IRAN VOWS MORE ‘DEVASTATING’ OPS; ISRAEL STRIKES IRAN STATE MEDIA BUILDINGS
The Middle East stands on the brink of wider conflict as Israel and Iran continued exchange of missile strikes early Monday, ignoring global calls for de-escalation.
Iran fired a new wave of missile attacks at Israel early Monday, killing at least eight people, while Israel warned hundreds of thousands of people in the middle of Tehran to evacuate ahead of new strikes.
The warning came on the fourth day of the conflict, when the Israeli military claimed it had achieved air superiority above the Iranian capital and could fly over the city without facing major threats. The military has issued similar evacuation warnings for civilians in parts of Gaza and Lebanon ahead of strikes.
The warning affected up to 330,000 people in a part of central Tehran that includes the country’s state TV and police headquarters, as well as three large hospitals, including one owned by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
“At this time, we can say that we have achieved full aerial superiority over Tehran’s skies,” said Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin. The military said it had destroyed more than 120 surface-to-surface missile launchers in central Iran, a third of Iran’s total.
Israeli military officials also said fighter jets had struck 10 command centres in Tehran belonging to Iran’s Quds Force, an elite arm of its Revolutionary Guard that conducts military and intelligence operations outside Iran. Iran, meanwhile, announced it had launched some 100 missiles and vowed further retaliation for sweeping attacks on its military and nuclear infrastructure that have killed at least 224 people in the country since Friday.
One missile fell near the American consulate in Tel Aviv, with its blast waves causing minor damage, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee said on X. So far, 24 people have been killed in Israel and more than 500 injured, officials said, after Iran launched more than 370 missiles and hundreds of drones.
Assassination plots
US President Donald Trump rejected a plan presented by Israel to the US to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to a US official familiar with the matter.
The Israelis informed the Trump administration in recent days that they had developed a credible plan to kill Khamenei.
After being briefed on the plan, the White House made clear to Israeli officials that Trump was opposed to the Israelis making the move, according to the official, who was not authorised to comment on the sensitive matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The Trump administration is desperate to keep Israel’s military operation aimed at decapitating Iran’s nuclear programme from exploding into an even more expansive conflict and saw the plan to kill Khamenei as a move that would enflame the conflict and potentially destabilise the region.
Asked about the plan during an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Special Report with Bret Baier”, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not directly address whether the White House rejected the plan.
“But I can tell you, I think that we do what we need to do, we will do what we need to do,” Netanyahu said. “And I think the United States knows what is good for the United States.”
Asked whether he had any intel that the assassination attempts on Trump were directly from Iran, Netanyahu said, “Through proxies, yes, through their intel, yes, they want to kill him”.
Netanyahu in the Fox interview also said regime change “could certainly be the result” of the conflict “because the Iranian regime is very weak”.