Iran appeal for HUMAN CHAIN

^{As Trump threatened to bomb bridges in Iran, Iranian singer Benyamin Bahadori spent Monday night on the Tabiat (Nature) Bridge, vowing to remain there until morning. He also stated that he will do the same again tonight.}

Iran appeal for HUMAN CHAIN

Iran’s president said 14 million people, including himself, have volunteered to fight.

By Associated Press Reporters 07/04/2026

^{https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/trump-issues-stark-threat-ahead-of-deadline-but-says-iran-has-time-to-capitulate-1883516.html}

Iranian officials have urged young people to form human chains to protect power plants, as US President Donald Trump warned that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran does not meet his latest deadline for the Islamic Republic to agree to a deal.

Meanwhile, airstrikes hit two bridges and a train station in Iran, and the US struck military targets on the Iranian oil hub of Kharg Island. The attack marked the second time the island was hit by American forces.

Mr Trump has extended previous deadlines for Iran to agree to a deal that includes reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz, but suggested the one set for 8pm in Washington was final. The rhetoric on both sides has reached fever pitch, leaving Iranians on edge.

Mr Trump threatened to destroy all of Iran’s power plants and bridges if Tehran does not allow traffic to fully resume in the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil transits in peacetime. Iran’s president said 14 million people, including himself, have volunteered to fight.

It was not clear if the latest airstrikes were linked to Mr Trump’s threat to attack bridges. At least two of the targets were connected to Iran’s rail network, which Israel earlier signalled it might attack. Israel has increasingly carried out strikes that it says are aimed at delivering a blow to Iran’s economy.

Meanwhile, Iran fired on Israel and Saudi Arabia, prompting the temporary closure of a major bridge.

While Iran cannot match the sophistication of US and Israeli weaponry or their dominance in the air, its chokehold on the strait is causing major damage to the world economy and raising the pressure on Mr Trump both at home and abroad to find a way out of the standoff.

Officials involved in diplomatic efforts said talks were ongoing — but Iran has rejected the latest American proposal, and it was unclear if a deal would come in time to head off Mr Trump’s threatened attacks.

World leaders and experts warned that strikes as destructive as Mr Trump threatened could constitute a war crime.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if a deal is not reached, Mr Trump said in a post on Tuesday morning, while keeping open the possibility of an off-ramp, saying that “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen”.

Human Chain

Earlier, Iranian official Alireza Rahimi issued a video message calling on “all young people, athletes, artists, students and university students and their professors” to form human chains around power plants.Iranians have formed human chains in the past around nuclear sites at times of heightened tensions with the West.

Some images of people surrounding power plants were posted by local Iranian media on Tuesday, although it was unclear how widespread the practice was or if the photos were simply brief shows of government-encouraged defiance.

President Masoud Pezeshkian posted on X that 14 million Iranians had answered state media and text message campaigns urging people to volunteer to fight — and said he would join them — while a general from the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard urged parents to send their children to man checkpoints.

Meanwhile, the Guard warned that Iran would “deprive the US and its allies of the region’s oil and gas for years” and expand its attacks across the Gulf region if Mr Trump carried out his threat.

French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot joined a growing chorus of international voices calling for restraint, saying attacks targeting civilian and energy infrastructure “are barred by the rules of war, international law”.

“They would without doubt trigger a new phase of escalation, of reprisals, that would drag the region and the world economy into a vicious circle,” the minister said on France Info television.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres also warned the US that attacks on civilian infrastructure are banned under international law, according to his spokesperson.

Such cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute, and Mr Trump told reporters he was “not at all” concerned about committing war crimes.

A series of intense airstrikes pounded Tehran, including in residential neighbourhoods. Such strikes in the past have targeted Iranian government and security officials.

Israel’s military said it attacked an Iranian petrochemical site in Shiraz, the second day in a row it hit such a facility. Israel also issued a Farsi-language warning telling Iranians to avoid trains throughout the day, likely telegraphing intended strikes on the rail network.

Iranian officials later said that a railway bridge, a train station and a road bridge had been hit in airstrikes. Neither the United States not Israel immediately claimed the attacks.

Details of the US strikes on Kharg Island were not immediately available.

Earlier in the war, American forces struck air defences, a radar site, an airport and a hovercraft base there, according to satellite analysis.

Saudi Arabia said it intercepted seven ballistic missiles and four drones launched by Iran.

Saudi Arabia also temporarily closed the King Fahd Causeway, the only road connection between Bahrain, home to the US navy’s 5th Fleet, and the Arabian Peninsula. Iran also fired on Israel.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, but the government has not updated the toll for days.

In Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, more than 1,400 people have been killed. and more than one million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel, and 13 US service members have been killed.

Iran choked off shipping through the strait after Israel and the US attacked on February 28, starting the war.

That stranglehold and Iran’s attacks on the energy infrastructure of its Gulf Arab neighbours have sent oil prices skyrocketing, raising the price of fuel, food and other basics far beyond the Middle East.

In spot trading on Tuesday, Brent crude, the international standard, was above 108 US dollars per barrel, up around 50% since the start of the war.

On Monday, Tehran rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal and said it wants a permanent end to the war.

But as Mr Trump’s deadline neared on Tuesday, an official said indirect communications between the United States and Iran remained under way.

The official said mediators from Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey “are racing against time” to reach a compromise before the deadline.

He said Iran has linked the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to sanctions relief, and the US was open to easing some sanctions, especially on Iran’s oil sector, in part to stabilise the global oil market.

Breaking

Iran's Kharg Island targeted with several strikes,^{Mehr news reports}

Iran exports the vast majority of its oil through the island.

........Developing story..........

The aftermath of Monday's US-Israeli strike on Iranian university

Tehran's Sharif University of Technology, one of the country's top scientific institutions, was damaged in a U.S.-Israeli attack early on Monday.

These photographs taken on Tuesday show some of the damage.

Trump tells Iran to meet final deadline or be 'taken out'

During a press conference on Monday, Trump issued threats of bombing Iran's power plants and bridges if a deal is not reached by what he said was a final deadline of Tuesday night.

Iran said on Monday that it wanted a lasting end to the war with the U.S. and Israel, and it pushed back against pressure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.