Name: US-Israel war with Iran escalates with no ceasefire in sight | BBC News
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It's day 16 of the U. S. Israel war with Iran.

Over the next 10 or so minutes, we'll bring you our special program looking at the key developments from today.

As the war continues into its third week, Israel says it's extending the scope of its military action against Tehran with strikes in western and central Iran.

These pictures released by the Israeli military are said to show attacks on facilities described as part of Iran's drone operations.

Despite relentless bombardment, Iran has kept up its retaliatory attacks on Israel and across the region.

These pictures, filmed by a BBC team, show the immediate aftermath of a missile strike on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

It caused some damage, but no casualties.

Iran's foreign minister says Tehran has not asked for a ceasefire with America and Israel.

Abbas Arachi told CBS News that Iran was ready to defend itself for as long as it takes.

His comments follow an earlier claim by Donald Trump who said the Iranian government appeared ready to make a deal, but

in his words, the terms were not good enough yet.

Let's focus first on the military campaign because Israel says it's expanding the scope of its strikes on Iran, targeting what it calls regime infrastructure.

An IDF spokesman said the Israeli military had plans for at least three more weeks of the campaign with thousands of targets that could still be hit.

In Israel, emergency services say several people have been injured following Iranian strikes.

A missile armed with cluster munitions hit a residential area near Tel Aviv, causing damage but no casualties.

Our Middle east correspondent, John Donnison arrived there shortly after the strike.

Right, you can see here, we're just on the outskirts of Tel Aviv and just as we were driving in, the sirens went off.

And you can see here where we've got the impact.

What you've got a couple of cars completely destroyed, fires burning, and

a bit of a sense of panic here amongst the people here.

A lot of people running towards this spot, presumably to try and find out if anyone they knew had been hurt.

We've not heard that there have been any casualties here, but

you can see it's a pretty built up residential neighborhood.

And these Iranian missiles, most of them are getting shot down, but some get through.

And some of these missiles, what happens is they break up in the sky and form these smaller cluster bombs that don't do as much damage when they fall, but

Israel's foreign minister has dismissed reports that the IDF is running short of ballistic missile interceptors.

Gideon Sar spoke to reporters during a visit to the site of another Iranian missile strike near the town of Zarzeer in the north of the country.

He also touched on Israel's campaign in Lebanon, where the IDF has been striking targets linked to the Iranian backed group Hezbollah.

The latest figures from Lebanon show the human cost of that campaign.

Health officials say Israeli strikes have killed more than 800 people since the start of the month.

It was 826 and that figure has now risen to 850 in terms of displacement.

The United nations also says the fighting has forced more than 800,000 people to flee their homes.

Gideon Sar denied reports that Israel and Lebanon were preparing to hold direct talks in the coming days.

Hezbollah is working accordingly to instructions from Tehran, not from Beirut.

They are acting against the will of Lebanon and its citizens.

If the Lebanese government and the Lebanese army want to change something, they should do something in order to stop the attacks being done by Hezbollah from Lebanese territory.

The most recent images coming in from Iran show the damage inflicted by US And Israeli bombardment.

This was the scene early Sunday in a neighbourhood of Tehran where a police station was hit and some surrounding buildings were damaged.

These pictures were filmed as part of a media tour organized by the Iranian government.

But we've also been hearing directly from people inside the country.

A man from Tehran said he disagreed with the attacks and told the BBC that Iran could be ruined if attacks continued at pace.

Our correspondent Azadeh Mushiri has more.

when you can get a glimpse, it gives you a bit of insight into what life is there.

And while at the beginning Iranians were mixed with.

With had feelings that were mixed with hope and fear, right now they're very concerned about what kind of country they're going to be left with.

One person talked to me about feeling like it will be, on the one hand, a lack of basic goods, inflation in the economy and potentially unrest and bloodshed, as he put it, and

that after all of this, they will still be left with a regime that they hope they'd never see again.

As the military campaign looks set to continue, what are the chances of a diplomatic way out of the conflict?

The Iranian Foreign minister, Abbas Arakchee, says Tehran has never asked for a ceasefire.

It follows an earlier claim by Donald Trump, who said the Iranian government appeared ready to make a deal, but

in his words, the terms weren't good enough yet.

Let's get more on this from our correspondent in Washington, Simi Jolosho.

So, Simi, bring us up to date with what each side has been saying.

Well, President Donald Trump says Iran wants to make a deal, but

that he's not ready to make a deal with Iran because it doesn't have terms that are good enough for him.

He says that the terms need to be very solid, but

he didn't expand on what very solid would look like.

We know that one term President Trump would want in any deal with Iran is for the country to abandon any nuclear ambitions.

On the other hand, you've got Iran's foreign minister who spoke to the BBC's US partner, CBS News, saying that Iran, Iran never asked for a ceasefire and has not asked for negotiations.

And he also said, why would Iran speak to the US because in the middle of negotiations, that's when the US struck Iran.

He also claimed that 48 hours before the US struck Iran, Iran offered to dilute 440 kilos of its enriched uranium.

He says right now nothing is on the table between the two countries and that Iran will continue to defend itself or continue fighting until President Trump concedes and says that this is an illegal war.

But on the other hand, you've got President Trump who says that the US Will continue hitting Iran very hard.

He also mentioned hitting more, potentially hitting more targets on Haag island for fun.

He said it looks like a diplomatic breakthrough between these two countries currently appears really limited.

There could have been some sort of indirect communication between the two countries, perhaps the through Gulf intermediaries.

But right now both countries have, are clearly determined to, to continue exerting military pressure.

Let's bring in our diplomatic correspondent, Paul Adams.

And Paul, given what we've been hearing about the language on both sides of the US and Iran, is there any room for diplomacy or de escalation at all?

And I think a lot of the Western diplomatic efforts are probably focused around how to secure the Straits of Hormuz.

Because the thing that is worrying people from, you know, all around the world is the long term economic impacts of this crisis.

And so that's why we're seeing governments talking about how, and

even if it's possible to, to, to guarantee shipping through that narrow waterway at a time when the Iranians could, and

there is no evidence at the moment that they have, could make it impossible through the sowing of mines at the moment, as you've heard from, you know, from Donald Trump and from the Iranians, there is no obvious sign that either side is looking for a diplomatic off ramp at the moment.

I think the Iranians feel that they still have cards to play.

And judging by everything that we're hearing from The Americans and indeed the Israelis, they still feel that they've got some way to go with the military campaign.

And some of the countries that have been drawn into this, the Gulf countries, and

many of them were mediators in the past when they had they got any room to make to put pressure on either side in this.

They will be trying to persuade both sides to, you know, to look for that off ramp.

I mean, the Omanis are absolutely furious because they felt that a deal was in the offing, literally within hours of the attacks beginning.

They felt that they had negotiated this deal whereby the Iranians would downgrade their enriched uranium, possibly then moving it outside of Iran.

At the moment, Abbas Rakshi says all of that is under the rubble.

And so that's not really an option at the moment.

But they, you know, they are furious, I think, at the launching of a war that they did not want to see, but

they are also furious with Iran because they have seen a reaction from Iran which has included not just the attacks on American military targets up and down the Gulf, but

also attacks on their own civilian infrastructure and, of course, their oil infrastructure.

So they right now are really feel that they are caught between two players who frankly, are not working to their interests, but

pursuing, you know, this maximalist military objective instead of.

And in the meantime, the cost of this, the global economy continues to go up.

And you mentioned the effect of the Strait of Homo is essentially being blocked.

How far do you think this is going to go?

Well, I think, you know, clearly the longer the conflict goes on, the more those impacts are rippling out across the global economy.