'Tehran will burn': Israel vows further attacks on Iran if airstrikes continue
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has said the people in Tehran will 'pay a heavy price' if Iran continues with its missile attacks, warning that the Iranian capital 'will burn.'
It comes after Iran bombarded Tel Aviv with hundreds of missiles overnight in retaliation for Israeli strikes on its nuclear bases.
Air raid sirens sounded out across Israel and its citizens were ordered to move into bomb shelters, as the attack began on Friday night.
The skies above Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were lit up throughout the night by incoming missiles, interceptor rockets and explosions, with both sides reporting casualties while threatening that more was to come.
A plume of smoke could be seen rising from central Tel Aviv amid the barrage, after at least one Iranian missile appeared to bypass the iron dome missile defence system.
Israel's paramedic service said two people were killed and another 19 people were injured after Iranian missiles struck the central Israeli city of Rishon LeZion on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Defence Forces has said it is continuing to airstrikes on targets in Iran, just over 24 hours since it's initial strike which the army claims killed three Iranian military commanders.
Tensions between Israel, the US and Iran have escalated in recent weeks, amid negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal, which is aimed at preventing the country from developing nuclear weapons.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu stressed his country's fight was not against the Iranian people.
"Our fight is against the murderous Islamic regime that oppresses and impoverishes you," he said.
"The regime does not know what hit them, or what will hit them. It has never been weaker. This is your opportunity to stand up and let your voices be heard."
Operation Rising Lion – the offensive against Tehran – has mainly targeted nuclear sites, including destroying the above ground section of Iran's main Natanz nuclear base.
Some 78 people were killed and more than 320 wounded in Iran, according to its ambassador to the UN.
The attack is believed to be the most significant Iran has faced since its war with Iraq in the 1980s.
Netanyahu said 'more is on the way' in a video message released on Friday night.
Danny Dannon, Israel's UN ambassador, claimed the operation was launched because Iran was 'within days' of having the capability of building nuclear weapons.
Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed revenge against Israel in a recorded message on Friday, saying: 'We will not allow them to escape safely from this great crime they committed.'
Tehran has warned the US, the UK and France not to help Israel stop Iran's strikes, according to Iranian state media.
Israel's attack came after years of threats and days of heightened speculation – but without the United States' blessing.
Donald Trump's administration, which has been working to persuade Iran to give up its uranium enrichment programme, stressed that Israel acted unilaterally and that Washington was 'not involved'.
It comes after the president wrote on his Truth Social platform on Friday that he had given Iran a "60 day ultimatum" two months ago to "make a deal", warning them "it would be much worse than anything they know" if they failed to do so.
"Certain Iranian hardliner's spoke bravely, but they didn't know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse... Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left," he added.
In a statement carried by the state-run IRNA news agency, Abbas Araghchi, Iran's minister of foreign affairs, claimed Israel's strikes were the 'result of the direct support by Washington". There was no immediate word from the White House after Araghchi's comments.
The US and Iran were scheduled to meet in Oman on Sunday for their sixth round of indirect talks over Iran's nuclear program, but Israel's attack raised doubts about whether the negotiations would proceed.
Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has reiterated the need to 'de-escalate' the conflict between Israel and Iran, having spoken to Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, on Saturday afternoon.
'They discussed the gravely concerning situation in the Middle East and agreed on the need to de-escalate,' a Downing Street spokesperson said.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy was expected to spend the day in talks with counterparts across the Middle East and elsewhere.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
a minute ago
- Reuters
Canada airdrops aid into Gaza, says Israel violating international law
Aug 4 (Reuters) - Canada said on Monday it delivered humanitarian assistance through airdrops to Gaza, which has been under a devastating Israeli military assault for almost 22 months, with Ottawa again accusing Israel of violating international law. "The (Canadian Armed Forces) employed a CC-130J Hercules aircraft to conduct an airdrop of critical humanitarian aid in support of Global Affairs Canada into the Gaza Strip. The air drop consisted of 21,600 pounds of aid," the Canadian government said in a statement. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that it was Canadian Armed Forces' first humanitarian airdrop over Gaza using their own aircraft. The Israeli military said 120 food aid packages for Gaza's residents were airdropped by six countries, including Canada. The other five were Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Germany and Belgium. Canada said last week it plans to recognize the State of Palestine at a meeting of the United Nations in September, ratcheting up pressure on Israel as starvation spreads in Gaza. Canada also said on Monday that Israeli restrictions have posed challenges for humanitarian agencies. "This obstruction of aid is a violation of international humanitarian law and must end immediately," Canada's government said. The Israeli embassy in Ottawa had no immediate comment. Israel denies accusations of violating international law and blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza. Israel cut off food supplies to Gaza in March and then lifted that blockade in May - but with restrictions that it said were needed to prevent aid from being diverted to militant groups. President Donald Trump also claimed Hamas militants were stealing food coming into Gaza and selling it. However, Reuters reported late last month that an internal U.S. government analysis found no evidence of systematic theft by Hamas of U.S.-funded humanitarian supplies. Israel says it is taking steps for more aid to reach Gaza's population, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas, allowing airdrops and announcing protected routes for aid convoys. The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, Israeli tallies show. Gaza's health ministry says Israel's subsequent military assault has killed over 60,000 Palestinians. It has also caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced Gaza's entire population and prompted accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the accusations.
