live from london, this is bbc news. the israeli army says it's continuing attacks on iran targeting nuclear sites and military commanders as part iran says six scientists have been killed in the attacks, with state tv reporting that civilians, including children, are among the dead. on this programme, we'll be live in jerusalem, washington and westminster. we'll look at what was hit and who was targeted. we'll also analyse israel's strategy and tehran's response and their wider implications. our other headlines... investigators recover a flight recorder from the air india

plane which crashed with 242 people on board. the only survivor of the crash meets india's prime minister and says he can't believe he escaped with his life. how do you feel that you've survived this kind of...? i...i can't explain. it's a miracle, everything. hello, i'm matthew amroliwala. welcome to verified live on a day dominated by israel's strikes on iran. the magnitude of the attacks are on a completely different scale to what we saw last year. israel says they targeted iran's nuclear programme, claiming its very survival was at stake. tehran has described it as an act of war. explosions were heard in the capital tehran and at the natanz nuclear facility around 200 miles to the south. several iranian nuclear scientists and military commanders have been killed. iran's state tv is reporting that civilians, including children, are among the dead.

this has not been independently verified. the scale of the damage to nuclear facilities like this in natanz is not yet known. much of the iranian programme is carried out deep underground. israel says its military action is set to continue. its secret service, mossad, has taken the rare step of releasing this footage, which it claims was filmed inside iran, showing its operatives preparing to launch an attack. iran has retaliated, sending a wave of drones towards israel. israeli forces say all of them were intercepted. over the coming hour, we will bring you the latest reaction from various capitals, we'll look at what and who was hit, and we'll examine the strategies. joining me now is our correspondent in jerusalem ione wales, our north america correspondent nomia iqbal in washington, and our political correspondent helen catt in westminster.

i want to go straight to the white house because over the last couple of hours, a number of lines. the president has given several interviews. what is the general thrust of what donald trump is saying? to be quite straight with you, is incredibly confusing. initially we were told by the administration via secretary of state marco rubio that the us was not involved in this. mr rubio really distancing the us from israel's actions, calling them unilateral. donald trump then appears to have contradicted that, saying a few moments ago that we knew everything. exactly what they knew, we don't know. the white house is still saying they did not green light it. they may not have officially approved of the attack, but they certainly approve of it. because in his social media post, mr trump appears to basically be saying to iran start negotiating and if you don't, there'll be more

of this to come. i suspect the us is using this as some sort of leverage to push iran to the negotiating table. there is an emergency meeting being held right now by president trump here at the white house with this cabinet. we understand he will be talking to the prime minister of israel benjamin netanyahu later in the afternoon. there also reports that he and mr netanyahu were talking yesterday and in several phone calls. so there is some confusion as to basically what the us knew, how much is involved in all this but i do think looking at social media post by donald trump, he clearly approves of what israel is doing. i will return to un a moment but let's go to jerusalem. in the last few minutes, reports coming in that there are multiple blasts that have been heard in tehran and also blast to the west of tehran and that fits with what the israeli authorities and perhaps what donald trump was alluding to in his social media

posts, that this is ongoing and is simply the start of this. that's right. in the last couple of minutes as you say, iranian state to he had confirmed they are intercepting missiles over it tehran and it does not really come as a surprise. as you say, it was expected there would be further escalation in this conflict after israel launched severe strikes last night on iran. i think it's worth just recapping just how much of a devastating shock though strikes were to iran. they came in the middle of the night, attacking some of iran's most senior military commanders as well as nuclear scientists. more than 200 planes instructing more than 100 sites in iran as well as that, in masada, the israel intelligence agency, launch missiles from inside of iranian territory. it is clear this was a severe escalation and effects

are fitted to continue between the two sides in the coming hours but also in the coming days. one thing that both sides agree on is that this is just the beginning. the idf, the military of israel, said this is war. the iranian foreign ministry has described israel's action yesterday as a declaration of war and both sides are excited to continue these attacks in the coming days and coming hours. that was reiterated as you mentioned there by the us president donald trump, who said in a statement that if iran did not agree a deal, then more brutal attacks were coming. prime minister benjamin netanyahu is been speaking to foreign leaders, including an a for the conversation with president trump, so it may be that we get more indication wants those calls are complete about some next steps expected. i'll be back to un a moment or two but i want to bring in helena westminster because we were hearing about the upcoming phone call between benjamin netanyahu and donald trump.

