Israel Says Campaign on Iran to Intensify as Tehran Pledges 'Destructive' Attacks
Israel pounded Iran for a second day on Saturday and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said its campaign would intensify, while Tehran stated that "heavy and destructive" attacks by Iran against Israel were expected within the coming hours.
Netanyahu said Israel's strikes had set back Iran's nuclear program possibly by years and rejected international calls for restraint.
"We will hit every site and every target of the Ayatollahs' regime, and what they have felt so far is nothing compared with what they will be handed in the coming days," he said in a video message.
In Tehran, Iranian authorities said around 60 people, including 29 children, were killed in an attack on a housing complex, with more strikes reported across the country. Israel said it had attacked more than 150 targets.
Iran had launched its own retaliatory missile volley on Friday night, killing at least three people in Israel. Air raid sirens sent Israelis into shelters as waves of missiles streaked across the sky and interceptors rose to meet them.
In the first apparent attack to hit Iran's energy infrastructure, Iranian media reported a fire on Saturday after Israel bombed the South Pars gas field in southern Bushehr province. The semi-official Tasnim news agency said some gas production there was suspended following the attack.
"If (Supreme Leader Ali) Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front, Tehran will burn," Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said.
Iran said 78 people were killed on the first day and scores more on the second, including 60 when a missile brought down a 14-storey apartment block in Tehran, where 29 of the dead were children.
A military official on Saturday said Israel had caused significant damage to Iran's nuclear facilities at Natanz and Isfahan, but had not so far taken on another uranium enrichment site, Fordow, dug into a mountain.
The official said Israel had "eliminated the highest commanders of their military leadership" and had killed nine nuclear scientists who were "main sources of knowledge, main forces driving forward the (nuclear) program.'
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Asharq Al-Awsat
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Asharq Al-Awsat
29 minutes ago
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44 minutes ago
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