Israel threatens Iran’s top leader after missiles damage hospital and wound 200

Israel’s defence minister overtly threatened Iran’s supreme leader on Thursday after the latest missile barrage from Iran damaged the main hospital in southern Israel and hit several other residential buildings near Tel Aviv.

Meanwhile, Israel struck a heavy water reactor that is part of Iran’s nuclear programme.

At least 240 people were wounded by the Iranian missiles, four of them seriously, according to Israel’s health ministry.

The vast majority were lightly wounded, including more than 70 people from the Soroka Medical Centre in the southern city of Beersheba, where smoke rose as emergency teams evacuated patients.

In the aftermath of the strikes, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz blamed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and said the military “has been instructed and knows that in order to achieve all of its goals, this man absolutely should not continue to exist”.

From Washington, the White House announced that US President Donald Trump will decide whether to join Israel’s campaign against Iran’s military and nuclear programme within two weeks, saying that Mr Trump still sees a window for diplomacy to address Israeli and US demands on Iran’s nuclear programme.

“Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks,” Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, told reporters, quoting Mr Trump.

US officials said this week that Mr Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Mr Khamenei. Mr Trump later said there were no plans to kill him “at least not for now”.

Israel carried out strikes on Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor, in its latest attack on the country’s sprawling nuclear programme, on the seventh day of a conflict that began with a surprise wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting military sites, senior officers and nuclear scientists.

A Washington-based Iranian human rights group said at least 639 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 1,300 wounded.

In retaliation, Iran has fired some 400 missiles and hundreds of drones, killing at least 24 people in Israel and wounding hundreds.

Meanwhile, an Israeli military official said that Iran used a missile with multiple warheads in an attack on Thursday, posing a new challenge to its defences.

There was no immediate independent analysis that could be made of the claim, but Iran has hinted in the past that it was pursuing such weaponry.

Instead of having to track one warhead, missiles with multiple warheads can pose a more difficult challenge for air defence systems, such as Israel’s Iron Dome.

Two doctors told The Associated Press that the missile struck almost immediately after air raid sirens went off, causing a loud explosion that could be heard from a safe room.

The hospital said the main impact was on an old surgery building that had been evacuated in recent days. After the strike, the medical facility was closed to all patients except for life-threatening cases, it said.

Soroka has more than 1,000 beds and provides services to around one million residents in the south of Israel.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the strike on the hospital and vowed a response, saying: “We will exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran.”

Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel, although most have been shot down by Israel’s multi-tiered air defences.

An Israeli military official said on Thursday that airstrikes have destroyed around two-thirds of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers.

The official said Israel estimates Iran still has more than 100 operational launchers, but that its losses have contributed to the steady decline in attacks since the start of the conflict.

Israel estimates that Iran had around 2,000 ballistic missiles at the start of the conflict, and says it has fired around 450 missiles and 1,000 drones towards Israel since hostilities began.

Israel lifted some restrictions on daily life on Wednesday, suggesting the missile threat from Iran was easing.

Haim Bublil, a local police commander, told reporters that several people were lightly wounded in the strike.

Many hospitals in Israel activated emergency plans in the past week, converting underground parking to hospital floors and moving patients underground, especially those who are on ventilators or are difficult to move quickly.

Israel also boasts a fortified, subterranean blood bank that kicked into action after Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack ignited the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s military said its fighter jets targeted the Arak facility and its reactor core seal to halt it from being used to produce plutonium.

“The strike targeted the component intended for plutonium production, in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development,” the military said.

Israel separately claimed to have struck another site around Natanz it described as being related to Iran’s nuclear programme.

Iranian state TV said there was “no radiation danger whatsoever” from the attack on the Arak site.

An Iranian state television reporter, speaking live in the nearby town of Khondab, said the facility had been evacuated and there was no damage to civilian areas around the reactor.

Israel had warned earlier on Thursday morning that it would attack the facility and urged the public to flee the area.

Iran has long maintained its programme is for peaceful purposes. But it also enriches uranium up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon state to enrich at that level.

Israel is the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East but does not acknowledge having such weapons.

The strikes came a day after Iran’s supreme leader rejected US calls for surrender and warned that any military involvement by the Americans would cause “irreparable damage to them”.

Already, Israel’s campaign has targeted Iran’s enrichment site at Natanz, centrifuge workshops around Tehran and a nuclear site in Isfahan. Its strikes have also killed top generals and nuclear scientists.

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said he would travel to Geneva for meetings with his European counterparts on Friday, indicating that a new diplomatic initiative might be taking shape.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency said the meeting would include foreign ministers from the UK, France and Germany and the European Union’s top diplomat.

Mr Trump has said he wants something “much bigger” than a ceasefire and has not ruled out the US joining Israel’s campaign. Iran has warned of dire consequences if the US deepens its involvement, without elaborating.