Vladimir Putin is dragged into Israel-Iran war as world holds its breath

Israel and Iran continued to unleash hellfire and fury in a fresh barrage of missile strikes.

Four were killed by two Iranian missile strikes on a residential building in Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv, while four women from the same family died in the northern city of Tamra. A further 140 people were injured during incessant overnight attacks.

It comes after Israel said it had destroyed an Iranian defence ministry building from which its nuclear programme was conducted.

Jerusalem said its actions were critical to stop Iran developing a nuclear weapon in the future even though Tehran has long maintained its programme is only for domestic purposes.

The fresh wave of strikes has threatened to plunge the Middle East descends into all-out war and drag Russia into the fray.

Israeli defence minister Israel Katz bragged “Tehran is burning” while Iran launched a salvo of strikes across Israel forcing hundreds of thousands to flee for shelter.

A spokesman for Israel Defence Forces [IDF] said: “The IDF completed an extensive series of strikes on targets in Tehran related to the Iranian regime’s nuclear weapons project.

“The targets included the Iranian Ministry of Defence headquarters, the headquarters of the SPND nuclear project, and additional targets, which advanced the Iranian regime’s efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon and where the Iranian regime hid its nuclear archive.”

Israel's ongoing pummelling of Iran has left the country's surviving dictatorship with the decision of whether to plunge deeper into conflict or seek a diplomatic route.

World leaders have made urgent calls to de​-escalate and avoid all-out war. The attack on nuclear sites set a “dangerous precedent,” China said. The region is already on edge as Israel makes a new push to eliminate the Iranian-backed militant group Hamas in Gaza after 20 months of fighting.

Israel — widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East — said hundreds of strikes on Iran over the past two days have killed a number of top generals, nine senior scientists and experts involved in Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s UN ambassador said 78 people were killed and more than 320 wounded.

There are now fears Russia, which is already shielding Syrian despot Bashar Assad after an uprising forced him to flee to Moscow in December, could become embroiled in the conflict.

The supreme leader of the basket case country - the most secretive state on earth - dispatched troops to help pal Vladimir Putin’s overrun forces.

They were sent in after Ukrainian forces seized territory in the Kursk region.

Earlier this year Iran approved a 20-year strategic partnership with Moscow representing a deepening of bilateral ties including closer defence cooperation.

While the agreement does not include a mutual defence clause, it states both countries will work together against common military threats, develop their military-technical cooperation, and take part in joint exercises.

Chillingly, Russia’s Foreign Ministry condemned Israeli strikes as “categorically unacceptable” and warned "all the consequences of this provocation will fall on the Israeli leadership”.

It urged both parties “to exercise restraint in order to prevent further escalation of tensions and keep the region from sliding into a full-scale war.”

The Middle East conflict escalated after Israel unleashed an unprecedented aerial bombing campaign codenamed Operation Rising Lion with Iran confirming missiles struck its nuclear facilities, killed dozens of civilians and eliminated a slew of its high-ranking commanders.

Tehran vowed to take revenge and has launched waves of missiles at Israel.

Iranian-owned Mehr news agency warned: "Any country that participates in repelling Iranian attacks on Israel will be subject to Iranian forces targeting all regional bases of the complicit government."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made the destruction of Iran’s nuclear programme his top priority, said the strikes so far are "nothing compared to what they will feel under the sway of our forces in the coming days”.