Israel’s military has warned of a “prolonged war” with Iran as the conflict entered its second week with no sign of stopping, as Israeli forces targeted Tehran and other areas while an Iranian missile attack wounded many people in the Mediterranean port city of Haifa.
The Israeli military said its aircraft destroyed Iranian surface-to-air missiles in southern Iran, as well as killing a group of Iranian military commanders responsible for missile launches. According to the IDF, the strikes prevented launch of missiles scheduled for later on Friday evening.
Iran let off a rare mid-afternoon salvo of ballistic missiles across Israel, triggering air raid sirens across the entire country. At least one of the missiles evaded Israeli air defences, hitting an area by the docks of Haifa, wounding at least 45 people, 19 of whom were hospitalised. An Iranian missile also hit the southern city of Beersheba, where there were no injuries.
As fighting continued to escalate, the Israeli military chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, said Israelis must prepare for “difficult days” ahead.
He said on Friday: “To remove a threat of such magnitude, against such an enemy, we must be ready for a prolonged campaign. Day by day, our freedom to operate is expanding and the enemy’s is narrowing.”
Echoing the warning, Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, said: “We will not stop. Not until Iran’s nuclear threat is dismantled, not until its war machine is disarmed, not until our people and yours are safe.”
Speaking in Geneva where he was meeting his counterparts from the UK, France and Germany, the Iranian foreign minster, Abbas Araghchi, said Iran was determined to defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty “with all force”.
But there was no sign of any breakthrough, and Araghchi said Iran would only consider a resumption of diplomacy with Washington if Israel halts its bombardment.
Late on Friday, Donald Trump said it was unlikely he would pressure Israel to scale back its offensive to allow negotiations, telling reporters: “I think it’s very hard to make that request right now. If somebody is winning, it’s a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing, but we’re ready, willing and able, and we’ve been speaking to Iran.”
António Guterres urged all parties to “give peace a chance”. The UN secretary general said an expansion of the conflict “could ignite a fire that no one can control”.
Meanwhile, the UK said it had withdrawn embassy staff from Iran. Switzerland announced the closure of its embassy there.
The UK foreign ministry said: “Due to the current security situation, we have taken the precautionary measure to temporarily withdraw our UK staff from Iran. Our embassy continues to operate remotely.”
Countries have been working to evacuate their citizens from Israel, with the UK coordinating with Israeli authorities to charter repatriation flights once Israeli airports reopen, the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said on Friday.
The war started when Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes on Iran last Friday morning, in what it said was an operation aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Iran quickly responded with a barrage of missiles and drones, triggering a tit-for-tat cycle of bombing between the two countries.
Israel knocked out much of Iran’s air defences in its initial wave of attacks and Israeli jets have operated with relative freedom over Iran. Iran has sent a steadily diminishing number of ballistic missiles into Israel and managed to get some past air defences, hitting a hospital in southern Israel on Thursday and injuring about 80 people.
Israeli bombing has killed at least 639 people and wounded 1,326, according to Iranian media, while Iranian missiles have killed at least 25 people and wounded hundreds in Israel.
Neighbouring states are concerned that an expanding war between Iran and Israel could have regional consequences, particularly if Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon get involved.
Iran has threatened that if the US joins Israel in its bombing campaign it would target US bases in the Middle East, which hosts thousands of US troops across at least eight different countries.
On Friday, the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, told the Lebanese militia Hezbollah not to get involved in fighting between Israel and Iran.
A western diplomatic source in the Middle East said: “The idea that if the US intervenes it will push all the proxies in the region to put it on fire, of course this is a scenario we need to take into account, but the whole [Iranian] axis is no longer the same.”
Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies in the Middle East are severely battered from two years of fighting with Israel and by the collapse of the Syrian regime – a significant Iranian ally – in December.
The source said: “We are not worried more than we should be about what Qassem is saying. He’s just [saying] we’re not neutral and support in different ways. It would be suicide for them to get involved.”
Katz ordered the Israeli military to intensify strikes on Iranian government targets in Tehran, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij, an internal security force.
Israel also said it had struck a weapons research centre in Tehran that it said was used for the development of Iran’s nuclear weapons project.
Katz said the attacks were aimed at inducing “a mass evacuation of the population from Tehran, in order to destabilise the regime and increase deterrence in response to missile fire on Israel’s home front”. The Israeli military later announced it had hit the headquarters of the Basij.
A spokesperson from the Iranian health ministry said Israel had struck a hospital in Tehran, which they said was the third Iranian hospital to be attacked since fighting began.
An Iranian missile landed in Beersheba in southern Israel on Friday morning, lightly injuring seven people and damaging nearby homes. Iran said it had aimed the missiles at the nearby Dimona nuclear facility.
Araghchi met his European counterparts in Geneva on Friday in what the French foreign ministry said was an attempt to restart nuclear talks.
The US has flirted with the idea of joining Israel in its attacks on Iran. The White House said on Thursday that Trump would decide whether or not to intervene within two weeks. The time period is reportedly to allow a window for diplomacy to take effect, with the US wanting Iran to completely abandon its nuclear programme.
Israel is keen for the US to jump into the fray, as only the US possesses the capacity to strike Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear facility, the Fordow uranium enrichment site, which lies up to 100 metres under a mountain near the Qom.
Privately, sources familiar with the deliberations for the US to intervene militarily in Iran have said Trump was also uncertain if the US’s most powerful bunker buster could indeed take out Fordow.
Araghchi said discussions with the US would be impossible “until Israeli aggression stops”.
The European diplomatic efforts were meant to jump-start US-Iranian discussions in order to avoid a US military intervention. They involved European states that, while opposed to Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, favoured a ceasefire rather than a prolonged military conflict.