ITV News
2 hours ago
- ITV News
Aerial footage filmed by ITV News shows scale of Gaza's destruction
Last week, ITV News International Editor Emma Murphy filmed from on board a Jordanian flight dropping aid into Gaza. The first aerials of Gaza for months document the territory's continued destruction. Filmed by ITV News International Editor Emma Murphy, on board a plane dropping aid into Gaza, the images show huge swathes of land in ruins. Journalists are prevented from entering Gaza by Israel. Looking out the plane windows from 15,000 feet is the closest any foreign media has been to seeing the aftermath of 22 months of war, apart from trips arranged by the Israeli military. Those on the flights were told they were only allowed to film the aid being dropped, not Gaza below. Entire areas have been levelled after months of Israeli bombardment; the land, once pebbled with spots of green, has largely turned to dust. The Al Wafa Centre for Elderly Care, located in Al-Zahraa City, stands out in a landscape primarily made of rubble. The centre said it provides care for elderly people over 60 with no one to care for them, free of charge. While the building still stands, it has not escaped aerial attacks, according to Palestinian sources. In November 2023, there are multiple reports of Israeli shells hitting the elderly care centre and killing its director, Dr. Medhat Muheisen. Videos from the centre's social media, before the war began ,show elderly patients being fed, provided with activities and partaking in exercise. They also show the surrounding area of the hospital and what stood there before it was turned to rubble. This screenshot from a video posted in 2021 shows a number of tall buildings that once stood near the centre. Their fate is highlighted in yellow below; once tall frames razed to the ground or crumpled in on themselves. Pressure is being levelled on Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire with Hamas, after images of emaciated hostages held in Gaza were released. Talks previously broke down in July, after President Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff said Hamas' response showed "a lack of desire" to reach a truce. The videos of the hostages emerged as experts warn that Gaza faces "a worst-case scenario of famine" because of Israel's blockade, which will lead to widespread death. Gaza's Health Ministry said Monday that five more Palestinian adults died of malnutrition-related causes in the past 24 hours. It claimed that 87 adults have died from malnutrition-related issues since late June, and that 93 children have died since the war began from a lack of food. Israel's government has denied that people are starving to death in Gaza.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘No one should act surprised,' says UN expert who warned of starvation in Gaza last year
The UN expert who first warned that Israel was orchestrating a campaign of deliberate mass starvation in Gaza more than 500 days ago, has said that governments and corporations cannot claim to be surprised at the horror now unfolding. 'Israel has built the most efficient starvation machine you can imagine. So while it's always shocking to see people being starved, no one should act surprised. All the information has been out in the open since early 2024,' Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, told the Guardian. 'Israel is starving Gaza. It's genocide. It's a crime against humanity. It's a war crime. I have been repeating it and repeating it and repeating it, I feel like Cassandra,' said Fakhri, referring to the Greek mythological figure whose warnings and predictions were ignored. On 9 October 2023 – two days after the deadly Hamas attack – Israel's then defense minister, Yoav Gallant, declared a 'complete siege' of Gaza and said he would halt the supply of electricity, food, water and fuel. By December 2023, Gazans accounted for 80% of the people in the world experiencing catastrophic hunger, according to UN and international aid agency figures. Now, widespread starvation, malnutrition and disease are driving the sharp rise in hunger-related deaths across Gaza, with more than 20,000 children hospitalized for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global initiative that provides real-time data on hunger and famine for the UN and aid groups. The 'worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out' across the Gaza Strip, the IPC warned in an alert earlier this week. Fakhri was among the first to warn about the impending famine – and the need for urgent action to stop Israel from starving 2 million people in Gaza. In an interview with the Guardian published on 28 February 2024, Fakhri said: 'We have never seen a civilian population made to go so hungry so quickly and so completely, that is the consensus among starvation experts … Intentionally depriving people of food is clearly a war crime. Israel has announced its intention to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, simply for being Palestinian … this is now a situation of genocide.' The following month, the international court of justice recognized the risk of genocide in Gaza and drew attention to the 'spread of famine and starvation'. The ICJ said that Israel must immediately take all necessary and effective measures, in cooperation with the UN, to ensure unfettered access to humanitarian aid including food, water, shelter, fuel and medicines. In May, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former