New explosions boomed across Tehran as Iranian deadly missiles entered Israel’s skies in torrential attacks that Israeli emergency officials said caused deaths, injuries and destruction around the country, including four in an apartment building in the Galilee region.
For a reasonable period, traces of projectile from the Iranian fire illuminated the Israeli sky seen from the country’s northern region late Saturday.
A strike in central Israel killed an 80-year-old woman, a 69-year-old woman and a 10-year-old boy, officials said.
The predawn assault from the air shattered buildings and fear – stricken residents rudely woken by booming explosions fled their homes seeking safe cover. Israeli security forces were seen inspecting a destroyed building that was hit by a missile fired from Iran, near Tel Aviv, Israel, early Sunday, June 15, 2025.
The attack and retaliatory attack between Israel and Tehran have stalled the ongoing negotiation talks between the United States and Iran over nuclear program in Tehran – Iran.
However, President Donald Trump has said the US is not involved in the latest conflict between Israel and Iran.
“The U.S. had nothing to do with the attack on Iran, tonight,” Trump has said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Iran has warned the US and its allies not to help Israel stop Tehran’s retaliatory strikes.
“If we are attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before,” Trump adds. “However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict!!!”
Many in Israel are in shock this Sunday morning after two waves of Iranian missile attacks that killed at least 10 people, including four women from the same family in the town of Tamra, and a 10-year-old boy and a girl aged eight in the city of Bat Yam, according to BBC news.
A large swathe of a section of Southern Tel – Aviv has experienced massive destruction to buildings after Iran pounded the area for over an hour in torrential night missile attacks.
•Tel – Aviv after the Iranian missile fire
Israeli officials had warned that the country would face difficult days, as they carry out an unprecedented wave of attacks on Iran. Israel has indicated that this will be a prolonged campaign – likely to take weeks, not days – but its end goal remains unclear.
Last night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacks that had already been carried out were nothing compared with what Iran would see in the coming days.
Israeli authorities say the action is justified because Iran was reaching the point of no return in developing a nuclear weapon.
•Projectiles falling on Tehran early Sunday, June 15, 2025.
Also, Israel launched an expanded assault on Iran on Sunday, targeting its energy industry and Defense Ministry headquarters, even as Tehran let off a fresh barrage of deadly strikes.
The simultaneous attacks represented the latest burst of violence since a surprise offensive by Israel two days earlier aimed at decimating Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program.
Casualty figures weren’t immediately available in Iran, where Israel targeted its Defense Ministry headquarters in Tehran as well as sites that it alleged were associated with the country’s nuclear program. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed that Iranian missiles targeted fuel production facilities for Israeli fighter jets, something not acknowledged by Israel.
Amid the continued conflict, planned negotiations between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s nuclear program were cancelled, throwing into question when and how an end to the fighting could come.
“Tehran is burning,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on social media.
Both Israel’s military and Iran state television announced the latest round of Iranian missiles as explosions were heard near midnight, while the Israeli security cabinet met.
Israel’s ongoing strikes across Iran have left the country’s surviving leadership with the difficult decision of whether to plunge deeper into conflict with Israel’s more powerful forces or seek a diplomatic route.
Urgent calls to deescalate
World leaders made urgent calls to deescalate and avoid all-out war. The attack on nuclear sites set a “dangerous precedent,” China’s foreign minister 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 its 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 U.N. ambassador has said 78 people were killed and more than 320 wounded.
U.S. intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency have repeatedly said Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon before Israel unleashed its campaign of airstrikes targeting Iran beginning Friday. But Iran’s uranium enrichment has reached near weapons-grade levels, and on Thursday the U.N.’s atomic watchdog censured Iran for not complying with obligations meant to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program his top priority, said Israel’s strikes so far are “nothing compared to what they will feel under the sway of our forces in the coming days.”
In what could be another escalation if confirmed, semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported an Israeli drone struck and caused a “strong explosion” at an Iranian natural-gas processing plant. It would be the first Israeli attack on Iran’s oil and natural gas industry. Israel’s military did not immediately comment.
The extent of damage at the South Pars natural gas field was not immediately clear. Such sites have air defense systems around them, which Israel has been targeting.
Iran calls nuclear talks ‘unjustifiable’
The sixth round of U.S.-Iran indirect talks on Sunday over Iran ’s nuclear program will not take place, mediator Oman said. “We remain committed to talks and hope the Iranians will come to the table soon,” said a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss diplomacy.
Iran’s top diplomat said Saturday the nuclear talks were “unjustifiable” after Israel’s strikes. Abbas Araghchi’s comments came during a call with Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat.
The Israeli airstrikes were the “result of the direct support by Washington,” Araghchi said in a statement carried by the state-run IRNA news agency. The U.S. has said it isn’t part of the strikes.
On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump urged Iran to reach a deal with the U.S. on its nuclear program, adding that “Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left.”
US helps to shoot down Iranian missiles
Iran launched its first waves of missiles at Israel late Friday and early Saturday. The attacks killed at least three people and wounded 174, two of them seriously, Israel said. The military said seven soldiers were lightly wounded when a missile hit central Israel, without specifying where.
U.S. ground-based air defense systems in the region were helping to shoot down Iranian missiles, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the measures.
Israel’s main international airport said it will remain closed until further notice.
First responders were looking for survivors and clearing the remnants of a missile that fell on a neighborhood outside of Tel Aviv early Sunday morning.
An Associated Press reporter saw streets lined with damaged and destroyed buildings, bombed out cars and shards of glass.
Responders used a drone at points to look for survivors in some of the areas that were too hard to access. Some people were fleeing the area with their belongings in suitcases.
‘More than a few weeks’ to repair nuclear facilities
Israel attacked Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz. Satellite photos analyzed by AP show extensive damage there. The images shot Saturday by Planet Labs PBC show multiple buildings damaged or destroyed. The structures hit include buildings identified by experts as supplying power to the facility.
U.N. nuclear chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that the above-ground section of the Natanz facility was destroyed. The main centrifuge facility underground did not appear to have been hit, but the loss of power could have damaged infrastructure there, he said.
Israel said it also struck a nuclear research facility in Isfahan, including “infrastructure for enriched uranium conversion,” and said it destroyed dozens of radar installations and surface-to-air missile launchers in western Iran. Iran confirmed the strike at Isfahan.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said four “critical buildings” at the Isfahan site were damaged, including its uranium conversion facility. “As in Natanz, no increase in off-site radiation expected,” it added.
An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with official procedures, said that according to the army’s initial assessment “it will take much more than a few weeks” for Iran to repair the damage to the Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites. The official said the army had “concrete intelligence that production in Isfahan was for military purposes.”
Israel denied it had struck the nuclear enrichment facility in Fordo, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Tehran.
Among those killed were three of Iran’s top military leaders: one who oversaw the entire armed forces, Gen. Mohammad Bagheri; one who led the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Hossein Salami; and the head of the Guard’s aerospace division, which oversees its arsenal of ballistic missile program, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh. On Saturday, Khamenei named a new leader for the Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace division: Gen. Majid Mousavi.
~Credit: AP.
