IDF strikes in Iran target drones, F-14 jets and missiles; UAV hits home in Beit She’an
Iranian Shahed-136 impact causes damage but no injuries; Iran confirms nuclear scientist killed in Friday attack
The Israeli Air Force continued to carry out strikes against Iranian military targets throughout the country Saturday, hitting drone sites, weapons caches, and more, as the army said it had significantly degraded the Islamic Republic’s missile-launching capabilities in the past week.
IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said in a press conference on Saturday evening that the military had destroyed some 950 Iranian drones before they were launched at Israel since hostilities began on June 13.
Defrin’s announcement came one day after Defense Minister Israel Katz said that he had instructed the IDF to “intensify strikes on government targets in Tehran” to “destabilize” the Iranian regime.
“In the past week, more than 1,000 drones have been launched from Iran at Israel, only a few breached [Israeli airspace]. Most of the drones are intercepted outside of Israel’s borders. This is an unprecedented achievement,” Defrin said.
“In addition to the defensive actions, the air force is systematically eliminating the chain of command of [Iran’s] drone unit. These strikes have disrupted the synchronized attacks and hit some 950 explosive drones before they were launched,” he continued.
Defrin added that some 60 Israeli Air Force fighter jets carried out a wave of strikes in central Iran on Saturday evening, noting that three Iranian F-14 fighter jets were destroyed on the ground. Last week, Israeli strikes in Tehran destroyed two F-14s.
The US-made F-14 Tomcats were supplied to Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and are believed to be the last ones still in operation.
Regarding Iran’s ballistic missile infrastructure, Defrin said: “The missile launching capabilities that they possess today are far from the capabilities they had when we set out for this operation.”
Israeli Air Force fighter jets destroyed three more Iranian F-14 fighter jets in a strike a short while ago in central Iran, the military says. pic.twitter.com/siwEYVfyOp
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) June 21, 2025
Meanwhile, the military said the air force carried out strikes on Iranian drone storage facilities and other weapon depots in he port city of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran.
Footage posted to social media purported to show a fire burning in the area.
فوری/ گزارشهای اولیه:
ارتش اسرائیل به چند کشتی و کانتینر نیروی دریایی سپاه در بندرعباس حمله کرده.
جزئیات بیشتری بیرون نیومده. pic.twitter.com/90XQvjgJ4U
— Pouria Zeraati (@pouriazeraati) June 21, 2025
Drone hits Beit She’an
A drone launched from Iran struck a home in the northern city of Beit She’an early Saturday morning, in the first such incident since the conflict began a week ago, the IDF confirmed.
Attempts were made to shoot down the Shahed-136 model, but were unsuccessful.
Damage was caused to the home. No people were reported injured after medics scanned the two-story building, the Magen David Adom ambulance service said.
Between late Friday and Saturday afternoon, the Israeli Air Force shot down some 40 drones launched from Iran at Israel, the military said, releasing footage of some of the interceptions.
״תמשיך להפלה ותדווח בסוף ביצוע – הופלה, יש תוצאה על הכטב"ם״, תיעודים חדשים מיירוט הכטב״מים הבוקר על-ידי ממטוסי הקרב של חיל האוויר
חיל האוויר ממשיך במאמץ ההגנה האווירית. מערכות ההגנה האווירית יחד עם מערך מטוסי הקרב ומסוקי הקרב, מיירטים ללא הפסקה כטב״מים ששוגרו מאיראן לשטח מדינת… pic.twitter.com/JoQHd2S6h4
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) June 21, 2025
Aside from the impact in Beit She’an, one drone crashed in an open area in the Golan Heights overnight, and another fell near the Route 90 highway in southern Israel’s Arava region. There were no injuries.
Excluding the weekend attacks, the military said it had intercepted 470 drones launched from Iran at Israel since June 13 — marking a 99 percent interception rate for drones that posed a threat, it said.
Iranian drones launched at Israel are intercepted by the Israeli Air Force, in footage published June 21, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)
Saturday afternoon strikes
Earlier Saturday, several “powerful explosions” were heard in southwestern Iran’s Ahvaz county, the daily Shargh reported, shortly after the IDF announced it was striking “military infrastructure” in the southwest of the country.
