Israel-Iran conflict escalates, over 240 reported dead; Tehran rejects truce talks, launches fresh airstrikes

Iran launched a new wave of missile attacks on Israel early Monday, triggering air raid sirens across the country as emergency services reported at least three killed and dozens more wounded in the fourth day of open warfare between the regional foes.

Iran announced it had launched some 100 missiles and vowed further retaliation for the surprise attack on its nuclear programme and military leadership that Israel began last Friday.

Powerful explosions, likely from Israel’s defence systems intercepting Iranian missiles, rocked Tel Aviv shortly before dawn on Monday, sending plumes of black smoke into the sky over the coastal city.

Authorities in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv said that Iranian missiles had hit a residential building there, charring concrete walls, blowing out windows and heavily damaging multiple apartments.

The Israeli Magen David Adom emergency service reported that two women and one man — all in their 70s — were killed in the wave of missile attacks that struck four sites in central Israel. That brought the total death toll in Israel to at least 17 since Iran began launching missiles at the country in response to Israel’s sweeping attacks on its military and nuclear infrastructure last Friday.

The MDA added that paramedics had evacuated another 74 wounded people to hospitals, including a 30-year-old woman in serious condition, while rescuers were still searching for residents trapped beneath the rubble of their homes.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that if Israeli strikes on Iran stop, “our responses will also stop.”

But after a day of intensive Israeli aerial attacks that extended targets beyond military installations to hit oil refineries and government buildings, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard struck a hard line, vowing that further rounds of strikes would be “more forceful, severe, precise and destructive than previous ones.”

The day before Israel’s military struck dozens of sites across Iran, expanding its targets beyond military installations to hit oil refineries and government buildings.

Iran on Sunday said Israel had killed the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence chief and pummelled population centres in intensive aerial attacks that raised the death toll from Israel’s campaign to 224 people since Friday.

Health authorities also reported that 1,277 were wounded in Iran, without distinguishing between military officials and civilians. Rights groups putting together their own casualty reports in the country have suggested that the Iranian government’s death toll is a significant undercount.

Trump vetoes plan to target Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei

In an indication of how far Israel was seemingly prepared to go, a US official said that President Donald Trump nixed an Israeli plan to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all major policies, serves as commander-in-chief of the armed forces and controls the powerful Revolutionary Guard.

Israel, the sole though undeclared nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, has said this attack—its most powerful ever against Iran—was to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

The latest round of talks between the US and Iran on the future of Tehran’s nuclear programme had been scheduled on Sunday in Oman but were cancelled after Israel’s attack.

Meanwhile, Iran told mediators Qatar and Oman that it was not open to negotiating a ceasefire while it was under Israeli attack.

Iran turns metro stations, mosques into bomb shelters

Claiming to operate almost freely in the skies over Iran, Israel said its attacks on Sunday hit Iran’s Defence Ministry, missile-launch sites and factories producing air-defence components. Iran also acknowledged Israel had killed more of its top generals, including the Revolutionary Guard intelligence chief, Gen. Mohammad Kazemi.

But Israeli strikes have also extended beyond Iranian military installations to hit government buildings, including the Foreign Ministry and several energy facilities, Iranian authorities said, most recently sparking fires on Sunday at the Shahran oil depot north of Tehran and a fuel tank south of the city.

The strikes raised the prospect of a broader assault on Iran’s heavily-sanctioned energy industry that is vital to the global economy and markets.

World