U.S. and Israel Bomb Iran Amid Peace Talks

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

U.S. and Israeli forces bombed Iran on Saturday amid ongoing peace talks between Iran and the U.S.

Explosions could be heard across Tehran.

In a statement, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared a “special and permanent state of emergency” across Israel. The Israeli government described its attack as “preemptive.”

Several news organizations reported that Israel had carried out the strikes, but an anonymous American official told The Wall Street Journal that the U.S. had also participated in the attacks.

The strikes come amid talks between the U.S. and Iran in negotiations being mediated by Oman. Israel bombed Iran in June, just before U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff was to meet with Iran’s foreign minister. The U.S. later conducted strikes of its own on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which President Donald Trump said were “totally obliterated.”

Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were leading the most recent negotiations for the U.S.

The Trump administration had demanded that Iran re-obliterate its main nuclear sites and hand over its enriched uranium. Iran has balked at the idea, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Hours before Israel struck on Saturday, Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who is mediating the talks, told CBS News that the Iranians had made several concessions to the U.S. and that a “peace deal is within our reach.”

Albusaidi had been mediating talks between the U.S. and Iran in recent weeks as President Donald Trump has escalated tensions by ordering a massive military buildup near Iran.

“There would be zero accumulation, zero stockpiling, and full verification,” Albusaidi stated, adding that weapons inspections would be conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, with possibly an American contingent involved.

Albusaidi had said that negotiators “need a little bit more time” to finalize details.

According to a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, it is not clear whether Iran is currently enriching uranium. The country has long insisted that its enrichment programs are for civilian use and that it is not seeking to achieve weapons-grade uranium, which is above 90% enrichment.

On Friday, Trump said Iran must stop enrichment entirely.

“Not 20%, 30%, they always want 20%, 30%, they want it for civilian, you know, for civil. I think it’s uncivil,” he told reporters.

Iran had previously agreed to scale back enrichment activities while allowing more thorough nuclear inspections as part of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was signed by all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (U.S., U.K., China, Russia, and France) and the European Union. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal in 2018.

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