Iran missile threat extends to Europe, Israel FM warns

An Iranian lawmaker said Tehran warned US President Donald Trump that any strike on Iran would trigger retaliation causing thousands of American casualties.

Mahmoud Nabavian, a member of parliament’s national security committee, said Trump sent a message via an unnamed country before negotiations asking to hit “two points” in Iran.

“We told them it was over. If you make the slightest mistake, we will take three to four thousand casualties from you,” Nabavian was quoted as saying.

He added that lawmakers had told Iran’s foreign minister to inform regional counterparts that any company or base “bearing the name of the United States” would be targeted.

Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said on Sunday that regime change in Iran would benefit all Muslim countries in the region and dismissed the value of any agreement reached with Iran’s current rulers.

"Regime change in Tehran is in the interest of all the Muslim countries surrounding Iran. Israel is a sovereign state and it must act according to its security interests. An agreement with the current regime has no value - only regime change in Iran," he said in an interview with Ynet Studio.

Cohen added that Israel would act militarily if it faces a concrete threat from Iran, even if an agreement was reached with Tehran.

An Iranian teachers’ union said it had documented the deaths of 200 school students during a crackdown on protesters in Iran and published a list of their names.

“The society must know that as long as the death of a child has no cost, no political order is legitimate,” said the Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations, a national umbrella union linking teachers’ trade associations across multiple provinces.

The council said the 200 names were meant as a constant reminder of “a simple and horrifying reality: a system that kills the future,” calling for accountability.

Iranian authorities have not released an official list of minors killed during protest crackdowns.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet US President Donald Trump on Wednesday in Washington to discuss negotiations with Iran, Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday.

“The Prime Minister believes any negotiations must include limitations on ballistic missiles and a halting of the support for the Iranian axis,” Netanyahu's office said.

The visit, which was previously supposed to be held on February 18 but was brought forward, would be Netanyahu’s seventh meeting with the US president since Trump returned to office in January last year.

Head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations said on Sunday that the United States had been hostile toward Iran from day one and that Tehran must respond in kind.

Senior diplomat Kamal Kharrazi said Iran should deal severely with adversaries he said seek to attack the country and undermine its independence.

“America has been hostile to us from the first day, and we must respond proportionately,” he said.

“With enemies who want to violate our country and disrupt our independence, one must deal severely, and this is not about extremism or non-extremism.”