JOHN YANG: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, the United States strikes three nuclear sites in Iran and anxiously waits to see how Iran will respond to.

Then, we discuss the scale and scope of the attacks and what's next with H.R.

McMaster, National Security Adviser in President Trump's first term and Karim Sadjadpour, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

And we get a firsthand account of the mounting desperation inside Gaza as Palestinians, including children, are killed while trying to get food aid.

MAN: The level of children I've seen with wounds of war over five visits is unparalleled to anything I've seen in my two decades of this work.

Every hospital is the sound of children screaming because of a severe lack of painkillers.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: Good evening, I'm John Yang.

Tonight the Middle East stands at a pivot point.

The administration says Operation Midnight Hammer severely damaged or destroyed the Iran's largest nuclear sites.

In response, Iran says the time for diplomacy is over and hits hints at military retaliation against the United States even as more missiles from Iran strike Tel Aviv.

Our coverage tonight begins with foreign affairs and defense correspondent Nick Shifrin.

NICK SCHIFRIN (voice-over): The U.S. S unprecedented direct attack on Iran began under the cover of darkness.

A dozen B2 bombers flew 30 hours with multiple midair refueling, all under strict operational security, including a decoy.

The bombers launched from Whiteman Air Force Base Friday night at midnight, flying east at the same time B2S also launched west tracked on social media.

But that was deliberate deception to allow the main bombers to fly to Iran undetected and alongside dozens of fighter jets target Iran's key nuclear enrichment sites at Natanz and Fordow where thousands of advanced centrifuges spin hundreds of feet underground.

For the first time in combat, the U.S. dropped 14 30,000 pound Massive Ordnance Penetrators designed to dig deep before exploding.

This satellite image shows at least half a dozen precise impact sites at Fordo where bombs landed before exploding deep underground.

A third target, Isfahan, believed to hold Iran's enriched uranium stockpile targeted by submarine launched Tomahawk missiles.

GEN. DAN CAINE, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: This operation was designed to severely degrade Iran's nuclear weapons infrastructure.

Initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction.

NICK SCHIFRIN (voice-over): At the Pentagon today, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Dan Caine and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called the mission limited and designed to convince Iran to negotiate.

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. Secretary of Defense: This mission was not and has not been about regime change as the President has directed and made clear.

This is most certainly not open ended.

There are both public and private messages being directly delivered to the Iranians in multiple channels, giving them every opportunity to come to the table.

NICK SCHIFRIN (voice-over): But Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi today said Iran had no intention to sit down.

ABBAS ARAGHCHI, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Iran of course the door for diplomacy should be always keep open.

But this is not the case right now.

My country has been under attack, under aggression and we have to respond.

NICK SCHIFRIN (voice-over): This morning, Tel Aviv absorbed the brunt of Iran's response.

Iranian ballistic missiles tore through these apartments.

Nobody died, but dozens were wounded.

Iran could escalate further against Israel or target U.S. bases across the region, where some 40,000 troops are on high alert.

In the past, Iran has tried to choke off global oil supplies, actions that would bring further U.S. Military strikes.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned today.

MARCO RUBIO, Secretary of State: There are no planned military operations right now against Iran unless they mess around and they attack American or American interests, then they're going to have a problem.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And Iran remains extremely vulnerable if the U.S. were to decide to launch more attacks.

The U.S. military today said that despite sending dozens of B2 bombers and fighter jets into Iran, there was no evidence Iran fired a single shot at any of those planes.

John?

JOHN YANG: Nick, is there any assessment yet about how far this has set the Iran nuclear program back?

NICK SCHIFRIN: Last night, we heard from President Trump that the sites were, quote, totally obliterated.

You heard a more calibrated description today in our piece from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Dan Caine, saying that there was, quote, severe damage.

Military officials tell me simply it's too early to have a proper battle damage assessment.

But we do know one thing.

Vice President Vance said today something interesting.

He acknowledged the U.S. did not target Iran's highly enriched uranium stockpile that is held at least partially, in Isfahan.

