Nighttime attacks in Israel and Iran. Netanyahu says operation will last 'as long as necessary'

Tehran has called off nuclear talks that Washington said were the only way to stop Israeli bombing, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacks were nothing compared to what Iran would see in the coming days.

The latest wave of Iranian attacks began shortly after 11 p.m. Saturday, when air raid sirens sounded in Jerusalem and Haifa, forcing an estimated one million people to take shelter in bomb shelters.

At around 2:30 a.m. local time, the Israeli military warned of another barrage of rockets and urged residents to seek shelter. Explosions rang out in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and rockets streaked across the sky as interceptors were fired in response. The military lifted the shelter advisory nearly an hour after the warning was issued.

Emergency services said at least seven people died overnight, including a 10-year-old boy and a woman in her 20s, and more than 140 people were injured. Emergency services were searching through the rubble of residential buildings destroyed in multiple impacts.

Israeli media reported that at least 35 people were missing after a rocket struck Bat Yam, a city south of Tel Aviv. A spokesman for the emergency services said the rocket hit an eight-story building and that while many people were saved, there were fatalities. It was not known how many buildings were destroyed overnight.

At least nine people have been killed and more than 300 injured in Israel since Iran launched its retaliatory strikes on Friday.

Iran said 78 people were killed in the first day of Israeli attacks and dozens more in the second, including 60 people when a missile destroyed a 14-story apartment block in Tehran, where 29 of the dead were children.

Iran said the Israeli attack targeted the Shahran oil depot in Tehran, but added that the situation was under control. A fire broke out after an Israeli attack on an oil refinery near the capital, and Israeli strikes also targeted the Iranian Defense Ministry building, causing minor damage, the Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday.

US President Donald Trump warned Iran of further developments but said it was not too late to stop Israeli actions if Tehran agreed to significant curbs on its nuclear programme.

A round of US-Iran nuclear talks scheduled for Sunday has been cancelled, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi saying the talks cannot take place while Iran is subject to "barbaric" attacks by Israel.

Iran has partially halted production at the world's largest gas field, South Pars, after an Israeli attack caused a fire there on Saturday, Tasnim reported. The South Pars field, offshore in the southern province of Bushehr, is Iran's main source of gas. Concerns about potential disruptions to oil exports from the region had already sent oil prices up 9 percent on Friday, even though Israel spared Iranian oil and gas on the first day of the attacks.

Iranian Gen. Esmail Kosari said Saturday that Tehran was considering closing the Strait of Hormuz, which controls tankers' access to the Persian Gulf.

Strait of Hormuz

Photo: PAP

Israel has said the operation could last weeks, and Netanyahu has called on the Iranian nation to rise up against its Islamic clerical leaders, raising fears of a regional conflict involving outside powers.

Tehran has warned Israel's allies that if they help shoot down Iranian missiles, their military bases in the region will also be shelled.

Israel views Iran's nuclear program as a threat to its existence and says the bombing was aimed at preventing final steps toward producing nuclear weapons.

Tehran says the program is entirely civilian and not aimed at developing a nuclear bomb, but the U.N.'s atomic energy watchdog said this week that Iran was violating its obligations under the global nuclear non-proliferation treaty.