Israel launched new air strikes targeting Tehran and expanded its military campaign to include attacks on Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon on Monday, as U.S. President Donald Trump signaled the U.S.-Israeli military assault on Iranian targets could continue for weeks.
Israel said it was attacking sites connected to Lebanon's Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah militants, one of Tehran's principal allies in the Middle East, after Hezbollah acknowledged launching missiles and drones toward Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Israel carried out air strikes on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, with more than a dozen explosions rocking the Lebanese capital. Israel said it also struck senior Hezbollah militants near Beirut.
The Hezbollah and Israel tit-for-tat attacks, which follow a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in 2024, widen the conflict that has spread through the Middle East since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday, sending oil prices soaring and snarling air travel.
The Israeli military said Hezbollah was "fully responsible for any escalation" and warned residents of dozens of villages in southern and eastern Lebanon to evacuate.
Shortly after 7:00 a.m. (0500 GMT), air raid sirens were triggered across Israel, including in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, warning of a fresh Iranian attack.
A new wave of missiles is being launched from central parts of Iran towards "enemy locations", Iran's state media said on Monday morning.
The Israeli military said late on Sunday that its air force had established aerial superiority over Tehran, and that a wave of strikes across the capital had targeted intelligence, security, and military command centers.
Sounds of explosions were heard in different parts of the Iranian capital, Tehran on Monday morning, according to state media, while Reuters witnesses heard loud blasts in Dubai and the Qatari capital Doha.
Kuwait said its air defences intercepted hostile drones, in a third consecutive day of Iranian retaliatory strikes on neighbouring Gulf states.
Britain's Royal Air Force base Akrotiri in Cyprus was hit by a suspected drone strike overnight, but damage was limited and there were no casualties, Cypriot authorities and the UK's Ministry of Defence said on Monday.
A senior White House official told Reuters that while Trump would at some point talk with new potential leadership in Iran, the military campaign would go on. The official did not identify any individuals as part of the new leadership.
"President Trump said new potential leadership in Iran has indicated they want to talk and eventually he will talk. For now, Operation Epic Fury continues unabated," the official said.
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday said a leadership council composed of himself, the judiciary head and a member of the powerful Guardian Council had temporarily assumed the duties of Supreme Leader.