You see some file video from Isfahan right there.

That's essentially the fuel that Iran could use to build Iran if it decided to do so.

Experts told me the Tomahawks that struck that facility were not capable of actually getting underground enough to destroy that stockpile underneath.

So we know for sure at least part of the stockpile survives.

Some experts believe, John, that this will convince Iran that once and for all, it does need to go after weaponization of a nuclear bomb.

But today, Rubio said if Iran made that decision, regime change would be back on the table.

JOHN YANG: Nick Schifrin, thank you very much.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Thank you.

JOHN YANG: And now for analysis of all this, we turn to retired Lt. Gen. H.R.

McMaster.

He's a Hoover Institution Senior Fellow.

He served as National Security Adviser during the first Trump administration, and he's got a new book out "At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House."

General McMaster, what's your assessment, initial assessment of this operation?

LT. GEN. H.R.

MCMASTER (RET.)

Hoover Institution Senior Fellow: Well, John, it was extraordinarily successful, of course, put together for a limited purpose, which is kind of the definition of a raid, which is a military operation with limited purpose, short duration and planned withdrawal.

And those three sites were struck successfully without, as the Chairman said today, U.S. not even be able to identify one shot against us.

It indicates extremely high degree of training and professionalism across all of our services to be able to do something like this halfway around the world.

JOHN YANG: As you heard Secretary Rubio say, there's no plans for anything more.

But the Iranians get a vote in this, too.

What range of possible retaliation or response do you expect?

H.R.

MCMASTER: Well, John, Nick covers some of those, but we know, because they've done all of this to us in the past, right?

We know they have a worldwide terrorist network that they could activate.

Remember in '92 and '94 in the attacks in Argentina, for example, assassinations around the world, including in Europe, assassination attempts in the United States.

So it could activate that terrorist network.

They could try to strike U.S. bases, U.S. personnel.

I think they would really pay an extremely high price if they do that.

They may try to do it again, of course, through their proxies, the host Al Shaabi militias, for example, in Iraq, or maybe the Houthis could launch missiles maybe at U.S. locations or something like that.

They have a range of shorter range missiles available to them.

So they could strike U.S. bases using those missiles and maybe some drones.

Or as Nick mentioned, they could go after, as they did previously as well, Saudi Arabia and other energy and oil and gas infrastructure in the region.

They could try to conduct cyber attacks.

They did that against us, right, in 2007.

So I think that they will try to lash out in any of these ways -- in many of these ways because of the ideology of the regime and its permanent hostility, right to the Great Satan, you know, us and Israel, who they are determined to wipe off the map, which is why you couldn't allow that regime to have the most destructive weapons on Earth.

JOHN YANG: You mentioned short range missiles.

There are a number of bases that are nearby, close to Iran, closer than Israel.

Is there any security concerns about the U.S. facilities and the U.S. troops?

H.R.

MCMASTER: Yeah, there are.

And I'm sure that those defensive measures are being taken.

I think what we have to realize is that, you know, these are, you know, our servicemen and women are not waiting there to be victims.

And they are part of an integrated joint force like you saw on display with this raid.

You might recall when U.S.

Forces have been attacked in Syria, for example, when the Russian mercenaries attacked those forces in 2018.

And they got a heck of a lot more than they bargained for because you're not just attacking a little base, you're attacking all of those joint capabilities, aircraft, long range precision fires, capabilities that are land based, that can be brought to bear in defense of our troops in those situations.

JOHN YANG: General, you're familiar with the president's decision making process.

What do you make of the fact that he said he could take as much as two weeks to make a decision and then it became sort of two days?

H.R.

MCMASTER: Well, you know, President Trump is not capricious with the use of force.

Like he doesn't want to do it.

He always wants to get a deal, you know.

And so I think it was just an 11th hour attempt for him to try to convince the Iranians to take the deal, which is the no enrichment dismantlement of their program.

And then what he did, I'm sure what happened is he faced Iranian intransigence.

Remember as the Iranian foreign minister was meeting with counterparts, European counterparts, and the bellicose nature of the messaging associated with that.

