Israel and Iran trade strikes for third day as nuclear talks are called off amid rising tensions

New Indian Express

9 hours ago

Death toll mounts in Israel
In Israel, at least six people, including a 10-year-old and a 9-year-old, were killed when a missile hit an apartment building in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv. Daniel Hadad, a local police commander, said 180 people were wounded and seven are still missing.
An Associated Press reporter saw streets lined with damaged and destroyed buildings, bombed out cars and shards of glass. Responders used a drone at points to look for survivors. Some people could be seen leaving the area with suitcases.
Another four people, including a 13-year-old, were killed and 24 wounded when a missile struck a building in the Arab town of Tamra in northern Israel. A strike on the central city of Rehovot wounded 42.
The Weizmann Institute of Science, an important center for research in Rehovot, said 'there were a number of hits to buildings on the campus.' It said no one was harmed.
Israel has sophisticated multi-tiered air defenses that are able to detect and intercept missiles fired at populated areas or key infrastructure, but officials acknowledge it is imperfect.
Urgent calls to deescalate
World leaders made urgent calls to deescalate. The attack on nuclear sites set a 'dangerous precedent,' China's foreign minister said. The region is already on edge as Israel seeks to annihilate Hamas, an Iranian ally, in the Gaza Strip, where the war is still raging after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed off such calls, saying Israel's strikes so far are 'nothing compared to what they will feel under the sway of our forces in the coming days.'
Israel, the sole though undeclared nuclear-armed state in the Middle East — said it launched the attack to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. The two countries have been regional adversaries for decades.
Iran has always said its nuclear program was peaceful, and the US and others have assessed it has not pursued a weapon since 2003. But it has enriched ever larger stockpiles of uranium to near weapons-grade levels in recent years and was believed to have been able to develop multiple weapons within months if it chose to do so. The UN's atomic watchdog censured Iran last week for not complying with its obligations.
Araghchi, Iran's top diplomat, said Israel had targeted an oil refinery near Tehran and another in the country's Bushehr province on the Persian Gulf. He said Iran had also targeted 'economic' sites in Israel, without elaborating.
Araghchi was speaking to diplomats in his first public appearance since the initial Israeli strikes.
Semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported that an Israeli drone strike had caused a 'strong explosion' at an Iranian natural-gas processing plant. Israel's military did not immediately comment.
The extent of damage at the South Pars natural gas field was not immediately clear. Such sites have air defense systems around them, which Israel has been targeting.
An oil refinery was also damaged in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, according to the firm operating it. Bazan Group said pipelines and transmission lines between facilities were damaged, forcing some downstream facilities to be shut down. It said no one was wounded.