Live updates: Israel claims aerial superiority over Iran's capital, Tehran

NBC News

6 hours ago

What we know
CONFLICT ENTERS FOURTH DAY: Israel and Iran have begun a new round of attacks, as the conflict between the two heavily armed rivals enters its fourth day.
MOUNTING DEATH TOLL: At least 224 people have been killed since Israel began bombing Iran on Friday, Iranian state media reported, while Iranian retaliatory strikes have killed at least 24 people in Israel.
SENIOR IRANIANS KILLED: Israeli airstrikes have wiped out much of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's inner circle.
ISRAELI WARNING: Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz accused Tehran of targeting Israeli civilians and said 'residents of Iran will pay the price.'
IRANIAN EXECUTION: Iran has executed a man convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency reported.
Israeli strikes devastate Iran's military and scientific leadership
While President Donald Trump may have vetoed a proposal from Israel to assassinate Iran's supreme leader, according to a U.S. official, Israeli strikes over the past four days have effectively decapitated Tehran's military leadership and devastated its community of nuclear scientists.
Iran's top military official, Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, was among the first to be killed in Israeli strikes, with both Iranian state media and the Israeli military reporting his death last week.
Gen. Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, and Maj. Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, a top official in the Guard, were also among those killed, along with with a string of other military and intelligence leaders, according to state media, including Gen. Mohammad Kazemi, the force's head of intelligence.
Iran's scientific community has also been hit by Israel's strikes. The Israeli military said it has killed at least nine scientists in Iran, including top nuclear scientist Mohammad-Mehdi Tehranchi, whose death was separately confirmed by the Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran.
IDF says it has aerial superiority over Tehran
The Israeli military says it has achieved "full aerial superiority" over Tehran, with a spokesperson comparing its capabilities to those seen in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and the occupied West Bank.
Israeli forces yesterday completed a fresh wave of strikes in Tehran, targeting more than 20 military "command centers" and the Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, IDF spokesman Effie Defrin said in a briefing today.
Israel also says it has destroyed a third of Israel's missile launchers, about 50 military aircraft and more than 20 surface-to-surface missiles.
Senator introduces bill to prevent Trump from attacking Iran without congressional approval
Mithil Aggarwal
Sen. Tim Kaine has introduced legislation to stop Trump from using military force against Iran without congressional approval.
'It is not in our national security interest to get into a war with Iran unless that war is absolutely necessary to defend the United States," the senior Democrat from Virginia said in a statement today.
The resolution will ensure that "if we decide to place our nation's men and women in uniform into harm's way, we will have a debate and vote on it in Congress,' said Kaine, a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees.
Kaine has previously tried to claw back from the White House Congress' authority to declare war. He introduced a similar legislation in 2020 during Trump's first term, also seeking to prevent U.S. from attacking Iran.
Israel does not want to harm civilians, defense minister says
Matt Bradley
Israel's defense minister is now walking back his previous comment, saying it was 'obvious' when he wrote that 'the residents of Tehran would pay the price and soon ' he didn't mean Israel would 'physically harm' them.
He meant they would be 'forced to pay the price of the dictatorship.'
Katz earlier accused Iran of targeting Israeli civilians in its overnight attacks, and then appeared to threaten civilians, saying 'residents of Iran will pay the price.'
Death toll in Israel rises to 24
Reporting from Tel Aviv
At least 24 people have been killed in Israel since Iran launched its retaliatory strikes, Netanyahu's office said today in a statement. Almost 600 people have been injured in the attacks, including 10 who were seriously wounded, it said.
Iran's strikes kill three people in Israel as tensions rise
Peter Guo
At least three people have been killed in central Israel, according to Magen David Adom, Israel's national emergency service.
Two women and one man in their 70s were killed, and 74 people were injured, it said today in a post on X.
Photos and videos published by MDA in its earlier posts showed damaged buildings and rescuers holding infants.
At least 224 people have been killed since Israel began striking Iran on Friday, Iranian state media reported, with civilians making up the vast majority of the casualties.
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Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, president says
Mithil Aggarwal
Iran has no intention of developing nuclear weapons, the president of Iran said, state media reported, reiterating the country's long-standing claim about its nuclear program.
President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran, however, "has the right to use nuclear energy and research and no one has the right to take it away from us."
Israel says the aim of its military campaign is to eliminate Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and the "existential threat" it would face if Iran were to successfully develop an atomic bomb. Iran says its programs are for peaceful purposes only.
IDF says it struck Quds Force command centers
The Israeli military said it had struck command centers in Tehran belonging to the Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
Operatives in the command centers "advanced terrorist attacks against the State of Israel using the proxies of the Iranian Regime in the Middle East," the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
The Quds Force oversees ties with Iran-backed militias in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories.
Iran has not commented on the strikes. While Quds Force positions in Syria had been targeted multiple times, this would mark the first time their command centers and bases have been struck inside Tehran.
Israeli defense minister says Iran residents 'will pay the price'
Matt Bradley
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz accused Iran of targeting Israeli civilians in its overnight attacks.
He then appeared to threaten Iranian civilians, saying 'residents of Iran will pay the price.'
Iran executes man accused of spying for Israel
Iran has executed a man convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, Reuters reported, citing Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency.
The man, identified as Esmail Fekri, is the third person Iran has executed in recent weeks in connection with accusations of espionage on behalf of Israel.
Iranian police in Alborz province said earlier that they had arrested two Mossad operatives, Iranian state media reported.
U.S. closes missions as Israel and Iran strike each other
The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and the embassy branch in Tel Aviv will be officially closed today as military tensions continue to escalate between Israel and Iran.
No U.S. staffers have been injured, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said in a post on X, though there has been "some minor damage from concussions of Iranian missile hits" near the Tel Aviv branch.
The U.S. Embassy has directed all U.S. government employees and their family members to shelter in place in and near their residences until further notice, it said in a statement.
Trump says it's 'time for a deal' between Israel and Iran
Jennifer Jett
Trump said he hoped for a deal between Israel and Iran as he headed to Canada for a meeting of world leaders where the conflict is high on the agenda.
"I hope there's going to be a deal. I think it's time for a deal, and we'll see what happens. But sometimes they have to fight it out," Trump told reporters before he left the White House for a summit of the Group of Seven major economies in Canada.
Iranian state media say 224 people have been killed since start of Israeli strikes
At least 224 people have been killed in Iran since the Israeli strikes started Friday, Iranian state media reported.
More than 90% of the casualties are civilians, according to Iran's semiofficial Mehr News Agency, which cited a spokesperson for the Health Ministry.
Israel and Iran begin new round of attacks
The Israeli military said it had begun a series of strikes on dozens of surface-to-surface missile targets in western Iran.
It later said missiles had been launched from Iran, instructing the public to seek shelter. Sirens sounded in several places across Israel.
The Israeli military said it was "operating to intercept and strike where necessary to eliminate the threat."
A day of strikes across both countries included a rare daytime attack on the Iranian capital, Tehran, where streets were jammed with traffic as residents tried to flee.