also vladimir putin. but we know from the prime minister's office he is also spoken to the leaders of germany, india and france. the obvious omission is number ten. we know that relations have been strained over recent days but interesting, no apparent call to serve keir starmer. this was brought up and the prime ministers office would not say that there had been her not being any call with benjamin netanyahu. sir keir starmer address that in an interview with bloomberg saying that he planned to call benjamin at your letter today but we don't know if that call has been taking place. there's been a real effort from the government here to focus on the escalation in the promisee and to put pressure on to reach a diplomatic solution by putting pressure with allies. there was a call between keir starmer and the frederick -- french

president and german chancellor and in that call the leaders discuss what was described if their long-held grave concerns about the nuclear programme of iran and they called on all sides to refrain from further escalation which they say could destabilise the region so that certainly does intubate the focus from the government here. as i say, there is a slightly different term coming from the leader of the opposition kemi badenoch, who says that this should not be confirmed or condemned even though it is an escalation if it stops getting nuclear weapons and iran. the very fact that donald trump have to say a phrase like there would not be a regional war underlines what is it riskier. it does. bear in mind this is the president who has made a

big point in his campaigning that he does not believe in war. he is a note war president, he does not want any for an intervention. he want countries to get on with whatever they want to do and does not want the us intervening. so certainly those who support them, his coalition, his base will be split on this will. they will be thinking how much is the us involved in this? as we were talking earlier, even though the white house is saying that they did not officially green light this, it does appear that donald trump usually approves of this and it is going to be somewhat of a balancing act for him because of course israel is the us's greatest ally in the middle east and they want to protect israel. we know that donald trump is very adamant about that, but at the same time he has to deliver on that promise that he has constantly made to his supporters about note war. and i just want to also add, matthew, we understand that the pentagon is now moving us destroyers to the

eastern mediterranean as israel obviously braces for that potential retaliation. now the ships capable of defending against ballistic and cruise missile attacks. they were already in the region, but they are now re-routing because of israel's attack on iran provide the us with an extra layer of security. the us is obviously very concerned about any retaliation on us targets, us personnel and admit it quite clear to a iran that they will not except that if it happens. thanks very much. let's head back to jerusalem. we were listening to the representative they are at the eu initial while ago and we will play that clement -- clement again in a moment or two but he was repeating what the idf and said earlier in the day which was that israel perceived that there was a realistic threat imminent. that is their position as to why they lost as a tack. but the truth is that

over decades, benjamin netanyahu has wanted to do action like this. yeah, that's right was of this is something that benjamin netanyahu is been talking about since the 1990s, not just about the threat of a nuclear weapon from iran being imminent but a desire to neutralise them. it seems that now the prime minister felt emboldened to try to do so. if you say, netanyahu shortly after the strikes were made last night said that his justification for this was that iran had now kind of developed a nuclear material sufficient to make nuclear weapons, enough to make nine nuclear bombs. now iran is always continuously denied than its nuclear capabilities are for weaponry and said that they are for civilian use only, but one extra factor this week was that the international atomic energy

agency had said that iran for the first time in 20 years was breaching its anti-proliferation obligations, which is something that is also been cited by the israeli side today. thanks very much and let's go back to westminster for the because a development just as we were having the conversations with our correspondence. there is an update from downing street. there is, yes. you talked about whether or not there been a call between keir starmer and bridgeman at yahoo but we understand that has now happened but quite a long within the list of world leaders today. in that, we are told that keir starmer recognise that israel had a clear right to self-defense and was clear that israel had a right to self-defense and then again he expressed his grave concerns about iran's nuclear programme. thanks very much and thanks to our correspondence in jerusalem and washington.

