PinnedPentagon officials said on Sunday that three of Iran’s nuclear sites sustained “severe damage” from the U.S. strikes overnight that set off fears of more dangerous escalations across the Middle East, even as the Trump administration sought to emphasize that it did not intend to enter an all-out war with Tehran.President Trump said the United States had “completely and totally obliterated” three Iranian nuclear facilities. But top Pentagon officials said on Sunday that it was too soon to say whether Iran still retained some nuclear enrichment capacity, the focus of the Israeli military campaign that the United States joined with the highly coordinated strikes on Saturday night.Soon after the strikes, Mr. Trump said in a brief address from the White House that Iran “must now make peace” or risk greater attacks. But administration officials on Sunday were careful to characterize the strikes as a focused mission, not the start of a broader military operation. “We’re not at war with Iran,” Vice President JD Vance said in a televised interview on Sunday morning. “We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”Iranian officials said they were working to assess the scale of the damage to facilities at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan from the strikes that hit early Sunday local time. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, lashed out at the United States, saying the strikes undercut diplomatic efforts to avoid escalation. Iran “reserves all options to defend its security interests and people,” he said, although he declined to be more specific, including about whether Iran would retaliate against U.S. military bases in the Middle East. “We have to respond based on our legitimate right of self-defense,” he said at a news conference in Istanbul.Pentagon officials on Sunday described a tightly choreographed operation that included B-2 bombers and submarine-fired cruise missiles hitting three sites within a half-hour window. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, said that the initial battle damage assessment indicated that all three nuclear sites had sustained “severe damage and destruction” but that a final assessment would take time.A senior U.S. official acknowledged that the attack on Fordo, Iran’s most critical site, had not destroyed the facility, which is heavily fortified, but said that it had been severely damaged. Two Israeli officials with knowledge of the matter also said it appeared that Iran had moved equipment, including uranium, from the site before the strikes.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sought to assuage concerns that the United States was about to enter a prolonged conflict. “This is most certainly not open-ended,” he said at the news conference. But Mr. Trump’s decision to attack Iran was likely to dim hopes for a negotiated solution to end the fighting, only days after the president had indicated he would wait for as long as two weeks to give diplomacy a chance.The strikes ushered in a period of high alert in the region, where more than 40,000 American troops are on bases and warships. While U.S. officials say that Iran has depleted its stockpile of medium-range missiles, the country still has an ample supply of other weapons, including rockets and drones.Hours after the American attack, which included cruise missiles and more than a dozen 30,000-pound bombs, Iran fired a barrage of missiles toward Israel, and Israel’s military said it had mounted a new round of airstrikes.Here’s what you need to know:Potential damage: The nuclear sites attacked by the United States include Iran’s two major uranium enrichment centers: the heavily fortified mountain facility at Fordo and a larger enrichment plant at Natanz. Satellite imagery taken shortly after the strikes at Fordo reveals damage and likely entry holes for the American “bunker buster” bombs. The International Atomic Energy Agency said it had not detected any increases in radiation outside the sites.International reaction: America’s allies and adversaries were scrambling on Sunday to process the strikes that brought the U.S. military directly into Israel’s war with Iran. Mr. Araghchi said he planned to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, a key ally, on Monday. Read more ›Reaction in Congress: Top Republicans rallied behind Mr. Trump, calling the strikes a necessary check on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But senior Democrats and some Republican lawmakers condemned the move as unconstitutional and warned that it could drag the United States into a broader war. Read more ›Strike details: General Caine said at the news conference that they had involved 75 precision-guided munitions, including 14 of the Pentagon’s 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs, and that a Navy submarine in the Persian Gulf fired two dozen Tomahawk missiles as part of the attack. The strikes marked the first time the U.S. Air Force had used such bombs in combat.What’s next? Now that Mr. Trump has helped Israel, it will most likely kick off a more dangerous phase in the war. Here are some ways that could play out, including what Iran’s options are, and how the U.S. military’s powerful bunker buster bombs work.Reporting was contributed by David E. Sanger, Robert Jimison, Michael Gold, Megan Mineiro, Jonathan Swan, Yan Zhuang and Talya Minsberg.June 22, 2025, 2:20 p.m. ETJohnatan ReissReporting from Nahariya, IsraelIsraeli strikes across Iran continued on Sunday. Israeli Air Force jets carried out a “wide” operation against sites related to Iran’s ballistic missile apparatus, including in the region of Yazd, in central Iran, Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman, said in a televised statement.Israel’s bombardment of nuclear sites across Iran combined with the U.S. strikes overnight “deeply damaged” Iran’s nuclear program, he said. “Even so, the regime still retains capabilities,” he added, as Israel’s nationwide ban on gatherings, nonessential work and educational activities was extended through Monday evening.June 22, 2025, 2:14 p.m. ETSanam MahooziIran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said on Sunday that seven of its members and two conscript soldiers had been killed in Israeli airstrikes targeting two military facilities in Yazd, a central province in Iran, according to a statement published by the state-affiliated Tasnim News Agency.June 22, 2025, 2:06 p.m. ETOn Truth Social, President Trump excoriated Representative Tom Massie, Republican of Kentucky, as a “loser” he will campaign