Israel launched an expanded assault on Iran on Sunday, targeting its energy industry and Defence Ministry headquarters, while Tehran unleashed a fresh barrage of deadly strikes.
The simultaneous attacks represented the latest burst of violence since a surprise offensive by Israel two days earlier aimed at Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme.
New explosions boomed across Tehran as Iranian missiles entered Israel’s skies in attacks which Israeli emergency officials said caused deaths around the country, including four in an apartment building in the Galilee region.
A strike in central Israel killed an 80-year-old woman, a 69-year-old woman and a 10-year-old boy, officials said.
Casualty figures were not immediately available in Iran, where Israel targeted its Defence Ministry headquarters in Tehran, as well as sites that it alleged were associated with the country’s nuclear programme.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed Iranian missiles targeted fuel production facilities for Israeli fighter jets, something not acknowledged by Israel.
Amid the continued conflict, planned negotiations between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s nuclear program were cancelled, throwing into question when and how an end to the fighting could come.
“Tehran is burning,” Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said on social media.
Both Israel’s military and Iran’s state television announced the latest round of Iranian missiles as explosions were heard near midnight, while the Israeli security cabinet met.
Israel’s ongoing strikes across Iran have left the country’s surviving leadership with the difficult decision of whether to plunge deeper into conflict with Israel’s more powerful forces or seek a diplomatic route.
World leaders made urgent calls to deescalate and avoid all-out war. The attack on nuclear sites set a “dangerous precedent,” China’s foreign minister said.
The region is already on edge as Israel makes a new push to eliminate the Iranian-backed militant group Hamas in Gaza after 20 months of fighting.
Israel — widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East — said its hundreds of strikes on Iran over the past two days have killed a number of top generals, nine senior scientists and experts involved in Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran’s UN ambassador has said 78 people were killed and more than 320 wounded.
The sixth round of US-Iran indirect talks on Sunday over Iran’s nuclear programme will not take place, mediator Oman said.
“We remain committed to talks and hope the Iranians will come to the table soon,” said a senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss diplomacy.
Iran launched its first waves of missiles at Israel late Friday and early on Saturday.
The attacks killed at least three people and wounded 174, two of them seriously, Israel said. The military said seven soldiers were lightly wounded when a missile hit central Israel, without specifying where.
US ground-based air defence systems in the region were helping to shoot down Iranian missiles, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the measures.
Israel’s main international airport said it will remain closed until further notice.
First responders were looking for survivors and clearing the remnants of a missile that fell on a neighbourhood outside of Tel Aviv early on Sunday morning.
Responders used a drone at points to look for survivors in some of the areas that were too hard to access. Some people were fleeing the area with their belongings in suitcases.
