Article #251188

Joint operation prompts Tehran to retaliate with missile attacks on bases across Middle East

• Full report

• US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates

• A visual guide to US-Israeli strikes on Iran – and Tehran’s response

The US and Israel have launched a joint military operation against Iran, prompting Tehran to fire retaliatory strikes against Israeli and US bases across the Middle East.

Explosions rocked the Iranian capital, Tehran, with satellite imagery showing extensive damage at the secure compound of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In a televised address, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, indicated that the strikes had killed Khamenei. Iran’s leader has not been heard from since the strikes began. “There are many signs that [Khamenei] is no longer alive,” Netanyahu said on Saturday evening. Netanyahu said that Israeli strikes had also killed “several leaders” involved in the Iranian nuclear programme and that strikes against sites linked to the programme would continue in the coming days. The remarks, which stopped short of confirming Khamenei’s death, were the strongest official indication yet that the missing leader is dead.

Dozens of students were reportedly killed in a strike on a primary school in the south-east. Iranian media is reporting at least 201 people have been killed in total and 747 injured.

Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister who has been leading the nuclear talks for the Iranian delegation, promised that Iran’s army would “teach aggressors the lesson they deserve”.

Further explosions were reported in Gulf countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, all of which host US military bases. One person was killed by shrapnel from an Iranian missile in Abu Dhabi, UAE officials said.

The US president, Donald Trump, described the US military campaign as “massive and ongoing” as he called on the people of Iran to “take over your government”. In a speech posted on Truth Social, he said the US would “raze their [Iran’s] missile industry to the ground” and claimed Tehran had refused to reach a deal with the US that would have averted war.

Netanyahu said the US-Israeli attack could “create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their destiny into their own hands”.