against, after Massie raised questions about the constitutionality of the strikes against Iran without congressional approval.June 22, 2025, 2:04 p.m. ETThe Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Russia and Iran “enjoy a strategic partnership.”Credit...Ozan Kose/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Iranian foreign minister said on Sunday that he was heading to Russia to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin on Monday, as Iran weighed a response to a wave of U.S. strikes on its nuclear sites.There was little sign that Russia was prepared to provide military assistance to Iran, its closest remaining Middle East ally, as it prioritized its own war against Ukraine. Iran has not received concrete support from any allies through 10 days of war with Israel and, now, an attack by the United States, leaving the country more isolated than it has been in decades.In announcing the trip to Moscow, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called Russia “a friend of Iran” and said that the two countries “enjoy a strategic partnership and we always consult with each other and coordinate our positions.”By Sunday evening, the Kremlin had not confirmed the meeting.Mr. Araghchi with his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, in Moscow in April. The Kremlin has not publicly commented on the U.S. attacks on Iran.Credit...Tatyana Makeyeva/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the American military intervention in Iran, saying it had undermined global efforts to contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons. But the Kremlin has not publicly commented on the attacks, and it has not announced any tangible steps to help Iran.The guarded reaction reflects Mr. Putin’s limited resources, with Russia in its fourth year of war in Ukraine, and his conflicting geopolitical priorities.Russia is trying to maintain warm relations with Iran’s Middle Eastern rivals, including Saudi Arabia. The Kremlin is also likely to tread carefully on issues that may alienate President Trump, whose support — or, at least, acquiescence — it needs to secure a peace deal in Ukraine on its own terms.In addition, Russia has benefited from a rise in oil prices caused by the growing unrest in the Middle East. Oil exports provide the main source of funding for Russia’s war machine.These factors have led Russia to stand on the sidelines while Israel has destroyed Iranian air defenses, struck nuclear facilities and killed members of Iran’s military leadership.The hands-off approach has contrasted with the military support that Russia received from Iran while it was struggling during the first year of the war in Ukraine. Drones and drone technology provided by Iran helped the Russian military regain its footing after the initial battlefield disasters.June 22, 2025, 1:42 p.m. ETAmerican bases in fossil-fuel-rich Gulf countries could be prime targets for Iranian retaliation against the United States.Credit...Eric Lee for The New York TimesGulf Arab countries that host U.S. military bases issued a series of statements on Sunday expressing dismay over the American attack on Iranian nuclear facilities — while pointedly stopping short of condemning the United States, their main ally.Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry called for de-escalation and restraint, saying that it was following the situation with “deep concern.”Qatar’s Foreign Ministry — in a grammatically acrobatic statement that did not name the United States at all — said that it regretted “the deterioration of the situation with the strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities,” expressing hope that all parties would “exercise wisdom” and restraint. That stood in contrast with the directness of Qatar’s statement the day before, in which the country’s prime minister had condemned Israel by name, saying the Israeli attacks against Iran constituted “a flagrant violation of Iran’s sovereignty and security.”Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates also avoided mentioning the United States, while expressing “deep concern” at the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities in Kuwait’s case and “profound concern” in the case of the Emirates.Fossil-fuel-rich Gulf countries host tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel. The American bases on their lands — along with oil and gas-producing infrastructure that is vital to the global economy — could be prime targets for Iranian retaliation against the United States.In a statement on Sunday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran appeared to threaten the American bases, saying that they were a vulnerability and “not points of strength.”Bahrain, an island nation in the Persian Gulf with a U.S. naval base, asked a majority of its civil servants to work from home and warned residents to use main roads “only when necessary.”Saudi Arabia and the Emirates have sought to chart more independent foreign-policy courses — and to diversify their sources of weaponry — over the past few years. But they remain highly dependent on the United States to defend them when their territories come under attack, as they have by Iran-backed militias in the past.In an attempt to ward off that danger, both countries have shifted toward a policy of cultivating ties with Iran, seeing diplomacy as a more pragmatic way to contain their neighbor. Those warmer relations mean that Iran may be less likely to target their countries than it was in the past. But fears remain.Behind the calls for de-escalation are worries of what wider violence could do to the national and regional projects of the Gulf’s authoritarian rulers, who have tried to diversify their economies away from fossil fuels by turning their countries into global hubs for finance, tourism and trade.“The longer a war takes, the more dangerous it becomes,” Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the Emirati president, told journalists in a briefing on Friday shortly before the American attack. “There are many issues in the region. If we choose to tackle everything with a hammer, nothing will be left unbroken.”The Foreign Ministry of Oman, which had been serving as a mediator in nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran before those talks collapsed in the wake of Israel’s surprise attack on Iran on June 13, issued the strongest-worded statement among the Gulf countries. The ministry expressed “deep concern and condemnation regarding the escalation resulting from the direct airstrikes conducted by the United States,” adding that the American attack was a “serious violation of international law.”But even Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia — whose slogan includes the phrase “death to America” — stopped short of threatening American bases in the region. Before the U.S. attack, the Houthis had warned that they would break the truce reached in May with the United States and target American ships in the Red Sea if President Trump decided his country should enter the conflict.After the U.S. attack, the Houthis said only that they were “prepared” to target American ships, without elaborating.Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a Houthi official, said on social media on Sunday that the Houthis would “stand by any Arab or Islamic state that faces Israeli or American aggression,” but then added that they would not be “more kingly than the king” — an Arabic expression akin to “holier than the pope.” He did not respond to a request for comment asking for clarification.Ismaeel Naar contributed reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Shuaib Almosawa contributed reporting from Sana, Yemen.A correction was made on June 22, 2025: An earlier version of this article misstated the day Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic adviser to president of the United Arab Emirates, spoke to journalists. It was on Friday, not Saturday.When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn moreJune 22, 2025, 1:31 p.m. ETIsrael’s airspace is expected to reopen on Monday for a limited number of incoming and outgoing flights, the airport authority said in a statement, after closing in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. strikes in Iran. About 24 flights a day will bring back Israelis who were stranded abroad by the war. For the first time since the fighting began on June 13, departing flights will be allowed to take passengers out of Israel. Outgoing passengers will be limited to 50 people per flight, the authority said, to avoid crowding at the airport and to shorten the time the planes are on the ground.June 22, 2025, 1:19 p.m. ETIran’s Red Crescent Society said 11 people had been injured during the U.S. attacks on three nuclear sites and four remained in the hospital. Hossein Kermanpour, the spokesman for the Ministry of Health, said the sites had emergency nuclear clinics near them and “fortunately none of the people admitted to the clinics had radioactive contamination.”June 22, 2025, 1:18 p.m. ETJohnatan ReissReporting from Nahariya, IsraelLt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the chief of staff of the Israeli military, said on Sunday that U.S. strikes in Iran overnight were a “turning point in the campaign.” He said he spoke on Sunday with his American counterpart, Gen. Dan Caine, adding that Israel will “continue accelerating the pace of strikes according to plan, and we are prepared to continue for as long as it takes,” he said, according to a statement by the Israeli military.June 22, 2025, 12:58 p.m. ETIn a joint statement, the leaders of France, Germany and Britain called on Iran to not “take any further action that could destabilize the region,” as the international community braces for retaliation for President Trump’s attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. The three nations notably did not criticize the U.S. decision to attack the sites, saying their aim “continues to be to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.”June 22, 2025, 12:42 p.m. ETDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth, left, accompanied by Gen. Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave his first news conference since being confirmed to his post after the U.S. strikes on Iran.Credit...Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesFrom his lectern in the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was speaking on Sunday to two very different audiences.His message to Iran’s leaders just hours after the U.S. strikes was clear: He wanted them to understand that the U.S. military’s power is vast and overwhelming. Mr. Hegseth described its capabilities as “nearly unlimited.”At the same time, he was trying to convey a somewhat contradictory message to the American people and President Trump’s base, who remain deeply skeptical of an open-ended war in the Middle East.“The scope of this was intentionally limited,” Mr. Hegseth insisted Sunday, in his first news conference in five months as defense secretary.The U.S. attack on Iran’s three main nuclear sites employed 125 aircraft and 75 precision-guided bombs. The main focus was seven B-2 stealth bombers that carried 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators designed to destroy Iran’s deeply buried nuclear site at Fordo.In his remarks, Mr. Hegseth drew special attention to the American military’s vast reach. The B-2 bombers had flown 18 hours from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.“I think Tehran is certainly calculating the reality that planes flew from the middle of America and Missouri overnight, completely undetected,” Mr. Hegseth said.He and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, emphasized the mission’s secrecy and stealth. Earlier this year, Mr. Hegseth was criticized for sharing detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen in two private Signal group chats.“This was a highly classified mission with very few people in Washington knowing the timing or nature of this plan,” General Caine said.They had gone “in and out and back without the world knowing at all,” Mr. Hegseth said of the Air Force’s pilots and planes.Mr. Hegseth also praised Mr. Trump’s boldness in authorizing the strike. “Many presidents have dreamed of delivering the final blow to Iran’s nuclear program, and none could, until President Trump,” Mr. Hegseth boasted.The challenge for Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Trump is that little about the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear sites seems final. Iran could respond by attacking U.S. troops and American allies in the region in an effort to draw Mr. Trump into an extended conflict.And Iran’s leaders seem likely to try to rebuild their nuclear program. General Caine said that the initial battle damage assessment indicated that all three sites had sustained “severe damage and destruction,” but that a final assessment would take time.Those facts put Mr. Hegseth in the awkward position of acknowledging the limits of American military power and the American people’s appetite for another conflict in the Middle East.Mr. Hegseth served in both Iraq and Afghanistan — two wars that dragged on for years longer than military planners had anticipated, costing more than $1 trillion and taking the lives of more than 6,200 service members.