defense minister Gallant became the first ever individuals to be formally accused by an international court of deliberate starvation, which is a war crime. In July 2024, a group of UN experts including Fakhri declared a famine after the first deaths from starvation were reported in Gaza. Fakhri also published a detailed report for the UN into Israel's decades-long control over food production and supplies to Palestinians, a stranglehold which meant 80% of people in Gaza were dependent on aid when Gallant announced the current siege in October 2023. Yet there has been little or no action to stop Israel starving Palestinians, which it has achieved by systematically destroying local food production (greenhouses, orchards, farmland) and blocking aid – in violation of international law. According to Fakhri, this is why famine has now taken hold in Gaza. 'Famine is always political, always predictable and always preventable. But there is no verb to famine. We don't famine people, we starve them – and that inevitably leads to famine if no political action is taken to avoid it. 'But to frame the mass starvation as a consequence of the most recent blockade, is a misunderstanding of how starvation works and what's going on in Gaza. People don't all of a sudden starve, children don't wither away that quickly. This is because they have been deliberately weakened for so long. The state of Israel itself has used food as a weapon since its creation. It can and does loosen and tighten its starvation machine in response to pressure; it has been fine-tuning this for 25 years.' Despite stark images of skeletal Palestinians, the Israeli government and some of its allies have continued to insist that the hunger is the result of logistical problems, not a state policy. Last week Netanyahu said: 'There is no policy of starvation in Gaza. There is no starvation in Gaza.' Unicef is among multiple aid agencies to confirm that malnutrition and starvation have escalated since early March 2025 – when Israel unilaterally violated a ceasefire agreed after Donald Trump returned to the White House. Israel reinstated a total blockade after allowing some aid trucks in during the ceasefire, though UN agencies and charities on the ground said it was never enough to fully meet the needs of the starved, sick and weakened population. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an opaque logistics group backed by Israel and the Trump administration, began operations in May, with armed security provided by private contractors and the Israeli military. It was authorized to replace 400 UN distribution hubs with just four across Gaza, in response to unproven claims that international aid was being diverted by Hamas. The UN and hundreds of aid groups condemned the move as a weaponization of aid that violated long-established humanitarian norms. On 1 June, Israeli soldiers killed 32 people at GHF sites, and since then more than 1,300 starving Palestinians have been killed trying to access food. Israel has long sought to discredit and weaken the UN and other international mechanisms including the courts, which it sees as hostile to its ongoing de facto annexation of Palestinian territories, accusing them of antisemitism. 'This is using aid not for humanitarian purposes, but to control populations, to move them, to humiliate and weaken people as part of their military tactics. The GHF is so frightening because it might be the new militarized dystopia of aid of the future,' Fakhri said. In a statement, GHF rejected the reports of Palestinian deaths as 'false and exaggerated statistics' and accused the UN of not doing enough. 'If the UN and other groups would collaborate with us, we could end the starvation, desperation and violent incidents almost overnight. We could scale up, add more distribution sites and ramp up direct-to-community delivery which GHF is piloting now,' a spokesperson said. The Israeli government did not respond to request for comment. The deaths from starvation and aid-hub massacres come on top of at least 60,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli bombs and tanks. Studies have concluded that the real death toll is almost certainly much higher, and Israel has continued to deny international researchers and journalists entry into Gaza. Fakhri and other UN experts have repeatedly urged member states and corporations to act to stop the bombs and famine by cutting financial and military aid and trade with Israel, as well as broad-based economic and political sanctions. 'I see stronger political language, more condemnation, more plans proposed, but despite the change in rhetoric, we're still in the phase of inaction. The politicians and corporations have no excuse, they're really shameful. The fact that millions of people are mobilizing in growing numbers shows that everyone in the world understands how many different countries, corporations and individuals are culpable.' Fakhri argues that in light of the US persistent vetoing of ceasefire resolutions at the UN security council, it is incumbent on the UN general assembly to call for peacekeepers to accompany humanitarian convoys into Gaza. 'They have the majority of votes, and most importantly, millions of people are demanding this. Ordinary people are trying to break through an illegal blockade to deliver humanitarian aid, to implement international law their governments are failing to do. Why else do we have peacekeepers if not to end genocide and prevent starvation?'
