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Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched Kheibar Shekan ballistic missiles toward the heart of Tel Aviv on Friday as part of the 21st wave of Operation True Promise IV, while Israel simultaneously conducted 26 waves of overnight strikes on Hezbollah command centres and weapons depots in Beirut’s southern suburbs and opened a fresh broad-scale attack on infrastructure targets across Tehran — the most concentrated 24-hour exchange of the seven-day war, as the United States and Israel pressed an escalation that Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth warned was “only just beginning.”
IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said Israel had destroyed 80 per cent of Iran’s air defence systems and achieved “almost complete air superiority” over Iranian airspace.
“Within 24 hours, our pilots paved the way to Tehran. We destroyed about 80 per cent of the air defence systems and achieved almost complete air superiority over the skies of Iran,” he said, adding that Israeli Air Force pilots had carried out 2,500 strikes and dropped more than 6,000 munitions. “We have neutralised and destroyed more than 60 per cent of the ballistic missile launchers, a very significant achievement that reduces the damage to the home front,” Zamir added.
The overnight assault on Beirut caused mass panic across the Lebanese capital’s southern districts. Israeli forces issued evacuation orders for all of Beirut’s southern suburbs, covering dense residential neighbourhoods home to more than half a million people.
The Israeli military said the 26 strike waves overnight targeted Hezbollah’s military communications infrastructure and weapons storage facilities. Among the 80 targets Israel said it hit over the preceding 24 hours in Lebanon were several Hezbollah command centres used in Beirut’s suburbs. Hezbollah warned residents of Israeli towns within five kilometres of the border to evacuate, posting the message on its Telegram channel in Hebrew.
“Your military’s aggression against Lebanese sovereignty and safe citizens, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and the expulsion campaign it is carrying out will not go unchallenged,” the group said.
Lebanon’s health ministry confirmed the death toll from Israeli strikes since Hezbollah entered the war on Monday had risen to 123, with 683 wounded. Its figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. There have been no reported fatalities in Israel from Hezbollah strikes. The Lebanese Armed Forces, acting under the government’s ban on unauthorised military activity, arrested 27 people carrying illegal weapons and munitions, and continued redeployments along the southern border and in the Bekaa Valley. French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed France would send armoured transport vehicles and additional support to strengthen the Lebanese Armed Forces — a calibrated intervention that placed Paris in support of the Lebanese state rather than any party to the combat.
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Iran’s overnight strikes extended across multiple countries simultaneously. The IRGC said its forces attacked the Ramat David airbase and an air defence radar site in Israel, Al-Adiri camp in Kuwait hosting US troops, a US military base in Erbil, Iraq, and Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar — the largest US military installation in the Middle East — in a drone attack overnight, without causing reported casualties. In Abu Dhabi, a drone was shot down near Al Dhafra Air Base, which hosts US forces, and shrapnel fell to the ground, wounding six people. Qatar evacuated residents near the US Embassy in Doha as a precautionary measure and later reported a missile attack on the city. Saudi Arabia said it destroyed a drone in a province bordering Jordan. A Guards spokesperson said new weapons systems and tactical initiatives would soon be deployed, without providing specifics.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said in a televised speech that his group was ready to strike at any moment.
“Regarding military escalation and action, our fingers are on the trigger, ready to respond at any moment should developments warrant it,” he said. The Houthis have not yet entered the war directly but their declaration significantly widened the potential front.
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CENTCOM said US forces were deploying “a number of new capabilities” in the Iran campaign. Hegseth warned: “If you think you’ve seen something, just wait.” The US military’s stated objectives remain the destruction of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and the prevention of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon. The Israeli military’s stated objective — regime change — is broader, and the public divergence in framing between the two militaries has been a consistent feature of the war’s communication throughout its first week.
US and European officials said Washington had presented Iran with three core demands: a permanent end to all uranium enrichment, strict limits on Iran’s ballistic missile programme, and a complete halt to support for regional proxy groups including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Tehran’s response to those demands has been sustained escalation. Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh told the Raisina Dialogues conference in New Delhi: “This was an existential war for Iran, leaving us with no choice but to respond wherever American attacks originate from.”
The Arab League’s foreign ministers called an emergency meeting for Sunday at Saudi Arabia’s request, to be held by video conference, to discuss Iran’s attacks on multiple countries in the region.
The meeting will include states that have been subject to Iranian fire — the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia — as well as countries that have remained outside the direct military exchange but face mounting economic consequences from the Hormuz closure.
The total death toll inside Iran reached at least 1,230 according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society — including the 175 schoolgirls and staff killed in Minab on the war’s first day, a strike that US military investigators now assess was likely the work of American forces. No final conclusion has been issued. The investigation remained open as of Friday morning, with Hegseth on Wednesday acknowledging that the Pentagon was looking into the incident. The Assembly of Experts in Tehran continued its deliberations over Iran’s third supreme leader, with no formal announcement confirmed despite earlier reports citing IRGC pressure to conclude the selection within hours.
