1)Israel strikes Iran’s nuclear sites and kills its top generals. Iran retaliates with missile barrage

Courtesy Barrie360.com and The Associated Press

By Jon Gambrell, Josef Federman And Julia Frankel, June 13, 2025

Israel launched blistering attacks on the heart of Iran’s nuclear and military structure Friday, deploying warplanes and drones previously smuggled into the country to attack key facilities and kill top generals and scientists — a barrage it said was necessary before its adversary got any closer to building an atomic weapon.

Iran retaliated late Friday by unleashing scores of ballistic missiles on Israel, where explosions flared in the skies over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and shook the buildings below.

“We will not allow them to escape safely from this great crime they committed,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a recorded message in which he vowed revenge.

An Associated Press reporter saw smoke rising in Tel Aviv after an apparent missile strike. A Tel Aviv area hospital said it was treating 15 injured civilians. U.S. ground-based air defense systems in the region are helping to shoot down Iranian missiles, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the measures.

Israel’s ongoing airstrikes and intelligence operation and Iran’s retaliation raised concerns about all-out war between the countries and propelled the region, already on edge, into even greater upheaval.

Israel had long threatened such a strike, and successive American administrations had sought to prevent it, fearing it would ignite a wider conflict across the Middle East and possibly be ineffective at destroying Iran’s dispersed and hardened nuclear program.

But a confluence of developments triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack — plus the reelection of U.S. President Donald Trump — created the conditions that allowed Israel to finally follow through on its threats. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the U.S. was informed in advance of the attack.

On Thursday, Iran had been censured by the U.N.’s atomic watchdog for not complying with obligations meant to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.

Countries in the region condemned Israel’s attack, while leaders around the globe called for immediate deescalation from both sides.

Israel’s military said about 200 aircraft were involved in the initial attack on about 100 targets. Its Mossad spy agency positioned explosive drones and precision weapons inside Iran ahead of time, and used them to target Iranian air defenses and missile launchers near Tehran, according to two security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

It was not possible to independently confirm the officials’ claims.

Among the key sites Israel attacked was Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, where black smoke could be seen rising into the air. It also appeared to strike a second, smaller nuclear enrichment facility in Fordo, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southest of Tehran, according to an Iranian news outlet close to the government that reported hearing explosions nearby.

Israel said it struck a nuclear research facility in Isfahan, too, and said it destroyed dozens of radar installations and surface-to-air missile launchers in western Iran. Iran confirmed the strike at Isfahan.

Israel military spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said the Natanz facility was “significantly damaged” and that the operation was “still in the beginning.”

The first wave of strikes had given Israel “significant freedom of movement” in Iran’s skies, clearing the way for further attacks, according to an Israeli military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details of the attack with the media.

The official said Israel is prepared for an operation that could last up to two weeks, but that there was no firm timeline.

Among those killed were three of Iran’s top military leaders: one who oversaw the entire armed forces, Gen. Mohammad Bagheri; one who led the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Hossein Salami; and the head of the Guard’s ballistic missile program, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh.

Iran confirmed all three deaths, significant blows its governing theocracy that will complicate efforts to retaliate. Khamenei said other top military officials and scientists were also killed.

Netanyahu said the attack had been months in the making. In a video statement sent to journalists Friday, he said he ordered plans for the attack last November, soon after the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, one of Iran’s strongest proxies. Netanyahu said the attack was planned for April but was postponed.

In its first response Friday, Iran fired more than 100 drones at Israel. Israel said the drones were being intercepted outside its airspace, and it was not immediately clear whether any got through.

Israel’s military said it called up reservists and began stationing troops throughout the country as it braced for further retaliation from Iran or Iranian proxy groups.

Trump urged Iran on Friday to reach a deal with the U.S. on its nuclear program, warning on his Truth Social platform that Israel’s attacks “will only get worse.”

“Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire,” he wrote.

