Middle East crisis live: Israel launches airstrikes on military targets in Iran
IDF spokesman says strikes are a response to ‘months of continuous attacks from the regime in Iran’, as explosions are heard around Tehran and nearby city of Karaj
- Full report: IDF says it is striking military targets in Iran as sound of explosions reported around Tehran
Welcome to our continuing live coverage of the crisis in the Middle East. Here’s a snapshot of the latest news.
Israel has launched direct airstrikes against Iran in a high-stakes retaliatory attack that could bring the Middle East closer to a regional war, drawing in the US.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed it had begun to launch “precise strikes on military targets in Iran” in response to “months of continuous attacks” from Iran against Israel.
Iranian state TV reported several strong explosions heard around Tehran. There were no casualties, the state news agency IRNA said. There was no immediate official Iranian comment about the source of explosions, which Iranian news outlets said were under investigation.
A US official confirmed that Israel notified Washington before carrying out the strikes, and that the US had no involvement in Israel’s military operation. The White House said it understood Israel was conducting the strikes “as an exercise of self-defence”.
Some of the blasts reportedly occurred near Imam Khomeni international airport. Iran’s Tasnim news agency said civilian flights were operating normally as of Saturday morning. Iraq suspended flights in all its airports until further notice, the state news agency as saying.
In Gaza, Israeli military strikes across the territory have killed at least 72 Palestinians since Thursday night, including strikes on residential areas in southern Gaza that killed 38 people, including 13 children from the same extended family, Palestinian health officials said. Gaza’s health ministry reported that dozens of people were wounded as Israeli airstrikes and shelling pounded the southern city of Khan Younis. Palestinians said the neighbourhood was hit with no warning. Israeli strikes on three houses in Beit Lahiya killed 25 people and wounded dozens more, medics said. Later on Friday, an Israeli airstrike killed nine people in Shati camp in Gaza City, medics said.
The UN rights chief, Volker Türk, described Israel’s renewed assault on northern Gaza as the “darkest moment” of the year-long war on the territory so far. “We are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes, including potentially extending to crimes against humanity,” Türk said in a statement on Friday.
Three journalists from the Hezbollah-affiliated TV stations Al Mayadeen and Al-Manar were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on their press station in Hasbaya, southern Lebanon, early on Friday morning. The strikes hit a group of small chalets that 18 journalists from at least seven different media outlets – including Al Jazeera, Sky News Arabia and TRT – were staying in while covering the Israel-Hezbollah war in south Lebanon. Several cars with “Press” signs on them were parked in front of the site. Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, said the attack was “deliberate” and “aims to terrorise the media to cover up crimes and destruction”.
UN peacekeepers withdrew from a observation post in Zahajra town in south Lebanon on Tuesday after Israeli forces fired at it, the force said on Friday. Unifil added that the Israeli military has repeatedly demanded that its peacekeepers vacate its positions along the Blue Line and deliberately damaged camera, lighting and communications equipment at some of these positions.
Two people were killed in a strike on Majd al-Krum in northern Israel, Israeli media said on Friday, following a statement from Hezbollah saying that it targeted the northern Israeli town of Karmiel with a large missile salvo.
Lebanon’s transport minister, Ali Hamieh, said Israeli bombing put a second border crossing between the country and Syria out of service, leaving one official passage between the two nations operational. The UN refugee agency (Unhcr) warned that Israel’s overnight airstrike on the Jousieh crossing in Lebanon’s northern Bekaa area jeopardised the main escape route for people fleeing the conflict in Lebanon in search of refuge in Syria. More than half a million people, mostly Syrians, had crossed into Syrian territory since Israel began heavily striking Lebanon late last month, according to figures by the Lebanese authorities on Friday.
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