The Latest: Israel intensifying attacks, Iran shows defiance as its nuclear site hit

Iranian missiles struck two communities in southern Israel late Saturday, leaving buildings shattered and dozens injured and in an attack not far from Israel’s main nuclear research center, as the war spun into a dangerous new direction.

The Iranian strikes came after Tehran’s main nuclear enrichment site at Natanz was hit earlier in the day.

Israel’s military said it was not able to intercept missiles that hit the southern cities of Dimona and Arad, the largest near the center in Israel’s sparsely populated Negev desert.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said more emergency crews were being sent to the scene.

“If the Israeli regime is unable to intercept missiles in the heavily protected Dimona area, it is, operationally, a sign of entering a new phase of the battle,” Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on X before word of the Arad strike spread.

The death toll has risen to more than 1,500 people in Iran, more than 1,000 people in Lebanon, 15 in Israel and 13 U.S. military members, and a number of civilians on land and sea in the Gulf region. Millions of people in Lebanon and Iran have been displaced.

Here is the latest:

Military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said that Israel’s air defense systems had operated but did not intercept the missile that struck in the southern city of Arad.

He said the military is investigating to understand what happened but that it is not a matter of a different or special type of missile.

Rescue workers say a missile hit in the Israeli city of Arad injured nearly 70 people and damaged at least 10 apartment buildings.

Ten of the nearly 70 people brought to the Soroka hospital in Beer Sheba were in serious condition, they said.

Three of the buildings in the southern Israeli city were completely destroyed and are in danger of collapsing.

Rescue services are currently carrying out searches in each of the buildings to determine if there are additional victims.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was “a very difficult evening in the campaign for our future.”

Iran’s state broadcaster said late Saturday, citing the health ministry, that the death toll in the war had risen to more than 1,500 people.

Israeli rescue services were responding to what appeared to be a direct strike in the southern Israeli city of Arad that is located close to Israel’s main nuclear research center.

Initial footage from the scene showed a bus with its windows blown out and heavy damage to several buildings, and dozens of firefighters and police responding to two separate impact sites.

Israel’s rescue services said 4 people were seriously injured, including a 4-year-old girl, and 29 injured lightly. Authorities are still looking for a number of people who are unaccounted for.

Iran had previously threatened on Saturday to target Israel’s nuclear program in response to a strike on the Natanz nuclear enrichment center.

Senior U.S. and Japanese officials tend to shy away from anything but very careful public comments about Japan’s 1941 sneak attack on U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor. So there was embarrassment, confusion and unease on Saturday in Japan after President Donald Trump casually used the World War II attack to justify his secrecy before launching the war against Iran.

The Japanese discomfort was compounded by the fact that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was sitting awkwardly at Trump’s side as he spoke.

Partly, the reaction is linked to the crucial security and economic role that the U.S. plays for Japan, its top ally in the region. Put simply, Japan needs to make sure the U.S. relationship thrives. That’s why Takaichi was in Washington.

But it’s also a reflection of just how fresh the political debate about Japan’s role in World War II remains here, even 80 years after its end.

The kingdom’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday that the security attache and his assistant, along with three other staffers in the Iranian embassy in Saudi Arabia, should leave within 24 hours. Hours earlier, Saudi Arabia downed 20 Iranian drones, according to its Defense Ministry.

Earlier Saturday, the Defense Ministry of the United Arab Emirates said it responded to three ballistic missile and eight drone attacks. Jordan’s military said 240 missiles and drones have been fired at Jordan since the war began, wounding 24 people.

Egypt’s president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stressed Saturday that the Iranian escalation against Gulf states endangers the safety and the stability of the region, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported. And Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the visits of el-Sissi and his Jordanian counterpart King Abdullah II to multiple Gulf states over the past few days “reflect full Arab solidarity.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency said on X that “no abnormal radiation levels have been detected” after Iran said it targeted Israel’s nuclear assets.

The remote city of Dimona houses Israel’s main nuclear research center. The country is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though its leaders neither confirm nor deny it.

At least four Palestinians were killed by missiles from Iran in the Israeli-occupied West Bank during the first three weeks of war, according to the Palestinian police spokesperson. Three women, one of whom was pregnant, and a child from the same extended family were killed in a trailer that served as a beauty salon in the town of Beit Awa.

The police have identified 198 missile fragments that fell across the West Bank, injuring nine people and damaging 27 buildings and properties. One person also died after falling from height while watching rockets.

The West Bank does not have the same safety infrastructure as Israel to protect citizens from missiles, including warnings, sirens, or bomb shelters. In previous rounds of conflict, missiles targeting Israel from Iran, Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen have avoided the majority-Muslim West Bank and east Jerusalem. This time, Iran’s missiles have inflicted heavy damage, with some fragments falling near the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The hanging by Iran of a 19-year-old star wrestler and two other young men this week is raising alarm among rights groups that a wave of executions may be underway as authorities facing relentless attacks from the U.S. and Israel seek to squelch public dissent.

