Iran strikes Israeli defence sites in Haifa, Tel Aviv with missiles and drones as Israel targets Iranian nuclear sites
\n Tehran
\nIsrael bombed nuclear targets in Iran on Thursday and Iran fired missiles and drones at Israel after hitting an Israeli hospital overnight, as a week-old air war escalated with no sign yet of an exit strategy from either side.
\nFollowing the strike that damaged the Soroka medical centre in Israel\u2019s southern city of Beersheba, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tehran\u2019s \u201ctyrants\u201d would pay the \u201cfull price\u201d.
\n\u201cAre we targeting the downfall of the regime? That may be a result, but it\u2019s up to the Iranian people to rise for their freedom,\u201d Netanyahu said. \u201cFreedom requires these subjugated people to rise up, and it\u2019s up to them, but we may create conditions that will help them do it.\u201d
\nDefence Minister Israel Katz said the military had been instructed to intensify strikes on strategic-related targets in Tehran in order to eliminate the threat to Israel and destabilise the \u201cAyatollah regime\u201d.
\nIsrael\u2019s sweeping campaign of airstrikes aims to do more than destroy Iran\u2019s nuclear centrifuges and missile capabilities. It seeks to shatter the foundations of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei\u2019s government and leave it near collapse, Israeli, Western and regional officials said.
\nNetanyahu wants Iran weakened enough to be forced into fundamental concessions on permanently abandoning its nuclear enrichment, its ballistic missile programme and its support for militant groups across the region, the sources said.
\nUS President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has kept the world guessing, veering from proposing a swift diplomatic end to the war to suggesting the United States might join it. On Wednesday, he said nobody knew what he would do.
\nA day earlier he mused on social media about killing Khamenei, then demanded Iran\u2019s unconditional surrender. Three diplomats told Reuters that Trump\u2019s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi have spoken by phone several times since Israel began its strikes last week.
\nIn an apparent reference to the US, Iran\u2019s Supreme National Security Council said on Thursday it would use a different strategy if a \u201cthird party\u201d joined Israel in the war.
\nSTRAIT OF HORMUZ THREAT
\nIn the latest wave of attacks, Israel said it had struck Iran\u2019s Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites. It initially said it had also hit Bushehr, site of Iran\u2019s only functioning nuclear power plant, but a spokesperson later said it was a mistake to have said this.
\nAn Iranian diplomat told Reuters Bushehr was not hit and Israel was engaged in \u201cpsychological warfare\u201d by discussing it. Any attack on the plant, near Arab neighbours and housing Russian technicians, is viewed as risking nuclear disaster.
\nA week of Israeli air and missile strikes has wiped out the top echelon of Iran\u2019s military command, damaged its nuclear capabilities and killed hundreds of people. Iranian retaliatory strikes have killed at least two dozen civilians in Israel.
\nOn Thursday, Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement it had launched combined missile and drone attacks at military and industrial sites linked to Israel\u2019s defence industry in Haifa and Tel Aviv. Israel reported missiles launched from Iran towards its territory.
\nIran has been weighing its wider options in responding to the biggest security challenge since its 1979 revolution.
\nA member of the Iranian Parliament\u2019s National Security Committee Presidium, Behnam Saeedi, told the semi-official Mehr news agency Iran could consider closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of daily global oil consumption passes.
\nOil prices jumped on Thursday. Iran was maintaining crude oil supply by loading tankers one at a time and moving floating oil storage much closer to China, two vessel tracking firms told Reuters, as the country seeks to keep a key source of revenue while under attack.
\nEarlier, the Israeli military said it targeted the Khondab nuclear site near Iran\u2019s central city Arak overnight, including a partially-built heavy-water research reactor. Heavy-water reactors produce plutonium, which, like enriched uranium, can be used to make the core of an atom bomb.
\nIranian TV showed footage of smoke billowing from the direction of Arak, but Iran\u2019s atomic energy agency said the attack caused no casualties. The Israeli military also said it attacked launch sites in western Iran after attempts to restore them were detected.
\nIt has severely weakened Iran\u2019s regional allies, Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon\u2019s Hezbollah, and has bombed Yemen\u2019s Houthis.
\nThe extent of the damage inside Iran has become more difficult to assess in recent days, with the authorities apparently seeking to prevent panic by limiting information.
\nIran has stopped giving updates on the death toll, and state media have ceased showing widespread images of destruction. The internet has been almost completely shut down, and the public has been banned from filming.
\nThousands of residents have fled Tehran, a city of 10 million, jamming the highways out.
\nInside Israel, the missile strikes over the past week are the first time a significant number of projectiles from Iran have pierced defences and killed Israelis in their homes.
\nThe director general of the Israeli hospital that was damaged in Beersheba, Shlomi Kodesh, told reporters at the site that a missile strike had destroyed several wards and wounded 40 people, mostly staff and patients.
\nIran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards said they had targeted Israeli military and intelligence headquarters near the hospital. An Israeli military official denied there were military targets nearby. Missiles also hit a residential building in Ramat Gan, east of Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iran strikes Israeli defence sites in Haifa, Tel Aviv with missiles and drones as Israel targets Iranian nuclear sites Tehran Israel bombed nuclear targets in Iran on Thursday and Iran fired missiles and drones at Israel after hitting an Israeli hospital overnight, as a week-old air war escalated with no sign yet of an exit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485299,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-485280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n