Reuters
Source: Reuters
Iran and Israel targeted each other with missiles and airstrikes early on Saturday after Israel launched its biggest-ever air offensive against its longtime foe in a bid to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Air raid sirens sounded across Israel, including in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, sending residents rushing into shelters as successive waves of Iranian missiles streaked across the skies and Israeli interceptors rose up to meet them.
A missile fired from Yemen by the Iran-backed Houthi militia, killed five Palestinians including three children in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
In Iran, several explosions were heard overnight in the capital Tehran, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
The Fars news agency said two projectiles hit Tehran’s Mehrabad airport, and Iranian media said flames were reported there. Close to key Iranian leadership sites, the airport hosts an air force base with fighter jets and transport aircraft.
Iran’s U.N. envoy Amir Saeid Iravani said 78 people, including senior military officials, have been killed in Israel’s strikes on Iran and more than 320 wounded, most of them civilians.
Tehran launched waves of airstrikes on Saturday after two salvos on Friday night, Fars reported. One of the waves targeted Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial hub, before dawn on Saturday, with explosions heard as far as Jerusalem, witnesses said.
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