And so I think this has again, a lot to do with the ideology of this regime, which has as one of its features, a permanent hostility to not only us and Israel, but also their Arab neighbors and really, you know, the rest of the world.

I mean, this is a regime that is full of hatred and vitriol.

And I think President Trump knew that the negotiations weren't going to get anywhere until he used force against this nuclear program.

JOHN YANG: You heard Nick say that some analysts are saying this is proof to the Iranians that they need a nuclear deterrence.

Is this something we might have to, the United States might have to do in several years in the future?

H.R.

MCMASTER: No.

Well, it's possible, but I think it is an enduring objective.

It has been an enduring objective of multiple administrations to block Iran's path to a nuclear weapon.

But previous administrations didn't do enough about it and many of them diluted themselves.

I mean, a lot of people were going back to the Iran nuclear deal, which was a fundamentally flawed agreement, John, because it just didn't have, you had all the sunset clauses.

It didn't have an adequate inspection and verification regime.

And of course, what it did is it gave Iran sanctions relief, they filled up their coffers.

They strengthened their ring of fire around Israel, which they activated on October 7, 2023.

And they could continue their nuclear program in a clandestine manner.

That Fordow site, you know, there's a reason why it's 300 feet underground and they try to keep it secret is because they were continuing the nuclear program.

And of course, you know, no country needs uranium enriched to 60 percent.

Right.

Anything over 20 percent is for other than civilian purposes.

And there are 23 countries around the world who have peaceful nuclear programs and who don't enrich uranium.

So it's clear what the Iranians were doing.

I don't think you need, you know, a sophisticated, you know, intelligence, analytical approach to realize what Iran was doing.

JOHN YANG: General H.R.

McMaster, thank you very much.

H.R.

MCMASTAER: Thanks, John.

JOHN YANG: And now, and now for more on how Iran could respond.

Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Karim, Iran's foreign minister, said a big red line has been crossed and they have to respond.

What do you think?

The range of responses they're considering is.

KARIM SADJADPOUR, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: As General McMaster said, they have numerous options.

They can go after U.S. embassies and military outposts in the Middle East.

They can try to go after oil installations throughout the Persian Gulf, block major trade routes like the trade of Hormuz.

They could try to rain down more missiles on top of Israel.

The problem they have is that many of these options are like the tactical equivalent of a suicide bombing.

They can do a lot of damage to their adversaries, but they may not survive that blowback.

JOHN YANG: Is returning to the negotiating table a possibility or is that just something they're not even considering?

KARIM SADJADPOUR: Well, eventually I think they will get back to the negotiating table.

The problem Iran has right now is they're in dire straits.

It's a regime fighting for its life.

It doesn't control its own airspace.

It's led by an 86-year-old supreme leader, limited cognitive and physical bandwidth.

He's in bunker.

All of his top military commanders have been assassinated over the last two weeks.

So the regime is in survival mode right now.

JOHN YANG: You mentioned the top military commanders assassinated in the Israeli attacks.

How is that affecting the decision making or planning about a response?

KARIM SADJADPOUR: Well, you can only imagine how the chain of command has been disrupted.

These men who were surrounding the leader for the last three decades, suddenly he woke up one day and most of them were eliminated.

And then he doesn't know that those around him, you know, who could potentially be compromised, be, you know, on the Israeli or the American payroll.

So he's one of the loneliest men in the world right now.

JOHN YANG: Do you think he's in survival mode or is he in defiance mode?

KARIM SADJADPOUR: Well, in some ways it's both because he is one of the longest serving dictators in the world.

He's been ruling since 1989, so he has pretty good survival instincts.

At the same time, his modus operandi has always been resistance, defiance.

When you're being pressured, never compromise because that will invite more pressure.

So his survival instincts and his defiant instincts are in tension right now.

JOHN YANG: Is there any sense of how the Iranian public is reacting to all of this?

KARIM SADJADPOUR: I think the Iranian public in many ways is torn because they're very patriotic population, they love their nation, but many Iranians also hate their regime and they blame the regime for consistently putting their ideological objectives ahead of the well being of people.

