Iran says it's stopping strikes against Israel

**Celia Hatten** (0:00)
This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Celia Hatin, and at 16 Hours GMT on Monday, the 8th of June, these are our main stories. Iran and Israel engage in a series of aerial attacks. Tehran said it will stop for now, but it will resume if Israeli forces attack Lebanon. On a visit to Spain, the Pope has been speaking about child abuse carried out by members of the Catholic Church. And the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives tech companies a three-month deadline to stop children from seeing or sending explicit images.
Also in this podcast, a new online collection of the drawings and notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci has been launched.

**Roberto Ferrari** (0:42)
It's a remarkable opportunity to explore this artistic and scientific culture of the Renaissance through one of its most extraordinary figures.

**Celia Hatten** (0:59)
To our top story, things move fast in the Middle East. In our last podcast, we were reporting the first major breach of the ceasefire between Iran and Israel in two months. After Israel attacked Iranian-backed Hezbollah targets in Lebanon over the weekend, Iran responded by firing on Israel. Then Israel retaliated, and there was a back and forth of attacks, including an Israeli assault on a large petrochemical complex.
But now, Iran has announced an end of military operations against Israel, as long as they stop attacking Lebanon. That from Tehran, after a call from President Trump on social media for both sides to stop shooting.
Before Iran's brief announcement, it would stop. I spoke to Siavash Ardalan from BBC Persian about the latest attacks by Israel in the capital, Tehran, and beyond.

**Siavash Ardalan** (1:51)
What we've been hearing has been just limited to news that the air defenses have been activated. We don't know exactly which parts of Tehran have taken a hit after other strikes that Israel carried out hours before in Tehran and the areas surrounding it. Unlike the previous round, Iranians this time have been much more cautious in taking videos and publishing videos of points of impact where Israel, or in that case, the US, has struck very much similar to the discipline showed in Arab countries in the region. But from what we've been hearing, it's not just been Tehran, but other major cities as well as Sfahan, Tabriz.
These were not urban areas, but apparently military bases. The only place where it could be considered civilian is Israel's targeting of Iran's petrochemical industry in the city of Moshar in Khuzestan. Now that was an area where Iran responded in kind by saying that it targeted the petrochemical installations in the city of Haifa.

**Celia Hatten** (2:59)
Siavash Ardalan. I asked our correspondent in Jerusalem, Yolande Nel, whether there had been any response from Israel to Iran's announcement it was ending military operations.

**Yolande Nel** (3:10)
There's been no official response yet from the Israelis. The Israeli Security Cabinet is expected to meet later tonight. But before this announcement from Iran's armed forces, both Israel and Iran had said that they were preparing for fighting to go on at least for days. So clearly there was a lot of mediation in the region that was going on behind the scenes. President Trump also came out with that truth social post telling both sides to immediately stop shooting. He must have seen his efforts really to kind of get a full peace deal over the line, potentially lying in ruins.
There have been some reports I've seen in the Israeli media suggesting that there was a call between Mr. Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We know of course that these two leaders speak to each other regularly and were seeking confirmation about that. But when it comes to strikes on Lebanon and Iran saying there will be more devastating attacks if Israel resumes those strikes, well Israeli strikes have continued in southern Lebanon and apparently even since that announcement from Mundo Arms Armed Forces came out.

**Celia Hatten** (4:14)
Even telling us about the diplomacy that's been going back and forth, but you're on the ground. Can you tell us about the scale of the attacks we've seen in the last 24 hours?

**Yolande Nel** (4:24)
Well this was definitely the most serious escalation that there's been since the ceasefire came into effect two months ago and you know we had several rounds of rockets fired in this direction by the Iranians and the Houthis also fired one or two missiles at Israel according to Israeli defense officials. About 32 ballistic missiles came this way in total and you know that was extremely alarming for people although it was on the cards and you know it was the first time in two months that people here in Jerusalem heard the sirens going off and had to run to their air raid shelters. We don't know at the moment full details of any damage that might have been caused. We know there have been interceptions of these missiles but Israel operates rules of military censorship so we don't always have full details immediately. We're not hearing at the moment any Israeli reports of casualties as a result of all these attacks.