US President Threatens Civilisation

Tehran - US President Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that a "whole civilization will die tonight" if Iran does not meet his latest deadline for the Islamic Republic to agree to a deal.

The warning came as airstrikes hit two bridges and a train station in Iran amid reports that people were forming human chains to protect the nation's power plants.

Trump has extended previous deadlines but suggested the one set for 8 pm in Washington was final, and the rhetoric on both sides reached a fever pitch, leaving Iranians on edge. chaTrump threatened to destroy all of Iran's power plants and bridges if Tehran does not allow traffic to fully resume in the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, through which a fifth of the world's oil transits in peacetime.

It was not clear if the latest airstrikes were linked to Trump's threat to attack bridges. At least two of the targets were connected to Iran's rail network, which Israel earlier signalled it will attack.

Israel has increasingly carried out strikes that it says are aimed at delivering a blow to Iran's economy.

As the deadline approaches, rhetoric ramps up

World leaders and experts warned that strikes as destructive as Trump threatened could constitute a war crime.

"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again", if a deal isn't reached, Trump said in a post Tuesday morning, while keeping open the possibility of an off-ramp, saying that "maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen."

Iran's president, meanwhile, said 14 million people, including himself, have volunteered to fight should the US invade Iran.

President Masoud Pezeshkian posted on X that 14 million Iranians had answered state media and text message campaigns urging people to volunteer to fight - and said he would join them.

Trump's threat prompts warnings of war crimes

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot joined a growing chorus of international voices calling for restraint, saying attacks targeting civilian and energy infrastructure "are barred by the rules of war and international law."

"They would without doubt trigger a new phase of escalation, of reprisals, that would drag the region and the world economy into a vicious circle," the minister said on France Info television.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also warned the US that attacks on civilian infrastructure are banned under international law, according to his spokesperson.

Such cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute, and Trump told reporters he's "not at all" concerned about committing war crimes.

Iranian Diplomat Responds 

Responding to Trump saying "a civilization will die tonight," an Iranian diplomat described the country's civilization as a tree that nourished the West."Therefore, no fool would cut off the branch of a tree he is sitting on because he himself would fall first, and it is the sturdy tree that always stands, not the branches and appendages that have grown from it," said Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian mission in Cairo.

A wave of airstrikes hits Iran

A series of intense airstrikes pounded Tehran, including in residential neighbourhoods.

Israel's military said it attacked an Iranian petrochemical site in Shiraz, the second day in a row it has hit such a facility.

Israel also issued a Farsi-language warning telling Iranians to avoid trains throughout the day, likely telegraphing intended strikes on the rail network.

Iranian officials later said that a railway bridge, a train station and a highway bridge had been hit in airstrikes.

An Israeli-U.S. missile strike also targeted central Tehran, resulting in the destruction of a Jewish synagogue and a residential building near the capital's Taleghani Street.

Another strike hit the Khorramabad International Airport in western Iran, and an attack on an unidentified target in Alborz province, northwest of Tehran, killed 18 people, according to state media. A total of 15 people were killed in other strikes, Iranian media reported.

Early Tuesday, Iranian forces launched seven ballistic missiles at US bases in Saudi Arabia, which authorities said rained debris near energy facilities as they were intercepted.

The attacks prompted Saudi Arabia to temporarily close the King Fahd Causeway, the only road connection between Bahrain, home to the US Navy's 5th Fleet, and the Arabian Peninsula.

Iran also fired on Israel, with reports of incoming missiles in Tel Aviv and Eilat.

In Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Iran-allied Hezbollah, more than 1,400 people have been killed and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel, and 13 US service members have been killed. ~ AP