Tensions in the Middle East are reaching dangerous new heights as missile sirens continue to sound across multiple Israeli cities, including Nahariya, Gesher Haziv, Hila, Me’ona, and Mi’ilya, following fresh projectile launches from Iran.
Iran’s state television Press TV said Islamic Republic of Iran used Kheyber-Shakan, Emad, Qadr, and Fattah-1 missiles in today's attacks.
Iranian media are reporting on a statement from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) describing its latest attack on Israel.
“This wave was carried out with combined missile and drone operations using solid and liquid fuel missiles and utilising special tactics to penetrate the layers of the Israeli air defence shield,” Tasnim news agency reported, citing the IRGC.
“So far, rocket strikes have been recorded at five locations in the cities of Safad, Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Beisan,” it added.
Israel began a series of strikes toward military targets in Tehran late on Monday morning, the military announced.
The strikes started after Iran fired multiple waves of missiles at Israel, which directly impacted various areas, including a strategic electric infrastructure facility in southern Israel.
Israel attacks Fordow site, day after US strikes hit Iran's nuclear facilities
In a statement, Israel’s military says it attacked to “disrupt access routes” to the Fordow nuclear site that was hit by the US yesterday.
It comes after Israel Army Radio quoted an unnamed security source as saying the army targeted an “access road” leading up to Fordow, rather than the facility itself.
The Fordow facility is located 30km (18.5 miles) northeast of the city of Qom in northwestern Iran, and is reportedly hundreds of metres inside a mountain.
It is the only Iranian facility at which IAEA inspectors have found particles of uranium purified to near weapons-grade purity. That happened during an unannounced inspection in 2023.
Earlier in the morning, the IDF had struck six airports in western, eastern, and central Iran on Monday morning, the military said.
Multiple missile impact sites have been reported across Israel, including Ashdod and an area south of West Jerusalem, according to Israeli media.
The precise nature of the targeted sites remains unclear due to strict military censorship, which imposes severe penalties, including imprisonment, for sharing unauthorized information or footage from the affected areas.
Eyewitnesses in Israel and the occupied West Bank reported continuous air raid sirens lasting approximately 35 minutes, accompanied by loud explosions, indicating an intense and sustained assault.
The missile barrage is believed to be part of Iran's ongoing response to Israel's attack on its nuclear facilities on June 13.
Since then, Iran has reportedly launched around 450 ballistic missiles towards Israel, marking one of the most significant escalations in the region in recent years.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that sirens were also activated in central Israel after a missile launch from Iran, signaling a significant escalation in hostilities.
Israeli Hermes drone shot down by Iran
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) successfully shot down an advanced Israeli Hermes drone early this morning over Khorramabad, in Lorestan Province. The Hermes drone is considered one of Israel's most sophisticated surveillance and strike assets, making this a significant blow.
Iran issues warning to 'gambler' Trump: We will end this war
A spokesman for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters issued a stern warning, saying "powerful and calculated operations with severe and unpredictable consequences await the United States" in response to its direct aggression and violation of Iran’s sovereignty.
As the region stands on the edge of further escalation, the world is watching closely as these fast-moving developments unfold.
Iran said on Monday that the U.S. attack on its nuclear sites expanded the range of legitimate targets for its armed forces and called U.S. President Donald Trump a "gambler" for joining Israel's military campaign against the Islamic Republic.
Since Trump joined Israel's campaign by dropping massive bunker-buster bombs on Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday morning, Iran has repeatedly threatened to retaliate.
But while it has continued to fire missiles at Israel, it has yet to take action against the United States itself, either by firing at U.S. bases or by targeting the 20% of global oil shipments that pass near its coast at the mouth of the Gulf.
"Mr Trump, the gambler, you may start this war, but we will be the ones to end it," Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesperson for Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya central military headquarters, said on Monday in English at the end of a recorded video statement.
Iran and Israel traded another wave of air and missile strikes on Monday as the world braced for Tehran's response.
Trump's administration has repeatedly said that its aim is solely to destroy Iran's nuclear programme, not to open a wider war.
But in a social media post on Sunday, Trump openly spoke of toppling the hardline clerical rulers who have been Washington's principal foes in the Middle East since Iran's 1979 revolution.
"It’s not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!" he wrote.
Experts surveying commercial satellite imagery said it appeared that the U.S. attack had severely damaged the site of Iran's Fordow nuclear plant, built inside a mountain, and possibly destroyed it and the uranium-enriching centrifuges it housed, although there was no independent confirmation.
Trump called the strike a "Bullseye!!!".
"Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran," he wrote. "The biggest damage took place far below ground level."
MORE ISRAELI STRIKES
Israel's airstrikes on Iran have met little resistance from Iranian defences since Israel launched its surprise attack on June 13, killing many of Iran's top commanders.
The Israeli military said on Monday that about 20 jets had conducted a wave of strikes against military targets in western Iran and Tehran overnight. In Kermanshah, in western Iran, missile and radar infrastructure was targeted, and in Tehran a surface-to-air missile launcher was struck, it said.
Iranian news agencies reported air defences had been activated in central Tehran districts, and Israeli air strikes had hit Parchin, the location of a military complex southeast of the capital.
Iran says more than 400 people have been killed in the Israeli attacks, mostly civilians, but has released few images of the damage since the initial days of the bombing. Tehran, a city of 10 million people, has largely emptied, with residents fleeing to the countryside to escape attacks.
Iran's retaliatory missile strikes on Israel have killed 24 people, all civilians, and injured hundreds, the first time a significant number of Iranian missiles have ever penetrated Israeli defences.
The Israeli military said a missile launched from Iran in the early hours of Monday had been intercepted by Israeli defences. Air raid sirens blared overnight in Tel Aviv and other parts of central Israel.
LIMITED RETALIATION
Beyond those missiles, Iran's ability to retaliate is far more limited than a few months ago, since Israel inflicted defeat on Iran's most feared regional proxy force, Hezbollah in Lebanon, whose downfall was swiftly followed by that of Iran's most powerful client ruler, Syria's Bashar al-Assad.
Iran's most effective threat to hurt the West would probably be to restrict global oil flows from the Gulf. Oil prices spiked on Monday at their highest since January. But they have not yet shot up to crisis levels, indicating that traders see a path out of the conflict that avoids serious disruption.
Brent crude futures were down 0.5% to $76.64 a barrel as of 0830 GMT, after briefly jumping above $80 at the opening.
Iran's parliament has approved a move to close the Strait of Hormuz that leads into the Gulf, which would require approval from the Supreme National Security Council, a body led by an appointee of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Attempting to strangle the strait could send global oil prices skyrocketing, derail the world economy and invite conflict with the U.S. Navy's massive Fifth Fleet that patrols the Gulf from its base in Bahrain.
"It's economic suicide for them if they do it. And we retain options to deal with that," U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
As Tehran weighed its options, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi was expected to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday. The Kremlin has a strategic partnership with Iran, but also close links with Israel.
Speaking in Istanbul on Sunday, Araqchi said his country would consider all possible responses and there would be no return to diplomacy until it had retaliated. TASS news agency later quoted him as saying Iran and Russia were coordinating their positions.
