DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel unleashed airstrikes across Iran for a third day Sunday and threatened even greater force as some Iranian missiles evaded Israeli air defenses to strike buildings in the heart of the country. Planned talks on Iran’s nuclear program, which could provide an off-ramp, were canceled.
U.S. President Donald Trump in recent days vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a U.S. official told The Associated Press, in an indication of how far Israel was prepared to go.
Israel's strikes have killed at least 406 people in Iran and wounded another 654, according to a human rights group that has long tracked the country, Washington-based Human Rights Activists. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.
The region braced for a protracted conflict after Israel's surprise bombardment Friday of Iranian nuclear and military sites killed several top generals and nuclear scientists. Neither side showed any sign of backing down.
Iran said Israel struck two oil refineries, raising the prospect of a broader assault on Iran's heavily sanctioned energy industry that could affect global markets. The Israeli military, in a social media post, warned Iranians to evacuate arms factories, signaling a further widening of the campaign.
Israel, the sole though undeclared nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, said it launched the attack to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. The two countries have been adversaries for decades.
Explosions shook Iran's capital, Tehran, around noon and again around 3:30 p.m. Sirens went off across much of Israel around 4 p.m., warning of Iran's first daytime assault since fighting began. More sirens sounded around 8:30 p.m.
Israel said 14 people have been killed there since Friday and 390 wounded. Iran has fired over 270 missiles, 22 of which got through the country’s sophisticated multi-tiered air defenses, according to Israeli figures. Israel’s main international airport and airspace remained closed for a third day.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said if Israel's strikes on Iran stop, then “our responses will also stop." Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, criticized the United States for supporting Israel and said if Israel's “hostile actions” continue, “the responses will be more decisive and severe,” state TV reported.
Trump said the U.S. “had nothing to do with the attack” and that Iran can avoid further destruction only by agreeing to a new nuclear deal.
Mosques as bomb shelters
Photos shared by Iran's ISNA News Agency showed bloodied people being helped from the scene of Israeli strikes in downtown Tehran.
Israeli strikes targeted Iran's Defense Ministry early Sunday after hitting air defenses, military bases and sites associated with its nuclear program. On Sunday night, Israel said it had begun striking dozens of surface-to-surface missile targets in western Iran.
Israel also claimed it attacked an Iranian refueling aircraft in Mashhad in the northeast, calling it the farthest strike the military had yet carried out. Iran did not immediately acknowledge any attack. Video obtained and verified by the AP showed smoke rising from the city.
Iran's foreign minister said Israel targeted an oil refinery near Tehran and another in a province on the Persian Gulf. Semiofficial Iranian news agencies have reported that an Israeli drone strike caused a “strong explosion” at an Iranian natural gas processing plant at the South Pars natural gas field.
Human Rights Activists said its breakdown of the toll so far showed at least 197 civilians and 90 members of the military have been killed across Iran. At least 119 more deaths could not be identified.
The group crosschecks local reports against a network of sources inside the country, where access for international media is more limited than in Israel.
In a sign that Iran expects Israeli strikes to continue, state television reported that metro stations and mosques would be made available as bomb shelters beginning Sunday night.
Death toll rises in Israel
In Israel, at least six people, including a 10-year-old and a 9-year-old, were killed when a missile hit an apartment building in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv. Daniel Hadad, a local police commander, said 180 people were wounded and seven were missing.
Another four people, including a 13-year-old, were killed and 24 wounded when a missile struck a building in the Arab town of Tamra in northern Israel. A strike on the central city of Rehovot wounded 42.
The Weizmann Institute of Science, an important center for military and other research in Rehovot, reported "a number of hits to buildings on the campus.” It said no one was harmed.
An oil refinery was damaged in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, according to the firm operating it, which said no one was wounded.
Netanyahu says regime change could result in Iran
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has brushed off urgent calls by world leaders to deescalate.
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, he said regime change in Iran “could certainly be the result” of the conflict, and he announced that Israel had killed the intelligence chief for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. He also claimed, without giving evidence, that Israeli intelligence indicated Iran intended to give nuclear weapons to Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Iran has always said its nuclear program was peaceful, and the U.S. and others have assessed that it has not pursued a weapon since 2003. But Iran has enriched ever larger stockpiles of uranium to near weapons-grade levels in recent years and was believed to have the capacity to develop multiple weapons within months if it chose to do so.
The U.N.’s atomic watchdog issued a rare censure of Iran last week.
The region is already on edge as Israel seeks to annihilate Hamas, an Iranian ally, in the Gaza Strip, where war still rages after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
Iran calls nuclear talks ‘unjustifiable’
Iran's foreign minister on Saturday called the nuclear talks “unjustifiable” after Israel’s strikes.
A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive nuclear talks, said Washington remained committed to them and hoped the Iranians would return to the table.
In a social media post, Trump warned Iran that any retaliation directed against it would bring an American response “at levels never seen before.”
“However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict!!!” he wrote.
‘More than a few weeks’ to repair nuclear facilities
In Iran, satellite photos analyzed by AP show extensive damage at Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz. The images shot Saturday by Planet Labs PBC show multiple buildings damaged or destroyed. The structures hit include buildings identified by experts as supplying power to the facility.
U.N. nuclear chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that the above-ground section of the Natanz facility was destroyed. The main centrifuge facility underground did not appear to be hit, but the loss of power could have damaged infrastructure there, he said.
Israel also struck a nuclear research facility in Isfahan. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said four “critical buildings” were damaged, including Isfahan's uranium-conversion facility. The IAEA said there was no sign of increased radiation at Natanz or Isfahan.
An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity Sunday in line with official procedures, said it would take “many months, maybe more” to restore the two sites.
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Melzer reported from Nahariya, Israel, and Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran; Aamer Madhani in Washington; Sam Mednick and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Jon Gambrell, Natalie Melzer And Tia Goldenberg, The Associated Press
