{"id":324360,"date":"2026-03-02T03:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T03:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/324360\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T03:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T03:03:08","slug":"death-toll-rises-as-israel-and-us-continue-air-attacks-and-iran-fires-hundreds-of-missiles-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/324360\/","title":{"rendered":"Death toll rises as Israel and US continue air attacks and Iran fires hundreds of missiles \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Waves of Israeli<\/a> and US air strikes hit Iran<\/a> on Sunday, a day after the killing of supreme leader Ali Khamenei<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Israelis<\/a> spent the day running to protected spaces as Iran responded with missile barrages and sirens sounded every few hours across the country. Iran also targeted pro-American Gulf Arab states with missile and drone attacks.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s attacks on Iran focused on headquarters and compounds of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij paramilitary force, the bodies primarily responsible for the recent brutal suppression of anti-regime protesters. A video image was released of a drone attack on a Basij motorcycle unit on the streets of Tehran. <\/p>\n

Israel secured a safe air corridor to Tehran \u2013 a critical military objective \u2013 after destroying Iranian air defence installations. That means US and Israeli planes can operate with impunity over Iran\u2019s capital. Israel\u2019s aim is to extend the corridor to other areas of Iran in the coming days. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur forces are now striking the heart of Tehran with increasing strength,\u201d said Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu<\/a> on Sunday night. \u201cThis will only increase even more in the coming days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran says casualties are mounting, with \u201chundreds\u201d of people killed across the country, including 165 fatalities in an explosion at a school in southern Iran, according to Iranian media reports.<\/p>\n

US Central Command (Centcom) confirmed on Sunday that three US service members had been killed and five seriously wounded. Centcom also confirmed B-2 stealth bombers struck Iran\u2019s underground ballistic missile storage facilities on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

US president Donald Trump has said \u201cAmerica will avenge their deaths\u201d and \u201cdeliver the most punishing blow to the terrorists who have waged war against, basically, civilisation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"IsraeliIsraeli security officials inspect the site of an Iranian missile strike in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Sunday. Amit Elkayam\/The New York Times <\/p>\n

Trump also said US forces have sunk nine Iranian naval ships and destroyed their headquarters.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Fox News, Trump said 48 Iranian leaders had been killed. The most significant was supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose death was confirmed by Iran. His successor is expected to be announced in the coming days. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0US military operations in Iran \u2018moving along rapidly\u2019 says Trump, as death tolls rise in Middle EastOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The US president also suggested the conflict with Iran could \u200cgo on for the next four weeks, according to the \u200bDaily Mail newspaper. In a video address on Truth Social, he said combat operations against Iran would continue until \u201call objectives are achieved\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, UK prime minister Keir Starmer said he has accepted a request from US to use British bases for defensive strikes against Iranian missiles in storage depots or launchers.<\/p>\n

In a video on X, Starmer said the UK would not join offensive action against Iran, adding: \u201cWe all remember the mistakes of Iraq and we have learned those lessons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Memorial gatherings were held in Tehran and elsewhere but there were also celebrations, with makeshift gatherings welcoming Khamenei\u2019s death and calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

Crown prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former shah of Iran, and other diaspora opposition figures, along with Trump, have urged the anti-regime protesters to stay at home until they receive the call to take to the streets, presumably when the military attacks subside. <\/p>\n

\"DonaldDonald Trump holds up a fist as he boards Air Force One following delivering an update on Truth Social on the attacks on Iran. Photograph: Eric Lee\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, called for the first time for regime change in Iran, saying: \u201cA credible transition in Iran is urgently needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem, at least nine people were killed and more than 50 injured when an Iranian missile struck a shelter directly beneath a synagogue, which was destroyed. The powerful blast and shock wave almost completely demolished eight homes in the residential compound.<\/p>\n

Three other people were killed in the Iranian attacks \u2013 one when a Tel Aviv residential building was hit on Saturday night, and two more while running to bomb shelters.<\/p>\n

Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and launched many hundreds of drones towards the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain and Qatar, causing fatalities and injuries in countries not used to coming under fire.<\/p>\n

As the war continued there was the first, tentative indication of contacts to end the violence. Trump said Iran\u2019s new leaders \u201cwant to talk\u201d, and he had agreed to speak with them. \u201cThey should have done this earlier. They waited too long,\u201d he said, adding that \u201cmost\u201d of the Iranians involved in the negotiations so far are \u201cno longer among the living\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Waves of Israeli and US air strikes hit Iran on Sunday, a day after the killing of supreme…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[118174,10748,969,42,11829,3410,150432,43,40,38,41,39,90],"class_list":["post-324360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-ali-khamenei","tag-binyamin-netanyahu","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-israel-iran-conflict","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}