Zürcher Nachrichten - Israel welcomes 'all help' in striking Iran, Trump to decide 'within two weeks'

Israel, claiming Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon, launched air strikes against its arch-enemy last week, triggering deadly exchanges.

After an Iranian missile hit an Israeli hospital on Thursday, in an attack that Tehran said targeted a military and intelligence base, Defence Minister Israel Katz issued a threat against Iran's supreme leader, spiking tensions in the week-old war.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran would "pay a heavy price" for the strike on Soroka Hospital in the southern city of Beersheba that left 40 people injured and the facility in flames.

In an televised interview later on Thursday, Netanyahu said Israel is "capable of striking all of Iran's nuclear facilities" but "all help is welcome".

"Trump will do what is good for for the United States, and I will do what is good for the State of Israel," Netanyahu told public broadcaster Kan.

Citing "the fact that there's a substantial chance" to resume nuclear negotiations with Iran -- which had been derailed by the Israeli attacks -- Trump said in a statement he will decide "whether or not to go within the next two weeks".

Trump said on Wednesday that Iran had asked to send officials to the White House to negotiate a deal on its nuclear programme and end the conflict with Israel.

Iran denied it would do so, but its Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is due to attend nuclear talks in Geneva on Friday with top diplomats from France, Britain, Germany and the European Union, officials and diplomats said.

Meanwhile Russia, an Iranian ally, told the United States that joining the conflict would be an "extremely dangerous step".

Katz, in a stark warning for supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told reporters: "He considers the destruction of the State of Israel to be a goal. Such a man can no longer be allowed to exist."

Asked whether Israel plans to kill Khamenei, Netanyahu said: "No one is immune."

The latest escalation came on the seventh day of deadly exchanges between the two countries that have plunged the region into a new crisis, more than 20 months into the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

- Panic -

At Soroka, hospital director Shlomi Codish said 40 people were injured.

"Several wards were completely demolished and there is extensive damage across the entire hospital," he said.

"It's only medical professionals here, and patients... and look what happened to us," ophthalmologist Wasim Hin told AFP.

World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called attacks on health facilities "appalling", while UN rights chief Volker Turk said civilians were being treated as "collateral damage".

In Iran, people fleeing Israel's attacks described frightening scenes and difficult living conditions, including food shortages and limited internet access.

"Those days and nights were very horrifying... hearing sirens, the wailing, the danger of being hit by missiles," University of Tehran student Mohammad Hassan told AFP, after returning to his native Pakistan.

"People are really panicking," a 50-year-old Iranian pharmacist who did not want to be named told AFP at the Kapikoy crossing on the Turkish border.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump told aides he had approved attack plans but was holding off to see if Iran would give up its nuclear programme.

The US president had favoured a diplomatic route to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons -- an ambition Tehran has consistently denied -- seeking a deal to replace the 2015 agreement he tore up in his first term.

- Nuclear sites -

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed Iran was "a couple of weeks" away from producing an atomic bomb.

"All they need is a decision from the supreme leader to do that," she told reporters.

Iran had been enriching uranium to 60 percent -- far above the 3.67-percent limit set by the 2015 deal, but still short of the 90 percent needed for a nuclear warhead.

Israel has maintained ambiguity on its own arsenal, but the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute says it has 90 nuclear warheads.

A key Iranian government body, the Guardian Council, threatened a "harsh response" if "the criminal American government and its stupid president... take action against Islamic Iran".

On Thursday, Israel said it struck "dozens" of Iranian targets overnight, including the partially built Arak nuclear reactor and a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz.

Iranian atomic energy agency chief Mohammad Eslami confirmed in a letter to the UN nuclear watchdog that the Arak reactor was hit, demanding action to stop Israel's "violation of international regulations".

In the central Israeli city of Bat Yam, the body of a Ukrainian woman was found in a site hit on Sunday, taking the death toll in Israel from Iranian missiles since Friday to 25 people according to authorities.

Iran said Sunday that Israeli strikes had killed at least 224 people, including military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians.

burs-sah-adp/th/ami/ysm

A.Weber--NZN