Israel warns ‘Tehran will burn' if Iran continues firing missiles
Israel's defence minister has warned that 'Tehran will burn' if Iran continues firing missiles at Israel after at least three people died and dozens were wounded following a series of Israeli attacks on Tehran's nuclear program and its armed forces.
Speaking after a meeting with the army's chief of staff, Israel Katz said Iran will pay a heavy price for harming Israeli citizens.
'If (Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front, Tehran will burn,' he said.
Iranian state television reported that air defence systems were firing in the cities of Khorramabad, Kermanshah and Tabriz, signalling the start of what could be a new Israeli attack.
Footage from Tabriz showed black smoke rising from the city, according to a video posted by an affiliate of Iranian state TV.
Israel's assault planes and drones smuggled into the country in advance, according to officials, to hit key facilities and kill senior generals and scientists.
Iran's UN ambassador said 78 people were killed and more than 320 wounded in the attacks.
Tehran retaliated by launching waves of drones and ballistic missiles at Israel, where explosions lit the night skies over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and shook the buildings below.
The Israeli military urged civilians, already rattled by 20 months of war in Gaza sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack, to head to shelter for hours.
Israel and Iran said their attacks would continue, raising the prospect of another protracted Middle East conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that his objective was to eliminate any Iranian threat to Israel, but he also urged Iranians to rise up against their leaders.
Israel's strikes put further talks between the US and Iran over a nuclear accord into doubt before they were set to meet on Sunday in Oman.
'The US did a job that made the talks become meaningless,' Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei was quoted as saying. He added that Israel had passed all Tehran's red lines by committing a 'criminal act'.
Rescuers work at the scene of an explosion in Tehran (Iranian Red Crescent Society/AP)
However, he stopped short of saying the talks were cancelled. The Mizan news agency, run by Iran's judiciary, quoted him as saying: 'It is still not clear what we decide about Sunday's talks.'
Mr Khamenei said in a recorded message on Friday: 'We will not allow them to escape safely from this great crime they committed.'
Iran launched waves of missiles at Israel from late on Friday. Iranians awoke on Saturday to state television airing repeated clips of strikes on Israel. Israel's military said more drones were intercepted near the Dead Sea early on Saturday.
A hospital in Tel Aviv treated seven people wounded in the second Iranian barrage, all but one for light injuries. Israel's Fire and Rescue Services said they were wounded when a projectile hit a building in the city. A spokesperson for Beilinson Hospital said one woman was killed.
Hours later, an Iranian missile struck near homes in the central Israeli city of Rishon Lezion, killing two more people and wounding 19, according to Israel's paramedic service Magen David Adom. Israel's Fire and Rescue service said four homes were severely damaged.
Meanwhile, the sound of explosions and Iranian air defence systems firing at targets echoed across central Tehran shortly after midnight on Saturday.
Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported a fire at Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport. A video posted on X showed a column of smoke and flames rising from what the outlet said was the airport.
The Israeli military said it carried out overnight strikes on dozens of targets including air defences 'in the area of Tehran'.
Israel's paramedic services said 34 people were wounded in the barrage on the Tel Aviv area, including a woman who was critically injured after being trapped under rubble.
The scene of an explosion in a residence compound in northern Tehran (Vahid Salemi/AP)
US ground-based air defence systems in the region were helping to shoot down Iranian missiles, said a US official.
The latest strikes raised concerns about all-out war between the countries and propelled the region into even greater upheaval.
Countries in the region condemned Israel's attack, while leaders around the globe called for immediate de-escalation from both sides.
Israel had long threatened such a strike, and successive American administrations sought to prevent it, fearing it would ignite a wider conflict across the Middle East and possibly be ineffective at destroying Iran's dispersed and hardened nuclear programme.
But developments triggered by Hamas's October 7 2023 attack — plus the re-election of US President Donald Trump — created conditions that allowed Israel to follow through on its threats. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the US was informed in advance of the attack.
On Thursday, Iran was censured by the UN's atomic watchdog for not complying with obligations meant to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
The crossfire between Israel and Iran disrupted East-West travel through the Middle East, a key global aviation route, but Jordan's state-run Petra news agent said the country was reopening its air space to civilian aircraft on Saturday morning, signalling it believes there is no immediate danger.
The Natanz nuclear facility was targeted (Maxar Technologies/AP)
Among the key sites Israel attacked was Iran's main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, where black smoke could be seen rising into the air. It also appeared to strike a second, smaller nuclear enrichment facility in Fordo, about 60 miles south east of Tehran, according to an Iranian news outlet close to the government that reported hearing explosions nearby.
