Israel says it is on track for objectives after Iranian missiles hit Israeli cities

TEL AVIV/DUBAI/WASHINGTON - Iranian missiles struck major Israeli cities on June 16 while Israel’s Prime Minister said his country was on its way to eliminate “threats” from nuclear and missile facilities in Iran as civilian casualties mounted on both sides.

After four days of conflict between the regional foes, Iran said its Parliament was preparing a Bill to leave the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), adding that Tehran remained opposed to developing weapons of mass destruction.

Passing the Bill could take several weeks but the move risks stoking deeper concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme in Western countries which have long suspected Tehran wants to build nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies.

“Government has to enforce Parliament Bills but such a proposal is just being prepared and we will coordinate in the later stages with Parliament,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei, when asked at a press conference about Tehran potentially leaving the NPT.

Israel, which said its military campaign will escalate in the coming days, began bombing Iran on June 13, saying Tehran was on the verge of building a nuclear bomb and targeting the nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

“We are on our way to achieving our two main objectives: eliminating the nuclear threat and eliminating the missile threat,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in comments to soldiers at the Tel Nof airbase.

Iran has always said its nuclear programme is peaceful, although the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, declared last week that Tehran was in violation of its NPT obligations.

Israel is presumed to have a sizeable nuclear arsenal but neither confirms nor denies it. It is the only Middle East state that has not signed the NPT.

Before dawn on June 16, Iranian missiles struck Israel’s Tel Aviv and the port city of Haifa, killing at least eight people and destroying homes, prompting Israel’s Defence Minister to warn that Tehran residents would “pay the price and soon”.

Israeli authorities said a total of seven missiles fired overnight had landed in Israel. At least 100 people were wounded.

Currency drops

Israel’s military, which has gutted Iran’s nuclear and military leadership with air strikes, said on June 16 that it had killed four senior intelligence officials, including the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence unit.

Tehran, facing its worst security breach since the 1979 Islamic Revolution toppled a US-backed secular monarch, said dozens of alleged saboteurs and “spies” linked to Israel had been arrested since the start of the conflict.

Its currency has lost at least 10 per cent of its value against the US dollar since the start of Israel’s attack.

The dangers of further escalation loomed over a meeting of Group of Seven leaders in Canada, with US President Donald Trump expressing hope on June 15 that a deal could be done.

Geopolitical stability in the Middle East has already been undermined by spillover effects of the Gaza war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Iran has watched its long-time foe decimate its regional allies Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon’s Hezbollah with assassinations of their top leaders.

In total, 24 people in Israel have been killed so far in the Iranian missile attacks, all of them civilians.

The death toll in Iran has reached at least 224, with civilians accounting for 90 per cent of the casualties, an Iranian official said.

Iran’s state media reported that the Farabi hospital and surrounding areas in the western province of Kermanshah were hit in a missile attack, causing serious damage.

In Israel, search and rescue operations were under way in Haifa where some 30 people were wounded, emergency services said. Fires were seen burning at a power plant near the port.

Video footage showed several missiles over Tel Aviv and explosions could be heard there and over Jerusalem.

Several residential buildings in a densely populated neighbourhood of Tel Aviv were destroyed in a strike that blew out the windows of hotels and homes near the US embassy branch in the city.

‘It’s terrifying’

Mr Guydo Tetelbaun, who was in his apartment in Tel Aviv when the alerts came in shortly after 4am, said he headed for a shelter but the door was blown in.

“It’s terrifying because it’s so unknown. This could be the beginning of a long time like this, or it could get worse, or hopefully better, but it’s the unknown that’s the scariest,” the 31-year-old chef said.

The pre-dawn missiles also struck near Shuk HaCarmel, a popular fresh fruit and vegetable market in Tel Aviv.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the latest attack employed a new method that caused Israel’s multi-layered defence systems to target each other and allowed Tehran to successfully hit many targets, without providing further details.

The Israeli Defence Force did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strikes.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz warned in a statement that “the residents of Tehran will pay the price, and soon”.

He later issued a separate statement saying that Israel had no intention of deliberately harming Tehran’s residents.

Oil prices edged down on June 16, after surging 7 per cent on June 13, as the military strikes by Israel and Iran over the weekend left oil production and export facilities unaffected. While investors remain on edge, stock and currency markets in Asia were little moved. REUTERS