Missile strike on central part of Tel Aviv this morning
Paul McNamara, Channel 4 News, reports from Tel Aviv on the Iranian attacks on the city.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Examiner
41 minutes ago
- Irish Examiner
Iran threatens to leave nuclear weapons treaty as Israeli bombing enters fourth day
Iran has threatened to leave the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) as Israeli bombing raids enter a fourth day, underlining the conflict's potential to trigger a broader war and Tehran's race to construct a nuclear weapon. The human cost of the war continued to escalate with both sides broadening their range of targets, as G7 leaders convened in the Canadian Rockies with no clear plan to end the conflict. As he left for the summit on Sunday, the US president, Donald Trump, told reporters: 'Sometimes they have to fight it out.' Iran's health ministry said that 224 people in Iran had been killed by Israeli attacks, 90% of them civilian, and more than 1,400 had been injured. Israel's defence minister, meanwhile, threatened further bombing strikes on Tehran, where an exodus of residents has been reported, clogging roads out of the capital. In Israel, at least 23 civilians have been killed in Iran's retaliatory missile strikes since Israel's initial surprise attack on Friday morning, and nearly 600 have been injured, according to official sources. Both sides have targeted each other's oil and gas facilities, increasing the threat of environmental disaster, and explosions were reported on Monday near oil refineries in southern Tehran. The Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, announced on Monday that Iran's parliament, the Majlis, was preparing a bill that would withdraw the country from the 1968 NPT agreement, which obliges it to forego nuclear weapons and to undergo international inspections to verify compliance. Baghaei added that Tehran remained opposed to the development of weapons of mass destruction. The country's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, also insisted that Iran did not intend to develop nuclear weapons but would pursue its right to nuclear energy and research. He pointed out that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had issued a religious edict against weapons of mass destruction. Smoke rises from an oil storage facility after it appeared to have been struck by an Israeli strike on Saturday, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 16, 2025. Picture: AP Photo/Vahid Salemi Israel is the only Middle East state with nuclear weapons and did not sign the NPT, but has never formally acknowledged its arsenal. It is seeking to maintain its monopoly with airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, claiming that Tehran was close to building a bomb. Previous assessments by US intelligence and the UN nuclear watchdog found no evidence that Iran had begun work on assembling a nuclear weapon. Israeli critics of the offensive say it cannot destroy Iran's reserve of nuclear knowhow – though Israel has targeted Iranian nuclear scientists, claiming to have killed 14 – and could push the leadership into ordering the assembly of nuclear warheads. There were reports on Monday of Israeli strikes on the Tehran headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards al-Quds force, an expeditionary arm deployed in foreign wars. Despite Israeli claims to have air superiority over much of Iran, Iranian forces have still been able to launch ballistic missiles from their territory and some continue to evade Israel's multi-layered air defences. Israel Defense Forces officials estimate that it is has been able to intercept 80-90% of Iran's missiles, with 5-10% hitting actual residential areas. Eight more Israelis were killed overnight by Iranian missile strikes, including four in Petah Tikva where a missile hit an apartment block. Three people died from blasts in Haifa and an elderly man was killed when his home collapsed from the shockwave from an explosion in Bnei Brak, east of Tel Aviv. Iran's Revolutionary Guards claimed to have begun 'more powerful and deadly' strikes and to have found a way of causing confusion in Israeli air defence systems. There was no immediate way of independently verifying the claim. The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, reported on social media 'some minor damage from concussions of Iranian missile hits' near the US embassy branch office in Tel Aviv. The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, June 15, 2025. Picture: AP Photo/Leo Correa An Israeli biology professor, Eran Segal, posted photos on X of damage to his laboratory at the Weizmann Institute, a scientific research centre that has been previously targeted by Iranian intelligence for its nuclear research. