Tel Aviv: Iran fired a new wave of missile attacks at Israel early Monday, killing at least eight people, while Israel warned hundreds of thousands of people in the middle of Tehran to evacuate ahead of new strikes.
The warning came on the fourth day of the conflict, when the Israeli military claimed it had achieved air superiority above the Iranian capital and could fly over the city without facing major threats. The military has issued similar evacuation warnings for civilians in parts of Gaza and Lebanon ahead of strikes.
The warning affected up to 330,000 people in a part of central Tehran that includes the country’s state TV and police headquarters, as well as three large hospitals, including one owned by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
“At this time, we can say that we have achieved full aerial superiority over Tehran’s skies,” said Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin. The military said it had destroyed more than 120 surface-to-surface missile launchers in central Iran, a third of Iran’s total.
Israeli military officials also 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.
The Israeli strikes “amount to a deep and comprehensive blow to the Iranian threat,” Defrin said.
Iran’s state-run news agency reported that state-run television abruptly stopped a live broadcast after an Israeli strike.
During the broadcast, an Iranian state television reporter said the studio was filling with dust after “the sound of aggression against the homeland.” Suddenly, an explosion occurred, cutting the screen behind her as she hurried off camera. The broadcast quickly switched to prerecorded programs.
Iran, meanwhile, announced it had launched some 100 missiles and vowed further retaliation for sweeping attacks on its military and nuclear infrastructure that have killed at least 224 people in the country since Friday.
One missile fell near the American consulate in Tel Aviv, with its blast waves causing minor damage, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee said on X. He added that no American personnel were injured.
So far, 24 people have been killed in Israel and more than 500 injured, Israeli officials said, after Iran launched more than 370 missiles and hundreds of drones.
The latest conflict began when Israel launched an assault on Iran’s top military leaders, uranium enrichment sites and nuclear scientists that it said was necessary to prevent its longtime adversary from getting any closer to building an atomic weapon.
Iran maintains that its nuclear programme is peaceful, and the US and others have assessed that Tehran has not pursued a nuclear weapon since 2003. But the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly warned that the country has enough enriched uranium to make several nuclear bombs if it chooses to do so.
Iran has retaliated by firing waves of ballistic missiles at Israel. The back-and-forth has raised concerns about all-out war between the countries and propelled the region, already on edge, into even greater upheaval.
Explosions rock Tel Aviv and Petah Tikva
Powerful explosions, likely from Israel’s defence systems intercepting Iranian missiles, rocked Tel Aviv shortly before dawn 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 attacks that struck four sites in central Israel.
“We clearly see that our civilians are being targeted,” Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne said 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.”
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.
Despite losing his home, he urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to keep up the attacks on Iran.
“It’s totally worth it,” the 60-year-old said. “This is for the sake of our children and grandchildren.”
In addition to those killed, the emergency service said paramedics had evacuated another 87 wounded people to hospitals, 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 the service who said he had rescued a 4-day-old baby as fires blazed from the building.
No sign of conflict letting up
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. Iranians also reported fuel rationing.
Rights groups such as the Washington-based Iranian advocacy group Human Rights Activists have suggested that the Iranian government’s death toll is a significant undercount. The group says it has documented more than 400 people killed, among them 197 civilians.
Ahead of Israel’s initial attack, its Mossad spy agency positioned explosive drones and precision weapons inside Iran, and since then Iran has reportedly detained several people on suspicion of espionage.
On Monday, Iranian authorities hanged a medical doctor identified as Esmail Fekri, who had been in prison since 2023 after being convicted of supplying the Mossad with “sensitive and classified” information, Iranian state-run television reported.
A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry signalled Monday that Iran will continue its missile attacks on Israel as long as the Israeli strikes continue.
“Anyone who is truly seeking to engage with this issue … must, as a first step, compel the (Israeli) regime to halt its aggression,” Esmail Baghaei said when asked about efforts by other countries to mediate between Iran and Israel.
Baghaei also called nuclear negotiations “meaningless” under the current circumstances. “The United States, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, is obligated to acknowledge this aggression and condemn it.