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welcome back to verified life. let's return to our main story and let's look for the next minutes in more detail. let's look in more detail at the people who were targeted. we know a number of senior iranian military figures and nuclear scientists were killed in the israeli strikes. first, hossein salami - commander of the islamic revolutionary guards, iran's most elite military force. then, mohammad bagheri - chief of staff of iran's armed forces. he joined the revolutionary guards in 1980 before rising through the ranks to become one of the country's most important military leaders. at least six of its nuclear scientists were among those killed, including fereydoon abbasi, former

head of iran's atomic energy organization, and mohammad mehdi tehranchi, also involved in iran's nuclear weapons programme. he served as president of the islamic azad university in tehran. with me is our defence correspondent jonathan beale. we will come to some specifics in a moment but i just wanted to an overview first of all for viewers watching around the world, in terms of just the scale, the magnitude, the significance of what we seen. in terms of scale, you look at the initial attacks, and these attacks we should say are still ongoing. israel has not stopped, involving 200 aircraft, 330 munitions across 100 targets, not just fighter jets but we know that there were mossad agents on the ground carrying out operations against the launch of a rainy

and ballistic missiles using drones. so actually people inside the country and people remember what ukraine did in operation spider web and look at the similarities, but in other words penetrating inside the country's defences and able to mount an operation. and then you look at what they've done. first of all, taking out the top tier of military leadership and iran have in your place of people immediately. in other words, people who would've known the plans to retaliate were not there when they were needed most, as well as some of the infrastructure, military infrastructure they needed to retaliate. and i think the fact that iran attacked with drones tells you that they were disabled to some extent because they would have obviously used cruise missiles which had been effective in october 2024 when they did retaliate against that israeli struck earlier. so i think the skill is massive and i think as advocates of course is this is the time that israel

has clearly gone after iran's nuclear programme big time. there have been attacks on iran's nuclear programme. member in 2010, the cyber attack that you should try to slow it down. this is deliberately an attack to actually stop iran developing a nuclear bomb, something they did not but lots of countries think they were doing. i will come back to that final thought in a moment but as you were talking a national security adviser speaking to the afp says israel has no plans to kill iran's leaders. that is interesting is when it recalls what has happened with hezbollah. interesting the use of the mossad intelligence services they have released footage that along with everything else going on there is psychological warfare going on. the fact that they released footage tell you they are not there any more. this is an operation inside the country where israeli operatives were in potential harm and it's

unlikely that they are going to hang around to be found by the iranian elements. so i think that it tells you that, yes, it was a coordinated, very carefully planned... date have planned this for years because they always wanted to do this. and what has changed, essentially lots of things. you can look at the degradation of hezbollah, the iranian proxies and what is happened in gaza with hamas. but what is change mostly is donald trump. in previous years, presidents have said don't do this but clearly donald trump although he says america was not involved, america could not stop them. opening the gates of help was a phrase used earlier in terms of response and that his rhetoric but what is the assessment of iran positive ability, military capability after everything we saw at the end of last year?

