Black smoke rises from a petroleum storage facility in Tehran following Israeli strikes. Alamy Stock Photo
Middle East
At least five people were killed today when an Israeli strike hit a residential building in downtown Tehran, state television in Iran reported.
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ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu strongly suggested that Israel has killed Iran’s intelligence chief Mohammad Kazemi in an aerial attack, as the arch-foes ramp up their conflict.
“Moments ago, we also got the chief intelligence officer and his deputy in Tehran,” Netanyahu told Fox News in an interview from an undisclosed location in Israel, adding “our brave pilots are over the skies of Tehran, and we’re targeting military sites, nuclear sites.”
Netanyahu earlier said that Iran would pay “a very heavy price” for killing Israeli civilians, as both sides kept up intense fighting overnight.
Authorities said Iranian missile fire targeting Israel killed at least 10 people overnight, pushing the death toll up to 13 since Iran began its retaliatory strikes.
“Iran will pay a very heavy price for the premeditated murder of civilians, women and children,” Netanyahu said during a visit to the site of a missile strike on a residential building in the coastal city of Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv.
In Iran, a heavy cloud of smoke billowed over the capital after Israeli aircraft struck two fuel depots. For days, Iranians have formed long queues at gas stations fearing shortages.
At least five people were killed today when an Israeli strike hit a residential building in downtown Tehran, state television in Iran reported.
“A residential building was targeted in the centre of Tehran, killing five people,” the broadcaster said.
It added the death toll may rise as the strike hit a densely populated area in central Tehran.
Powerful explosions rocked the area at least twice, minutes apart, sending clouds of heavy black smoke into the sky, said an AFP journalist at the scene.
איראן תשלם מחיר יקר מאוד על רצח נשים, ילדים ואזרחים חפים מפשע – וזה יקרה בקרוב.
אני כאן בזירה יחד עם כוחות ההצלה ופיקוד העורף. בשם עם ישראל – אנו שולחים חיבוק למשפחות ושוב קוראים לכל אזרח: הישמעו להנחיות – זה מציל חיים.
אנחנו במערכה קיומית, מול אויב אכזרי שמתכנן השמדה.
חיילינו… pic.twitter.com/1FNyBC5a7t
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) June 15, 2025
The country has announced that mosques, metro stations and schools would serve as shelters from this evening.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump said that Washington “had nothing to do” with ally Israel’s intense bombardment campaign that was launched on Friday, targeting key military and nuclear sites in Iran.
“If we are attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
The US President also said that “we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict!!!”
The attacks persisted despite global calls for de-escalation, with Iran scrapping its latest nuclear talks with the United States, saying it could not negotiate while under fire from Israel.
Israeli police said six people were killed and at least 180 injured at the site of an overnight missile strike in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv on Israel’s Mediterranean coast.
First responders wearing helmets and headlamps combed through the bombed-out building as dawn broke, with police saying at least seven people were missing, feared buried under the rubble.
“There was an explosion and I thought the whole house had collapsed,” said Bat Yam resident Shahar Ben Zion. “It was a miracle we survived.”
Israeli soldiers search for survivors amid the rubble of residential buildings destroyed by an Iranian missile strike in Bat Yam. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Iran’s UN ambassador said 78 people were killed and 320 wounded in Israel’s first wave of strikes on Friday.
Iranian authorities have not provided an updated toll as of this morning, but Tehran says Israel has killed top army commanders and nuclear scientists.
‘Red line’
After decades of enmity and conflict by proxy, this is the first time the arch-enemies have traded fire with such intensity, triggering fears of a prolonged conflict that could engulf the entire Middle East.
In Iran’s capital this morning, AFP journalists heard a series of blasts.
Israel’s military said that its air force had targeted “more than 80″ positions in Iran’s capital Tehran overnight, “including the headquarters of the Iranian Ministry of Defense, the headquarters of the nuclear project (SPND), and additional targets where the Iranian regime hid the nuclear archive”.
The Iranian oil ministry said Israel struck two fuel depots in the Tehran area.
An AFP journalist saw a depot at Shahran, northwest of the capital, on fire.
Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept missiles over Tel Aviv. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to hit “every target of the ayatollah regime”, while Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned further strikes would draw “a more severe and powerful response”.
Israeli strikes have hit Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant and killed its highest-ranking military officer, Mohammad Bagheri, as well as the head of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami.
The Israeli military has warned Iranians to evacuate areas near weapons facilities nationwide.
“The Zionist regime crossed a new red line in international law” by “attacking nuclear facilities”, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told foreign diplomats, according to state TV.
He also said Tehran had “solid proof” US forces supported the Israeli attacks.
“We are defending ourselves; our defence is entirely legitimate… If the aggression stops, naturally our responses will also stop.”
UK advises against travel to Israel
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had struck sites used by Israeli warplanes for refuelling, in retaliation for the earlier Israeli strikes.
In a statement, the Guards vowed to respond “more fiercely and more broadly” if Israel keeps up its deadly campaign.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they had launched several missiles at Israel in attacks that were “coordinated with the operations carried out by the Iranian military”.
Highlighting the global unease, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned against a “devastating war” with regional consequences, in a call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Ankara said.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Saturday that his country was deploying fighter jets and other “assets” to the Middle East “for contingency support”, while he also urged de-escalation.
The UK now advises against all travel to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
My message to British nationals there is clear – your safety remains our top priority. Follow our travel advice for the latest updates: https://t.co/wrkGDn0Qgd https://t.co/92htTrq2OG
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) June 15, 2025
Today, the British Foreign Office updated travel advice to advise “against all travel to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories”.
Gaza
Meanwhile, Gaza’s civil defence agency reported on Saturday 41 people killed in Israeli military operations in the Palestinian territory, more than half of whom it said were killed while waiting for aid.
“Forty-one people were martyred due to the ongoing Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, 23 of whom were waiting for aid,” Mohammad al-Mughayyir, an official from the agency, told AFP.
The Israeli military did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.
Central Gaza’s Al-Awda hospital received eight bodies and 125 wounded after Israeli drone strikes targeted people gathering near an aid distribution centre near the Netzarim corridor, Mughayyir said.
Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital received 11 bodies after an attack on people seeking aid on Saturday, he added, while four others were taken to the Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza and Nasser hospital in the south.
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed while trying to reach Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution points since the US and Israel-backed organisation began operating in late May, according to the civil defence agency.
An officially private effort with opaque funding, the GHF began operating on 26 May after Israel cut off supplies into Gaza for more than two months, sparking international condemnation and warnings of imminent famine.
Mughayyir said that 18 people were killed in the north and south of the territory during various attacks by the Israeli army, including seven in Gaza City.
Nasser Hospital, one of the last partly functioning health facilities, has been targeted by Israeli strikes in recent days, according to medical sources who spoke to AFP.
The head of the Palestinian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority told AFP that internet was restored in Gaza on Saturday, after a three-day blackout blamed on Israel’s military.
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