“Are you prepared for a protracted war?” one reporter asked him.“Well, anything can happen in conflict, we acknowledge that,” Mr. Hegseth said. “But the scope of this was intentionally limited. That’s the message that we’re sending. With the capabilities of the American military nearly unlimited.”June 22, 2025, 12:28 p.m. ETLives of people throughout Iran have been overturned since the start of the conflict.The Israel-Iran war that broke out over the past week has already upended life for Iran’s 90 million people, killing more than 400 and injuring more than 3,000, according to the country’s Health Ministry. Countless others have fled to safety in the countryside or neighboring states.Now, after a direct American attack on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities, many Iranians said in phone interviews that they faced an uncertain and frightening future.“We’re all in shock — none of us expected that, within six or seven days, we’d reach this point,” said Peyman, a 44-year-old business executive who asked that his last name not be used because of concern over reprisals from the authorities.After Israel launched its military assault last week, a missile hit nearby on his commute to work, and he decided to escape Tehran. Now his immediate family, parents, in-laws and brother’s family are all sheltering in one house in northern Iran. His primary concern is for his 9-year-old daughter.“I grew up in war, so the sound of bombardment doesn’t scare me, but I left because of my daughter,” he said. “I fear soon we’re going to have a shortage of water and food.”Iranians awoke to the news of the American attack on Sunday feeling a combination of sorrow and anger.“I really hope there’s a cease-fire, because this is not OK,” said Dr. Parsa Mehdipour, 29, a general practitioner in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, who flew home to Tehran for a visit in late May and has been trapped there since the war began and flights into and out of Iran were suspended.Dr. Mehdipour said he had no idea how he would get back to Dubai. His options include traveling by road and then taking a ship across the Persian Gulf or crossing into a neighboring country where he can catch a flight.Vehicles lined up for gas after Israeli airstrikes in Tehran last week.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times“These tensions will cause a lot of problems for civilians,” he said. “This is honestly a breach of international law,” he said, adding that attacking nuclear facilities “could have catastrophic consequences for the people.”One 44-year-old mother of two, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her family from reprisals, described how she and her children left everything behind after Israel began its military campaign and the Iranian authorities ordered her neighborhood in Tehran to evacuate. They packed a few small bags, locked the door and left, traveling on a pothole-filled road to the border and crossing into Armenia, where they have been staying in hotels.By day, her sons live a normal life. But as night falls their crying and nightmares begin, and they awake at the slightest sound, she said. When she mentioned that they were on a vacation, her 7-year-old son corrected her, saying he knew they had escaped from a war.The woman said that leaving Iran was the worst feeling, but that she had lived through the Iran-Iraq war and did not want her children to experience the same trauma. She does not care about the nuclear sites, she said, but feels sad for regular Iranians who are stuck between two fronts: their own government and the countries attacking them.Since the Israeli attacks, which appeared to have involved intelligence breaches deep inside Iran’s government, Iranian news media have reported that officials have cracked down on people they accuse of being “collaborators” of Israel.The Iranian authorities arrested 53 people who they said were linked to Israel and charged them with disturbing public opinion, possessing and operating drones, filming sensitive locations and sending that footage to “hostile media outlets,” Fars, an Iranian news agency affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, reported on Sunday.The U.S. involvement may kick off a more dangerous phase in the war.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesThe Iranian authorities also arrested a European citizen accused of espionage in the western province of Kermanshah, the Tasnim news agency, which is closely affiliated with the government, reported on Sunday. The report did not say what country the person was from.The New York Times was not able to verify the Iranian news media reports independently.Peyman, the executive, said that he was no fan of President Trump or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel — “not at all” — but that he nonetheless found himself blaming his own government for the war and its heavy toll.“The feeling I have is a feeling of 40 years of hatred toward this foolish government,” he said, lamenting the money that had been spent to develop Fordo, a uranium enrichment site that the United States targeted. “All these years of slogans and chest beating, saying we have a strong defense system and that no enemy could ever attack our soil.“That’s not even counting how much the value of our currency has dropped, how much of our human capital has fled the country, how much chaos has been created,” he added. “The psychological, financial and cultural toll on the country is immense.”June 22, 2025, 11:59 a.m. ETSanam MahooziIran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, attended an anti-U.S. gathering of students today in Tehran, according to the Mehr news agency, which is affiliated with the Iranian government.