Katz warns Iran leaders turning Tehran into battered Beirut

Extensive strikes in Tehran after IDF warns Iranians near arms plants to evacuate

5 car bombs said to detonate in Iran’s capital, more nuclear scientists killed; IDF says it is hunting ballistic missile launchers aimed at Israel, and striking nuclear targets

By Emanuel Fabian,
ToI Staff and Agencies 15 June 2025, 1:49 pmUpdated at 3:29 pm Edit
A plume of heavy smoke rises over an oil refinery in southern of Tehran, after it was hit in an overnight Israeli strike, on June 15, 2025. (Photo by Atta KENARE / AFP)
A plume of heavy smoke rises over an oil refinery in southern of Tehran, after it was hit in an overnight Israeli strike, on June 15, 2025. (Photo by Atta KENARE / AFP)

Widespread Israeli Air Force strikes were reported in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Sunday afternoon, hours after the military issued an unprecedented evacuation warning for Iranian civilians to evacuate areas around weapons factories.

The strikes came as Israel’s operation against Tehran’s nuclear program and military industries continued for a third day.

At the same time, car bomb blasts were reported in the Iranian capital, and reports said more nuclear scientists had been killed.

Strikes were also reported against Iranian military sites in Shiraz, in the south of the country, according to local media.

“All individuals currently present or expected to be present in or around military weapons manufacturing facilities and their supporting institutions must immediately evacuate these areas and not return until further notice,” the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, Col. Avichay Adraee, said in a Persian message on X before the strikes.

“Being near these facilities puts your life at risk,” he added, with the IDF Persian-language spokesman Master Sgt. (res.) Kamal Penhasi also issuing the same warning on the military’s Persian X account.

Explosions continued to echo across Tehran and elsewhere in the country on Sunday, but there was no update to a death toll put out the day before by Iran’s UN ambassador, who said 78 people had been killed and more than 320 wounded since the beginning of Israel’s strikes on Friday.

Footage posted online showed large plumes of smoke rising from the capital.

Iran’s IRNA news agency reported that five car bombs were detonated in Tehran. The report blamed Israel for the attacks.

Two sources in the Gulf told Reuters that at least 14 Iranian nuclear scientists had been killed in Israeli attacks since Friday, including by car bombs.

The names of nine of the scientists were published by the IDF on Sunday, and it said many of them were successors to Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the “father of the Iranian nuclear project,” who was allegedly assassinated by Israel in 2020.

The Israeli Air Force overnight bombed several Iranian ballistic missile launchers, along with air defense systems and radars, the military said, attaching footage of the strikes.

According to the IDF, some of the launchers that were struck were used to fire missiles at Israel overnight, in barrages that killed at least 10 people.

The IDF said it would continue to “hunt down” ballistic missile launchers in western Iran to prevent attacks on Israel.

Air defenses and radars were also struck “as part of the IDF’s aerial superiority in Iranian airspace,” the military said.

Additionally, some 80 targets in Tehran were hit overnight, according to the IDF.

The targets in the Iranian capital included fuel depots, the Iranian defense ministry headquarters, the “headquarters of the SPND nuclear project,” and additional targets, which advanced the Iranian regime’s efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon and where the Iranian regime hid its nuclear archive.”

IAF fighter jets also hit gas infrastructure near Bandar Abbas. The military said the fuel and gas sites were used by Iran for military purposes and for its nuclear project.

On Saturday, jets attacked two fuel depots in Tehran, while Iranian media reported a “massive explosion” following an Israeli drone strike on the South Pars gas field.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency said production of 12 million cubic meters of gas was suspended following the South Pars attack, which resulted in a fire that the Iranian oil ministry said was later extinguished.

Oil fields — crucial to Iran’s economy — were not targeted in the first round of strikes, but a senior Israeli security official warned on Friday that if Iran were to target Israeli population centers with ballistic missiles — which it then did — Israel would target regime leaders and state infrastructure such as oil refineries.

In all, since early Friday, the IDF said it hit 720 separate assets in some 250 strikes in Iran.

Iranian media said Sunday that Israel attacked a facility affiliated with Iran’s defense ministry in the central city of Isfahan.

“One of the centers affiliated with the Ministry of Defense in Isfahan was attacked, and possible damages are under investigation,” ISNA news agency reported, quoting deputy provincial governor Akbar Salehi.

Iranian media also reported strikes on the Shiraz Electronics factory in the city of Shiraz, a company that produces radar and electronic equipment for the Iranian military, according to a US-based watchdog. According to CNN, the facility was destroyed.

Iran claimed Sunday it had arrested two individuals it accused of being members of the Mossad spy agency in Alborz province while they were preparing explosives and electronic devices, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday.

Israel and Iran trade threats

After the IDF warned Iranians to evacuate military facilities in Iran, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Sunday the military “will strike the sites and continue to peel the skin off the Iranian snake in Tehran and everywhere, stripping it of nuclear capabilities and weapons systems.”

“The Iranian dictator is turning Tehran into Beirut and its residents into hostages for the sake of his regime’s survival,” he added.

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said that the attacks on Israel will only end once Israel halts its military campaign against the Islamic Republic.

“We are defending ourselves; our defense is entirely legitimate,” said Araghchi in a meeting with foreign diplomats, adding that “this defense is our response to aggression. If the aggression stops, naturally our responses will also stop.”

He said that the Israeli strikes on the offshore South Pars gas field Iran shares with Qatar were “a blatant aggression and a very dangerous act.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (C) gives a statement during his visit to the mausoleum of slain Lebanese Hezbollah’s Leader Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon, on June 3, 2025. (Anwar AMRO / AFP)

“Dragging the conflict to the Persian Gulf is a strategic mistake, and it aims to drag the war beyond Iranian territory,” he said.

Conflict to take ‘weeks, not days,’ officials say

The conflict with Iran will take “weeks, not days,” according to American and Israeli officials quoted by CNN.

The officials said the operation has the White House’s implicit approval, with an Israeli official cited as saying the US president is on board with the weeks-long timeframe.

A US official was quoted as saying, “The Trump administration firmly believes this can be solved by continuing negotiations with the US,” with the exact length of the conflict dependent on Iran’s actions.

IDF Home Front Command forces at the scene where a ballistic missile fired from Iran hit and caused damage in Bat Yam, central Israel. June 15, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Years of hostility between Israel and Iran exploded into open conflict early Friday morning when Israel launched a major offensive against Iran and its nuclear program, hitting nuclear sites, missile bases and top military officials.

Israel said it had no choice but to attack Iran, and that it had gathered intelligence showing that Tehran was approaching “the point of no return” in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Military officials said that the IDF was preparing for heavy fire from Iran, but asserted that “at the end of the operation, there will be no nuclear threat” from the Islamic Republic.

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