Eight killed in Israel explosion after Iran vows to strikes back
Eight people have been killed in a strike in central Israel after Iran vowed to step-up its retaliation for the killing of its supreme leader.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said 28 people were injured in the explosion in Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem, on Sunday, and searches are ongoing for additional victims.
Elsewhere, loud explosions caused by missile impacts or interceptions could be heard in Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile, a massive explosion rocked Iran’s capital as Israel said it would carry out “non-stop strikes” against its leaders and military.
The blasts in Tehran – whose target was not immediately clear – sent a huge plume of smoke into the sky. It happened in the area of the national police headquarters and Iranian state television, as well as Tehran’s Revolutionary Court and a defence ministry building.
Also on Sunday, the Israeli military said it is not aware of any Israeli or American strikes in the area of a school in southern Iran where more than 100 people died.
State-run IRNA news agency said a strike hit an all-girls school in the town of Minab on Saturday.
The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and US President Donald Trump’s calls for the overthrow of the decades-old Islamic Republic marked the start of a stunning new US intervention in the Middle East and potentially a prolonged war.
It is also a startling show of military might for an American president who swept into office on an ‘America First’ platform and vowed to keep out of ‘forever wars’.
It is the second time in eight months the Trump administration has joined Israel in using military force against Iran.
In a 12-day war in June, Israeli and American strikes greatly weakened Iran’s air defences, military leadership and nuclear programme. But the killing of Khamenei and several top security officials creates a leadership vacuum, increasing the risk of regional instability.
‘You have crossed our red line and must pay the price,’ Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said in a televised address on Sunday.
‘We will deliver such devastating blows that you yourselves will be driven to beg.’
As Iran targeted the wider Gulf area, the United Arab Emirates said on Sunday that three people had been killed so far in Iranian attacks on the country.
The defence ministry said Iran had launched 165 ballistic missiles targeting the country, of which 152 were destroyed. Thirteen fell into the sea, it added.
Iran launched 541 bomb-carrying drones at the UAE, of which 506 were destroyed. Another 35 struck the country, killing three people from Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, while 58 others were wounded.
Flights across the Middle East were disrupted, and air defence fire thudded over Dubai, the United Arab Emirates’ commercial capital, with explosions continuing into Sunday.
Shrapnel from Iranian attacks on the Emirates’ capital of Abu Dhabi killed two people, state media said, and debris from aerial interceptions caused fires at the city’s main port and on the facade of Dubai’s iconic Burj Al Arab hotel.
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