Middle East attacks intensify as Trump says he has rejected Iran’s attempt to talk

Middle East attacks intensify as Trump says he has rejected Iran’s attempt to talk US president claims ‘they want to talk. I said: Too Late!’, while Rubio threatens the ‘hardest hits are yet to come’ US-Israel war on Iran – live updates Israel and the US intensified their attacks on Iran on Tuesday, launching waves of strikes targeting command and control facilities, strategic state offices and missile launch sites, as Donald Trump said he had rejected what he claimed was an attempt by Tehran to restart negotiations. Iran retaliated with hundreds of missile and drone attacks against Israel and across the Gulf region, targeting US military bases, embassies and civilian infrastructure. Despite acute international fears, there appeared little chance of any de-escalation of the conflict as violence and chaos continued across an fast-widening swathe of the Middle East for a fourth day. Hundreds of people have been killed, mainly in Iran where the Red Crescent said 787 were dead and thousands injured. Billions of dollars of damage has been inflicted on oil refineries, tankers, airports, luxury hotels and much else, with the world economy threatened with a severe crisis as energy prices soared. “Their air defense, Air Force, Navy and Leadership is gone. They want to talk. I said ‘Too Late!’,” the US president wrote on his Truth Social platform, saying the US was prepared “to go far longer” than a four- to five-week war against Iran . In later comments in the White House with the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, he said: “Just about everything’s been knocked out.” Trump denied Israel had forced his hand into launching the war, while conceding he feared a “worst-case scenario” in Iran where “somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person”. Also on Tuesday, Iran’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva denied his country had approached the US for negotiations. Among targets hit in new waves of US and Israeli airstrikes in Tehran and other main Iranian cities was a building...