Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities – explosions in Tehran

Tel Aviv. Israel has begun the expected attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. The operation is "a preemptive, precise, combined offensive" to attack Iran's nuclear program and other military targets, the military announced overnight. Loud explosions were reported from the Iranian capital, Tehran. "This operation will last as many days as it takes to eliminate this threat," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video address.

Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatened Israel with retaliation in response to the major nighttime attack. Israel must expect "severe punishment," the religious leader was quoted as saying in a statement from his office.

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz declared a state of emergency in his country. Following a "preemptive strike" against Iran, a missile and drone attack on Israel is to be expected "in the immediate future," Katz said overnight, according to the Times of Israel.

The commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guards was killed in the major Israeli attack. Major General Hussein Salami was killed in an attack on the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards' Supreme Command, reported the Tasnim news agency, considered the mouthpiece of Iran's elite armed forces.

According to Washington officials, the United States, an ally of Israel, was not involved in the attack. Iran had already threatened retaliation this week in the event of an attack.

Iranian media showed images of destroyed building facades in Tehran. Videos showed rescue workers searching for people buried under rubble. A state television reporter said he had already seen several fatalities. Smoke rose from the Natanz nuclear facility in the center of the Islamic Republic, state television reported.

Firefighters and people clean up the scene of an explosion in a residential complex following an Israeli attack on the Iranian capital Tehran.

Source: Vahid Salemi/AP/dpa

Dozens of fighter jets have completed "the first phase" of the operation, the Israeli military announced on Telegram. Dozens of military targets, including nuclear targets, were attacked in various regions of Iran, it said.

The dispute over Iran's nuclear program has recently escalated. The military operation was launched "to push back the Iranian threat to Israel's survival," Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said in the recorded speech.

US President Donald Trump has warned Iran several times in recent months that a military intervention could occur without an agreement on the nuclear dispute. He said that he did not want that to happen, but that he was prepared to do so.

Recently, concerns about a possible Israeli attack on Iran have grown in the Middle East. At the end of May, US media reported that Israel had already prepared a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

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Iran's political leadership repeatedly asserts that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons and intends to use its nuclear facilities for civilian purposes. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and many other states are concerned that Tehran is moving ever closer to being able to produce such weapons. Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon state producing uranium with almost weapons-grade purity.

This week, the IAEA's Steering Committee formally declared in a resolution that Tehran had violated its obligation to disclose its entire nuclear program. The resolution, adopted by the IAEA Board of Governors, also threatened to involve the UN Security Council.

The US and Iran have been negotiating since April about possible renewed restrictions on Iran's nuclear program. Trump recently expressed little optimism about the talks. "I'm less confident now than I was a few months ago," he said in a podcast this week.

At the same time, the United States, Israel's most important ally, reduced its embassy staff in Iraq this week for security reasons. There were fears that the Islamic Republic's leadership could order retaliatory strikes against US bases in the region in the event of an Israeli attack.

Asked about the embassy staff, US President Donald Trump said in Washington: "They are being withdrawn because it could be a dangerous place. We'll see what happens." Iran "cannot have nuclear weapons, we will not allow that," Trump said.

RND/dpa/seb