Israel carried out heavy air strikes on Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut and started a “broad-scale” wave of attacks against infrastructure in Tehran on Friday, while Iran said it targeted the heart of Tel Aviv with missiles.
Explosions and flashes lit up the night sky over Beirut’s southern suburbs. The Israeli military said it had carried out 26 waves of strikes overnight in the southern suburbs, saying targets included Iran-backed Hezbollah militia command centres and weapons storage facilities.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Kheibar missiles were fired toward Tel Aviv on Friday as part of the 21st wave of its “Operation True Promise 4″. In a statement, the IRGC said the wave began with a combined missile and drone operation targeting sites in the heart of Tel Aviv.
Overnight, Iranian drones attacked the US Al Udied airbase in Qatar, the biggest U.S. base in the Middle East, Qatari officials said. There were no reported casualties.
The IRGC said Iranian forces had targeted the Ramat David air base and a radar site in Israel, the Al-Adiri camp in Kuwait where US forces are stationed, and a drone attack on a base hosting US troops in Erbil, Iraq.
A Guards spokesperson said new initiatives and weapons would soon be deployed to confront Israeli and U.S. aggression, without giving details.
The seven-day war has now seen Iran target Israel, the Gulf states, Cyprus, Turkey and Azerbaijan, and spread to the Indian Ocean where a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian naval ship near Sri Lanka.
“This was an ‘existential war’ for Iran, leaving us with no choice but to respond wherever American attacks originate from,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh said at the Raisina Dialogues conference in New Delhi on Friday.
Hezbollah, in a message published in Hebrew on its Telegram channel early on Friday, warned Israelis to leave towns within 5 km (3 miles) of the border.
“Your military’s aggression against Lebanese sovereignty and safe citizens, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and the expulsion campaign it is carrying out will not go unchallenged,” Hezbollah said.
At least 1,230 people have been killed in Iran since the fighting began a week ago, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society.
The Lebanese health ministry has reported 123 people have been killed and another 683 wounded as a result of Israeli attacks this week. Its figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. There have been no reported fatalities in Israel as a result of Hezbollah attacks.
Azerbaijan was preparing unspecified retaliatory measures on Thursday after it said four Iranian drones crossed its border and injured four people in the Nakhchivan exclave. Iran, which has a significant Azeri minority, denied it targeted its neighbour.
Ground troops in Iran
President Donald Trump said Thursday it would be a “waste of time” currently to consider sending US ground troops into Iran, NBC News reported, dismissing the Iranian foreign minister’s warning that such a move would spell disaster for invaders.
“It’s a waste of time. They’ve lost everything. They’ve lost their navy. They’ve lost everything they can lose,” he told NBC by telephone, adding that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s earlier remark that Iran was ready for a US or Israeli ground invasion was a “wasted comment.”
Trump also indicated he is keen to see Iran’s leadership structure removed and that “we want to go in and clean out everything” quickly.
“We don’t want someone who would rebuild over a 10-year period,” he said. He added that he had ideas for a new leader but declined to name anyone.
Trump said earlier he would “have to be involved” in the appointment of Iran’s next leader after US-Israeli strikes killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei when the conflict began on Saturday. He rejected the possibility that Khamenei’s son Mojtaba could succeed his slain father, dismissing him as a “lightweight”.
Heavy attacks were reported in Tehran on Friday after Israel said it was hitting “regime infrastructure” in a “new phase” of the war it launched with the US against Iran.
