant colonels.

Iran confirmed Wednesday that Maj. Gen. Ali Shadmani, who served as the commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, is dead after sustaining injuries in Israeli strikes last week.

Shadmani stepped into the role on June 13 after Israel’s initial strikes on Iran killed a number of top commanders, including his predecessor, Lt. Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid.

The Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters coordinates between the regular army and Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The top Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are criticizing the Trump administration in the wake of US strikes in Iran ahead of congressional briefings. The briefings were postponed to Thursday in the Senate and Friday in the House.

Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN today that he had “precisely zero outreach” from the administration “before, during or after this very significant moment,” referring to US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend.

The Connecticut congressman, a member of the Gang of Eight, said earlier in the week that intelligence committee staff had been briefed on Sunday, but he had not personally received a briefing from the administration.

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee from Virginia, also warned the Trump administration against misrepresenting intelligence about US strikes in Iran.

“If you start trying to cook intelligence or try to manipulate it in a political fashion … we don’t have a good history with that. That’s how we got into Iraq in the first place,” Warner said. He also said if press reports that the sites are not destroyed are accurate, it opens up questions about whether further military intervention would be needed to finish the mission.

Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters it’s “very surprising” that Congress didn’t receive more information before the strikes, and said the delay in the briefings this week shows the administration is “not conscious of their responsibility to inform Congress.”

Republicans in the know: In the lead-up to the US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities, the White House and GOP congressional leadership were actively helping to shape the message for Trump’s Capitol Hill allies, according to talking points shared with CNN.

The White House, however, has not formally sent any guidance on how to respond to questions over the success of the strikes, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

Trump and his team were also in contact with top congressional Republicans before his strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, but some key Democrats were not told of his plans until after the bombs had dropped, according to multiple people familiar with the plans.

CNN’s Sarah Ferris, Annie Grayer and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this post, which has been updated with comments from Sen. Mark Warner.

Iran’s image of invincibility crumbled in the span of hours on June 13, when Israel launched a surprise, unprecedented attack deep inside Iran that shattered Tehran’s sense of security and unraveled its carefully cultivated aura of strength.

During the 12-day conflict, Iran repeatedly struck back at Israel, causing extensive damage to major cities like Tel Aviv and killing 28 people. Its ability to retaliate under fire won praise at home, even among people who spoke to CNN and are opposed to the regime.

But it’s what happens next that has many Iranians concerned. There are growing fears of an imminent crackdown on reformists and calls for change, as the regime moves to root out perceived collaborators with Israel. By Wednesday, authorities had arrested 700 people accused of being “mercenaries of Israel,” state-affiliated Fars News Agency reported.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the longest serving leader in the Middle East, is reportedly hiding in a bunker with little access to communications. He has yet to be seen in public since Israel and Iran reached the ceasefire, which came into effect Tuesday. He has ruled with an iron fist for more than 35 years, quashing protests since at least 2005.

What experts say: Arash Azizi, a New York City-based Iran expert and author of the book “What Iranians Want,” said Iranians are likely worried about “a wounded regime coming after them and closing the political and civic space further.”

Repression might worsen, he told CNN, adding that the Iranian opposition abroad has proved to be “inept and politically irrelevant,” while civil society at home is “on the defensive.”

Experts say that the attacks on Iran have only emboldened conservatives who have long felt that the West and Israel cannot be trusted and that negotiations are merely a tactic to weaken the country. The fate of reformers and pragmatists now hangs in the balance, and only time will tell whether they survive the change that’s likely coming in the leadership’s ranks, they said.

Read more about the possible fallout

President Donald Trump has departed the Netherlands after a quick visit to attend a truncated NATO summit.

Air Force One was wheels up from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport just before noon ET (6 p.m. local time).

Trump will be back in Washington, DC, in the early evening.