TEHRAN/TEL AVIV:
Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel in a counter-strike on Friday after an unprecedented onslaught hammered the country’s top military brass and targeted its nuclear facilities and bases, killing top generals and nuclear scientists.
Iranian officials confirmed the death of 78 people, including top military generals and senior scientists and injuries to more than 320 others in strikes which began early in the morning, and continued throughout the day. Media reports said 34 people were wounded in Israel in the Iranian missiles salvo.
Air raids sirens and explosions rang out across Israel after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to the airways to issue a word of caution, saying he expected “several waves of Iranian attacks” in response to his country’s strikes.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it attacked dozens of targets in Israel. The salvo came hours after Israel said its wide-spread air raids had hit about 200 targets, including nuclear facilities and killed several top-ranking Iranian generals.
“Iran comes under attack,” said Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency. “Various locations in Iran, including in the capital, Tehran, have come under attack by the Israeli regime, and a number of top military commanders have been assassinated in targeted strikes,” it said, terming the strikes a major escalation.
Iranians woke up to the sounds of large explosions in and near Tehran. In the first round of strikes, IRNA said the Israeli regime targeted residential buildings in Tehran in the wee hours of the day as people were asleep in their homes.
Images quickly emerged of the capital’s skyline, showing plumes of smoke rising from several locations. At least one image showed the lifeless body of a child under the rubble in a Tehran neighbourhood in the immediate aftermath of the strikes.
IRNA said Major General Mohammad Baqeri, chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces and Major General Hossein Salami, chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) were assassinated in targeted strikes against Iran’s top military brass in Tehran.
It further said that Commander of the Aerospace Force of the IRGC Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh and Commander of Khatam al-Anbia Headquarters Major General Gholamali Rashid were also among the dead. All of them were veterans of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War.
Unconfirmed reports said Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and a former secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, had also been severely wounded in a targeted strike.
A number of top nuclear scientists were also targeted. Mohammad-Mehdi Tehranchi, president of the Islamic Azad University, and Fereydoun Abbasi, former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, were among the dead. Tehranchi and Abbasi were reportedly targeted at their homes in the capital.
Khamenei immediacy appointed new top military commanders. He appointed Major General Pakpour to head the IRGC, who promised to open gates of hell to the Israeli regime.
Several rounds of strikes targeted Iran’s Natanz nuclear plant in Bushehr. A spokesperson for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said that preliminary assessment had revealed only limited damage. Israel began rounds of strikes in and near Tehran, as well as Natanz, Tabriz, Isfahan, Arak, and Shiraz.
Khamenei issued a message to the nation shortly after the strikes began. “To the Great Iranian Nation!” the message said, “with this crime, the Zionist regime sealed for itself a bitter and painful destiny and will definitely see that [destiny] brought upon it”.
As the night fell, Iran launched retaliatory airstrikes at Israel, with explosions heard in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Missiles were seen over Tel Aviv’s skyline, with the military saying Iran had fired two salvos. The US military helped shoot down Iranian missiles that were headed toward Israel, two US officials said.
Smoke could later be seen billowing above the skyscrapers in downtown Tel Aviv, according to an AFP journalist. Israel’s firefighting service said its teams were responding to several “major” incidents, including efforts to rescue people trapped in a high-rise building.
“Firefighting crews are handling several major incidents, mainly in the Dan region” around Tel Aviv, a statement said, adding that “firefighters are working in a high-rise building to rescue trapped individuals and extinguish a fire, as well as responding to two additional destruction sites.”
After Israel targeted military and nuclear sites across Iran, Tehran sent a fleet of drones, followed by two salvoes of missiles. “In both series, less than 100 missiles were fired, most of which were intercepted by air defence systems or did not reach them”, Israel’s military said in a statement.
“There are a limited number of hits on buildings, some from shrapnel from the interception”, a military spokesperson said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel struck at the “heart of Iran’s nuclear programme”, taking aim at scientists and the main uranium enrichment facility in Natanz.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi told the UN Security Council that Iran had reported that a key aboveground component of its uranium enrichment facility in Natanz was destroyed.
The US underlined that it was not involved in the Israeli action and warned Iran not to attack its interests, but Tehran said Washington would be “responsible for consequences”. Its envoy told UN that Washington was informed of the Israeli strikes “ahead of time, but was not militarily involved”.
Iran’s UN envoy said US was complicit “by aiding and enabling these crimes” and shared responsibility for the consequences”. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected “calls for Iran to show restraint in the face of Israeli aggression”, according to a statement.
Iran’s atomic energy agency said there was limited damage to the Fordo nuclear site south of Tehran and another site. “The damage was limited to areas that did not cause any urban damage in the case of Fordo,” it said.
“In Isfahan, there were also attacks on several points, which were related to warehouses that caught fire,” said agency spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi, adding that “the damage was not extensive and there is no cause for concern in terms of contamination”.
