Iran launched missiles carrying cluster warheads at Tel Aviv, saying the strike was retaliation for Israel’s assassination of its security chief, Ali Larijani, Iranian state television reported on Wednesday.
The overnight attack on Tuesday killed two people in a neighbourhood near densely populated Tel Aviv, an area that also hosts key military facilities. The latest casualties bring the death toll in Israel from the war to at least 14, reports Reuters.
In a statement aired on state TV, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it used Khorramshahr 4 and Qadr missiles, both equipped with multiple warheads.
Israel has said Iran has repeatedly deployed cluster warheads, which disperse into smaller explosives mid-air and spread across a wide area, making interception more difficult.
In Iran, a projectile hit an area near the Bushehr nuclear power plant on Tuesday evening but caused no damage or injuries, Iran told the International Atomic Energy Agency. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi reiterated his call for maximum restraint to avoid the risk of a nuclear accident.
Israel and the United States have said that preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapons programme was one of the objectives behind the strikes they launched more than two weeks ago, which killed the country’s Supreme Leader and several senior officials.
The Iranian government on Tuesday confirmed the killing of Larijani, the most senior figure targeted since the first day of the US-Israeli war, when an Israeli strike killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, where Larijani served as secretary, said his son and his deputy, Alireza Bayat, were also killed in an Israeli attack on Monday night.
The targeted killings come as the US-Israeli war on Iran shows no signs of easing.
Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, has rejected proposals conveyed to the Foreign Ministry for “reducing tensions or ceasefire with the United States,” according to a senior Iranian official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Khamenei, attending his first foreign-policy meeting since his appointment, said it was not “the right time for peace until the United States and Israel are brought to their knees, accept defeat, and pay compensation,” the official said.
The official did not clarify whether Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not appeared in public since being named last week to replace his slain father, attended the meeting in person or remotely.
