Israel targets Iran’s nuclear sites and military commanders in major attack – follow live

Raffi Berg
Digital Middle East editor

Image source, Reuters

Information about what and who has been impacted by Israel’s strikes is still unfolding, but here is what is being reported so far.

Israel’s military says it has struck “dozens of military targets, including nuclear targets in different areas of Iran”.

Among the sites hit is Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, in the centre of the country. Iranian state TV said it was struck several times, with pictures showing black smoke billowing from the site.

Natanz operates thousands of advanced centrifuges – equipment used for enriching uranium gas – which are located dozens of metres underground for protection. It is unclear at this point how deep Israel’s attack reached.

The New York Times reports that at least six military bases around Tehran as well as homes of military commanders and multiple residential buildings have also been hit, citing senior Iranian officials.

The heads of Iran’s armed forces have been killed, Iranian state TV has confirmed. They were Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Iran’s most elite military force – and Maj Gen Mohammad Bagheri, overall commander of the Iranian army and the IRGC.

At least two nuclear scientists – Fereydoon Abbasi, the former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, the president of the Islamic Azad University in Tehran – have also been killed, Iranian state TV says.