- Iran says Revolutionary Guards Commander killed.
- “We are at a crucial moment in the history of Israel,” says Netanyahu.
- Rubio says we are not involved in Israeli surgery.
Jerusalem/Dubai/Washington: Israel launched Widescale strikes against Iran on Friday and said the targeted nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories and military commanders, and that this was the start of a long -term operation to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear weapon.
Iranian media and witnesses reported explosions, including in the country’s most important uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, while Israel declared an emergency in anticipation of retaliatory missile and drone strikes.
Iran’s Elite Revolutionary Guards Corps said its supreme commander, Hossein Salami, was killed and state media reported that the unit’s headquarters in Tehran had been hit. Several children had been killed in a strike in a residential area in the capital, it says.
“We are at a crucial moment in the history of Israel,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a recorded video message.
“Moments ago, Israel Launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll the Iranian threat to Israel’s much survival. This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.”
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement that Israel had “detached his evil and bloody” hand in a crime against Iran and that it would receive “a bitter fate for himself”.
An Israeli military official said Israel beat “dozens” by nuclear and military targets including the Natanz facility in central Iran. The official said Iran had enough material to produce 15 nuclear bombs within a few days.
The United States said it had no role in surgery, increasing the risk of fresh escalation in tension in the Middle East, a larger oil -producing region.
Alongside extensive air strikes, Israel’s Mossad Espion agency led a number of hidden sabotage operations inside Iran, Axios reported, citing a senior Israeli official. These operations aimed to harm Iran’s strategic missile sites and its air defense functions.
Iranian state media reported that at least two nuclear scientists, Fereydoun Abbasi and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi were killed in Israeli strikes in Tehran.
Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport was closed so far, and Israel’s air defense units were at a high alarm for possible retaliatory attack from Iran.
“Following the preventive strike from the state of Israel against Iran, a missile and UAV (drone) attacked against the state of Israel and its civilian population in the immediate timeframe,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
Israeli military chief of staff Eyal Zamir said tens of thousands of soldiers had been called up and “prepared across all borders.”
“We are in the midst of a historic campaign as opposed to someone else. This is a critical operation to prevent an existential threat of an enemy intending to destroy us,” he said.
Israeli minister Gideon Saar held a “marathon of calls” with colleagues around the world regarding Israeli’s attack on Iran, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Us ‘not involved’
US President Donald Trump said Iran cannot have an atomic bomb and that the United States was hoping to get back to the negotiating table in an interview with Fox News After the start of the Israeli air, Iran hits.
“We will see,” quoted Fox News Reporter Jennifer Griffin Trump as saying in a post on X.
Trump would convene a meeting of the National Security Council Friday morning, the White House said. He had said on Thursday that an Israeli strike on Iran could “very well happen,” but repeated his hope for a peaceful decision.
The US military is planning the full range of eventualities in the Middle East, including the possibility of it to help evacuate US civilians, a US official told Reuters.
Iran’s armed forces spokesman said that Israel and its boss allies the United States would pay a “heavy price” for the attack and accused Washington of providing support for the operation.
While the United States tried to distance itself from Israeli military operation, an Israeli official told the public television station may be that Israel had coordinated with Washington about Iran.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States was not involved in the strikes and Tel Aviv had acted one -sided for self -defense.
“We are not involved in strikes against Iran, and our highest priority is to protect US forces in the region,” Rubio said in a statement.
“Let me be clear: Iran should not target us to American interests or staff,” he added.
The Ministry of State issued an advisor who said that all US government employees in Israel and their family members should “shelter in place so far with regard to”.
The attacks triggered Sharp Falls in the stock prices in Asian trade on Friday, led by a sale in us futures, while oil prices jumped as investors screamed to safe ends up like gold and the Swiss franc.
UN Secretary -General Antonio Guterres condemned any military escalation in the Middle East, said Deputy UN spokesman Farhan Haq.
“The Secretary -General asks both sides to show maximum restraint and avoid at all costs a descent into deeper conflict, a situation that the region can hardly afford,” Haq said.
Nuclear conversations
American and Iranian officials were scheduled to hold a sixth round with conversations about Tehran’s escalating uranium enrichment program in Oman on Sunday, according to officials from both countries and their Omani mediators.
An American official said these conversations were still scheduled to continue despite the Israeli attack.
The Israeli military said Friday that it was forced to act based on new intelligence information showing that Iran “approached the point without return” in the development of a nuclear weapon.
“In recent months, this program has accelerated significantly and brought the regime significantly closer to getting a nuclear weapon,” states in a statement without revealing the alleged proof.
A source who knows US intelligence reports said there had been no recent change in the US intelligence assessment that Iran did not build a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei had not approved the restart of the nuclear weapons program that was shut down in 2003.