Israel said it also struck a nuclear research facility in Isfahan and destroyed dozens of radar installations and surface-to-air missile launchers in western Iran. Iran confirmed the strike at Isfahan.
UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that the above-ground section of the Natanz facility had been destroyed. The main centrifuge facility underground did not appear to have been hit, but the loss of power could have damaged the infrastructure there, he said.
Mr Netanyahu said the attack was months in the making and had been planned for April before being postponed.
Israel's Mossad spy agency positioned explosive drones and precision weapons inside Iran ahead of time, and used them to target Iranian air defences and missile launchers near Tehran, according to two security officials.
Among those killed were five of Iran's military leaders: General Mohammad Bagheri, who oversaw the entire armed forces; General Hossein Salami, who led the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard; General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Guard's ballistic missile programme; General Gholamreza Mehrabi, deputy of intelligence for the armed forces' general staff; and General Mehdi Rabbani, the deputy of operations.
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The Journal
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'Hatred and fear and rage': A former Israeli officer on why some soldiers oppose the occupation
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That was until Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups launched their unprecedented attack against Israel from Gaza on 7 October 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people – mostly civilians – and the capture of 251 hostages. 'People really felt at that moment that there was a need to fight for our survival as a country,' Carmel said. For some, that impetus did not take long to fade. 'It became very clear, quite soon into the war, that this wasn't about the objectives that the government said it's about,' Carmel said. 'It wasn't about bringing home the hostages and it wasn't about eliminating Hamas either, because they have not done a good job on either front.' It's about controlling larger and larger parts of the territory. 'And from the point of view of some very influential people in our government, it's about paving the way for building new settlements.' More than 600 days into the retaliatory war on Gaza, Israel has killed more than 55,000 people and been accused of genocide in a case at the International Court of Justice. Carmel said those soldiers who answered the call in 2023 and have since come back from Gaza with new testimony for Breaking the Silence, returned with 'a deep disappointment in the mission and in the exploitation of people, of Israelis, in order to carry out this mission, which is so obviously a political war'. 'It's a war for the survival of this government.' The trauma inflicted on all Israelis by the 2023 attack, Carmel explained, was a gift to the extremist members of the current coalition government in Israel, exemplified by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. 'It's horrible to say, but for the more extreme right-wing elements of this government… they saw 7 October, probably with sadness and shock and so on, but they saw it as an opportunity.' 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The soldiers arrived at a house in the middle of the night and the unit commander banged on the door to wake up the family inside. 'I think the image that really caught me was just seeing the family. It was just a normal family,' he said. 'There were kids there, and I remember looking at them and thinking, no one's told them it's going to be okay. 'I wanted to somehow communicate to them that it was going to be okay,' he said. But he doesn't speak Arabic and wasn't a member of the unit. 'It was a bit difficult to know what to do and I just decided that I was going to smile, you know, that was the only thing I had. They looked at me with a stare of hatred and fear and rage. 'I think that was the moment that made me think, there's something very deeply wrong about what we're doing. 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'A lot of my cousins on my mother's side are settlers, or they come from settlements and they live in other places now, but they are settlers and yeah, it's very uncomfortable.' All the same, 'we found a way to live'. For Breaking the Silence, Israeli society is a hostile environment. 'I think, in terms of our organisation, it's very difficult for the government and for the State of Israel to have us, because we are speaking truth to power and we're doing the work of the opposition,' Carmel explained, 'because our opposition is very, very weak in Israel.' 'So we're kind of the extra-parliamentary opposition and so part of the attempts by the government are to make it harder for us to do our work. 'This has been going on for years, and there's been all sorts of rounds of different kinds of measures they've tried to take against us. 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RTÉ News
an hour ago
- RTÉ News
Iran launches more missiles as Israel targets Tehran
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The Israeli army said it had struck an underground military facility in western Iran's Khorramabad that contained surface-to-surface and cruise missiles. Iranian media also reported a "massive explosion" following an Israeli drone strike on an oil refinery in the southern city of Kangan. The attacks prompted several countries to temporarily ground air traffic, with Jordan again shutting its airspace last night after it had briefly reopened it.
The Journal
4 hours ago
- The Journal
United States-Iran nuclear talks in Oman cancelled as Iran and Israel trade strikes
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