Iran launched missiles equipped with cluster warheads at Tel Aviv in what it described as retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Iranian security chief Ali Larijani, state television reported on Wednesday.
The overnight attack on Tuesday killed two people in a neighborhood near densely populated Tel Aviv, which is home to key military installations. This brings the death toll in Israel from the ongoing conflict to at least 14.
According to a statement broadcast on Iranian state TV, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the strike used Khorramshahr 4 and Qadr missiles, both capable of carrying multiple warheads.
Israel has accused Iran of repeatedly deploying cluster munitions, which fragment into numerous smaller explosives mid-air, making them harder to intercept and more likely to cause widespread damage.
Meanwhile, in Iran, a projectile landed near the Bushehr nuclear power plant on Tuesday evening but caused no injuries or damage, Iranian officials told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi renewed his call for maximum restraint amid the escalating conflict, warning of the risk of a nuclear accident.
Israel and the United States have stated that preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons remains a primary objective of their joint military campaign, which began over two weeks ago and resulted in the death of Iran’s supreme leader and several senior officials.
Iran’s government on Tuesday confirmed the death of Larijani, the highest-ranking official killed since the start of the U.S.-Israeli offensive, which began with an Israeli strike that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, which Larijani led, also reported that his son and deputy, Alireza Bayat, were killed in an Israeli attack on Monday night.
These targeted killings come as the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran shows no signs of de-escalation.
Iran’s newly appointed supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has rejected proposals—communicated to the Foreign Ministry—for reducing tensions or agreeing to a ceasefire with the United States, according to a senior Iranian official.
At his first foreign policy meeting since his appointment, Khamenei reportedly stated that “now is not the right time for peace until the United States and Israel are brought to their knees, accept defeat, and pay compensation.” The official did not specify whether Khamenei, who has not yet made a public appearance since succeeding his slain father, attended the meeting in person or remotely.
In a separate development, Iran executed Kurosh Keyvani, who was convicted of spying for Israel’s Mossad and providing sensitive information and photographs of key sites, the judiciary’s media outlet Mizan reported on Wednesday.
Elsewhere, an Israeli airstrike hit Beirut’s Bachoura neighborhood in central Beirut on Wednesday, according to a Reuters witness. Residents heard loud explosions after the Israeli military warned them to evacuate a building targeted in the strike.
The Beirut attack was part of a series of Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Wednesday, including raids in other parts of the capital and in the country’s south and east, indicating an escalation in Israel’s campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah.
(Reuters/NAN)
