US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attends a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on US President Donald Trump’s budget request for the Department of Defense, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

The US military is ready to carry out any decision that President Donald Trump may make on Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday, suggesting that the US direction could become clearer in the coming days.

Testifying before a Senate committee, Hegseth was very cautious in his public testimony, declining to say whether the Pentagon had prepared strike options against Iran.

But when pressed by lawmakers, he acknowledged being ready to carry out any orders on Iran and cautioned that Tehran should have heeded Trump’s calls for it to make a deal on its nuclear program prior to the start of Israel‘s strikes on Friday.

“They should have made a deal, President Trump’s word means something. The world understands that. And at the Defense Department, our job is to stand ready and prepared with options and that’s precisely what we’re doing,” Hegseth told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Hegseth was then asked whether the Trump administration was moving to re-establish deterrence, a term used to describe actions meant to constrain an adversary from taking hostile action.

He responded: “I think we already have in many ways in this environment re-established deterrence. The question is, in the coming days, exactly what direction that goes.”

Trump on Wednesday declined to answer reporters’ questions on whether the US was planning to strike Iran or its nuclear facilities, and said the Iranians had reached out but he feels “it’s very late to be talking.”

“There’s a big difference between now and a week ago,” Trump told reporters outside the White House. “Nobody knows what I’m going to do.”

Trump said that Iran had proposed to come for talks at the White House. He did not provide details. He described Iran as totally defenseless, with no air defense whatsoever, as Israel‘s strikes entered a sixth day.

A source familiar with internal discussions said Trump and his team were considering options that included joining Israel in strikes against Iranian nuclear sites.

Still, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has rejected Trump’s demand for unconditional surrender.

Iranians jammed the highways out of the capital Tehran, fleeing from intensified Israeli airstrikes.

In the latest bombing, Israel said its air force destroyed the headquarters of Iran’s internal security service.

The post US Military Ready to Carry Out Any Trump Decisions on Iran, Hegseth Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Passengers, who had left Israel on June 17, 2025, aboard the Crown Iris cruise ship due to the closure of Israel’s airspace amid the Israel-Iran war, board a bus after their arrival at the port of Larnaca, Cyprus, June 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou

Israel on Wednesday launched a phased airlift operation to bring home its citizens, after the country’s military strike on Iran closed air space across the Middle East, leaving tens of thousands of Israelis stuck overseas.

The first rescue flight, operated by national carrier El Al, touched down at Tel Aviv Airport early Wednesday morning, returning passengers from Larnaca, Cyprus.

Worldwide, Israel‘s transport ministry estimates that more than 50,000 Israelis, stranded after airlines halted flights to the country, are trying to come home.

Foreign citizens have also been fleeing Iran overland. China started evacuating its citizens from Tehran to Turkmenistan by overland bus on Tuesday. Hundreds of other foreign nationals fled to neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan.

El Al has said repatriation flights are already scheduled from Athens, Rome, Milan, Paris, Budapest, and London. Smaller carriers Arkia and Israir are also taking part.

“We are very emotional about receiving the first rescue flight as part of ‘Safe Return,’” Transportation Minister Miri Regev told the captain of the arriving El Al flight.

While many Israelis want to come back, around 38,000 tourists are stranded in Israel, with much of the country in lockdown, and all the museums and holy sites closed.

The US embassy in Jerusalem said on Wednesday it was organizing evacuation flights and ship departures for US citizens who wanted to leave, while the Tourism Ministry said it would start coordinating flights out for foreigners.

Around 1,500 Americans on a Jewish heritage program were evacuated overnight to Cyprus via a cruise ship, which will now sail back with Israeli citizens aboard.

“We didn’t sleep for nights on end. We are all very exhausted and it’s a sigh of relief,” said Dorian, 20, from New York, after he had disembarked.

“In Israel, I was very afraid. I was never used to anything like that. Sirens, missiles, or anything like that. New York is pretty much very safe, and this was new to me.”

