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Israel has regularly attacked hospitals in its
war on Gaza, with officials in the besieged enclave stating that Israel has
bombed and burned at least 36 hospitals across the Gaza Strip since the war
began in October 2023.
OVOODOCORVO
Israel Katz says Iran's supreme leader 'can no
longer be allowed to exist'
Israel’s defence minister said on Thursday that
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “can no longer be allowed to
exist” after Soroka hospital in southern Israel was hit during an Iranian
missile attack, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Israel Katz told journalists in Holon near Tel
Aviv:
Khamenei openly declares that he wants Israel
destroyed – he personally gives the order to fire on hospitals. He considers
the destruction of the state of Israel to be a goal,
Such a man can no longer be allowed to exist.
Israeli
defence minister says he ordered attacks on Iran to ‘undermine regime’
Israel Katz
officially acknowledges goal of war, as Iranian missile hits hospital and
Israel strikes nuclear site
Julian
Borger in Ramat Gan and Emma Graham-Harrison in Jerusalem
Thu 19 Jun
2025 09.50 BST
Israel’s
defence minister has said he ordered increased attacks on government targets in
Iran to “undermine the regime”, while an Iranian missile evaded Israeli air
defences to hit a hospital in the country’s south.
Other
missiles landed around Tel Aviv, injuring at least 40 people, as Israeli planes
bombed a heavy-water reactor and returned to strike the Natanz nuclear complex.
The comments
from Israel Katz were the first time that regime change had officially been
claimed as a goal of the seven-day-old war.
When Israel
launched its first strikes, Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered a strategic
operation targeting Iran’s nuclear programme, although the prime minister has
made no secret of his hopes the government in Tehran would fall.
After the
initial focus on military and nuclear sites, Israel recently attacked targets,
including the state broadcaster, with no links to the nuclear project, but
which Katz described as “symbols of the regime”.
Many Iranian
opposition figures, including activists jailed for opposing the autocratic
government, have rejected the idea that an Israeli war, which has already
killed hundreds of civilians, represents a path to liberation for their
country.
The early
morning strike on Soroka hospital in Beersheba did not cause any serious
injuries because all staff and patients were in protected areas, the director,
Shlomi Kodesh, said.
However it
caused significant damage to the building, and images of shattered wards and
stunned medics examining the damage caused outrage in Israel, including from
the defence minister.
“These are
war crimes of the most serious kind and [Ayatollah] Khamenei will be held
accountable,” Katz said in a post on X.
“The Prime
Minister and I have instructed the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] to increase the
intensity of attacks against strategic targets in Iran and against government
targets in Tehran in order to remove threats to the State of Israel and
undermine the ayatollahs’ regime.”
Donald
Trump, who initially distanced himself from the conflict, has increased the US
military presence in the region and is weighing up ordering US forces to join
attacks on Iran.
Khamenei,
Iran’s supreme leader, warned on Wednesday that the US would face “irreparable
damage” if it shifted from supporting Israel’s defence to an active role in
assaults on its territory.
There was no
radiation risk after Thursday morning’s attack on Iran’s partly built
heavy-water reactor near Arak, state TV said. Israeli warnings meant the area
had been evacuated before the strike.
Heavy-water
reactors are considered a proliferation risk because they can produce
plutonium, an alternative to enriched uranium for the core of a nuclear weapon.
Israel also targeted the Natanz site, which has been hit several times.
Iranian
missile strikes across Israel on Thursday injured at least 40 people, six of
them seriously. One hit the base of a skyscraper in Ramat Gan, close to central
Tel Aviv and about 200 metres from the city’s diamond exchange.
A takeaway
pizza business took the full force of the strike. Some older buildings were
wrecked by the blast but there were no immediate reports of casualties. After
several days of war, residents were accustomed to rushing to shelters.
“It was like
an atom bomb. An earthquake,” said Asher Adiv, 69, who lives in a nearby block
of flats. His mother was an Iranian Jew from Isfahan and Asher grew up speaking
Farsi.
“The Iranian
people should make a revolution, and kick out the ayatollahs,” Adiv said. “We
are not just fighting for Israel. We are fighting for the whole world. We ask
Trump to go inside and finish the problem.”
The US
president was the first subject most residents wanted to discuss, as they
gathered at the police cordon to watch first responders work among the rubble
and shattered glass.
Adiv’s wife,
Anny, who immigrated from Morocco in 1969, said: “Tell Donald Trump to be
beside us. He has to bomb them to finish the nuclear sites.”
Even without
US intervention, she thought Israel would prevail. “Our people are strong and
resilient. We will keep fighting and we will finish the Iran nuclear sites or
they will finish us,” she said.
Iran says
its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes. It was censured by the
International Atomic Energy Agency just before the war began and is the only
state without nuclear weapons that enriches uranium to 60%, one technical step
away from weapons-grade levels.
Israel,
which has not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, is the only
nuclear-armed power in the region. It has never officially confirmed or denied
having nuclear weapons but its status has been an open secret for years.
Several
countries are preparing to evacuate their citizens from Iran and Israel, while
flights to bring back tens of thousands of Israelis stranded outside the
country get under way. Israel’s main airport has been closed since the first
attacks on Iran.
Quique
Kierszenbaum contributed to the reporting
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