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesJune 22, 2025, 11:45 a.m. ETThe U.S. Embassy in Beirut has ordered the departure of non-emergency personnel and family members from Lebanon, citing the “volatile and unpredictable security situation in the region.” The embassy also urged American citizens in Lebanon to exercise caution and monitor the news for developments.June 22, 2025, 11:35 a.m. ETScenes from Israel on Sunday.Israelis awoke on Sunday to a new reality after the United States military joined Israel’s war against Iran with a huge pre-dawn attack on three of its key nuclear sites. They were just confused about what that reality might be.Some Israelis were elated, saying they believed their country was entering a new era of peace and prosperity, with the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran no longer hanging over it.Others worried that the American intervention was likely to lead to a stronger Iranian retaliation and a broader, prolonged war.The differences of opinion played out among supporters and detractors of President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, his close ally; among citizens sharing space in bomb shelters; within families; and among bewildered individuals who did not dare to presume the ultimate outcome.Around 7:30 a.m., a few hours after the American strikes, Iran launched two barrages of ballistic missiles, sending millions of Israelis into bomb shelters while the Israeli Air Force continued to strike targets across Iran.Residents flee a building after an Iranian strike in Tel Aviv.Credit...Daniel Berehulak/The New York TimesStill, many Israelis, including Yair Lapid, the leader of the political opposition, agreed that the events overnight were “historic,” regardless of the results, and thanked Mr. Trump. “Israel, the Middle East and the world are now safer,” he wrote on social media.“I’m happy to the high heavens,” said Eldad Ella, 48, a pest exterminator who was eating breakfast with a friend at a sidewalk cafe in Jerusalem’s nearly deserted city center during a break in the missile fire. “Bibi and Trump are our saviors,” he added, referring to Mr. Netanyahu by his nickname.His friend Tomer Shoshani, 49, a businessman, said, “On the way here, I said finally, the wars will end, we’ll be a normal country and tourists will come.”Israel’s air defenses intercepted most of the Iranian missiles fired at it on Sunday morning, but at least two direct hits caused widespread damage in a Tel Aviv neighborhood and in a city about 15 miles south. There was also damage in the port city of Haifa to the north.More than 20 people were wounded, mostly lightly. But the Israeli authorities had closed schools and all nonessential businesses and services, and much of the population had taken cover in shelters or fortified safe rooms in their homes.Shelly Lixenberg, 61, moved out of her apartment in north Tel Aviv a week ago because mobility problems had made it difficult for her to reach the bomb shelter in the basement of her building. She is staying with her daughter and son-in-law, who have a more accessible safe room in their apartment, in the south of the city.At least four direct hits have since wrought destruction within a mile or so of her old neighborhood, including one on Sunday morning, and several other strikes have fallen near where she is staying now.Ms. Lixenberg said she was glad that the United States attacked Iran. “We could see Israel wasn’t going to be able to complete this mission entirely on its own,” she said by phone. “And once it’s started, it needs to be completed.”Yet she was skeptical that Iran’s nuclear program had been wiped out and was concerned that the conflict would escalate. “I can’t believe that it’s done and dusted so quickly,” she added.Emergency personnel respond at the site of an Iranian missile strike in Ness Ziona, Israel, on the morning of Sunday, June 22.Credit...Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York TimesIn Jerusalem, some residents hung Israeli flags from their balconies and windows in a show of patriotism usually reserved for Independence Day each spring. But people’s lives were upended even though the city had been spared the worst of the missile threat.Daniel Karni, 21, a music student who rushed to a bomb shelter in Jerusalem early on Sunday, said he hoped U.S. intervention would bring an end to the war with Iran closer.“I think our government didn’t have clear goals about how and when the war would end,” he said. “But the United States is helping us.”Ghassan Bazazu, 24, a Palestinian resident of the Old City, in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, said his formerly full-time job in a luxury west Jerusalem hotel had just been reduced to 16 hours a week because of a dearth of visitors to the country. Tourism from abroad has been down since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which ignited the war in Gaza. Since Israel launched its assault on Iran on June 13, Israeli airspace has been largely closed.“Nothing will stop the war now,” Mr. Bazazu said on Sunday, glumly predicting that it could go on for three more years.Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.June 22, 2025, 11:27 a.m. ETThe United Nations Security Council will convene an emergency meeting on U.S. strikes on Iran at 3 p.m. Eastern time. Iran requested the meeting asking the Council to condemn the U.S. attack on its nuclear facilities and hold Washington accountable. The Council has already held two emergency meetings on the Israel conflict in the past week and members — with the exception of the United States — called for an immediate end to the fighting and for the resumption of diplomacy.June 22, 2025, 11:25 a.m. ETMegan MineiroRepublican lawmakers have largely lined up to support President Trump’s decision to strike Iran, but Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, was a notable exception on Sunday. Massie, who last week introduced a bipartisan resolution that would have required the Trump administration to seek congressional approval before attacking Iran, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “there were no imminent threat to the United States.” He added that Republicans who were “tired of endless wars in the Middle East” supported Trump’s bid for a second term because they were promised that his administration would “put our veterans, our immigration policies and our infrastructure first.”June 22, 2025, 11:06 a.m. ETThis satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows damage at the Fordo enrichment facility in Iran after U.S. strikes, on Sunday.Credit...Maxar TechnologiesAfter overnight strikes on Iran, President Trump on Sunday declared the operation a “success,” and said that Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities were “completely and totally obliterated.” But his early public pronouncements contrast with more cautious assessments by the U.S. and Israeli militaries.The Israeli military, in an initial analysis, believes the heavily fortified nuclear site at Fordo has sustained serious damage from the American strike on Sunday, but has not been completely destroyed, according to two Israeli officials with knowledge of the matter. The officials also said it appeared Iran had moved equipment, including uranium, from the site.A senior U.S. official similarly acknowledged that the American strike on the Fordo site did not destroy the heavily fortified facility but said the strike had severely damaged it, taking it “off the table.” The person noted that even 12 bunker-busting bombs could not destroy the site.The damage assessments by Israel and the United States are ongoing, and they have not made any final conclusions. