Israel
claims it has gained control of airspace over Tehran
Defence
minister Israel Katz says Iranian capital ‘will burn’ if more missiles are
fired at his country
Julian Borger Senior international correspondent
Sat 14 Jun 2025 18.14 BST
Israel has claimed to have gained control of the skies over
the Iranian capital and warned that “Tehran will burn” if more missiles are
fired at its territory, but the Iranian leadership remained defiant, vowing a
“more severe and powerful response” and threatened to widen the war by striking
ships and bases of Israeli allies.
The mutual threats reflected the risks of a dramatic
escalation in the conflict, as US-Iranian negotiations planned before the war
in Oman were abandoned after Tehran said they would be “meaningless”, and
Israel appeared to target Iran’s gas industry. Israeli rhetoric reflected its
leaders’ growing confidence that they have gained the upper hand, and raised
questions over whether Israeli war aims could go beyond the stated objective of
crippling Iran’s nuclear programme.
The threat to destroy Tehran was delivered by Israel’s
defence minister, Israel Katz, after Iran responded to the surprise Israeli
attack on Friday morning with a barrage of several hundred ballistic missiles
and drones, a small percentage of which succeeded in penetrating Israeli
defences and killed three people in Tel Aviv and Rishon LeZion.
Katz, whose forces have already razed large parts of Gaza,
held Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, responsible for Tehran’s
fate.
“The Iranian dictator is taking the citizens of Iran
hostage, bringing about a reality in which they, and especially Tehran’s
residents, will pay a heavy price for the flagrant harm inflicted upon Israel’s
citizens,” Katz said. “If Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli
home front, Tehran will burn.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) targeted the air defences
around the capital city on Saturday morning and became increasingly confident
they had achieved complete air superiority and freedom of action.
“The aerial road to Tehran is effectively open,” an IDF
official said. Later in the day, Benjamin Netanyahu said: “In the very near
future, you will see Israeli air force jets over the skies of Tehran.”
Air force warplanes, the Israeli prime minister said, would
target “any site and any target of the Ayatollah regime”, after dealing a “real
blow” to Iran’s nuclear programme.
A few hours later, Iranian media reported a “massive
explosion” at a refinery in the port city of Kangan, linked to the South Pars
gas field, the world’s largest. The media reports said it had been struck by an
Israeli drone, which would be the first attack on Iran’s oil and gas industry,
a development with potentially huge economic and environmental consequences.
The IDF did not immediately comment on the attack, and Iran’s oil ministry said
the resulting fire had been extinguished by late evening.
Early on Sunday, both sides launched a fresh wave of
attacks, with Israel saying that that it was attacking military targets in
Tehran while explosions were heard over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Iran said the Shahran oil depot in Tehran was targeted in an
Israeli attack but that the situation was under control, and that a fire had
erupted after an Israeli attack on an oil refinery near the capital. Israeli
strikes also targeted Iran’s defence ministry building in Tehran, causing minor
damage, Iran’s Tasnim news agency said on Sunday.
In Israel, four people were killed in a missile strike near
a house in Tamra, a predominantly Palestinian city in northern Israel. Israeli
media reported another three people killed in the central town of Bat Yam.
Scores of people were reportedly injured in the strikes.
Iranian leaders maintained a defiant front. The president,
Masoud Pezeshkian, pledged that continued Israeli attacks would produce a “more
severe and powerful response”, the new Revolutionary Guards commander vowed his
forces would “open the gates of hell” on Israel, and Iranian state media quoted
officials as warning the US, UK and France that their military bases and ships
will be targeted if they helped shoot down Iran’s missiles and drones.
The US and France have already stated their readiness to
defend Israel, and American media reports have suggested that US forces have
already been in action. The UK government has said its forces had not provided
any military assistance to Israel and the prime minister, Keir Starmer, has
emphasised the need for de-escalation.
Following through on the threat would be an enormous gamble
for Iran, drawing western forces further into the conflict when it is already
reeling under the force of sustained Israeli bombing.
Speaking at a session of the UN security council on Friday,
the US diplomat McCoy Pitt warned: “No government proxy or independent actor
should target American citizens, American bases or other American
infrastructure in the region. The consequences for Iran would be dire.”
