More casualties in Israel as Iran responds to attack on its major gas field
Israel and Iran launched fresh attacks on each other overnight into Sunday, stoking fears of a wider conflict after Israel expanded its surprise campaign against its main rival with a strike on the world’s biggest gas field.
Israel launched an air offensive against Iran on Friday, killing commanders and scientists and bombing nuclear sites in a stated bid to stop Tehran building an atomic weapon, which the latter has consistently denied, saying its uranium enrichment programme is for civilian purposes.
A day after Israel wiped out the top echelon of Iran’s military command, it hit Iran’s oil and gas industry for the first time. Iran then partially suspended gas production at the South Pars gas field, which it shares with Qatar.
Netanyahu claimed Israel’s strikes had set back Iran’s nuclear programme “possibly by years” and rejected international calls for restraint.
Tehran called off nuclear talks that Washington had said were the only way to halt Israel’s bombing, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacks were nothing compared with what Iran would see in the coming days.
The latest wave of Iranian attacks began shortly after 11pm on Saturday (1am PKT Sunday), when air raid sirens blared in Jerusalem and Haifa, sending around a million people into bomb shelters.
Around 2:30am local time (4:30am PKT), the Israeli military warned of another incoming missile barrage and urged residents to seek shelter.
Explosions echoed through Tel Aviv and Jerusalem as missiles streaked across the skies, as interceptor rockets were launched in response. The military lifted its shelter-in-place advisory nearly an hour after issuing the warning.
The ambulance service said at least seven people were killed overnight, including a 10-year-old boy and a woman in her 20s, and more than 140 were injured in multiple attacks.
Search and rescue workers combed through the rubble of residential buildings destroyed in multiple strikes, using flashlights and dogs to look for survivors.
Israeli media said at least 35 people were missing after a strike hit Bat Yam, a city south of Tel Aviv. A spokesperson for the emergency services said a missile hit an eight-storey building there and while many people were rescued, there were fatalities.
It was unclear how many buildings were hit overnight.
So far, at least nine people in Israel have been killed and over 300 others injured since Iran launched its retaliatory attacks on Friday.
In Iran, nearly 140 people have been killed since Friday, with 78 on the first day of Israel’s campaign, and scores more on the second, including 60 when a missile brought down a 14-storey apartment block in Tehran, where 29 of the dead were children.
The Shahran oil depot in Tehran was targeted in an Israeli attack, Iran said, but added the situation was under control.
A fire had erupted after an Israeli attack on an oil refinery near the capital while Israeli strikes also targeted Iran’s defence ministry building, causing minor damage, the semi-official Tasnim news agency said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Iranian missiles and drones targeted Israel’s energy infrastructure and facilities for fighter jet fuel production. The elite force warned Tehran’s attacks will be “heavier and more extensive” if Israel continues its hostilities.
US President Donald Trump had warned Iran of worse to come, but said it was not too late to halt the Israeli campaign if Tehran accepted a sharp downgrading of its nuclear programme.
A round of US-Iran nuclear talks that was due to be held in Oman on Sunday was cancelled, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi saying the discussions could not take place while Iran was being subjected to Israel’s “barbarous” attacks.
Gas field attack
In the first apparent attack to hit Iran’s energy infrastructure, the semi-official Tasnim news agency said Iran partially suspended production at the world’s biggest gas field after an Israeli strike caused a fire there on Saturday.
The South Pars field is located offshore in Iran’s southern Bushehr province and is responsible for the lion’s share of gas production in Iran, the world’s third largest gas producer after the United States and Russia.
The strike caused a fire, which has been extinguished, the Iranian oil ministry said. The fire broke out in one of the four units of Phase 14 of South Pars, halting production of 12 million cubic metres of gas, Tasnim said.
Iran produces around 275 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas per year or some 6.5pc of global gas output, and consumes it domestically as it cannot export gas due to sanctions.
Iran shares the field with Qatar, which calls the field North Field. Qatar produces 77 million tonnes of liquefied gas from the field with the help of global majors such as Exxon and Shell and supplies the gas to Europe and Asia.
Fears about potential disruption to the region’s oil exports had already driven up oil prices 9 per cent on Friday, even though Israel spared Iran’s oil and gas on the first day of its attacks.
An Iranian general, Esmail Kosari, said on Saturday that Tehran was reviewing whether to close the Strait of Hormuz, controlling access to the Gulf for tankers.
With Israel saying its operation could last weeks, and Netanyahu urging Iran’s people to rise up against their rulers, fears have grown of a regional conflagration dragging in outside powers.
B’Tselem, a leading Israeli human rights organisation, said on Saturday that instead of exhausting all possibilities for a diplomatic resolution, Israel’s government had chosen to start a war that puts the entire region in danger.
Tehran has warned Israel’s allies that their military bases in the region would come under fire too if they helped shoot down Iranian missiles.
Israel sees Iran’s nuclear programme as a threat to its existence, and said the bombardment was designed to avert the last steps to production of a nuclear weapon.
Tehran insists the programme is entirely civilian and that it does not seek an atomic bomb. However, the UN nuclear watchdog reported it this week as violating obligations under the global non-proliferation treaty.