The military later confirmed that some 30 IAF fighter jets were involved in the strikes, dropping 50 munitions on dozens of Iranian military targets in the Ahvaz area.
As part of the strikes, the military said fighter jets hit a facility where ballistic missile launchers were stored, some of which were previously used in attacks on Israel.
The strikes also hit a radar site and other Iranian military infrastructure, the IDF added.
Ahvaz is the capital of Khuzestan province, which is situated on the Iraqi border and is Iran’s main oil-producing region.
Meanwhile, an official from Hezbollah, the Lebanese Iranian proxy, told The Associated Press that the head of security to the terror group’s late leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike while in Iran.
Abu Ali Khalil, better known as Abu Ali Jawad, was killed after he went to Iran from neighboring Iraq, the official said.
For many years, Abu Ali was seen behind Nasrallah during most of his public appearances.
After Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in a Beirut suburb in September, his bodyguard was put in charge of his tomb in Beirut.
The Hezbollah official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said the airstrike that killed Abu Ali occurred earlier on Saturday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to meet on Saturday evening with ministers and senior security officials to discuss the ongoing aerial campaign, according to Hebrew media reports.
Meanwhile, an Iranian nuclear scientist killed in a drone strike on an apartment in Tehran Friday was identified as Isar Tabatabai-Qamsheh in a report by the semi-official Mehr News Agency, which said his wife was also killed.
An Iranian news website said Friday that a drone had struck an apartment in a residential building in central Tehran, but did not give details. According to The Wall Street Journal, the scientist who was attacked specialized in weaponry and was being kept in a hiding spot outside of his home. An official speaking to The Journal on Friday refused to provide the scientist’s name.
The Israel Defense Forces has not yet commented on the reported strike, but the military has already confirmed the assassination of at least 10 Iranian nuclear scientists who were killed during the opening attack of Israel’s campaign against Iran in “Operation Narnia.”
Israeli strikes earlier Saturday eliminated three top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers and hit Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site.
The commander of the Hatzerim Airbase said Saturday that IAF strikes in Iran have been reducing ballistic missile fire on Israel, after five projectiles were launched overnight.
“We are targeting the enemy’s missiles, weapon depots, launchers, and personnel, thereby reducing the number of launches at Israel,” said Brig. Gen. “Ayin” in a video. He was only identified by his first initial in Hebrew for security concerns.
Speaking to Israeli Air Force unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operators in a video released by the IDF, IAF chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar said, “We are very busy with the UAV array to suppress the surface-to-surface missile fire. It’s not at zero, but it prevents a lot, and the Iranians are surprised by this.
“We’re going from one command center to another, expanding [operations], and everywhere we see that with the UAVs overhead, they [Iranian soldiers] don’t function,” he added.
The IAF has conducted over 1,000 sorties over Iran in the past eight days, with fighter jets dropping hundreds of munitions on Iranian ballistic missile launch and storage sites, disrupting its attacks on Israel from western Iran, the military said.
IAF drones have also struck numerous ballistic missile launchers and eliminated dozens of Iranian soldiers at the launch sites, according to the military.
The IDF said these strikes make Iranian soldiers “feel hunted,” and added that they “have been observed abandoning and fleeing” the launchers.
Iran’s forces have been pushed eastward and southward due to the strikes, the IDF said. Each day, new strikes are being carried out against launch sites in western Iran to prevent Iranian forces from returning to them, according to the military.
The IAF has estimated it has so far taken out over 200 ballistic missile launchers, or about half of what Iran had before the conflict, which began on June 13 when Israel launched a campaign of airstrikes in Iran to decimate the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Israel has said its sweeping assault on Iran’s top military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites, and ballistic missile program is necessary to prevent the Islamic Republic from realizing its avowed plan to destroy the Jewish state.
Iran has retaliated by launching over 470 ballistic missiles and around 1,000 drones at Israel.
So far, Iran’s missile attacks have killed 24 people and wounded thousands in Israel, according to health officials and hospitals. Some of the missiles have hit apartment buildings, a university, and a hospital, causing heavy damage.
The Times of Israel Community.