Tens of thousands were arrested during a January crackdown on nationwide protests. Rights groups say at least 27 death sentences that have been issued, another 100 face charges that carry the death penalty, and Iranian state media have aired hundreds of forced confessions to crimes punishable by death.

Amnesty International said their trials have been “grossly unfair,” using confessions extracted by torture.

The executions were “intended to instill fear in society and deter new protests,” said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group. He worries many more “executions of protesters and political prisoners may be imminent.”

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Israel is only at the halfway point in the war with Iran, the military’s chief of staff said on Saturday, as the country entered the fourth week of war against Iran.

“Dear citizens of Israel — we are at the midway point, but the direction is clear,” Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said. “In about a week, on Passover, the Festival of Freedom, we will continue to fight for our freedom and our future.”

Iran targeted Diego Garcia Island with a two-stage intercontinental ballistic missile, Israel’s military said. This refers to missile with at least two rocket engines, one allowing the missile to reach space, and the other propels it to its target, at a range of up to 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles).

“These missiles are not intended to strike Israel. Their range extends to the capitals of Europe — Berlin, Paris, and Rome are all within direct threat range,” Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said on Saturday evening.

Some analysts are skeptical that oil prices will drop due to the Trump administration’s move to lift sanctions for 30 days on Iranian oil already at sea.

“Prices will likely still continue to rise so long as the Strait remains silent,” Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, a U.S. fuel-tracking service, said Saturday.

Henning Gloystein, managing director for energy, climate and resources for Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk consulting group, said he expects crude oil prices to fall slightly on Monday, but not because lifting sanctions will increase supplies.

“It’s more because it’s seen as part of Trump’s efforts to start to find an off-ramp, he said. Iran has already been shipping oil out of the Strait of Hormuz throughout the war, he noted.

Israel is only at the halfway point in the war with Iran, the military’s chief of staff said on Saturday, as the country entered the fourth week of war against Iran.

“Dear citizens of Israel — we are at the midway point, but the direction is clear,” Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said. “In about a week, on Passover, the Festival of Freedom, we will continue to fight for our freedom and our future.”

Iran’s official news agency Mizan said Saturday’s airstrike on the country’s Natanz nuclear facility did not result in any radiation leakage. Natanz is Iran’s main enrichment site and was also hit in the first week of the war, damaging several buildings according to satellite images.

Israel’s military said it was not responsible for striking Natanz, which Russia condemned Saturday as a violation of international law. The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a social media post Saturday that Iran informed it of the attack, with “no increase in off-site radiation levels reported.”

The same nuclear facility was targeted by Israel and the United States during the 12-day war with Iran in June 2025.

The U.S. announcement that it will lift sanctions on Iranian crude stranded at sea is an attempt to manipulate the market, since there is no such oil, Iran’s Oil Ministry spokesperson, Saman Ghodousi told Iran’s state media.

“At present, Iran essentially has no crude oil left in floating storage or any surplus available for supply to other international markets, and the U.S. Treasury Secretary’s remarks are solely intended to reassure buyers and manage the market psychologically,” he said late Friday.

Iran’s attack this week on Qatar’s natural gas export facility threatens to disrupt not just world energy markets but also global technology supply chains because the helium it produces is crucial for a range of advanced industries.

The gas that makes party balloons float is a byproduct of natural gas production, and a key input in chipmaking, space rockets and medical imaging.

Qatar supplies a third of the world’s helium, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and had to halt production shortly after the war erupted three weeks ago. After repeated Iranian drone attacks on Ras Laffan, the world’s largest liquefied natural gas plant, state-owned QatarGas reported “extensive” damage that will take years to repair and cut annual helium exports by 14%.

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Rescue services said more than two dozen people were lightly injured in a missile attack on the southern Israeli city of Dimona. They also treated a 10-year-old boy in serious condition and a 40-year-old woman in moderate condition, both with shrapnel injuries.

The remote desert city of Dimona houses Israel’s main nuclear research center, which opened in 1958. Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though its leaders neither confirm nor deny this.

Iran said it is targeting Dimona after the Natanz nuclear enrichment site was targeted earlier. Israel’s military said it was not responsible for striking Natanz.

Benjamin Netanyahu must soon decide when to hold Israel’s next elections. With war raging on multiple fronts and no end in sight, Israel’s enemies in Iran and Lebanon may help make that decision for him.

The stakes could hardly be higher: A victory will add to his legacy as Israel’s longest-ruling leader and fend off, if not quash altogether, calls for a reckoning over the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks that triggered 2 ½ years of war across the region.

A defeat risks turning him into the highest-profile political casualty of that attack — the deadliest in Israel’s history — which still casts a long shadow over the country’s psyche and already has led to a string of high-profile resignations and firings.

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Trump frequently contradicts himself, sometimes in the same speech, social media post or even sentence. In the past 24 hours, he sent a torrent of mixed signals about the Iran war, raising more questions about the direction of the conflict and his administration’s strategy.

