TEL AVIV: Israel said Saturday it had killed three more Iranian commanders in its bombing campaign against the Islamic republic.
Israel’s military said a strike in Qom south of Tehran targeted top Iranian official Saeed Izadi, in charge of coordination with Palestinian group Hamas, adding two other commanders from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were also killed overnight.
The Revolutionary Guards said five of its members died in attacks on Khorramabad, according to Iranian media. They did not mention Izadi, Reuters reported.
Iranian media said earlier on Saturday that Israel had attacked a building in Qom, with initial reports of a 16-year-old killed and two people injured, Reuters reported.
As Israel continued to strike Iran, defence minister Gideon Saar said in an interview that by his country’s own assessment, it had “already delayed for at least two or three years the possibility for them to have a nuclear bomb”.
“We will do everything that we can do there in order to remove this threat,” Saar told German newspaper Bild, asserting Israel’s onslaught would continue.
Israel and Iran have traded wave after wave of devastating strikes since Israel launched its aerial campaign on June 13, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon — an accusation the Islamic republic has repeatedly rejected and maintained that its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes.
Israel said it had attacked Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site for a second time after its air force announced it had also launched salvos against missile storage and launch sites in the centre of the country.
The army later said it was striking military infrastructure in southwest Iran.
US President Donald Trump warned on Friday that Tehran had a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible American air strikes, as Washington weighs whether to join Israel’s campaign.
‘Not prepared to negotiate’
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Istanbul on Saturday for a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to discuss the conflict.
Top diplomats from Britain, France and Germany met Araghchi in Geneva on Friday, and urged him to resume talks with the United States that had been derailed by Israel’s attacks.
But Araghchi told NBC News after the meeting that “we’re not prepared to negotiate with them (the United States) anymore, as long as the aggression continues”.
Trump, dismissive of European diplomatic efforts, also said he was unlikely to ask Israel to stop its attacks to get Iran back to the table.
“If somebody’s winning, it’s a little bit harder to do,” he said.
Any US involvement would likely feature powerful bunker-busting bombs that no other country possesses to destroy an underground uranium enrichment facility in Fordo, AFP reported.
Iran’s health ministry on Saturday gave a toll of more than 430 people killed and 3,056 in the Israeli strikes.
‘Pure speculation’
Traffic police and the Fars news agency reported congestion on roads heading into Tehran on Saturday, indicating some inhabitants were returning to the capital.
Internet access remained highly unstable and limited in Tehran, with slow connections and many sites still inaccessible, according to AFP.
Iran’s retaliatory strikes have killed at least 25 people in Israel, according to official figures.
Overnight, Iran said it targeted central Israel with drones and missiles.
Israeli rescuers said there were no casualties after an Iranian drone struck a residential building in Beit She’an, AFP reported.
At the site of the strike in the north of Israel, mounds of soil had been gouged from the ground and the wall of a ground-floor room was destroyed.
Israel’s National Public Diplomacy Directorate said more than 450 missiles have been fired at the country so far, along with about 400 drones.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had targeted military sites and air force bases.
In Tel Aviv, where residents have faced regular Iranian strikes for nine days, some expressed growing fatigue under the constant threat from Iran. – Agencies