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.In its overnight strikes, the United States took aim at three nuclear sites, including dropping 30,000 pound, bunker-busting bombs on Fordo, Iran’s most critical site.In a briefing Sunday morning, top Pentagon officials echoed President Trump’s claims of success, while also saying the final assessment would take time. Gen. Dan Caine, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the initial assessment indicated that all three sites sustained “severe damage and destruction,” but added that it was too soon to say whether Iran retained some nuclear capability.The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said at a news conference that the country was “calculating the damages” from the strike.The initial assessment by the Israelis was based on Israeli satellite imagery and additional aerial photography conducted over the site, as well as Israeli intelligence monitoring of Fordo, according to the Israeli officials.New satellite imagery taken shortly after the U.S. strikes on the Fordo nuclear site indicated damage and likely entry holes from the American bombs. The imagery, captured by Planet Labs, shows changes in the ground’s appearance and dust near the likely strike locations.The Israelis, in their assessment, are also looking at satellite imagery from a few days before the U.S. strikes. They believe the images show the Iranians moving uranium and equipment from the Fordo facility.Satellite images released by Maxar Technologies from around the time show 16 cargo trucks positioned near an entrance. An analysis by the Open Source Centre in London suggested that Iran may have been preparing the site for a strike. It is unclear exactly what, if anything, was removed from the facility.Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon official in the first Trump administration and a former C.I.A. officer, said of the strike: “With the type and amount of munitions used, it will likely set back the Iranian nuclear weapon program two to five years.”“A full battle damage assessment will be conducted in the coming days to determine that more accurately,” he added.Josh Holder and Julian Barnes contributed reporting.June 22, 2025, 10:51 a.m. ETAfter news of the U.S. strikes on Iran, the New York Police Department announced it would enhance security at religious, cultural and diplomatic sites across New York City. The agency began to increase security at Jewish cultural and religious sites last week following Israel’s attacks on Iran.June 22, 2025, 10:50 a.m. ETOn CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized the Trump administration’s message that the U.S. military’s strike on Iran was a surgical one, and that what comes next is up to Tehran. Rubio said “it doesn’t matter if the order was given” by Iran to develop a weapon, arguing that the enrichment levels that Iran had were far beyond anything for civilian use. Pressed on what the intelligence from the U.S. actually showed, Rubio called a description of the March intelligence assessment that Iran was not in process of building a bomb an “inaccurate” representation of the intelligence. While Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, believes that Iran can achieve a nuclear weapon in 15 days, some U.S. intelligence esitmates indicate that it could take several months, and up to a year, for Iran to make a weapon.June 22, 2025, 10:43 a.m. ETDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke to reporters at the Pentagon on Sunday.Credit...Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesSenior Pentagon officials on Sunday described an extraordinary coordinated military operation targeting Iran that took place under utmost secrecy and showcased what the American military was capable of when it put in place its doctrine of using air and naval forces to strike an adversary.But neither Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth nor Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could immediately say whether Iran still retained the ability to make a nuclear weapon. Mr. Hegseth repeated President Trump’s assertion from the previous night that the nuclear sites had been “obliterated.” General Caine did not.The final battle damage assessment for the military operation against Iran, General Caine said, was still to come. He said the initial assessment showed that all three of the Iranian nuclear sites that were struck “sustained severe damage and destruction.”Videotranscriptbars0:00/0:27-0:00transcriptI know that battle damage is of great interest. Final battle damage will take some time, but initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction.Mr. Hegseth and General Caine, appearing before reporters in the Pentagon’s briefing room for the first time since they took office, described an intricate operation that began at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, home to the B-2 stealth bombers used in the strikes, and hit three nuclear sites in a span of less than a half-hour — 6:40 p.m. to 7:05 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday.The bombers took off in secrecy on Friday night from Missouri for the more than 7,000-mile trip, which involved multiple refuelings. They crossed the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea to reach the skies above Iran, where they struck the heavily fortified nuclear site at Fordo, as well as facilities at Natanz.The operation used 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs — often referred to as “bunker busters” — with the first two dropping at 2 a.m. Sunday local time, General Caine said. A U.S. Navy submarine also launched more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles, he said. Those were directed at a third site, Isfahan.General Caine said that Iran had not deployed fighter jets or surface-to-air missiles to hit back at the American warplanes. “Throughout the mission, we maintained the element of surprise,” he said, adding that “we are currently unaware of any shots fired at the U.S. strike package on