Within the space of a few hours Friday, Trump said he was considering winding down the war, his administration confirmed it was sending more troops to the Middle East and, in an effort to lessen the economic impact on global energy markets, the United States lifted sanctions on some Iranian oil for the first time in decades — relieving some of the pressure that Washington traditionally has used as leverage.

The confusing combination of actions deepens a sense among Trump’s critics that there is no clear, long-term strategy for the war the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran. Now in its fourth week, the war remains on an unpredictable path and a credible endgame is unclear even as the global economy is being roiled.

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Several people in northern Israel were wounded by shrapnel as the area came under constant missile fire from Lebanon. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue services said at least five people were injured in a barrage Saturday evening.

Israel has also been striking hundreds of targets in southern Lebanon and the suburbs of Beirut after Hezbollah joined the war in support of Iran.

The Health Ministry said Saturday that three deaths were reported over the past 24 hours, and 99 people were wounded, raising the total injured to 2,740.

The latest Israel-Hezbollah war began on March 2, when the Iran-backed militia fired rockets into northern Israel two days after the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran triggered a widening war in the Middle East.

Israel has since ordered evacuations from large parts of southern and eastern Lebanon as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs, and more than 1 million people have been displaced.

Britain has reassured Cyprus that the U.K. air base on the island won’t be used for American attacks on Iran.

The U.K. is allowing the U.S. to use bases in England and on the island of Diego Garcia to strike Iran’s missile program.

The British government says Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides on Saturday that RAF Akrotiri “would not be involved in the UK’s continuation of its agreement with the U.S. to use U.K. bases in collective self-defense of the region.”

Akrotiri was hit by an Iranian-made drone early in the conflict, causing damage but no injuries. Iran also launched missiles at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in Saturday, failing to hit the base.

Trump’s quip the war will end “when I feel it in my bones” has drawn alarm, especially as lawmakers are asked to approve billions in new spending.

“When he feels it in his bones? That’s crazy,” said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The administration’s stated goals — of ending Iran’s ability to obtain a nuclear weapon and degrading its ballistic missile supplies, among others — have perplexed lawmakers as shifting and elusive.

″ Regime change? Not likely. Get rid of the enriched uranium? Not without boots on the ground,” Warner said. “If I’m advising the president, I would have said: Before you take on a war of choice, make the case clear to the American people what our goals are.”

The joint British-U. S. base in the Indian Ocean is almost 4,000 miles (2,500 kilometers) away. Iran previously limited the range of its ballistic missile program to 1,240 miles (2,000 kilometers), but U.S. officials have said Iran’s system for satellite launches could extend their range.

Iran’s Simorgh space launch vehicle could offer greater range “at the likely cost of terminal accuracy,” said Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense think-tank.

“Ballistic missiles are space rockets. They launch, they go really high up and they come down really fast,” said Steve Prest, a retired Royal Navy commodore. “If you’ve got a space program, you’ve got a ballistic missile program.”

Prest said the launches were likely a message of defiance, to say “look what we can do,” in response to Trump’s claims that Iran’s military has been obliterated.

“I do think the original mission is virtually accomplished now,” Johnson, R-La., told the AP and others at the Capitol this week. “We were trying to take out the ballistic missiles, and their means of production, and neuter the navy, and those objectives have been met.”

Johnson acknowledged that Iran’s ability to threaten ships in the Strait of Hormuz is “dragging it out a little bit,” especially as U.S. allies have largely rebuffed the president’s request for help, but said “As soon as we bring some calm to the situation, I think it’s all but done.”

Johnson acknowledged that Iran’s ability to threaten ships in the Strait of Hormuz is “dragging it out a little bit,” especially as U.S. allies have largely rebuffed the president’s request for help, but said “As soon as we bring some calm to the situation, I think it’s all but done.”

Under the War Powers Act, the president can conduct military operations for 60 days without approval from Congress. So far, Republicans have easily voted down several resolutions from Democrats designed to halt the military campaign.

But the administration will need to show a more comprehensive strategy ahead or risk blowback from Congress, lawmakers said, especially as they are simultaneously being asked to approve billions in new spending.

But the administration will need to show a more comprehensive strategy ahead or risk blowback from Congress, lawmakers said, especially as they are simultaneously being asked to approve billions in new spending.

Strikes killed a child at the Ritaj entertainment complex in Ahvaz, according to Iran’s state news agency, and damaged the Andimeshk’s Imam Ali Hospital hospital, according to the semiofficial Mehr and Fars news agencies. Both are in the Khuzestan province on the border with Iraq. The hospital said the blast created significant damage and it is no longer accepting patients, but did not give any other information.

Strikes killed a child at the Ritaj entertainment complex in Ahvaz, according to Iran’s state news agency, and damaged the Andimeshk’s Imam Ali Hospital hospital, according to the semiofficial Mehr and Fars news agencies. Both are in the Khuzestan province on the border with Iraq. The hospital said the blast created significant damage and it is no longer accepting patients, but did not give any other information.