iran still has a large number of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles in that region. some of the acting ability will have been destroyed, but it still has the potential to fire. and i think you've got to look at what's happened in gaza and look at what's happened in yemen with the houthis a look at what's happened with hezbollah. all these iranian proxies or groups of essentially funded and armed by iran and have been degraded. a lot of their equipment has been destroyed and a lot of the individuals have been destroyed, in gaza along with much of the civilian infrastructure. but they have not been defeated. and iran is a much harder nut to crack. a lot of their nuclear facilities are underground. we have not seen, for example, what the israeli side is been able to do and fordow, which is under a mountain essentially. a lot of experts saying if you wanted to

destroy that, you have to use massive ordnance penetrative bonds only used by the us and carried by bt bombers. israel does not have that, they have a lot of american women but not that. i think it's always taute take a cold shower. this is an extraordinary operation but that does not mean that iran is out of the game, that they will not retaliate. and it's not always the obvious ways in which iran retaliates, so to give you an example. if you look at the property -- proxies who have attachment to bases in the middle east, mainly in iraq and syria, they have been more than 100 attacks on those bases and it's easy to see how other countries could be drawn into this, too. a final thought because you meant to the nuclear programme in among some of them talking about that and the many interviews he is given and said to reuters that potentially iran placement nuclear programme may have been destroyed. that may will be which for the key because we have heard from a variety of experts of the course of even today but just the difficulty

of doing it, not just the fact that it is sometimes so deep underground, but in terms of where they are with their nuclear programme, in terms of scientific knowledge. it is very difficult to say suddenly a military action and we have destroyed it. i think it's impossible to say that and it's not just about where they are, some of them underground, but also the way they've been dispersed. and the number of people involved in the programme. yes, they may have got some of the top chiefs involved in the nuclear programme but there will be others who have the knowledge. not only that but there are countries out there who may be able to help them that have helped iran the past you look at russia. theirs was a ship there, china is relationship there. obviously one of the big worries. could this draw in those countries as well as the us for example? so i think saying it's destroyed is probably wishful thinking. it's probably been set back and may have been sent back a number of years possibly, but to say destroyed i think would be

going far too far. thank you for taking us through all of that and giving us that assessment. let's speak to a former iran diva who served as an adviser to previous prime minister is in israel. welcome here to the programme. your thoughts after what we have seen over the last few hours? i don't want to state the obvious and say that it's too early to assess, but it is too early to assess. in two aspect. it is too early to assess the extent of the damage that israel inflicted on iran's nuclear infrastructure. now all the personnel that have been targeted may have been justified morally but practically, no one is indispensable, no one is replaceable. so these people will have their successors and replacements and so in that respect, you know, the damage is not all done. the damage

that has been caused to apparently or reportedly to two uranium enrichment sites in fordow an another site not far from the capital city of tehran, that will take time to assess whether or not significant damage has been inflicted. the second aspect, and i think you have discussed this with the previous speaker, reporter, the second aspect is obviously the regional dimension. before we know what the scale and the scope of the iranian response is, we cannot seriously assess or estimate how this is going to play. and a lot of it depends now in terms of so-called escalation dominance, meaning he really dominates the escalatory process. iran now controls in the sense that their response will dictate how this plays on.

that's what i wanted to come to because eight you were speaking, donald trump is told xes that israel's attack could have a make a deal with iran. that is obviously the atomistic analysis of what is happened. what is the pessimistic analysis? one of the risks, the dangers here? there are many dangers for before that, if i may refer to donald trump, he changed his mind on his rhetoric or his tone three or four times in the last 24 hours. it began with him publicly saying that israel should not attack and that he urged israel not to attack as long as there are talks. then he went on today and sort of owned the initial successes or the reported successes by saying that was an excellent attack. then he went on and co-opted the entire thing is if this was some kind of sophisticated employee that he

arranged. israel would attack, i warned her iran and now that israel attacked, i can lure iran back. no, i think he is just taking advantage of opportunities here, and if things go sour in the next 48 or 72 hours or week, then he will not hesitate for a second to admonish israel for doing something that was hasty. only 40 seconds would just run through the risks really quickly than in terms of that second scenario? the risks basically revolve around one thing, if iran perceives this to be as a regime threatening initiative, meaning that israel and the us which is complicit in this, is out to initiate or generate a regime change, then all assessments, all our assessments of iran profit rational decision we can

process go down the drain, meaning they will go after american targets or oil terminals or anything