The Israel-Iran conflict is taking a bloody toll on both sides—and shows signs of expanding rather than calming down. The question now is how U.S. President Donald Trump might respond.
00:00Raja Khatib's wife and two of his daughters are dead.
00:07An Iranian missile hit their home in northern Israel.
00:14Part of an intense series of attacks, Israel and Iran have been trading all week now.
00:18In between the strikes, people like Khatib are left to bury those who didn't find shelter in time.
00:27The missiles don't discriminate.
00:32This is an Arab-Israeli town. Khatib is Muslim.
00:36He says he wishes the missile had taken him too.
00:39And he has a plea to those with the power to stop the fighting.
00:42Do it.
00:48I am paying a heavy price. I lost my dear family.
00:52But learn from me. No more victims. Stop the war.
00:56Let's end this horrible war. In any way we can.
00:59Sit at the negotiation table. Talk and end this war. Please. For the sake of future victims.
01:09But that doesn't look likely.
01:14As Iranian missiles rain down on Israel, Israel, which made the first strike, continues to hammer Iran too.
01:20The Iranian Red Crescent released this footage of what it says is the aftermath of an Israeli strike that left people buried under rubble.
01:29On both sides, the rhetoric is still sharp too.
01:32Israel has warned Iran's leader he faces a fate like that of Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq, toppled and executed.
01:39He should remember what happened to the dictator in the neighboring country to Iran, who took the same path against Israel.
01:48While Iran says it's just getting started.
01:50The operations carried out so far have merely been warnings for deterrence.
01:55And a punitive operation will be executed soon.
01:58On the ground on both sides, daily life has been turned upside down as the two fighting powers warn civilians on the other side to evacuate certain areas.
02:10In Israeli cities where wailing sirens warn of incoming missiles, some people have taken to underground shelters.
02:17Like these people in the parking garage of a Tel Aviv shopping mall.
02:21Israel may be at war in Gaza and in conflict with groups around the wider region,
02:28but some here say the Iranian missiles are bigger and louder than barrages they've seen from elsewhere.
02:33While long streams of jammed cars pour out from Iran's capital Tehran, a big target for Israeli strikes.
02:44Leaving places like the city's Grand Bazaar shuttered and deserted.
02:48The question now is what the United States is going to do, as neither side backs down.
02:54The US is a key Israeli ally with a kind of ground-busting bombs that could help Israel hit deeply buried targets.
03:02Some Iran watchers say U.S. President Donald Trump's recent rhetoric, including a call for Iran's total surrender,
03:09signal that this conflict could soon flare into something even bigger.
03:13Maybe even something the U.S. gets pulled into.
03:16Right now, we are most likely the hours before a major escalation, rather de-escalation.
03:23What Trump has been signaling, tweeting today, does not seem to suggest that he has any plans to actually give diplomacy a real chance.
03:32And so, a part of the world already beset with crises faces yet another one, with perhaps even more deadly results.
03:42Dolphine Chen and John Van Trieste for Taiwan Plus.
