injuring more than 100 people<\/a> in the most destructive attack since the war began. The Israel prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed to retaliate \u201con all fronts\u201d.<\/p>\nThe strikes, which slipped through Israel\u2019s missile defence systems, tore open the facades of residential buildings and carved craters into the ground.<\/p>\n
First responders said 84 people were injured in the town of Arad, 10 of them seriously. Hours earlier, 33 were wounded in nearby Dimona, where AFPTV footage showed a large hole gouged into the ground next to piles of rubble and twisted metal.<\/p>\n
Dimona hosts a facility widely believed to be the site of the Middle East\u2019s only nuclear arsenal, although Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
The Israeli army told Agence France-Presse there had been a \u201cdirect missile hit on a building\u201d in Dimona, with casualties reported at multiple sites, including a 10-year-old boy in serious condition with shrapnel wounds.<\/p>\n
Emergency workers gather in the early hours at the site of an Iranian missile strike in Arad, Israel. Photograph: Erik Marmor\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Netanyahu vowed to continue striking Iran. Hours later, the Israeli military said its forces had launched a wave of strikes on Tehran.<\/p>\n
Iran said the targeting of Dimona was retaliation for Israeli strikes on its Natanz nuclear facility, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) saying forces also targeted other southern Israeli towns as well as military sites in Kuwait and the UAE.<\/p>\n
After the Natanz attack, the UN nuclear watchdog chief, Rafael Grossi, reiterated his call for \u201cmilitary restraint to avoid any risk of a nuclear accident\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Natanz facility hosts underground centrifuges used to enrich uranium for Iran\u2019s disputed nuclear programme; it sustained damage in the June 2025 war.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military denied it was behind the Natanz strike, but said it had struck a facility at a Tehran university that it claimed was being used to develop nuclear weapon components for Iran\u2019s ballistic missile programme.<\/p>\n
A satellite image shows the Natanz nuclear facility with some damage to the buildings. Photograph: VANTOR\/Reuters<\/p>\n
The United Arab Emirates said on Saturday it faced aerial attacks after Iran warned it against allowing strikes from its territory on disputed islands near the strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
Iran has choked the vital waterway, which carries a fifth of global crude oil trade in peacetime.<\/p>\n
The standoff has sent crude oil prices soaring, with North Sea Brent crude now trading above $105 a barrel, as long-term consequences for the global economy become an acute concern.<\/p>\n
A joint statement from the leaders of several countries \u2013 including the UK, France, Italy, Germany, South Korea, Australia, the UAE and Bahrain \u2013 condemned the \u201cde facto closure of the strait of Hormuz by Iranian forces\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe express our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
Trump has slammed Nato allies as \u201ccowards\u201d and urged them to secure the strait.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Japan said it could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the strait of Hormuz, if a ceasefire is reached.<\/p>\n
The foreign minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, said: \u201cIf there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider,\u201d Motegi said on Japanese TV.<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Japan to use its self-defence forces overseas if an attack, including on a close security partner, threatens Japan\u2019s survival and no other means are available to address it.<\/p>\n
Japan gets about 90% of its oil shipments via the strait, which Tehran has largely closed during the war, now in its fourth week<\/p>\n
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has given Iran 48 hours to reopen the strait of Hormuz to shipping or face the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-538088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}