Israel-Iran Tension: Trump Darts Back From G7 Meet

New Delhi: In an indication of escalation of hostilities and exchange of fire between Iran and Israel, US President Donald Trump will cut short his visit to Canada for the G7 summit on Tuesday, according to an announcement by White House.

"Because of what's going on in the Middle East, President Trump will be leaving tonight after dinner with Heads of State,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Canada for the summit where he is supposed to be part of discussions on energy security, among other issues.

Before leaving for the US, Trump posted on Truth Social urging all Iranians to “evacuate Tehran” after pointing out that Iran should have “signed the deal” to curb nuclear weapons.

Incidentally, Wikileaks recently posted a testimony by US National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, wherein she stated that Iran “was not building nuclear weapons.” This was just weeks before Israel launched air strikes on Iran, say media reports.

Ahead of Trump’s return back to the US and amid growing calls by pro-Israel groups and Benjamin Netanyahu asking US to join Israel’s war against Iran, a Democrat senator introduced a Bill to curtail his power to go to war with Iran.

According to Al Jazeera, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine’s Bill seeks to require Trump to seek Congressional authorisation before ordering military strikes on Iran.

“The American people have no interest in sending service-members to fight another forever war in the Middle East. This resolution will ensure that if we decide to place our nation’s men and women in uniform into harm’s way, we will have a debate and vote on it in Congress,” the Al Jazeera report said a quoting the Bill, which “invokes the War Powers Resolution of 1973, passed during the Vietnam War to constrain unilateral presidential powers to engage in military hostilities.”

Kaine’s Bill comes amid growing pressure on Trump from anti-war protesters across the world as well as from Republicans and Democrats in the US.

Even some Right-Wing supporters of Trump have been warning against the US getting dragged into a war by Israel.

“While Trump’s Republican Party controls both houses of the US Congress, the resolution may pass if conservative lawmakers who oppose foreign military interventions join the Democrats in backing it,” said the report.

Meanwhile, blasts continued to be reported from Tehran as well as air raid sirens blared in Tel Aviv, with Iran saying it was preparing for “the largest” missile attack on Israeli soil, and Netanyahu saying that the “killing’ of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, “would end conflict” and not escalate hostilities.

Iran’s official media, Press TV, claimed that Israel had attacked their media by bombing one of the buildings of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) in Tehran.

China’s embassy in Israel on Tuesday also advised its citizens to “leave the country” as soon as possible. In a statement on WeChat, the embassy advised Chinese  nationals to exit through land border crossings “in the direction of Jordan”, but keeping their personal safety in mind, as per media reports.