Israel warns Tehran’s residents will ‘pay the price soon’ as toll rises after Tel Aviv, Haifa attacks

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz threatened on Monday that the residents of Tehran will “pay the price and soon” after Iranian missiles struck Tel Aviv and the port city of Haifa before dawn, killing at least eight people.

The latest military exchange between the arch-rivals began when Israel struck Iran’s nuclear and military sites on Friday, killing top commanders and scientists. Tel Aviv has said it wants to stop Tehran from building an atomic weapon, which the latter has consistently denied, saying its uranium enrichment programme is for civilian purposes.

Dangers of further escalation loomed over a meeting of G7 leaders in Canada, with US President Donald Trump expressing hope a day ago that a deal could be done but no sign of the fighting abating on a fourth day of war.

“The residents of Tehran will pay the price, and soon,” Katz wrote on X.

The latest fatalities in Israel, reported by Israel’s national emergency services, raised the death toll to 23 since Friday.

Israeli attacks in Iran have killed at least 224 people so far, including 70 women and children, while over 1,200 have been injured, the health ministry was quoted as saying earlier today by Anadolu Agency.

More than 90 per cent of the wounded were civilians, including women and children, health ministry official Hossein Kermanpour said on X.

At least 100 more were wounded in Israel in the overnight blitz, part of a wave of attacks by Tehran in retaliation for Israel’s strikes targeting the nuclear and ballistic missile programmes of sworn enemy Iran.

Search and location operations were underway in the coastal city of Haifa, where around 30 people were wounded, emergency authorities said, as dozens of first responders rushed to the strike zones.

Fires were seen burning at a power plant near the port, the media reported. Video footage showed several missiles over Tel Aviv and explosions could be heard there and over Jerusalem.

Israel’s military warned of a new missile salvo incoming from Iran. “A short while ago, the IDF identified missiles launched from Iran toward the territory of the State of Israel,” the army posted on Telegram, using the acronym for its official name.

It said its air defences were working to intercept the threat but advised people to “enter a protected space and remain there until further notice”.

Several residential buildings in a densely populated neighbourhood of Tel Aviv were destroyed in a strike that blew out the windows of hotels and other nearby homes just a few hundred meters from the US Embassy branch in the city.

The US ambassador to Israel said the building sustained minor damage, but there were no injuries to personnel.

British maritime security firm Ambrey said that fires were observed at the power plant in the vicinity of Israel’s Haifa port, Reuters reported.

Ambrey said it observed video footage of the Israeli military intercepting the attack, followed by impacts from two hypersonic missiles.

An AFP journalist heard loud explosions in Jerusalem on early Monday, while footage showed Israeli air defences working over the city. Outside Haifa, an AFP journalist saw fires break out following the latest Iranian barrage.

Israel’s public broadcaster Kan reported that at least four areas were hit in the latest Iranian attacks on central Israel.

The predawn missiles also struck near Shuk HaCarmel, a popular market in Tel Aviv that typically draws large crowds of residents and tourists buying fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as popular bars and restaurants.

A residential street in nearby Petah Tikva and a school in ultra-Orthodox Jewish city Bnei Brak were also hit.

More commanders killed in Iran

General Mohammad Kazemi, the intelligence chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), his deputy Gen Hassan Mohaqqeq, and Gen Mohsen Baqeri were among those killed in Israel’s attacks on Sunday, the IRGC said.

Iranian state television reported that at least five people were killed on Sunday by an Israeli strike that hit a residential building in downtown Iran.

Israel has claimed strikes as far away as Iran’s holy city of Mashhad in the far east, 2,300 kilometres from Israel.

Colonel Reza Sayyad, a spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, threatened a “devastating response” to Israel’s attacks.

“Leave the occupied territories (Israel) because they will certainly no longer be habitable in the future,” he warned in a televised address, adding shelters will “not guarantee security”.

According to AFP, residential areas in both countries have suffered deadly strikes since the hostilities broke out, with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slamming Iran on Sunday for allegedly targeting civilians.