the way in.”The strikes were the first operational use of the GBU-57, Mr. Hegseth said. It is a 30,000-pound guided bomb that contains the explosive power of approximately 5,500 pounds of TNT and is designed to attack deeply buried targets. It can be carried only by B-2 stealth bombers.General Caine said the operation “was designed to severely degrade Iran’s nuclear weapons infrastructure.”The main portion of the attack was carried out by seven B-2 bombers that launched from the United States from midnight Friday into Saturday morning, the general said, while additional B-2s headed over the Pacific Ocean as “a decoy.”The flight to the target area over Iran took 18 hours, the chairman said, and required “multiple in-flight refuelings” from tanker aircraft before linking up with fighter escorts and entering Iranian airspace.At approximately 5 p.m. Eastern time, just before the American warplanes flew over Iran, a U.S. Navy submarine in the region launched the Tomahawk missiles, General Caine said.Fourth- and fifth-generation warplanes flew ahead of the B-2s, according to the general, indicating that either F-35 or F-22 fighters — or a combination of the two, along with older warplanes — attacked additional sites on the ground, including Iranian air defenses, in preparation for the stealth bombers’ approach.The lead B-2 dropped two of the bombs on “the first of several aim points at Fordo,” and a total of 14 Massive Ordnance Penetrators were used to attack “two nuclear target areas” in Iran, according to the Pentagon.In total, “approximately 75 precision-guided munitions” were used during the operation, inclusive of the penetrator bombs and cruise missiles, General Caine said.The operation’s name was “Midnight Hammer.” General Caine called it a “highly classified mission with very few people in Washington knowing the details of the plan.”June 22, 2025, 10:40 a.m. ETYemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia, who had threatened to attack American ships in the Red Sea if the U.S. attacked Iran, appeared to be avoiding fiery statements that could further escalate the conflict. On social media, Houthi political official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said that the group would “stand by any Arab or Islamic state that faces Israeli or American aggression,” but then added that they would not be “more kingly than the king,” — an Arabic expression akin to “holier than the pope.” He did not respond to a request for comment asking for clarification.June 22, 2025, 10:20 a.m. ETPresident Emmanuel Macron of France said in a post on social media that he spoke Sunday with Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, after the U.S. strikes. Macron said he urged Iran to “exercise the greatest restraint in this dangerous context,” to resume diplomatic discussions and renounce nuclear weapons. Macron said he also demanded the release of two French citizens being held by Iranian authorities on allegations of espionage, and will convene the Defense and Security Council Sunday evening to discuss the conflict.June 22, 2025, 9:56 a.m. ETJohnatan ReissReporting from Nahariya, IsraelAbout 30 Israeli Air Force jets struck dozens of targets across Iran on Sunday, including in the central Iranian regions of Isfahan and Yazd and the southern region of Bushehr, the Israeli military said in a statement. Among the targets were missile storage and launch sites, a drone storage site and a manufacturing site for air defense batteries, the statement said. The Mehr news agency, which is affiliated with the Iranian government, reported that Israeli aircraft targeted two scrap warehouses in a military zone in Yazd, causing no significant damage. According to the Fars news agency, an Iranian outlet affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, two locations near the city of Bushehr were targeted in the Israeli attacks.June 22, 2025, 9:55 a.m. ETIran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps threatened to retaliate in the wake of the U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear sites. In a statement carried by the Iranian state news agency IRNA, the military body said the vast number of U.S. bases in the region were not a point of strength, but rather a vulnerability. The Guards Corps added that Iran retained the right to respond in self-defense and said the U.S. would “await regrettable consequences.”June 22, 2025, 9:40 a.m. ETPope Leo XIV posted an anti-war message online following the U.S. strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear sites. “War does not solve problems; on the contrary, it amplifies them and inflicts deep wounds on the history of peoples, which take generations to heal,” he wrote. “No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, or stolen futures. May diplomacy silence the weapons! May nations chart their futures with works of peace, not with violence and bloodstained conflicts!”June 22, 2025, 9:34 a.m. ETVice President JD Vance earlier this month. “I think we set that program back substantially,” he said on Sunday, “and we did it without endangering the lives of the American pilots.”Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York TimesVice President JD Vance declined to say on Sunday whether Iran’s three nuclear enrichment sites bombed by U.S. forces overnight were destroyed, but he said its potential to build a weapon had been set back substantially.Mr. Vance, in an interview with Kristen Welker on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” said: “We’re not at war with Iran. We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”He was adamant that the United States was not seeking to topple the leadership in Iran, an important point as the Trump administration seeks to avoid joining a prolonged effort overseas.“What we did is, we destroyed the Iranian nuclear program,” Mr. Vance said, but then added: “I think we set that program back substantially, and we did it without endangering the lives of the American pilots.”Later, when Ms. Welker pressed again on Mr. Trump’s claim late on Saturday that the three bombed facilities were “totally obliterated,” Mr. Vance would not answer directly.“I’m not going to get into sensitive intelligence about what we’ve seen on the ground there in Iran, but we’ve seen a lot, and I feel very confident that we’ve substantially delayed their development of a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Vance said. “And that was the goal of this attack.”