Iran pounds Israel as conflict enters fourth day

Iranian missiles struck the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haif late on Sunday, destroying homes and fuelling concerns among world leaders at this week’s G7 meeting.

World leaders are concerned the conflict between the two regional enemies could lead to a broader Middle East war.

Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service said Monday that four people were pronounced dead after strikes at four sites in central Israel, with 87 injured. The dead were two women and two men, all approximately 70 years old, the MDA said.

Authorities in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv said that Iranian missiles had hit a residential building there, charring concrete walls, blowing out windows and heavily damaging multiple apartments.

Search and location operations were under way in the northern port city of Haifa where about 30 people were wounded, emergency authorities said, as dozens of first responders rushed to the strike zones. Fires were seen burning at a power plant near the port, media reported.

Iranian state TV said the country fired at least 100 missiles at Israel, signalling that it had no intention of yielding to international calls for de-escalation as it pressed on with its retaliation for Israel’s surprise attack on Tehran’s nuclear program and military leadership on Friday.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed the latest attack employed a new method that caused Israel’s multi-layered defence systems to target each other. International reports were unable to verify this claim.

Israeli officials have repeatedly said the defence system is not 100% infallible and warned of tough days ahead.

Israeli strikes on Iran on Sunday killed the intelligence chief of the country’s Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Kazemi, along with two other officers, Iran’s IRNA state media news agency reported.

Late on Sunday the Israeli military said that it was striking surface-to-surface missile sites in Iran.

Images from Tehran showed the night sky lit up by a huge blaze at a fuel depot after Israel began strikes against Iran’s oil and gas sector – raising the stakes for the global economy and the functioning of the Iranian state.

At least 14 people in Israel, including children, were killed in earlier strikes in the lead-up to Monday’s attacks, according to authorities.

The death toll in Iran had reached at least 224, with 90% of the casualties reported to be civilians, an Iranian health ministry spokesperson said.

G7 leaders began gathering in the Canadian Rockies on Sunday with the Israel-Iran conflict expected to be a top priority.