##IsraelIranConflict
• Tehran warns Tel Aviv’s allies their bases will be a target if they help down its missiles
• Netanyahu says attacks so far are ‘nothing compared with what’s coming’
• 60 killed in attack on housing complex in Tehran
• UK moves warplanes to region; Trump says ‘war should end’ after phone conversation with Putin
JERUSALEM: Israel pounded Iran for a second day on Saturday and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said its campaign would intensify, while Tehran called off nuclear talks that Washington had held out as the only way to halt the bombing.
A day after Israel wiped out the top echelon of Iran’s military command with a surprise attack, it appeared to have hit Iran’s oil and gas industry for the first time, with Iranian state media reporting a blaze at a gas field in South Pars, the world’s biggest.
Netanyahu claimed Israel’s strikes had set back Iran’s nuclear programme “possibly by years” and rejected international calls for restraint.
“We will hit every site and every target of the Ayatollahs’ regime, and what they have felt so far is nothing compared with what they will be handed in the coming days,” he said in a video message.
On the diplomatic front, US President Donald Trump had a 50-minute telephonic conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, during which the two leaders agreed that resumption of negotiations was the only way to defuse tensions in Middle East.
The Kremlin said in a statement that Putin condemned Israel’s attacks on Iran and Trump described events in the Middle East as “very alarming”. But both leaders said they do not rule out a return to negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme.
“He feels, as do I, this war in Israel-Iran should end,” Trump wrote on social media.
The US president has lauded Israel’s strikes and warned Iran of “much worse to come”. He said it was not too late to halt the Israeli strikes, but only if Tehran accepted a sharp downgrading of its nuclear programme.