“What happens next,” Mr. Vance said, “is up to the Iranians.” He said there had been “indirect messages” from Iran to the United States after the attack, but did not elaborate.Mr. Vance, citing the opportunity that existed, said, “It would have been irresponsible, I think, for the president not to take the action that he did.”The vice president also would not specify when Mr. Trump had decided that he wanted to move ahead with an attack. But he said the president opted for a military strike — one that Mr. Vance stressed was intended to be precise — after coming to the conclusion that Iran was not operating in “good faith” in negotiations toward a deal to curtail its nuclear enrichment program. Administration officials had earlier publicly expressed hope for the negotiations.“March of this year, we had some optimism,” Mr. Vance said. “How do we get from there to now? And the answer is, we felt very strongly that the Iranians were stonewalling us. They weren’t taking this seriously. They were trying to draw this process out as long as possible so that they could rebuild their nuclear weapons program without the threat of American action. We had a limited window in which we could take out this Fordo nuclear facility in particular.”Mr. Vance said, “By mid-May, everybody in our intelligence community and the president’s senior team looked at ourselves and said, the Iranians are not being serious. They’re no longer making concessions. They’re no longer actually responding to some of the offers that we’re making.”Mr. Trump’s public comments toward the end of May were still optimistic that the United States could reach a deal with Iran, and he described the negotiations favorably. “We had some very good talks with Iran yesterday and today, and let’s see what happens,” Mr. Trump told reporters the final weekend of May. “But I think we could have some good news on the Iran front.”At the end of that month, the United States sent Iran a specific proposal, one that Iran rejected.Mr. Vance emphasized that the strikes were “surgical.”“I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East,” said Mr. Vance, who has been a vocal skeptic of those engagements. “I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then, we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objective.”June 22, 2025, 9:18 a.m. ETOfra Keidar, the woman whose face is on the large central poster at this demonstration in Tel Aviv, was among the hostages whose bodies were recovered.Credit...Daniel Berehulak/The New York TimesThe bodies of three Israelis taken hostage by Hamas have been recovered, the Israeli government said on Sunday. The announcement jolted Israelis’ focus back to the war in Gaza, which had been overshadowed by the escalating crisis with Iran.Israeli officials identified the three people as Yonatan Samerano; Ofra Keidar; and Shay Levinson, an Israeli soldier. All three were killed during the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, and their bodies were taken back to Gaza as bargaining chips.Approximately 50 out of the roughly 250 hostages captured during Hamas’s attack on southern Israel are believed to still be in Gaza. About 20 of those are believed to still be alive, while the rest are presumed dead, according to the Israeli authorities.Israel’s war in Gaza has continued apace over the past week, even as most Israelis — along with much of the rest of the international community — have turned their attention to the war with Iran. More than 500 people have been killed in Gaza since the war with Iran began over a week ago, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.Gazans are still living through a seemingly endless humanitarian crisis in which finding enough food and water has become a daily struggle. Desperate scenes of looting of aid trucks have become a near-daily occurrence amid widespread hunger and lawlessness.Israel and Hamas observed a two-month cease-fire earlier this year that saw 30 hostages freed and the bodies of eight more returned in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. A renewed Israeli assault ended the truce in March.The Trump administration spent weeks attempting to broker a new truce between Israel and Hamas to free more hostages. But although Hamas turned over Edan Alexander, the last living hostage with American citizenship, U.S. officials’ hopes for a broader deal failed to materialize.Mr. Samerano, 21, whose body was one of the three recovered by Israeli soldiers, had been attending the Tribe of Nova music festival near the border with Gaza when Hamas militants attacked. He fled with his friends to the nearby kibbutz of Be’eri seeking shelter.In video footage from the scene, Palestinian gunmen can be seen shooting into their car. Security cameras later captured more assailants dragging Mr. Samerano’s body and loading it into a van.Be’eri was devastated during the Hamas-led attack: Roughly 100 people were killed and about 30 taken hostage, according to the Israeli authorities. One of the victims was Ms. Keidar, 70. She had left her home for an early morning walk near her house when the attack began, the community said in a brief obituary. Her husband, Shmuel Keidar, was also killed in their home, the community added.Mr. Levinson, 19, was a tank commander and was killed during the Hamas-led attack, according to the Israeli military. He was a dual German-Israeli citizen, according to the German Foreign Ministry.“Our hearts are with his family and all others waiting for their loved one’s return. There must be a deal to get them out and end this war,” Steffen Seibert, the German ambassador to Israel, wrote on social media on Sunday.June 22, 2025, 8:57 a.m. ETDuring the briefing at the Pentagon, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iran did not fire a shot at the B-2 bombers or the fighter jet escorts, nor did its forces fire any surface-to-air missiles at the warplanes.June 22, 2025, 8:39 a.m. ETDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth dodged a question about what if any new U.S. intelligence indicated that Iran had decided to develop a nuclear weapon. Israel has justified its attack on Iran by saying Tehran was rushing to break out a weapon. U.S. intelligence had not reached such a conclusion.Credit...Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesJune 22, 2025, 8:38 a.m. ETIn the briefing, Hegseth referred to B-2 pilots as “our boys on those bombers,” yet both men and women have trained to fly them.June 22, 2025, 8:32 a.m. ETSeparately, a senior U.S. official who asked for anonymity acknowledged that the B-2 attack on the Fordo site did not destroy the heavily fortified facility but severely damaged it.