As Iran launches new wave of lethal missile assaults, Israel says it has ‘supremacy’ in Tehran’s airspace

Iran fired a new wave of missile attacks on Israel early Monday, killing at least five people, while Israel claimed that it had now achieved “aerial superiority” over Tehran and could fly over the Iranian capital without facing major threats.

After days of attacks on Iranian air defences and missile systems, the Israeli military said its aircraft now control the skies from western Iran to Tehran and it had destroyed more than 120 surface-to-surface missile launchers, a third of Iran’s total, that had been firing at Israel in overnight missions.

“Now we can say that we have achieved full air supremacy in the Tehran airspace,” said military spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Effie Defrin.

Meanwhile, Iran announced it had launched some 100 missiles and vowed further retaliation for Israel’s sweeping attacks on its military and nuclear infrastructure, which have killed at least 224 people in the country since last Friday.

One missile fell near the American consulate in Tel Aviv, causing minor damage, U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee said on X. There were no injuries to American personnel. 

Israel said 24 people have been killed so far and more than 500 injured as Iran launched more than 370 missiles and hundreds of drones. In response, the Israeli military said fighter jets had struck 10 command centres in Tehran belonging to Iran’s Quds Force, an elite arm of its Revolutionary Guard that conducts military and intelligence operations outside Iran.

Explosions rock Tel Aviv and Petah Tikva

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 said that Iranian missiles had hit a residential building there, charring concrete walls, shattering windows and ripping the walls off multiple apartments.

The Israeli Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency service reported that two women and two men — all in their 70s — and one other person were killed in the wave of missile attacks that struck four sites in central Israel.

“We clearly see that our civilians are being targeted,” said Israeli police spokesperson Dean Elsdunne outside the bombed-out building in Petah Tikva.

“And this is just one scene. We have other sites like this near the coast, in the south.”

Petah Tikva resident Yoram Suki rushed with his family to a shelter after hearing an air raid alert, emerging after it was over to find his apartment destroyed.

“Thank God we were OK,” the 60-year-old said.

Despite losing his home, he urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to keep up the attacks on Iran.

“It’s totally worth it,” he said. “This is for the sake of our children and grandchildren.”

In addition to those killed, the MDA said paramedics had evacuated another 87 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.

“When we arrived at the scene of the rocket strike, we saw massive destruction,” said Dr. Gal Rosen, a paramedic with MDA who said he had rescued a four-day-old baby as fires blazed from the building.

No sign of conflict letting up

During an earlier barrage of Iranian missiles on central Israel on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran will stop its strikes if Israel does the same.

But after a day of intensive Israeli aerial attacks that extended targets beyond military installations to hit oil refineries and government buildings, the Revolutionary Guard struck a hard line on Monday, vowing that further rounds of strikes would be “more forceful, severe, precise and destructive than previous ones.”

Health authorities also reported that 1,277 were wounded in Iran, without distinguishing between military officials and
civilians.

Rights groups, like the Washington-based Iranian advocacy group called Human Rights Activists, have suggested that the Iranian government’s death toll is a significant undercount. Human Rights Activists says it has documented more than 400 people killed, among them 197 civilians.

Israel argues that its assault on Iran’s top military leaders, uranium enrichment sites and nuclear scientists was necessary to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, and the U.S. and others have assessed that Tehran has not pursued a nuclear 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.

Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Monday there is a possibility of both radiological and chemical contamination within Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz following Israeli strikes, although radiation levels outside the complex are currently normal.

Grossi made the comments at an urgent session of the UN nuclear watchdog board in Vienna convened at the request of Russia. He said there apparently was no additional damage at Natanz and the Isfahan nuclear research site since Saturday.

He said that the main concern inside the Natanz facility is the chemical toxicity of a gas called uranium hexafluoride, which is the result of fluorine mixed with the uranium during enrichment. It is extremely volatile, will quickly corrode, can burn the skin and is especially deadly if inhaled, experts say.

“Amid theses challenging and complex circumstances, it is crucial that the IAEA receives timely and regular technical information about the facilities and their respective sites,” Grossi said, adding that UN inspectors will remain present in Iran and inspect the nuclear facilities “as soon as safety conditions allow.”