European foreign ministers will hold talks Friday with their Iranian counterpart, hoping to reach a diplomatic solution to the war with Israel as US President Donald Trump mulls the prospect of US involvement.

Israel, claiming Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon, launched air strikes against its arch-enemy a week ago, triggering deadly exchanges.

Sirens sounded in southern Israel on Friday morning after missiles were launched from Iran, the Israeli army said. It earlier warned people in Iran’s northern industrial area of Sefidrood to evacuate ahead of Israeli strikes.

Israeli police said they, emergency response teams and bomb disposal experts were operating “at the site of a projectile impact” in a southern city, while the rescue service said it had not received reports of any wounded.

The country’s military, meanwhile, said it had struck dozens of targets in Tehran overnight, including what it called a centre for the “research and development of Iran’s nuclear weapons project”.

European leaders urging de-escalation have scrambled to hold talks with Iran, as Trump said he would decide “within the next two weeks” whether to involve the United States in Israel’s bombing campaign.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will meet with his French, German, British and EU counterparts in Geneva on Friday to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy said “a window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution”, after meeting senior US officials in Washington on Thursday.

Lammy and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio “agreed Iran can never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon”, according to the State Department.

Netanyahu welcomed the prospect of US involvement in its campaign, while Russia, an Iranian ally, told the United States that joining the conflict would be an “extremely dangerous step”.

The UN Security Council is also due to convene on Friday for a second session on the conflict, which was requested by Iran with support from Russia, China and Pakistan, a diplomat told AFP on Wednesday.

While Netanyahu has not publicly said that Israel is trying to topple Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, defence minister Israel Katz warned after the strike on Israel’s Soroka hospital that Khamenei “can no longer be allowed to exist”.

A week of deadly exchanges between the two countries has plunged the Middle East into a new crisis, more than 20 months into the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Panic and blackouts

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sworn Iran will “pay a heavy price” for the strike on Soroka on Thursday, an attack Tehran said was targeting a military and intelligence base.

Hospital director Shlomi Codish said 40 people were wounded in the strike that destroyed several wards.

World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called attacks on health facilities “appalling”, while UN rights chief Volker Turk said civilians were being treated as “collateral damage”.

In Iran, people fleeing Israel’s attacks described frightening scenes and difficult living conditions, including food shortages and limited internet access.

“Those days and nights were very horrifying… hearing sirens, the wailing, the danger of being hit by missiles,” University of Tehran student Mohammad Hassan told AFP, after returning to his native Pakistan.

“People are really panicking,” a 50-year-old Iranian pharmacist who did not want to be named told AFP at a crossing on the border with Turkey.

Iran imposed a “nationwide internet shutdown” on Thursday — the most extensive blackout since widespread anti-government protests in 2019 — internet watchdog NetBlocks said.

Iran also appointed Brigadier General Majid Khadami as the new chief of intelligence for the Revolutionary Guards on Thursday, the official IRNA news agency said, after his predecessor was killed in an Israeli strike last week.

Any US involvement in Israel’s campaign against Iran would be expected to involve the bombing of a crucial underground nuclear facility in Fordo, using specially developed bunker-busting bombs.

Dozens of US military aircraft were no longer visible at a US base in Qatar on Thursday, satellite images showed — a possible move to shield them from potential Iranian strikes.

Nuclear sites

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed Iran was “a couple of weeks” away from producing an atomic bomb.

Iran had been enriching uranium to 60 percent — far above the 3.67-percent limit set by the 2015 deal, but still short of the 90 percent needed for a nuclear warhead.

A key Iranian government body, the Guardian Council, threatened a “harsh response” if “the criminal American government and its stupid president… take action against Islamic Iran”.

On Thursday, Israel said it struck “dozens” of Iranian targets overnight, including the partially built Arak nuclear reactor and a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz.

Iranian atomic energy agency chief Mohammad Eslami confirmed in a letter to the UN nuclear watchdog that the Arak reactor was hit, demanding action to stop Israel’s “violation of international regulations”.

Iranian media reported blasts in Tehran late Thursday, while the Revolutionary Guards said more than 100 “combat and suicide” drones were launched at Israel.

In the central Israeli city of Bat Yam, the body of a woman was found at a site hit on Sunday, taking the death toll in Israel from Iranian missiles since June 13 to 25 people, according to authorities.

Iran said on Sunday that Israeli strikes had killed at least 224 people, including military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians.

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