As part of the ongoing campaign, Israel on Friday claimed to have hit several military facilities in Iran. The conflict has entered the second week, and the future seems dim as Israel carried out air strikes near Kermanshah and Tabriz, reportedly to take a lead in airspace. The strikes killed five people in a building in Tehran, leaving many injured.
Iran retaliated by firing at military facilities in the Southern Israeli city of Beersheba. As per the Israeli media, the results were also felt in the cities of Haifa and Tel Aviv. The attacks alerted the UN nuclear watchdog, IAEA, and in the aftermath, Rafael Grossi, the director of IAEA, warned the countries of possible radioactive releases that can trigger harmful consequences.
Fars News Agency claimed that the Iranian military used long-range weapons and destroyed defence industries, military sites, and command and control centres. The media agency also reported that over 20 missiles were fired in the Friday attacks. In contrast, Israel claimed that a veteran Iranian commander was killed in the attack.
Israel Katz, the defence minister of Israel, stated that Saees Izadi, leader of the Palestine Corps of the Quds Force, which is an overseas arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, was killed in an attack in Qom. He iterated that this was a major achievement of the Israeli army as Izadi was known to finance Hamas earlier before it attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, which started the Israel-Gaza conflict.
The war is fueling, and there has been no breakthrough in diplomacy. The talks between Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi and other European leaders, including the foreign ministers of the UK, France, and Germany, in Geneva yesterday had no success in fighting the conflict diplomatically.
In the backdrop of the meeting, an Iranian official told Reuters that European powers presented an “unrealistic” solution, thereby turning any arrangement futile. Israel, which started attacks on 13 Jun, said that the Iranian side is developing nuclear weapons while Iran continues to deny any such claims, emphasising that it uses nuclear energy strictly for peaceful purposes. Israel, on the other hand, is known to have nuclear weapons, which it is not keen to disclose.
The conflict in the Middle East seems to have no end in the near future, but the bigger risk is that trigger a nuclear angle in the ongoing warfare.