But what tends to happen is that people's existing views are accentuated.

So government supporters who are probably around 20 percent of society, have more fodder to dislike America and Israel.

And as I said, regime critics have even more reason to dislike the regime.

JOHN YANG: Over the past year or so, we've seen tremendous changes in the region with all the Iran's private proxies sort of being dismantled.

What's the current dynamic in the region now?

How does Iran stand?

Where does Israel stand?

Where does the U.S. stand?

KARIM SADJADPOUR: Well, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, up until October 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded Israel, in some ways we can look back and say that was the Iran era, Iran's axis of resistance era in the Middle East.

They were dominating five Arab lands, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Gaza through their proxy militias.

They overreached on October 7th after the Hamas attack against Israel.

Supreme Leader Khamenei was the only leader in the world to endorse that act, that attack.

And I think we're now entering a post-Islamic Republic era in the Middle East.

But who is going to fill that vacuum is still unclear.

JOHN YANG: Do you agree with the analyst that Nick quoted saying that this is probably ironically going to convince the Supreme Leader that he needs a nuclear deterrent?

KARIM SADJADPOUR: I don't think he's going to be the leader is going to be Iran that much longer to make that decision.

But I do think that whoever succeeds him as Iran's powerful leader will likely conclude that the country does need a nuclear weapon.

You look at governments that have given up their nuclear program, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi's Libya, Ukraine, they all made themselves vulnerable to external intervention.

Who has a cloak of immunity?

The North Koreans.

JOHN YANG: Karim Sadjadpour, thank you very much.

KARIM SADJADPOUR: Thank you, John.

JOHN YANG: In tonight's other news, there's been a shooting at a church in Michigan.

Details are still sketchy about the incident in Wayne, Michigan, which is about 30 miles outside of Detroit.

Police say a security guard at Cross Point Church shot and killed a gunman who wounded one person in the leg while firing into the church.

Dozens of people were injured after a yacht crash in New York City.

About 400 people were aboard the party yacht Saturday when it hit a Hudson River dock in upper Manhattan.

Witnesses said some passengers slammed onto the deck at the moment of impact.

35 people were injured, many of them taken to the hospital.

It's unclear what caused the crash.

All public schools in Texas will soon be required to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

That's under a law that Governor Greg Abbott signed Saturday after it easily passed both chambers of the Republican controlled Texas Legislature.

Supporters of the bill said it doesn't interfere with the separation of church and state because the Ten Commandments are part of the foundation of the United States.

Critics argue displaying the Ten Commandments infringes on the religious rights of -- religious freedoms of others.

On Friday, a federal appeals court struck down a similar law in Louisiana as unconstitutional.

Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, has died.

Smith started the company that helped revolutionize how mail is delivered in 1973.

Back then, it only handled small packages and documents.

But its popularity grew, especially in the business world.

Today, FedEx ships an average of 17 million items each business day.

Before launching FedEx, Smith served in the Marines.

And while he also went to Yale Business School, he said the military taught him all he needed to know to make the company successful.

Fred Smith was 80 years old.

And if you've been outside in the eastern half of the country, this won't be much news.

The National Weather Service says the United States is experiencing an extremely dangerous heat wave.

Sweltering temperatures will spread from the Midwest to the east coast with record highs predicted every day.

Meteorologists are particularly concerned about the feels like temperatures, which will hit triple digits beginning tomorrow.

Still to come on PBS News Weekend, a firsthand account of how the devastating food crisis in Gaza is affecting children.

(BREAK) JOHN YANG: While the world's attention is focused on Iran, Israel's war in Gaza continues.

Gaza health officials say Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours killed 51 Palestinians and wounded 104.

In addition, Israel says it recovered the bodies of three hostages Hamas captured in the October 7 attacks.

And as the fighting goes on, so does the humanitarian crisis.

James Elder is global spokesman for UNICEF.

James Elder, I know you're just back from having spent a little more than a week in Gaza.

