Trump says 'great progress' made on Gaza ceasefire talks

Iran's nuclear program has been severely damaged and set back by weekend US strikes on three of its nuclear sites, the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency said on Wednesday.

"This includes new intelligence from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years," CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement.

His assessment echoes earlier statements by US President Donald Trump and his administration, saying the Iranian nuclear program was completely destroyed.

However, a preliminary assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which was leaked to the media on Tuesday, suggested the strikes only set Iran's program back by a few months.

The White House sharply denied this, with Trump branding it "fake news."

Iran has partially reopened its airspace following a ceasefire agreement with Israel, which ended nearly two weeks of fighting, flight-tracking website Flightradar and Iranian media reported.

Flightradar said in a post on X that the western portion of Tehran's flight information region remained closed "except to international flights to/from Tehran and "special domestic flights." Both require prior permission.

"The eastern portion [of the Tehran flight information region] is now open to all flights," the monitor added.

The official IRNA news agency confirmed the news, quoting Transport Ministry spokesman Majid Akhavan.

Reopened airports include Chabahar, Zaheda, Jask and Mashhad. Israel had said it struck the latter during the war.

Domestic and international flights in other parts of Iran, including Tehran, "are not permitted until further notice," Akhavan added.

Iran had closed its airspace since Israel launched major strikes on June 13, prompting retaliation with waves of missile strikes.

Misinformation — much of it created using AI — has flooded the internet since the start of the war between Israel and Iran. DW's fact-checking team has prepared this report.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has praised its backer Iran for what it called a victory over the US and Israel.

The group expressed its "most sincere congratulations" to Iran for its "glorious divine victory."

Hezbollah, which suffered a major setback due to its own conflict with Israel last year, described the so-called victory as being "manifested in the precise and painful strikes it launched" against Israel, as well as "the lightning response to the American aggression against its nuclear facilities."

Iran and Israel entered into a fragile ceasefire after a week and a half of exchanging strikes, including a brief entry from the US.

"This is nothing but the beginning of a new historical phase in confronting American hegemony and Zionist arrogance in the region," Hezbollah said.

Hezbollah is labeled a terrorist group by Israel, the US, and Germany among others.

The head of Israel's spy agency Mossad, David Barnea, thanked the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for the "joint action" during the war with Iran.

"I also wish to express my gratitude and appreciation to our key partner, the CIA, for the joint action and the operations that were successfully carried out, as well as to its director, who supported the Mossad in making the right decisions,"  Barnea said in a rare video appearance.

He said Mossad would continue operating inside Iran.

"We will continue to keep our eyes wide open on all of Iran's undertakings, projects we know in-depth, and we will be there, as we always have been."

The agency deployed operatives embedded deep within Iranian territory to coordinate Israel Defense Forces' attacks on Iranian targets. 

Agents also reportedly used precision weapons and drones from inside the country, targeting air defense systems and missile silos.

US President Donald Trump said Washington would likely press Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambitions during talks with Iranian officials next week.

"I'll tell you, the last thing they want to do is enrich anything right now. They want to recover," he said at a press conference following a NATO summit in The Hague.

He floated the idea of an agreement being signed without giving further details. 

But he was adamant that Iran could not rebuild its nuclear program. "We won't let that happen. Number one, militarily we won't," he said, adding that he thought "we'll end up having something of a relationship with Iran" to resolve the issue."

The two countries were engaged in talks when Israel attacked Iran, and the US launched strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites.

France President Emmanuel Macron spoke about the ceasefire between Israel and Iran, saying he hopes it would hold.

"We can see how volatile and fragile it is," Macron said while attending the NATO summit in The Hague.

Macron added that diplomatic and technical work on the issue of Iran's nuclear program "must resume."

He said that France was carrying out its own assessment of the damage done to Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Earlier this week, Macron said the US' strikes in Iranlacked a "framework of legality."

Juliette Touma, communications director of The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), told DW that the humanitarian work currently done in the Gaza Strip by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) does not meet the needs of Palestinians on the ground.

"Why reinvent the wheel?" she asked. "We have 400 distribution centers across the Gaza Strip, we've been there for years... And we don't shoot at people while they're queuing to get food."

Her comments refer to the near-daily killing of Palestinians seeking aid at GHF distribution sites, which eyewitnesses and hospital officials say is being carried out by Israel.

"Not sure why anyone would want to support a foundation or an organization like this that's made of primarily mercenaries, that provides 'UN' aid after such a humiliation for starving population and that puts the lives of people at risk," she told DW.

Amid conflicting reports on the effect of the US airstrikes over the weekend, Iranian Foreign Ministery spokesman Esmail Baghaei claimed that Tehran's nuclear program had suffered serious setbacks.

"Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that's for sure," Baghaei told Al Jazeera, without going into details.

Ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas have "intensified in recent hours," senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP. 

According to al-Nunu, communications with Egypt and Qatar were ongoing but the Palestinian militant group had "not yet received any proposals" to end the war in Gaza.

The fighting started on October 7, 2023 with the group's terrorist attack that claimed the lives of some 1,200 Israelis.

US President Donald Trump has said Iran is "not going to be building bombs for a long time" following the recent strikes on its nuclear facilities.

He described the US attacks as causing "total obliteration" and setting back Iran's nuclear ambitions by "decades."

This comes despite a CNN report on an initial intelligence evaluation that suggested the strikes had failed to destroy Iran's underground nuclear facilities and did not fully eliminate Iran's centrifuges or the country's stockpile of enriched uranium.

Trump labeled the reports "fake news," while also saying there is "great progress" on the negotiations to end the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

According to Trump, the strikes on Iran would help with the release of the 50 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.

The Israeli military has said Iran was "far from reaching a nuclear weapon" following the clashes with Israel.

"There is Iran before our operation, Iran that had the ability to quickly reach a nuclear weapon, and Iran after the operation, a country that's far from reaching a nuclear weapon," said Effie Deffrin, the chief Israeli army spokesman.

Deffrin said the Israeli army is still ready for any development, despite the ceasefire with Iran.

"We are following everything that happens on all seven fronts, with emphasis on Iran, and we are prepared to respond if needed," he said.

Iran's nuclear program suffered "very significant" and "substantial" damage after the US strike on its three main nuclear sites over the weekend, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

"The bottom line is, they are much further away from a nuclear weapon today than they were before the president took this bold action," Rubio told US outlet Politico.

"We're just learning more about it," Rubio added.

Iran's parliament has voted in favor of suspending the country's cooperation with the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, state media said. 

According to Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf , the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "put its international credibility for auction" by not condemning the Israeli and US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Iran's atomic energy entity will therefore suspend its cooperation with IAEA "until the security of the nuclear facilities is guaranteed," Bagher Ghalibaf said.

Iran has executed three people after accusing them of spying for Israel, according to state-run IRNA news agency. 

One of the prisoners was reported to be an Iraqi national.

Since June 16, Iran has executed six people due to alleged espionage, with human rights activists fearing more executions to come.