Israel and Iran show no sign of ending attacks as missile barrages continue

BEIRUT — Iran and Israel traded air raids and ballistic missile barrages overnight and into the evening Sunday, with neither side showing any inclination to back down from an escalating grudge match between the two longtime enemies.

The fighting, which came after Israel launched withering attacks Friday decapitating Iran’s top military leadership and hitting its nuclear infrastructure, killed at 128 people in Iran on Friday and Saturday and wounded nearly 1,000 others, according to the Iranian government.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accused the United States of giving Israel the “green light” for the operation. President Trump denied the charge and warned Iran against retaliating against the U.S. Also Sunday, there were news reports that Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Iranian government has yet to provide an updated death toll, but Human Rights Activists, a Washington-based group, was quoted by the Associated Press on Sunday as having calculated at least 406 dead and 654 wounded. Iranian Health Minister Mohammad-Reza Zafarghandi said in an interview with state media that most of the casualties were women and children.

Iran’s retaliatory strikes have killed at least 14 people — including children — and wounded 390 others in Israel, according to health authorities there.

Meanwhile, both nations have girded themselves for a lengthy confrontation. Iranian government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said in an interview with state media that metro stations and mosques would be open 24 hours a day starting Sunday night for use as shelters. Residential buildings in Iran do not have shelters.

Mohajerani added there would be “no problem” in providing food, medicine and fuel.

Israel’s National Security Council warned citizens against entering the country through its land borders with Jordan and Egypt — nations with decades-old peace treaties with Israel that have pro-Palestinian populations. Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, meanwhile, was also closed.

The rhetoric and the growing scale of the damage indicate that an diplomatic offramp will not be soon forthcoming.

Over the last three days, Israel has attacked military bases, sites and airports, including in Isfahan, Arak and Kermanshah; residences of military commanders and nuclear scientists; and the country’s top uranium enrichment facility in Natanz.

But Israel has also widened the scope of its strikes to hit economic targets, turning vital parts of Iran’s fossil fuel infrastructure into infernos. The attacks hit the Shahran gas depot, a major hub in Tehran, and the South Pars field, according to the Iranian Oil Ministry. The latter is the world’s largest natural-gas field, yielding about two-thirds of Iran’s gas production. The ministry reported that the Fajr Jam Gas Refining Co. was also targeted.

The attacks have roiled energy markets fearful of disruptions to Iran, an oil and gas powerhouse with the world’s second-largest proven natural gas reserves and the third-largest crude oil reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Oil prices surged by at least 7% on the day Israel launched its campaign, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. said in a report that an extended military confrontation or the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — the passageway for a fifth of global oil — could push oil prices, now about $74 a barrel, as high as $130 a barrel.

An Israeli fusillade around noon Sunday and in the afternoon saw four areas in Tehran targeted, including major commercial thoroughfares, according to state media.

“If Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front, Tehran will burn,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said.

But Iran’s leadership has maintained a defiant tone, vowing to meet any aggression with a “more severe and powerful response,” according to a statement by Pezeshkian on Saturday.

Three days into the conflict, a certain rhythm has settled in, with reports of Israeli airstrikes on Iran followed soon after by barrages of ballistic missiles traveling about 1,000 miles between Iran and Israel — a 12-minute journey over Iraq, Syria, Jordan and occasionally Lebanon. Though Israel’s defense system and a network of pro-U.S. allies have shot down most of the 270 missiles lobbed by Iran, some have hit their mark.

Broadcasts have depicted rescue crews picking through the rubble of destroyed buildings to extricate survivors in cities mostly untouched in previous bouts of violence, such as Tel Aviv. On Sunday evening, a missile slammed into the northern port city of Haifa, with a broadcast showing an explosion briefly illuminating the nighttime sky.

“When we took this historic decision, tough decision, we knew we will have difficult times and we will face casualties,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said in an interview with CNN on Sunday.

“But saying that, we didn’t have any other choice.”

Israel asserts that its actions are preemptive and aimed at ensuring a setback for Iran’s nuclear ambitions. When Israel launched its campaign, the U.S. and Iran were in the midst of negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, with the sixth round of those negotiations slated for Sunday in the Omani capital, Muscat. The talks were canceled amid accusations by Iranian officials of U.S. complicity in Israel’s attacks.

In a Cabinet meeting on Sunday, Pezeshkian said the U.S. had given Israel the go-ahead for its actions, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. “What we are witnessing today is being done with the direct support of Washington,” he said.