Iran has fired more than 400 ballistic missiles at Israel since Friday, triggering air raid sirens and a rush to bunkers. At least 24 people, all civilians, have died so far in the strikes, according to Israeli authorities.

Iranian officials have reported at least 224 deaths, mostly civilians, though that toll has not been updated for days.

CYPRUS HUB

Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport has been closed to passenger traffic since Israel launched its pre-dawn attack on Friday and commercial aircraft are sitting out the war in foreign airfields.

The Airports Authority reinforced staffing on Wednesday to ensure arriving passengers left the airport quickly. Relatives were advised to avoid travelling to pick up family members for security reasons.

The airlift is being carried out in stages, based on risk levels and security assessments, a spokesperson for the Airports Authority said.

Large numbers of Israelis seeking to get home have converged on Cyprus, the European Union member state closest to Israel. Flights from the coastal city of Larnaca to Tel Aviv take 50 minutes.

Nine flights were expected to depart Cyprus on Wednesday for Haifa, and four for Tel Aviv, carrying about 1,000 people, sources at Cypriot airport operator Hermes said.

The carrier Arkia asked customers abroad to remain patient. “Tens of thousands of Israelis are still waiting to return home, and we are doing everything we can to bring them back quickly and safely,” it said in a statement.

Cruise operator Mano Maritime, whose “Crown Iris” ship carries 2,000 passengers, has said it will make two crossings from Cyprus to Israel‘s Mediterranean port city of Haifa.

The post Israel Launches Airlift to Bring Home Stranded Citizens After Iran Strikes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov attends the BRICS Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 28, 2025. Photo: Mauro Pimentel/Pool via REUTERS

Russia is telling the United States not to strike Iran because it would radically destabilize the Middle East, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday, and Moscow said Israeli strikes risked triggering a nuclear catastrophe.

Russia signed a strategic partnership with Iran in January and also has a relationship with Israel, although it has been strained by Moscow’s war in Ukraine. A Russian offer to mediate in the Israel-Iran conflict has not been taken up.

Ryabkov, speaking on the sidelines of an economic forum in St Petersburg, told Interfax news agency Moscow was urging Washington to refrain from direct involvement.

“This would be a step that would radically destabilize the entire situation,” Interfax cited Ryabkov as saying, and criticizing such “speculative, conjectural options.”

The head of Russia‘s SVR foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, has said the situation between Iran and Israel is now critical and Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear infrastructure meant the world was “millimeters” from catastrophe.

“Nuclear facilities are being struck,” she told Reuters, adding that the UN nuclear safety watchdog had already noted specific damage.

“Where is the [concern from the] entire world community? Where are all the environmentalists? I don’t know if they think they are far away and that this [radiation] wave won’t reach them. Well, let them read what happened at Fukushima,” she said, referring to the 2011 accident at the Japanese nuclear plant.

Israel says it has struck Iranian nuclear facilities to prevent Tehran developing an atomic weapon. Iran denies seeking nuclear arms.

RUSSIAN OFFER TO MEDIATE

In a 20-year strategic partnership pact signed in January by President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Russia did not undertake to help Tehran militarily and is under no obligation to do so despite the countries’ close military ties.

Putin, who has already lost an important partner in the Middle East with the fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad last December, spoke to US President Donald Trump by phone on Saturday. He offered Moscow’s services as a mediator, which Trump said he was open to before demanding Iran‘s “unconditional surrender.”

A source familiar with US internal discussions said Trump and his team were considering options including joining Israel in strikes against Iranian nuclear sites.

Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, has said the conflict – though opposed by Russia – could yield some benefits to Moscow including higher oil prices, more appetite from China for Russian oil because of difficulties sourcing Iranian oil and a reallocation of US military resources away from Ukraine.

The post Russia Tells US Not to Strike Iran, Warns of Nuclear Catastrophe first appeared on Algemeiner.com.