Iran retaliates with missile attacks on Israel
Iran on Saturday retaliated with missile attacks on Israel a day after Tel Aviv struck what it claimed were Iranian nuclear targets and also on other sites with an aim of stalling Tehran's nuclear programme.
The retaliatory attack also came amid Israel Defense Forces' second wave of strikes in Iran, including on a nuclear plant in Isfahan.
Air raid sirens sounded across Israel as Iranian missiles struck. Explosions were heard in Jerusalem, BBC reported. A high-rise building was hit in central Tel Aviv and an apartment block was destroyed in nearby Ramat Gan city, Reuters reported.
While the Israeli military confirmed the Iranian attack, the number of casualties was not immediately clear.
Amid the second wave of strikes by Israel, explosions were heard in the Iranian capital Tehran, including one at the Mehrabad airport, state-backed Mehr news agency reported.
The casualties in Iran were not immediately clear.
In a televised address to the nation broadcast amid the retaliation, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the country's military was prepared to counterattack.
'Don't think that they [Israel] hit and it's over. No,' Khamenei said. 'They started the work and started the war. We will not allow them to escape safely from this great crime they committed.'
Khamenei had on Friday vowed to respond to the Israeli attack.
The Israeli Defense Forces on Friday hit sites in Tehran, Kermanshah and Tabriz, among other cities. Iran's main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz was among the targets that were hit.
At least 78 persons were killed and 320 injured in the Israeli strikes on Friday, state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Sa'eed Iravani, Iran's envoy to the United Nations, as saying.
Iranian military chief Mohammad Bagheri and Hossein Salami, the chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were among those killed in the attack.
Claiming that Iran was 'closer than ever to obtaining' a nuclear weapon, Tel Aviv said on Friday that it had 'no choice but to fulfil the obligation to act in defence of its citizens'. Iran has for long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.
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