Iran live updates: US, Iran continue technical talks after 2 days of strikes, US official says

The U.S. and Iran continue to engage in technical negotiations on nuclear issues, a U.S. official said Thursday, following two days of retaliatory strikes against Tehran this week.

"The United States is still committed to finding a resolution, and technical talks continue. Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon, the official said.

The 60-day ceasefire and memorandum of understanding, the official added, are "performance-based" and Iran’s actions "constitute failed performance at an unacceptable level."

"Iran’s attacks on these innocent vessels are acts of terrorism" the official added.

-ABC News' Mariam Khan

The head of Iran's railway company said Thursday that one of Mashhad railway lines that was damaged in the overnight U.S. strikes has already been reconstructed "in less than 15 hours" after it was hit, and train traffic has resumed on the line.

According to Iranian state TV, the head of the railway company added that the second damaged line will be reconstructed within the next few hours.

Israeli Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyhau said the country will remain in southern Lebanon for "as long as necessary to ensure the security of our communities in the north."

"If we had not acted at the time we did, and with the intensity with which we did – Iran would have armed itself with nuclear weapons to destroy Israel, that is their plan, and the citizens of Israel would have been in danger of mass death," Netanyahu said while speaking at a pilots' graduation ceremony on Thursday.

"That is why we embarked on these operations with our American friends – to ward off the threat of immediate annihilation, and also a great danger to the entire Western world," Netanyahu said.

Fourteen people were killed in attacks on Iran on Wednesday and Thursday, Hossein Kermanpour, head of public relations at Iran's Health Ministry, wrote in a post on X.

Another 78 people were injured in the attacks, of whom 47 remain hospitalized, Kermanpour said.