I'm curious, how did conditions compare with previous visits?

JAMES ELDER, UNICEF Global Spokesman: John, somehow the situation for Palestinians in Gaza has never been worse, just this relentless bombardment.

So people have been pushed to the very brink.

On top of that, the only way that water can be produced, distributed, treated is through fuel.

There's been a hundred day blockade of any fuel whatsoever coming into Gaza.

Within two weeks, two weeks we're going to see a complete lack of any drinking water.

They cannot live without water.

So that struck me heavily.

Malnutrition rates 100 children a day over the course of 2025.

And I think, John, the level of children I've seen with wounds of war over five visits is unparalleled to anything I've seen in my two decades of this work.

I don't just see those injuries now, you hear them.

Every hospital is the sound of children screaming because of a severe lack of painkillers.

JOHN YANG: Any one of those children stand out in your memory?

JAMES ELDER: All of them, Maybe two.

Particularly one little boy who I met on the very first day.

He sticks out, John, because he'd been given money to go and get bred by his father.

He saw people moving to one of these new aid distribution points in the south, the limited ones, the militarized ones, and he thought this was his moment to bring back a box of food.

Chaos ensured, quadcopters shooting.

He was struck by tank shrapnel in his stomach.

This boy Connected with me because his family wanted a video because they were desperately trying to get him the health care he needed medical evacuation.

He sat up through the pain to speak.

On my final day there, he succumbed to those injuries and he died.

He died trying to get food for his family who are starving.

JOHN YANG: This is happening.

More and more people being shot, wounded, killed while trying to get aid, especially at sites being run by the Gaza Humanitarian foundation, which is backed by the Israelis in the US.

Why is this happening and what can be done to prevent it?

JAMES ELDER: The only thing that can be done to prevent it is to return to what the world has known in crisis zones and war zones since World War II.

It's humanitarian aid.

Humanitarian aid is based on some simple principles, but they are work out what the needs are and go to where people are.

These points are militarized.

There's a handful of them, three or four.

Only.

Only the strongest people get anything there.

So this setup, as it stands, is making things much more desperate for civilians.

Not only because we've seen so many mass casualty events, but because it's trying to replace a tried and tested humanitarian system that, as I say, has worked since World War II.

And most significantly, two months ago, during a ceasefire, hostages go home.

Aid goes across the Gaza Strip.

JOHN YANG: We've got a little bit of sound I want to play for you.

It's a Palestinian mother whose son was injured while trying to get aid.

UMM FIDA MASOUD (through translator): Do we send our children to death?

No, we don't send them to their death.

We send them to bring us food so that we do not die.

No one is seeing us.

The whole world is focused on Iran and left us.

We have been suffering since October 7th.

JOHN YANG: Is that a concern for you that all this attention, a lot of attention, is shifting to the fighting between Israel and Iran?

JAMES ELDER: Yeah.

Hearing her words, John, it reminds me of a fourth year English literature student I sat with in Gaza a week ago who said, James, starvation is just so humiliating to have to go to a hospice every night with a bowl and crowds of people and hope you get some sort of food.

Let's be very clear on that.

That is what's happening here.

Parents losing their children while they simply go to get food for their family.

Yes, to your larger question, without a doubt it's a concern.

Gaza has never been in a more perilous moment.

There's a very real fear that it's being overshadowed.

And Gazans, as they've said to me, international humanitarian law doesn't apply to us.

That's a terrifying, terrifying realization for a population that rightly, very rightly feels absolutely abandoned.

JOHN YANG: James Elder of UNICEF on the very grim situation in Gaza.

Thank you very much.

JAMES ELDER: Thank you, John.

JOHN YANG: Now online, experts tell PBS News 4 Steps New graduates can take to make their job searches less painful and more rewarding.

All that and more is on our website, PBS.org/NewsHour.

And that is PBS News Weekend for this very busy Sunday.

Monday on the NewsHour, the latest on the rapidly unfolding war in the Middle East.

I'm John Yang.

For all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us.

Have a good week.