Israel and Iran trade fire and threats on fifth day of conflict

The Israeli army said on Tuesday it conducted “extensive strikes” overnight on military sites in western Iran, while Tehran said hundreds of its drones had “struck strategic targets” as open warfare entered a fifth day.

Israel also claimed to have killed a top Iranian general whom it described as the “most senior military figure in the regime”.

About 20 Iranian ballistic missiles struck Israel in the morning, injuring five people, the Israeli army said. Tehran claimed it had struck a military intelligence centre in Tel Aviv belonging to Mossad, Israel's foreign spy agency. In a statement aired on state television, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the building was "currently on fire".

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Iran also said three people were killed in an attack on the headquarters of the state television channel in the capital on Monday night. The incident forced a presenter for Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting to flee in the middle of her broadcast.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted his campaign against Iran was “changing the face of the Middle East”. He said the military was eliminating Iran's security leadership “one after the other”.

But Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran would not bow to military force. “Our enemies must know that they cannot reach a solution militarily and cannot force the Iranian nation to accept their demands,” he was quoted as saying by state news agency Irna.

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Mr Araghchi condemned the attack on the TV station, calling it the “height of cowardice”.

Decades of enmity broke into open conflict on Friday when Israel launched a surprise attack on Iranian nuclear and military sites. Israel says it is acting to prevent Iran from advancing a nuclear weapons programme, which Tehran says it has no intention of doing.

Iran has launched several waves of missiles in retaliation, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vowing on Monday night that attacks would continue “without interruption until dawn”.

On Tuesday morning, Iranian Brig Gen Kiomars Heidari, commander of the army's ground troops, was quoted by Irna as saying that drones had destroyed weapons at sites including in Tel Aviv and Haifa overnight. Attacks would intensify in the coming hours, he added.

Rocket warning sirens sounded in the morning across the Tel Aviv area, near Haifa and in the southern Israeli city of Be'er Sheva. Israeli medics said they were searching areas where missiles had reportedly struck.

“A short while ago, sirens sounded in several areas across Israel following the identification of missiles launched from Iran towards the state of Israel,” the Israeli military said. It added that the air force was “operating to intercept and strike where necessary to eliminate the threat”.

Israel's fire service reported a missile hit a car park in the centre of the country, setting an empty bus alight. Medics said five people were injured.

Israel said its strikes overnight into Tuesday hit “surface-to-surface missile storage and launch infrastructure”, while drone storage sites were also struck in western Iran.

It said Maj Gen Ali Shadmani, chief of Iran's armed forces emergency command, was killed in Tehran. He had been in the post only since Friday, after the death of his predecessor, Maj Gen Gholam Ali Rashid.

The Israeli army described Maj Gen Shadmani as “the man closest to” Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran has yet to comment.

Israel has called on 330,000 residents of one neighbourhood in central Tehran to leave the area. The Iranian capital is one of the largest cities in the Middle East, with a population of about 10 million, which is roughly equal to the entire population of Israel.

US President Donald Trump also called on people in Tehran to flee. “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran,” he said in a post on social media.

On the diplomatic front, the White House said Mr Trump left the G7 summit in Canada a day early due to the crisis in the Middle East, but he later clarified that statement, saying his departure had “nothing to do” with reaching a ceasefire.

French President Emmanuel Macron “mistakenly said that I left the G7 summit, in Canada, to go back to [Washington] DC to work on a 'ceasefire' between Israel and Iran. Wrong!” Mr Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

He then told reporters on board Air Force One before arriving back in the US that he was aiming for a "real end" to the conflict.

"I'm not looking for a ceasefire, we're looking at better than a ceasefire," he said, adding that he wanted a "complete give-up" by Iran.

Mr Macron called on Israel and Iran to end strikes on civilian areas and warned that pushing to overthrow the Tehran regime through force would be a “strategic error”. The G7 nations expressed support for Israel in a statement issued late on Monday and described Iran as a source of instability, while calling for a de-escalation in hostilities.