Israel launches major offensive against Iran’s nuclear programme, killing military chiefs

Israel is readying itself for retaliation from Iran after the country's military launched mass airstrikes on Iranian nuclear targets and senior military leaders and sites.

Israel’s military says 200 fighter jets struck "dozens of military targets, including nuclear targets in different areas of Iran".

Israeli jets attacked dozens of targets, including military and nuclear sites, in Tehran in a “preemptive, precise, combined offensive” strike against Iran’s nuclear programme early in the morning on Friday, the Israel Defense Forces stated.

The IDF said that the attack was based on “high-quality intelligence” and came “in response to the Iranian regime’s ongoing aggression against Israel.”

In retaliation, Iran has launched over 100 drones toward Israel, Israel’s military said.

Israelis, who were woken at around 03:00 (01:00 BST) this morning with sirens and a phone alert warning of a “significant threat”, have been instructed to stay close to shelters.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says Israel "should anticipate a severe punishment" following the strikes.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack will last several days.

Several top Iranian military brass have been eliminated in the attack.

Chief of the General Staff overseeing IDF strikes against Iran from the Israeli Air Force situation room[Missing Credit]

One of the country’s most powerful figures, the commander of Iran's most elite military force, the Revolutionary Guard, General Hossein Salami, was killed, as was Maj Gen Mohammad Bagheri, the overall commander of the Iranian army and the IRGC.

At least six military bases around Tehran as well as homes of military commanders and multiple residential buildings have also been hit.

Netanyahu said “Operation Rising Lion” struck Iran’s main enrichment facility in Natanz, as well as nuclear scientists, to target what he called “the heart of Iran’s ballistic missiles programme.”

The Natanz facility is where Iran has produced the majority of its nuclear fuel and much of the near-bomb-grade fuel that has put the country on the threshold of building nuclear weapons.

Experts suggest the main target of the unprecedented attack overnight was the Iranian nuclear programme as well as military sites to degrade the Iranian ability to retaliate.

Iranian state TV has reported that Fereydoon Abbasi, the former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, the president of the Islamic Azad University in Tehran, have also been killed.

There are no reports suggesting whether Iran's other major enrichment site, Fordow, which is buried deep underground, was targeted.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there was no US involvement in the strikes.