On Wednesday, the U.S. pulled some American diplomats from Iraq’s capital and offered voluntary evacuations for the families of U.S. troops in the wider Middle East. On Friday, the U.S. began shifting military resources in the region, including ships, as Israel prepared for more retaliation, two U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Officials in Washington had cautioned Israel against an attack earlier in the week, so as not to disrupt U.S. negotiations with Iran over its nuclear enrichment program. They stressed Friday that the U.S. had not been involved in the attack, and warned against any retaliation targeting U.S. interests or personnel.

Israel calls attacks preemptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear program

Israeli leaders cast the attack as necessary to head off an imminent threat that Iran would build nuclear bombs, though it remains unclear how close the country is to achieving that or whether Iran had actually been planning a strike. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only.

“This is a clear and present danger to Israel’s very survival,” Netanyahu claimed as he vowed to pursue the attack for as long as necessary to “remove this threat.”

Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East but has never acknowledged having such weapons.

Over the past year, Israel has been targeting Iran’s air defenses, hitting a radar system for a Russian-made air defense battery in April 2024 and surface-to-air missile sites and missile manufacturing facilities in October.

On Friday, Israelis rushed to supermarkets in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere to buy bottled water and other supplies. But, otherwise, streets and parks were mostly deserted.

Iran says Israel targeted residential areas

For Netanyahu, the operation distracts attention from Israel’s ongoing and increasingly devastating war in Gaza, which is now over 20 months old.

There is a broad consensus in the Israeli public that Iran is a major threat, and Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, a staunch critic of Netanyahu, offered his “full support” for the mission against Iran. But if Iranian reprisals cause heavy Israeli casualties or major disruptions to daily life, public opinion could shift quickly.

The Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah issued a statement that offered condolences and condemned the attack, but did not threaten to join Iran in its retaliation. Hezbollah’s latest war with Israel — which killed much of the group’s senior leadership — ended with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in November.

Khamenei, the Iranian Supreme Leader, said in a statement that Israel “opened its wicked and blood-stained hand to a crime in our beloved country, revealing its malicious nature more than ever by striking residential centers.”

Netanyahu expressed hope the attacks would trigger the downfall of Iran’s theocracy, saying his message to the Iranian people was that the fight was not with them, but with the “brutal dictatorship that has oppressed you for 46 years.”

Tension had been growing for weeks ahead of attacks

Israel has long been determined to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, a concern laid bare on Thursday when the International Atomic Energy Agency for the first time in 20 years censured Iran over its refusal to work with its inspectors. Iran immediately announced it would establish a third enrichment site and install more advanced centrifuges.

Even so, there are multiple assessments on how many nuclear weapons Iran could conceivably build, should it choose to do so. Iran would need months to assemble, test and field any weapon, which it so far has said it has no desire to do. U.S. intelligence agencies also assess Iran does not have a weapons program at this time.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Israel took “unilateral action against Iran” and that it believed the strikes were necessary for its self-defense.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said it was closely monitoring radiation levels.

___ Federman and Frankel reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi, Amir Vahdat and Mehdi Fattahi in Tehran, Iran; Melanie Lidman and Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel; Lolita C. Baldor, Tara Copp, Matthew Lee and Eric Tucker in Washington; Bassem Mroue and Abby Sewell in Beirut; Edith Lederer at the United Nations and David Rising in Bangkok contributed to this report.

2) Israeli forces halt Gaza-bound aid boat and detain Greta Thunberg and other activists

Courtesy Barrie360.com and The Associated Press

By Yesica Fisch, June 9, 2025

Israeli forces stopped a Gaza-bound aid boat and detained Greta Thunberg and other activists who were on board early Monday, enforcing a longstanding blockade of the Palestinian territory that has been tightened during the war with Hamas.

The activists had set out to protest Israel’s ongoing military campaign in the Gaza Strip, which is among the deadliest and most destructive since World War II, and its restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid, both of which have put the territory of some 2 million Palestinians at risk of famine.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which had organized the voyage, said the activists were “kidnapped by Israeli forces” while trying to deliver desperately needed aid to the territory.

