At least 35 missing after strike hits town south of Tel Aviv; Iran says situation at Shahron oil depot under control
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Israel claims it has gained control of airspace over Tehran
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Israel and Iran exchanged another round of strikes late on Saturday and into Sunday, with at least eight people killed in Israel when Iranian missiles penetrated air defences in the north and centre of the country as well as hitting a science institute near Tel Aviv.
At least eight people are dead and more than 100 injured after Iran launched a barrage of missile strikes at Israel overnight, in retaliation for Israel’s Friday strikes which Israel said targeted Tehran’s nuclear program, hitting key sites including its defence ministry.
An unknown number of missiles evaded Israel’s air defence system to hit Rehovot and Bat Yam in Tel Aviv, killing a 69-year-old woman, an 80-year-old woman, and two children including a 10-year-old boy, according to Israeli emergency services. More than 100 have been injured, and dozens still missing under rubble.
Earlier strikes on Saturday night killed at least four Palestinian citizens of Israel in the northern town of Tamra, including a woman and her two daughters aged 13 and 20.
Two oil facilities in Iran are on fire – one in Shahran and another in southern Tehran – after they were hit by Israeli strikes.
The Israeli military said Iran still has an arsenal that can cause grave damage to Israel. The Israeli military added that “at this hour, we are striking Iran”, and that “Iranian attacks are not behind us”.
Iran has said 78 people were killed there on the first day of Israel’s attack, and scores more on the second, including 60 when a missile brought down a 14-storey apartment block in Tehran, where 29 of the dead were children.
Oman has announced the latest Iran-US nuclear talks that were scheduled to be held in Muscat have been cancelled. “The Iran US talks scheduled to be held in Muscat this Sunday will not now take place. But diplomacy and dialogue remain the only pathway to lasting peace,” Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, said in a post on X.
Ali Shamkhani, Iran’s top adviser to its supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has died in the hospital a day after Israel launched airstrikes across the country, Iranian media reports. Shamkhani had previously served as Iran’s top national security official for a decade and had represented Iran in the China-facilitated rapprochement talks with Saudi Arabia.
Iranian authorities said that Israel’s airstrikes on Friday killed at least 30 military personnel in East Azerbaijan province, according to news agency ISNA. “Following the Zionist regime’s aggression against this province since Friday morning, 30 military personnel and one Red Crescent member have been martyred in defence of the Islamic homeland, and 55 people have been injured,” ISNA reported on Saturday, quoting East Azerbaijan provincial authorities.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that Israel’s strikes have set Iran’s nuclear programme back, possibly by years, and that heavier blows were yet to come. “We will hit every site and every target of the Ayatollahs’ regime and what they have felt so far is nothing compared with what they will be handed in the coming days,” Netanyahu said in a video message.
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