Name: Iran and Israel exchange fire as Trump warns Iranians to evacuate Tehran | BBC News
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We start this hour in the Middle East, where Israel and Iran have attacked each other for a fifth consecutive day.

Reports of damage and casualties in both countries.

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Let's take a look at Israel, where on Tuesday morning this video was recorded in Tel Aviv, apparently as an Iranian airstrike was taking place.

And this footage was filmed shortly afterwards in the city, plumes of smoke rising there.

Not yet clear what damage or casualties there may have been here.

Also reports of explosions in Jerusalem this morning.

Meanwhile, Israel's emergency services say five people have been injured by shrapnel at one of the impact sites in the central part of the country.

Iran says it's destroyed strategic targets in Israel using drones.

Well turning to Iran now, there have been reports of Israeli airstrikes across the country.

They come after the Israeli military issued more evacuation orders for parts of Tehran.

Shortly after a similar Israeli warning was put in place on Monday, the studios of an Iranian state broadcaster were hit.

After that, the station resumed broadcasting what appeared to be a taped programme shortly after that.

The network says three members of its staff are reported to have been killed.

The Israeli military says it's continuing to kill senior Iranian officials, including Ali Shadmani, the wartime chief of staff, who was hit in an airstrike in central Tehran.

He was the closest military adviser to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Israeli military also released this footage, but it shows it destroying two Iranian fighter jets at Tehran airport, as well as trucks delivering weapons.

Meanwhile, President Trump has left the G7 summit in Canada early because of the continuing crisis in the Middle East.

That's the White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt, saying, making that announcement Monday evening, saying President Trump is returning to Washington so he can attend to many important matters.

Let's speak to our Middle East correspondent, Hugo Beshear, who's in Jerusalem for us.

Hugo, just talk us through what's been happening.

So we had a wave of Iranian missiles this morning with air raid alerts again sounding in many parts of Israel.

And again here in Jerusalem, we had loud explosions of, you know, interceptions by the air defense systems.

And five people, at least five people have been injured in central parts of Israel.

We can't name the locations because of restrictions being imposed by the Israeli authorities.

But again, another wave of Iranian missiles as Iran responds to these Israeli airstrikes.

And in Iran, there have been more attacks.

And you know, in the last hour, we had this confirmation by the Israeli military saying that they had killed Ali Shadimani, who had been appointed to this position as a top military commander following the killing of his predecessor in a wave of, in an Israeli strike last week.

So this shows the level of penetration, the intelligence that the Israeli authorities have about these senior Iranian officials.

Now, again, it's very difficult to get a clear picture of what's happening inside Iran because we can't report from inside the country.

But the indications from the Israeli authorities are that this campaign is going to continue for days, not for weeks, not days.

And last night, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave an interview to an Iranian television channel based in London.

He said Israel had significantly damaged Iran's nuclear and ballistic missiles programs, but that its forces, you know, Israel, Israel's forces needed more time in this campaign.

So yet another indication that this campaign is likely to continue.

And on that theme, Hugo, given we have a rough idea that there is a effectively a list of targets that Israel is pursuing, nuclear sites, military commanders, do we have any more detail and sense on what is on that list and when, therefore, it would be considered any kind of completion or mission accomplished from the Israeli point of view?

Yes, so what the Israeli authorities are saying is that they want to remove the threat posed by Iran's nuclear program and also by Iran's missiles.

So we've seen that in the last few days since the Israeli military started this operation on Friday, a number of different locations have been hit across Iran, including nuclear facilities at Natanz, also Isfahan.

But crucially, they haven't been able to hit the underground facility at Fordow because the Israelis don't have the ability to strike this facility buried deep underground inside mountains.

So the Americans have the weapons, the bombs needed to strike this facility.

So I think that's one of the reasons why the focus is now on President Trump and on whether he's going to announce American involvement, direct American involvement in these strikes being carried out by Israel.

But again, critics of the prime minister say that this is a war of choice and that diplomacy is going to be the only way to try to limit Iran's nuclear ambitions, Iran's nuclear program and try to find a solution to this crisis.

We're going to speak now to Sir Richard Dalton, former UK ambassador to Iran.

We're in day five now, consecutive strikes by each country.

Where do you think things stand right now?

More war and potentially wider war, potential American involvement.

They might take the risk of retaliation against their facilities in the Middle East.

They might consider that they could bomb Fordo without that risk of retaliation because they have in turn threatened Iran with massive force if Iran should do that.

It just means carry on fighting, but don't do it so hard.

They should have been calling for a ceasefire, but there was no possibility of getting the United States to agree to that.

Why would the US not want to have that as the communique?

Because they don't think that Israel should be forced to do anything that Israel hasn't voluntarily chosen to do.

And Israel has made clear that they've got weeks rather than days ahead of them before they have done the job they set out to do.

Is it a case that they have certain military capabilities, as Hugo was leaning towards there, that simply Israel doesn't have on its own?

Americans who are addicted to violence in the Middle East, but who have a very poor record of seeing it through with political outcomes to make the world a better place as a result, may consider that Iran hasn't been sufficiently smashed up by the Israelis.

Well, you say that the US is addicted to violence there.

Donald Trump's pre-election message was not getting involved in more wars.

But since when has Donald Trump been consistent?

Since when has he put forward, in connection with the Middle East, a set of coherent messages?

OK, let's move on to the diplomacy side of it, clearly your area of expertise.

When the strikes stop, however they do, if there is an escalation first with US involvement or not, what kind of resolution would you be looking at here?

The negotiations were temporarily stalled after 60 days, which was a totally arbitrary deadline put in place by President Trump.

Anybody who has worked with the Iranians on this incredibly complex issue knows that it takes much longer than that to generate compromises.

But those opportunities for compromise may be extinguished by the American determination to support Israel's view that Iran should be denied its right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to research and develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, including enrichment of uranium to the 3.5% level necessary for power reactor fuel on its own territory.

Now, I hope, although it's pretty far-fetched at this stage, given American positions, that they would reconsider that, because ultimately, if the Iranian regime survives, which should be the presumption that everybody makes when considering the next round of diplomacy, if the Iranian regime survives, then it's not going to surrender that point of principle that it cannot trust outside powers to supply it with uranium in perpetuity for its civil nuclear program.

Now, we had an excellent agreement, the Joint Cooperative Program of Actions put in place in 2016, willfully destroyed by the Americans at Israeli behest, and that kind of agreement needs to be restored under which unprecedented levels of control and monitoring of Iranian programs to ensure no diversion of material for military purposes can be put in place, because I did there are compromises from the other side.

Sir Richard Dalton, thank you very much for coming on the program.