“The ship was unlawfully boarded, its unarmed civilian crew abducted, and its life-saving cargo—including baby formula, food and medical supplies—confiscated,” it said in a statement.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry cast the voyage as a public relations stunt, saying in a post on X that “the ‘selfie yacht’ of the ‘celebrities’ is safely making its way to the shores of Israel.”

It said the passengers would return to their home countries and the aid would be delivered to Gaza through established channels. It later circulated footage of what appeared to be Israeli military personnel handing out sandwiches and water to the activists, who were wearing orange life vests.

A weeklong voyage

Thunberg, a climate campaigner, was among 12 activists aboard the Madleen, which set sail from Sicily a week ago. Along the way, it had stopped on Thursday to rescue four migrants who had jumped overboard to avoid being detained by the Libyan coast guard.

“I urge all my friends, family and comrades to put pressure on the Swedish government to release me and the others as soon as possible,” Thunberg said in a pre-recorded message released after the ship was halted.

Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament who is of Palestinian descent, was also among the volunteers on board. She has been barred from entering Israel because of her opposition to Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.

After a 2 1/2-month total blockade aimed at pressuring Hamas, Israel started allowing some basic aid into Gaza last month, but humanitarian workers and experts have warned of famine unless the blockade is lifted and Israel ends its military offensive.

An attempt last month by Freedom Flotilla to reach Gaza by sea failed after another of the group’s vessels was attacked by two drones while sailing in international waters off Malta. The group blamed Israel for the attack, which damaged the front section of the ship.

An 18-year blockade

Israel and Egypt have imposed varying degrees of blockade on Gaza since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent Hamas from importing arms, while critics say it amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s Palestinian population.

Israel sealed Gaza off from all aid in the early days of the war ignited by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, but later relented under U.S. pressure. In early March, shortly before Israel ended a ceasefire with Hamas, the country again blocked all imports, including food, fuel and medicine.

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted 251 hostages, more than half of whom have since been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Hamas is still holding 55 hostages, more than half of them believed to be dead.

Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which has said women and children make up most of the dead. It doesn’t say whether those killed are civilians or combatants.

The war has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced around 90% of the territory’s population, leaving people there almost completely dependent on international aid.

Efforts to broker another truce have been deadlocked for months. Hamas says it will only release the remaining hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal, while Israel has vowed to continue the war until all the captives are returned and Hamas is defeated or disarmed and exiled.

3) (Updated) National Holocaust Monument vandalized with ‘FEED ME’ written in red paint

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By David Baxter, June 9, 2025

Workers from a cleanup crew spread a tarp to cover the words ‘FEED ME’ on the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa on Monday, June 9, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

An act of vandalism at the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa is an antisemitic attack, the co-chair of the monument committee said Monday.

The words “FEED ME” were found scrawled in red paint across the face of the monument Monday morning. Red paint was splashed on other portions of the monument as well.

Crews covered parts of the monument in black plastic Monday as they worked to remove the paint.

“When the National Holocaust Monument is defaced, it is the ultimate act of hate and antisemitism,” Lawrence Greenspon, National Holocaust Monument Committee co-chair, said in an emailed statement.

Greenspon closed his statement with a call for “immediate action.”

“The time for verbal condemnation is past,” Greenspon said.

The Ottawa Police Service said it’s investigating and will provide further updates “if required.”

The Ottawa Police Service previously investigated a January 2020 vandalism incident at the monument as a hate crime.

Police released photos of a suspect in that incident who allegedly threw eggs at the monument, which is dedicated to the more than six million Jews killed in the Holocaust.

In a social media post Monday, Prime Minister Mark Carney talked about the rise in antisemitism in Canada following his visit to an exhibition on the Nova Music Festival, one of the sites of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.

“We can’t look away from this hate, or from the rise in antisemitism we’ve seen in Canada since. We will fight to protect Jewish communities at home, and advocate for long-term peace and security in the Middle East,” Carney said in the post.

Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman called the vandalism a “disgusting and cowardly act.”

“Parliament is just steps away — that’s where dissent belongs. Defacing sacred ground in honour of the millions of victims of the Holocaust in the middle of the night with spray paint isn’t protest, it’s vandalism,” she said on social media.