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Israeli strikes have caused damage to the above-ground part of the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, and to the nuclear complex in Isfahan. The IAEA director general, Rafael Grossi, reported on Monday that four buildings in Isfahan had been damaged in Friday's bombing raids: its central chemical laboratory, a uranium conversion plant, a plant making nuclear fuel for a research reactor in Tehran and a facility that had been under construction to process enriched uranium into metal form, which is the form used in a nuclear warhead. Addressing the IAEA board of governors representing member states, Grossi said there were no signs of damage at the Fordow enrichment plant, which is deeply buried. Military commentators have suggested that Israel would find it hard to destroy Fordow and other underground facilities without the intervention of US forces, who have much bigger bunker-busting bombs. Iran urged the board to condemn Israeli attacks on its nuclear sites, which Grossi has also said are contrary to the UN charter and international law. Firefighters work to extinguish a burning car after a missile launched from Iran struck Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, June 16, 2025. Picture: AP Photo/Baz Ratner Iranian state TV said the country fired at least 100 missiles at Israel, with no signs of a reduction in Iran's efforts to strike back against Israeli attacks, which have wiped out the top echelon of the Iranian military command. As Tehran residents evacuated the capital in increasing numbers, Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, threatened to make Tehranis 'pay the price' for Khamenei's decision to keep firing missiles at Israel in retaliation for the Israeli attack. 'The arrogant dictator from Tehran has become a cowardly murderer who deliberately fires at Israeli civilians to deter the IDF from continuing the attack that is tearing him down,' Katz wrote. The residents of Tehran will pay the price, and soon.' The Iranian state-backed news agency Fars reported that the authorities had executed a man found guilty of spying for Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad. It was the third execution of an alleged spy in recent weeks. Iran's chief justice, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, vowed there would be speedy trials anyone arrested on suspicion of collaboration. 'If someone is arrested for having ties to and collaborating with the Zionist regime, their trial and punishment should be carried out and announced very quickly, in accordance with the law and given the war conditions,' Ejei said, quoted by the Tasnim news agency. G7 leaders began gathering in the Canadian Rockies on Sunday with the Israel-Iran conflict expected to be a top priority. Before leaving for the summit on Sunday, Trump was asked what he was doing to de-escalate the situation. 'I hope there's going to be a deal. I think it's time for a deal,' he told reporters. 'Sometimes they have to fight it out.' Talks previously scheduled between the US and Iran in Oman on Sunday were cancelled and Iranian officials have signalled they will not resume any negotiations while their country is under attack. The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said his goals for the summit were to try to ensure Iran did not develop or possess nuclear weapons, while ensuring Israel's right to defend itself. Merz added that Germany wanted to avoid escalation of the conflict and creating room for diplomacy. 'This issue will be very high on the agenda of the G7 summit,' Merz told reporters. - The Guardian
Irish Examiner
2 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Israel's military claims ‘aerial superiority' over Iran's capital
Israel's military claimed on Monday to have achieved 'aerial superiority' over Iran's capital. The military says it has degraded Iranian air defences and missile systems to the point that its planes can now operate over Tehran without facing major threats. It says Israel now controls the skies from western Iran to Tehran. It came after Iran fired a new wave of missile attacks on Israel early on Monday, triggering air raid sirens across the country as emergency services reported at least five killed and dozens more wounded in the fourth day of open warfare between the regional foes. Rescue team work at the site where a missile launched from Iran struck Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner) One missile fell near the American consulate in Tel Aviv, and its fallout caused minor damage, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee said on X. There were no injuries to American personnel. Iran announced it had launched some 100 missiles and vowed further retaliation for Israel's sweeping attacks on its military and nuclear infrastructure, which have killed at least 224 people in the country since Friday. Israel said so far 24 people have been killed and more than 500 injured as Iran launched more than 370 missiles and hundreds of drones. In response the Israeli military said fighter jets had struck 10 command centres in Tehran belonging to Iran's Quds Force, an elite arm of its Revolutionary Guard that conducts military and intelligence operations outside Iran. Powerful explosions, likely from Israel's defence systems intercepting Iranian missiles, rocked Tel Aviv shortly before dawn on Monday, sending plumes of black smoke into the sky over the coastal city. Authorities in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva said that Iranian missiles had hit a residential building there, charring concrete walls, shattering windows and ripping the walls off multiple apartments. The Israeli Magen David Adom emergency service reported that two women and two men — all in their 70s — and one other person were killed in the wave of missile attacks that struck four sites in central Israel. 