“Iran will pay a very heavy price for the premeditated murder of civilians, women and children,” he said, during a visit to the site of a missile strike on a residential building in the coastal city of Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv.

His remarks came hours after Iranian missile fire killed another 10 people yesterday.

Meanwhile, a likely Iranian drone killed a woman in Syria, a Britain-based war monitor said, in what would be the first death on Syrian soil since the current hostilities between Iran and Israel began, reported AFP.

The drone struck the woman’s home in western Tartus province, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Israeli military said earlier today that it was striking surface-to-surface missile sites in central Iran, adding it was “operating against this threat in our skies and in Iranian skies”.

‘I will not leave’

In Iran, a heavy cloud of smoke hung above Tehran after Israeli aircraft struck two fuel depots. Local media also reported an Israeli strike on the police headquarters in the city centre.

“We haven’t been able to sleep since Friday because of the terrible noise,” said a Tehran resident who gave her name as Farzaneh.

“Today, they hit a house in our alley, and we were very scared. So we decided to leave Tehran and head to the north of the country.”

Some, however, were determined to stay.

“It is natural that war has its own stress, but I will not leave my city,” 31-year-old Shokouh Razzazi told AFP.

AFP images from Israel’s Haifa, meanwhile, also showed a column of smoke rising on Sunday evening following an Iranian missile barrage.

The military said rescue teams “have been dispatched to several hit sites in Israel”, while the fire services reported rescuers heading to a building on the coast that sustained a “direct hit”.

Earlier in the day, in Bat Yam, first responders wearing helmets and headlamps picked through a bombed-out building.

“There was an explosion and I thought the whole house had collapsed,” said Bat Yam resident Shahar Ben Zion.

“It was a miracle we survived.”

Trump vetoes plan to target Khamenei: report

In Washington, two US officials told Reuters that Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan in recent days to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“We found out that the Israelis had plans to hit Iran’s supreme leader. President Trump was against it, and we told the Israelis not to,” a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also told AFP.

When asked about the Reuters report, Netanyahu told Fox News on Sunday: “There’s so many false reports of conversations that never happened, and I’m not going to get into that.”

“We do what we need to do,” he told Fox’s ‘Special Report With Bret Baier’.

Asked whether regime change in Iran was one of the objectives of Israel’s strikes, Netanyahu said that “it certainly could be the result, because the Iran regime is very weak”.

In the same interview, The Independent reported, Netanyahu claimed that Iran attempted to assassinate Trump twice “through proxies”.

“Through their intel, yes; they want to kill him,” he added. “He’s enemy number one,” the Israeli premier said, referring to the US president.

Trump has lauded Israel’s offensive but said Washington had nothing to do with it, while threatening to unleash “the full strength and might” of the US military if Iran attacked American interests.

However, seemingly contradicting his ally, Netanyahu claimed that American pilots were shooting down drones headed towards Israel. In the same interview, he also said that he and Trump were “fully coordinated”.

Trump has urged the two foes to “make a deal”, adding, however, that “sometimes they have to fight it out” first.

He told ABC News on Sunday that he would be “open” to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, being a mediator. “It’s possible we could get involved” in the ongoing battle in the Middle East, he said.

Two US officials said on Friday that the US military had helped shoot down Iranian missiles that were headed toward Israel, according to Reuters. The Wall Street Journal reported the same.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi maintained Tehran had “solid proof” that US forces had supported Israel in its attacks.

He also told a meeting of foreign diplomats that Iran’s actions were a “response to aggression”. “If the aggression stops, naturally our responses will also stop,” he added.

Iran scrapped planned nuclear talks with the United States, saying it was “meaningless” to negotiate while under fire.

Iran has executed a man who was found guilty of spying for Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, the semi-official Fars news agency reported today, identifying the man as Esmail Fekri.

The execution is the third in recent weeks related to the conduct of espionage on behalf of Israel.

Iranian media, including Tasnim, reported on Sunday that police had arrested two suspects over alleged links to Israel’s Mossad spy agency. Israel, in turn, said it had taken two individuals into custody over alleged links to Iranian intelligence.