An Iranian missile slammed into the main hospital in southern Israel early Thursday (June 19, 2025), causing “extensive damage” but no serious injuries, according to the medical facility. Other missiles hit a high-rise building and several other residential buildings near Tel Aviv.
The Israeli military has assessed that Iran used a missile with multiple warheads in its attack, according to an Israeli military official. The official , speaking on condition of anonymity, said the use of missiles poses a new challenge to defences.
Israel’s defence minister said Thursday that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be “held accountable” after an Iranian strike on a hospital in Israel, adding he had ordered the army to “intensify strikes” on the Islamic republic.
“These are some of the most serious war crimes — and Khamenei will be held accountable for his actions,” Israel Katz said, adding that he and the prime minister ordered the military “to intensify strikes against strategic targets in Iran and against the power infrastructure in Tehran…”
Iraq’s top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani warned against targeting Iran’s leadership and said that the Iran-Israel war could plunge the whole region into chaos. Sistani said in a statement Thursday that any targeting of Iran’s “supreme religious and political leadership” would have “dire consequences on the region”.
He warned that it could spark “widespread chaos that would exacerbate the suffering of its (the region’s) people and severely harm everyone’s interests”.
Sistani urged the international community to “make every effort to end this unjust war and find a peaceful solution” to Iran’s nuclear programme.
Sistani, an Iranian, is the highest religious authority for millions of Shiite Muslims in Iraq and around the world, with the power to mobilise a huge portion of that base in Iraq.
Instead of having to track one warhead, missiles with multiple warheads can pose a more difficult challenge for air defense systems, like Israel’s Iron Dome. There was no immediate independent analysis that could be made.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Thursday to “remove” the nuclear and ballistic missile threat posed by Iran, on the seventh day of war between the arch foes.
“We are committed to destroying the nuclear threat, the threat of a nuclear annihilation against Israel,” Netanyahu told reporters in the southern city of Beersheba, where a hospital was hit during an Iranian missile attack.
Israel, meanwhile, carried out strikes on Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor, in its latest attack on the country’s sprawling nuclear program, on the seventh day of a conflict that began with a surprise wave of Israeli air strikes targeting military sites, senior officers and nuclear scientists.
The head of Russia’s nuclear energy corporation warned on Thursday (June 19, 2025), that an Israeli attack on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant could lead to a “Chernobyl-style catastrophe”. Bushehr is Iran’s only operating nuclear power plant and was built by Russia.
A Washington-based Iranian human rights group said at least 639 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 1,300 wounded. In retaliation, Iran has fired some 400 missiles and hundreds of drones, killing at least 24 people in Israel and wounding hundreds.
Trump to decide on Iran within 2 weeks
BEERSHEBA (ISRAEL), JUN 19 (AP/AGENCIES): President Donald Trump will decide within the next two weeks whether to strike Iran, the White House said Thursday, saying Trump still sees a “substantial” chance that negotiations can achieve US and Israeli demands on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Trump’s announcement, relayed by press secretary Karoline Leavitt, puts an extended timeline on the president’s warnings to Iran to immediately shut down its enrichment operations and any other potential for producing nuclear weapons.
The president approved attack plans on Iran on Tuesday night, but has not made a final decision on whether to strike the country official told CBS News.