'We clearly see that our civilians are being targeted,' said Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne outside the bombed-out building in Petah Tikva. 'And this is just one scene. We have other sites like this near the coast, in the south.' The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept missiles over Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) Petah Tikva resident Yoram Suki rushed with his family to a shelter after hearing an air raid alert, and emerged after it was over to find his apartment destroyed. 'Thank God we were OK,' the 60-year-old said. Despite losing his home, he urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to keep up the attacks on Iran. 'It's totally worth it,' he said. 'This is for the sake of our children and grandchildren.' In addition to those killed, the MDA said paramedics had evacuated another 87 wounded people to hospitals, including a 30-year-old woman in serious condition, while rescuers were still searching for residents trapped beneath the rubble of their homes. 'When we arrived at the scene of the rocket strike, we saw massive destruction,' said Dr Gal Rosen, a paramedic with MDA who said he had rescued a four-day-old baby as fires blazed from the building. During an earlier barrage of Iranian missiles on central Israel on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran will stop its strikes if Israel does the same. But after a day of intensive Israeli aerial attacks that extended targets beyond military installations to hit oil refineries and government buildings, the Revolutionary Guard struck a hard line on Monday, vowing that further rounds of strikes would be 'more forceful, severe, precise and destructive than previous ones'. Health authorities also reported that 1,277 were wounded in Iran, without distinguishing between military officials and civilians. Rights groups, such as the Washington-based Iranian advocacy group called Human Rights Activists, have suggested that the Iranian government's death toll is a significant undercount. Human Rights Activists says it has documented more than 400 people killed, among them 197 civilians. A worker stands in front of an anti-Israeli banner depicting Iranian soldiers heading to attack Israeli territory, at Islamic Revolution Square in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) Israel argues that its assault on Iran's top military leaders, uranium enrichment sites and nuclear scientists was necessary to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Iran has always insisted its nuclear programme is peaceful, and the US and others have assessed that Tehran has not pursued a nuclear weapon since 2003. But Iran has enriched ever-larger stockpiles of uranium to near weapons-grade levels in recent years and was believed to have the capacity to develop multiple weapons within months if it chose to do so.
The Irish Sun
3 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
A 3am siren, an ‘extreme threat' alert, then the bombers soared above – Inside Israel as all-out war with Iran launched
THURSDAY night at 3am was a strange moment. We had an air raid siren - nothing unusual given this has been almost nightly for months due to missiles from the Houthis. 6 Firefighters and rescue personnel at a fire following missile attack from Iran on Israel, in Tel Aviv Credit: AP 6 Missiles launched from Iran being intercepted by Israel Credit: EPA 6 Crystal Jones lives in Israel and has told what life is like as Iran fires missiles Credit: Crystal Jones 6 But having spent days hearing Shortly after the country-wide alarm, every person throughout Israel received a message from the Home Office Command. It was both vague and nerve-racking. It told us to wait for further alerts in case of an "extreme threat" - with nothing more added. More on Israel At the same time, we began to hear non-stop warplanes - which have been relentless ever since. After that, it was clear the whole country was awake, all of social media and every single WhatsApp group was abuzz with "what is going on?' type of anxious chatter. At some point in the night, A report recently showed that the regime there now has enough uranium for nine nuclear weapons, and can build them within a matter of months. Most read in The Sun As this would be enough to obliterate our country - and Iran has made no secret of its intent to do so - Bibi was right when he said we had no choice but to strike. His speech was articulate, somehow reassuring, and widely applauded. It feels that the country is very much behind him. If pockets of the country aren't - its fringe groups are. Netanyahu slams Khamenei as a 'dictator and a tyrant' as he praises the Iranian people And like last year, after Israel's incredible pager operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon, everyone is once again in complete awe at Mossad and the IDF for the magnificent long-planned military feat they've pulled off. The next morning, everyone was bleary-eyed from a poor night's sleep, and in repetition of the days The hospitals were also cleared, ready for a potential influx of casualties, and everyone told to stay home, attending emergency services only in the most extreme cases. Then it was shabbat. For those who observe it like me, it was a tough evening - our usual happy gathering and meal was constantly interrupted by air raid sirens, trips to the safe room and countless ear-shattering booms. The It's nothing like the missiles from Gaza and Yemen we've become accustomed to, which now feel insignificant in comparison. Since the weekend, we have had the odd siren in the day, but mostly they've been going through the night. Israel-Iran conflict enters fourth day IRAN and Israel are continuing to rain down missiles on each other for a fourth day - with the US embassy in Tel Aviv now being damaged. Tension is skyrocketing as the conflict threatens to spiral into a wider regional war with Pakistan also calling for the Islamic world to back Iran. It comes as a senior Iranian general has claimed Pakistan has warned they will nuke Israel. General Mohsen Rezaee, a senior official in the IRGC and a member of Iran's National Security Council, said: 'Pakistan has assured us that if Israel uses a nuclear bomb on Iran, they will attack Israel with a nuclear bomb.' America could also be pulled into the conflict, with Donald Trump warning the "full strength and might" of the US military would be used if American assets were targeted. Damage to the embassy was done during a third night of fierce missile exchange between Iran and Israel, with Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador in Israel, said the embassy in Tel Aviv was damaged 'from concussions of Iranian missile hits' near the building but that no personnel were injured. Iran and Israel sit on the brink of a full-scale war after Tel Aviv accused Tehran of trying to develop a nuclear bomb. Israel successfully blasted numerous Iranian targets on Sunday as Tehran Iran fired back with a barrage of around 30 missiles targeting central Israel and Jerusalem. But the retaliatory attacks have done little to restore much faith among Iranian locals who have spent the past three days awaiting the next Israeli blitz. Chaos erupted in Tehran this weekend as civilians started to flee the Iranian capital amid car bombings and relentless Israeli air strikes. The strikes are also said to have obliterated an aircraft repair centre, and targeted the city's famous Valiasr Square. Netanyahu told Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier that Iranian civilians are now growing tired of the current regime. The Israeli PM claims the current leadership doesn't "have the people", and says "80 per cent of the people" want to overthrow it. Trump has also told ABC News network that it remains possible he will become involved at some point if strikes continue. He warned Tehran would experience "the full strength" of the US military if it attacks the US bases in the We heard the Iranian regime generally sends missiles at night due to the weather - it is too hot in the day to load the missiles up with fuel as the intense sun often causes them to burn out. So we have some respite during the day, but our nighttimes are fraught with the planes, sirens, shakes and constant sonic booms. This war has been hanging over our heads for a long time. Throughout the battle with Hamas, we've been fearful of this escalating to what it now has. But as contradictory as this sounds, now that it has, in some ways it is a relief - especially as we couldn't have started in a stronger way. Those who know the bible and the story of Esther, the woman who became Queen of Persia and managed to save the Jewish people from total destruction - there is a line from that story generally being quoted. Haman - the Perisan courtier who tried to destroy the Jewish people - was told by his wife after his first humiliation that his life will be in danger if he continues to go after the Jews - he didn't listen and was later hanged along with his whole family. Even the least religious among us feel it is a precursor to modern day. It is clear that the nation of Israel is divinely protected, and Iran is going to suffer the same fate as their ancient predecessor Haman if they don't heed. Even the few missiles and shrapnel that have managed to get through during the war have generally hit Arabs not Jews. There is a general feeling of deep resilience and unity within Israel. A very different feeling to the anxious unity of October 7. This is a stronger feeling - more of a "we got this" rather than the pain of gathering ashes and burying the dead together. There is hope for the future, not just for Israel, but for the people of Iran too. We know that deep down, they are our friends, who are suffering the oppression of those in power that terrorise their daily lives. Unlike the people of Gaza, who have only ever been taught to hate Israel, Iranians remember a time when we treated each other with respect. The people of Israel and the people of Iran want those times back. The camaraderie of the nation is now so strong that we are hearing far more complaints of Israelis trying to get back into the country than we are hearing of anyone trying to leave. So we know we have G-d on our side. We are not going anywhere and Iran will never triumph over us. 6 Responders inspect a damaged building following a strike by an Iranian missile in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva Credit: AFP 6 The Israeli Iron Dome air defence system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over Tel Aviv Credit: AP
