What we covered here
• Fresh blasts: The deadly conflict between Israel and Iran has entered its fourth day, with both sides firing new waves of missiles overnight amid international pleas for diplomacy and de-escalation. Iran’s early Monday strikes have hit an Israeli oil refinery and damaged part of the power grid.
• Terrified civilians and rising death tolls: Casualties are mounting on both sides as Iran and Israel widen attacks. Tehran residents are attempting to flee the capital in search of safety, while explosions and fire were seen in Israel overnight with residential buildings hit.
• Trump rejects assassination plan: Two US officials told CNN that President Donald Trump rejected an Israeli plan to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied reports of such a plan.
• ‘Weeks’ to go: Israel’s operation against Iran is expected to take “weeks, not days” a
nd is moving forward with implicit US approval, according to White House and Israeli officials. Trump acknowledged it was possible the US could get involved in the conflict, and that he wants to see a deal between both sides.
Israel says it struck Iranian Quds Force command centers
From CNN’s Eugenia Yosef and Lex Harvey
Israeli Air Force fighter jets have struck command centers belonging to the Quds Force, a clandestine wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.
“In these command centers, Quds operatives advanced terrorist attacks against the State of Israel using the proxies of the Iranian Regime in the Middle East,” an IDF spokesperson said.
An IDF video showed 10 sites it said were Quds and military targets it struck in Tehran.
Some context: The Quds force is powerful unit within the IRGC that was formed during the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s as its special intelligence unit. It’s credited with taking the lead role in Iran’s relations with armed groups in the Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza strip, including Hezbollah and Hamas.
The IRGC’s commander, Hossein Salami, was killed in Israel’s initial attacks on Iran on Friday. He has since been replaced by General Ahmed Vahidi.
Scenes of destruction and anxiety in Tel Aviv as Israelis wake to latest wave of Iranian strikes
CNN’s Jerusalem Correspondent Jeremy Diamond saw Tel Aviv streets littered with debris as rescue and military personnel searched through rubble at a scene that appeared to have been struck by four ballistic missiles.
One woman said she “felt the impact” of the strikes from her basement, where she was hunkering down.
“We came out really slowly because we were scared,” she told Diamond, adding that “buildings were falling as we walked.”
“It smelled like smoke… I had to cover my nose with my T-shirt. We had to walk down the street to make sure we weren’t inhaling it,” she said.
One of the residential buildings near the scene had partially collapsed and debris could be seen from blocks away, Diamond said, adding at least 10 people have been taken to hospital.
People could be seen arriving to assess the damage and families and friends embracing one another, as the shock from the strikes adds to the anxiety of residents.
“This really is the worst violence that Tel Aviv has faced from missiles since at least the Gulf War in 1991 when the city was targeted by scud missiles,” Diamond said.
He said it could have been a “much deadlier scene” without the shelters that people were able to enter before the missile struck.
“Every single person who survived this attack, who we spoke to, was in some kind of bomb shelter or underground shelter at the moment of impact. That’s because a couple hours before this missile struck, there was an early warning about a potential ballistic missile attack coming from Iran.”
Five killed in central Israel by Iranian strikes
Five people were killed in central Israel in the latest round of Iranian missile strikes, according to Israel’s national emergency service Magen David Adom (MDA).
Four people were killed in the city of Petah Tikva and one person was killed in the city of Bnei Brak, the MDA said.
The missiles struck several sites in central and coastal Israel, including residential buildings.
MDA said it responded to four scenes and that dozens of people were taken to hospitals in the central region.
The additional deaths take the total number of people killed in Israel to 18, since the two countries started trading barrages of missiles on Friday.
At least 224 were killed and 1,277 hospitalized in Iran since hostilities began, the country’s health ministry said on Sunday, as cited by Iran’s official media.