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.
