Tel Aviv: Israel’s famed Iron Dome was breached, at least partially, after Iran fired hundreds of ballistic missiles at targets across the country’s capital on Friday. This was in retaliation to Israel’s Operation Rising Lion that targeted multiple Iranian nuclear and military infrastructures.
Israel’s strikes are said to have eliminated Iran’s top military brass, and crippled its nuclear capabilities.
As Iran struck back, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that ‘more is on the way’, adding that his country’s attempt to destroy the Iranian nuclear program is just the beginning. In northern Tehran, residents reported frequent explosions, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported.
An Israeli military spokesperson said that Iran had fired up to 100 drones in waves. Tel Aviv claimed that most of these were intercepted or missed their targets. Some of them managed to penetrate Israel’s multi-tiered defences though.
Sirens were heard in Tel Aviv and half an hour later, the city echoed with the mid-air explosions as the Arrow missile defence systems took out some of the Iranian arsenal.
The puncture in the Iron Dome was clear after an Iranian missiles hit a high-rise residential building near the heart of Tel Aviv, reducing the worst-hit areas to a tangle of exposed twisted steel bars. Firefighters reached the spot as they navigated through the rubble in the region.
According to The Times of Israel, as of now, at least 2 people are confirmed to be critically injured. Meanwhile, emergency services said that they were called to at least five impact sites.
The Iranian barrage began soon after a televised address from the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who pledged: “The armed forces of the Islamic Republic will inflict heavy blows upon this malevolent enemy.” He warned that the consequences of Israel’s attack “will bring it to ruin”.
Soon after the Iranian attack, Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, accused Tehran of crossing “red lines” by attacking civilian areas. “We will continue to defend the citizens of Israel and ensure that the Ayatollah regime pays a very heavy price for its heinous actions,” he said.
Iran’s envoy to the United Nations, Amir Saeid, told the Security Council that 78 people, including senior officials, had been killed in the Israeli attacks and more than 320 injured, most of them civilians.
Netanyahu has said: “In the past 24 hours, we have taken out top military commanders, senior nuclear scientists, the Islamic regime’s most significant enrichment facility and a large portion of its ballistic missile arsenal. More is on the way. The regime does not know what hit them, or what will hit them. It has never been weaker.”
