Iran launched missile strikes on the Tel Aviv area overnight after Tehran confirmed the deaths of two senior officials, Ali Larijani and Gholamrez Soleimani, Iranian authorities said.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told Al Jazeera the deaths would not destabilize the country’s leadership, saying Iran has “a strong political structure with established political, economic and social institutions.” U.S. Central Command reported that, since the war began on Feb. 28, about 1,300 people have been killed in Iran, 922 in Lebanon and 16 in Israel. The command also said 13 U.S. service members have been killed and roughly 200 troops wounded.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it fired multiple-warhead missiles, including cluster munitions, toward the Tel Aviv area. Israeli authorities reported that a man and a woman were killed in their Ramat Gan apartment and that the strikes damaged other parts of central Israel, including a Tel Aviv train station. Iranian officials described the strikes as “in revenge” for the killings of Larijani and Soleimani.
The Iranian missiles have been among the deadliest attacks on Israeli soil since the conflict began, with at least 16 people killed in Israel as a result of strikes attributed to Iran.
Ali Larijani had long served in Iran’s political upper echelons, including as parliament speaker and as a close adviser to senior leadership. He was seen by many as a potential successor to top figures in Iran and had participated in talks with the Trump administration before the war. “He seemed to be the one person who the international community could talk to and now with him having apparently been killed it’s difficult to see how one speaks to in the IRGC,” said Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, former Jordanian ambassador to the U.S. and president of the International Peace Institute. IRGC refers to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard.
Gholamrez Soleimani led the Basij volunteer militia for seven years. The Basij are a branch of the Revolutionary Guard that, according to Israel, played a role in violently suppressing street protests in Iran earlier this year.
In a televised interview, Araghchi stressed that Iran’s government “does not rely on a single individual,” adding that while individuals matter, “what matters is that the political system in Iran is a very solid structure.”
Meanwhile, Israel struck central Beirut overnight, saying it targeted Hezbollah militants and installations. Lebanon’s health ministry said 10 people were killed in two separate attacks that morning. Israeli strikes destroyed a building in the Bachoura neighborhood — a mixed residential and commercial area close to the prime minister’s office and several foreign embassies — after Israeli authorities posted an evacuation notice on social media around 4 a.m. local time and carried out the strikes around 5:30 a.m.
The Israeli military also issued new evacuation orders for parts of southern Lebanon. Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes damaged three public hospitals in Nabatieh, a major southern city.
NPR reporters speaking with families fleeing Iran through the Haji Omeran border crossing into Iraq described widespread fear and a tightening security environment. One woman in her 60s, who asked not to be named, said she wished recent airstrikes on her border city had killed her, describing life as unbearable amid the war and a recent crackdown. Others described internet blackouts, more checkpoints and security forces searching phones. A 40-year-old man told NPR he had seen security forces move into a mosque and a sports stadium, which he said signaled heightened security measures. NPR said it could not independently verify all accounts but noted they match other testimonies and human rights reports.
Reports for this dispatch were contributed by Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv, Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Beirut, Arezou Rezvani in Irbil and Rebecca Rosman in Paris.