Israel said it launched a broad wave of strikes in central Tehran on Sunday and was seeking to dominate the skies over the capital, after its air force killed Iran’s supreme leader in a large-scale assault that has raised fears of widening instability in the Middle East.
Over the past day Israel’s air force conducted strikes to open the “path to Tehran”, and the Israeli military said the majority of aerial defence systems in western and central Iran had been dismantled.
Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told reporters that many targets remained, including military‑industrial production sites. “We have the capabilities and the targets to keep going on for as long as necessary,” he said.
Asked whether Israel was considering deploying ground forces to Iran, Shoshani said that was not under consideration even though U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have urged Iranians to seize a rare opportunity to topple their leaders.
Hours after the U.S. and Israel said an air strike killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the military campaign to overthrow the government of the Islamic Republic, Iran’s state media confirmed the 86-year-old leader had died.
