Khamenei warns any US military intervention will be accompanied by irreparable damage

DUBAI/JERUSALEM - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected US President Donald Trump's demand for unconditional surrender on Wednesday, as Iranians jammed the highways out of Tehran fleeing from intensified Israeli airstrikes.

In a recorded speech played on television, his first appearance since Friday, Khamenei, 86, said the Americans "should know that any US military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage."

"Intelligent people who know Iran, the Iranian nation and its history will never speak to this nation in threatening language because the Iranian nation will not surrender," he said.

Trump has veered from proposing a swift diplomatic end to the war to suggesting the United States might join it. In social media posts on Tuesday he mused about killing Khamenei, then demanded Iran's "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!"

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

Israel's military said 50 Israeli jets had struck around 20 targets in Tehran overnight, including sites producing raw materials, components and manufacturing systems for missiles. The military told Iranians to leave parts of the capital for their safety while it struck targets.

Traffic was backed up on highways leading out of the city of 10 million people. Arezou, 31, told Reuters by phone that she had made it out to the nearby resort town of Lavasan.

"We will stay here as long as this war continues. My friend’s house in Tehran was attacked and her brother was injured. They are civilians," she said. "Why are we paying the price for the regime’s decision to pursue a nuclear programme?”

In Israel, sirens rang out warning people of Iranian retaliatory missile strikes. At Ramat Gan city train station east of Tel Aviv people were lying on city-supplied mattresses lined along the floor, the odd camping chair and plastic water bottles strewn about.

"I feel scared, overwhelmed. Especially because I live in a densely populated area that Iran seems to be targeting and our city has very old buildings, without shelters and safe spaces," said Tamar Weiss, clutching her four-month-old daughter.

Russia's foreign ministry said the world was "millimetres away from catastrophe" due to daily strikes on Iran's nuclear sites. Germany's foreign minister appealed to Iran's leaders to make credible assurances they were not seeking a nuclear weapon and show willingness to find a negotiated solution.

RAISING STAKES

The prospect that Trump could bring the United States into the war has raised the stakes since he abandoned a summit of the Group of Seven industrialised countries and met his security officials in Washington on Tuesday.

Iran had conveyed to Washington that it would retaliate strongly without restraint against the United States for any direct participation, its ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, said. He said he already saw the US as "complicit in what Israel is doing".

Iran has been exploring options for leverage, including veiled threats to hit the global oil market by restricting access to the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important shipping artery for oil. Tehran has in the past threatened to close the strait but has never followed through.

A former Iranian Economy Minister, Ehsan Khandouzi, said on X that Iran should start requiring permission for tankers transiting the strait, a move he said would be "decisive" but only if implemented quickly. Iran's Oil Ministry and Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

BAN ON FILMING

Inside Iran, the biggest attacks since war with Iraq in the 1980s have wiped out an echelon of senior leadership.

Authorities are intent on preventing panic and shortages, and fewer images of destruction have been allowed to circulate than in the early days of the bombing, when state media showed pictures of explosions, fires and flattened apartments. A ban on filming by the public has been imposed.

The state has placed limits on how much fuel can be purchased. Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad told state TV that restrictions were in place to prevent shortages, but there would be no problem supplying fuel to the public.

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

In Israel, Iran's retaliatory strikes are the first time in decades of shadow war and proxy conflict that a significant number of missiles fired from Iran have penetrated defences, killing Israelis in their homes.

Since Friday, Iran has fired around 400 missiles at Israel, some 40 of which have pierced through air defences, killing 24 people, all of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities.

Explosions were heard over Tel Aviv on Wednesday. The military said two barrages of Iranian missiles were launched toward Israel in the first two hours of Wednesday morning.

Iranian news websites said Israel was attacking a university linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards in the country's east, and the Khojir ballistic missile facility near Tehran, which was also targeted by Israeli airstrikes last October.

With Khamenei's main military and security advisers killed by Israeli strikes, the leader's inner circle has been narrowed, raising the risk that he could make strategic errors, according to five people familiar with his decision-making process.

During the Gaza war, Israel has dealt heavy blows to Iran's regional allies Hamas and Hezbollah, limiting Iran's ability to retaliate through strikes by its proxy fighters close to Israeli borders. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, propped up by Iran through 13 years of war, was toppled last year.

Trump's social media posts - which have ranged from diplomatic offers to end the war to threats to join it - have created uncertainty over his intentions.

The US has so far taken only indirect actions, including helping to shoot down missiles fired toward Israel. But Washington has important capabilities that Israel lacks, including massive bombs able to destroy Iran's nuclear enrichment plant, built deep under a mountain at Fordow.

On Tuesday Trump wrote on Truth Social of Khamenei: "We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding. We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now ... Our patience is wearing thin."

Three minutes later Trump posted, "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!"