At the same time, Israel’s air defences have shown
themselves capable of minimising the danger posed by Iranian missiles and
drones. The IDF said Iran had so far fired about 200 ballistic missiles at
Israel and launched more than that number of drones but claimed the
overwhelming majority had been intercepted.
The Iranian response has also been further blunted by
Israel’s targeted killing of Tehran’s senior generals, almost completely wiping
out the top echelons of the chain of the command. On Saturday, the IDF claimed
to have killed two more: the head of intelligence for the armed forces,
Gholam-Reza Marhabi, and the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ ballistic
missile arm, Mohammad Hossein Bagheri.
In total since the start of the war, the IDF said Israeli
warplanes had attacked 150 targets inside Iran with hundreds of munitions.
Iranian state media said that a fighter jet hangar at
Tehran’s Mehrabad airport had also been targeted. Iran’s state TV said about 60
people, including 20 children, had been killed in an attack on a housing
complex in Tehran.
Iran’s envoy to the UN security council, Amir Saeid Iravani,
said on Friday that 78 people had been killed in the Israeli attacks, and that
more than 320 were injured, most of them civilians. Alongside Iran’s top
generals there were nine nuclear scientists among the dead, as Tehran was
caught unawares by the Israeli assault.
An IDF official described the targeted scientists as the
“people who were main sources of knowledge, the main forces advancing the
nuclear programme”.
The Iranian government also said there was limited damage at
its uranium enrichment plant at Fordow, its second enrichment facility but
Israel denied having bombed it. On Friday, the IDF claimed to have inflicted
“significant damage” at the plant at Natanz. The International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) confirmed the above-ground part of the Natanz plant had been
destroyed but noted no apparent damage to its underground chambers.
An IAEA report said that attacks caused radiological and
chemical contamination in the Natanz facility, but that it was manageable and
there was no sign of higher radiation in the area around the plant. Iran also
said there had been attacks on its nuclear site in Isfahan, which houses a
uranium conversion plant, a fuel production unit and other facilities.
The IAEA reminded Israel that attacks on nuclear sites were
illegal and contrary to the UN charter, with a potential to cause “radioactive
releases with grave consequences”.
Israel’s justification for its attack on Iran was that the
country was getting unacceptably close to acquiring a nuclear weapon, and
specifically that it was working on weaponisation, the assembly of components
into a warhead. That is a claim not found in US intelligence assessments or in
IAEA reports.
An IDF official on Saturday gave more details of Israel’s
allegation, claiming that Iranian technicians had been working on an explosive
trigger mechanism for a nuclear bomb, and that part of that work was being done
in Isfahan.
“We have seen clear intelligence indicating that they are
taking steps forward rapidly, that cannot be understood in any other way than
for a nuclear bomb,” the official said.
The worst casualties on Saturday from the incoming missiles
were in the West Bank, where five Palestinians, including three children, were
killed, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, reportedly by a projectile
fired by Houthi forces in Yemen, who are Iranian allies.
Over the first 24 hours of the conflict, three Israelis were
also killed, two in Rishon LeZion and one in nearby Tel Aviv, with dozens
injured and extensive damage to buildings.
There were reports from Gaza of the Israeli shooting of
large numbers of Palestinians trying to reach food distribution points on
Saturday morning, but details were hard to confirm on the third day of a
communications blackout after the severing of a critical cable by Israeli
forces.
The few missiles that pierced Israel’s defences caused
significant damage but few fatalities. In Tel Aviv on Friday night, smoke from
one impact site rose up in columns so thick they obscured the city skyline.
Israel’s ambulance service said 34 people were injured on
Friday night in the Tel Aviv area, most with minor injuries. Police later said
one person had died. Another two people were confirmed killed in a direct
missile strike on central Israel on Saturday morning.
The Israeli leadership and the IDF have insisted that its
offensive against Iran, called Rising Lion, would continue until Tehran’s
nuclear programme – which Netanyahu said was on the brink of producing weapons
– was comprehensively destroyed.
The US role in the Israeli operation remained murky. In the
run-up to the Israeli 200-plane attack, Donald Trump had publicly urged Israel
to give diplomacy more of a chance before US-Iranian talks that were planned
for Sunday. On Friday, the US president insisted he had been well informed of
Israel’s plans and described the Israeli attack as “excellent”.
ABC quoted a “source familiar with the intelligence” as
saying the US had provided “exquisite” intelligence and would help defend
Israel as needed.
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