Middle East crisis live: Israel launches airstrikes on military targets in Iran

Iran has suspended all flights until further notice, the aviation authority announced on Saturday, after Israel said it was conducting strikes in the country.

“Flights on all routes have been cancelled until further notice,” Agence France-Presse quoted a spokesperson of the Civil Aviation Organisation as saying, according to the official IRNA news agency.

Welcome to our continuing live coverage of the crisis in the Middle East. Here’s a snapshot of the latest news.

Israel has launched direct airstrikes against Iran in a high-stakes retaliatory attack that could bring the Middle East closer to a regional war, drawing in the US.

At least seven explosions were reported over the capital, Tehran, and nearby Karaj just after 2.30am local time on Saturday, as Israeli jets struck what were described as “military targets” in the country, Andrew Roth and Bethan McKernan report.

It was not immediately clear if that marked the end of the attack – fresh blasts were reportedly heard around Tehran on Saturday shortly after the earlier ones. Continuous explosions and light trails were visible across the sky in central Tehran, Agence France-Presse said.

In other developments:

• The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed it had begun to launch “precise strikes on military targets in Iran” in response to “months of continuous attacks” from Iran against Israel.

• Iranian state TV reported several strong explosions heard around Tehran. There were no casualties, the state news agency IRNA said. There was no immediate official Iranian comment about the source of explosions, which Iranian news outlets said were under investigation.

• A US official confirmed that Israel notified Washington before carrying out the strikes, and that the US had no involvement in Israel’s military operation. The White House said it understood Israel was conducting the strikes “as an exercise of self-defence”.

• Some of the blasts reportedly occurred near Imam Khomeni international airport. Iran’s Tasnim news agency said civilian flights were operating normally as of Saturday morning. Iraq suspended flights in all its airports until further notice, the state news agency as saying.

• In Gaza, Israeli military strikes across the territory have killed at least 72 Palestinians since Thursday night, including strikes on residential areas in southern Gaza that killed 38 people, including 13 children from the same extended family, Palestinian health officials said. Gaza’s health ministry saids dozens of people were wounded as Israeli airstrikes and shelling pounded the southern city of Khan Younis. Israeli strikes on three houses in Beit Lahiya killed 25 people and wounded dozens more, medics said. Later on Friday, an Israeli airstrike killed nine people in Shati camp in Gaza City, medics said.

• Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan hospital, one of the few medical facilities still functioning in north Gaza, on Thursday night, according to reports. “Israeli forces have stormed and are present inside Kamal Adwan hospital” in the city of Jabalia, Gaza’s health ministry said. The World Health Organisation said on Friday it lost touch with staff at the hospital, where some had been the night before to deliver supplies and help transfer patients to Shifa hospital in Gaza City. The hospital’s director, Abu Safiya, could not be reached on Friday.

• The UN rights chief, Volker Türk, described Israel’s renewed assault on northern Gaza as the “darkest moment” of the year-long war on the territory so far. “We are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes, including potentially extending to crimes against humanity,” Türk said in a statement on Friday.

• Three journalists from the Hezbollah-affiliated TV stations Al Mayadeen and Al-Manar were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on their press station in Hasbaya, southern Lebanon, early on Friday. The strikes hit a group of small chalets that 18 journalists from at least seven different media outlets – including Al Jazeera, Sky News Arabia and TRT – were staying in while covering the Israel-Hezbollah war in south Lebanon. Several cars with “Press” signs on them were parked in front of the site. Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, said the attack was “deliberate” and “aims to terrorise the media to cover up crimes and destruction”.

• UN peacekeepers withdrew from a observation post in Zahajra town in south Lebanon on Tuesday after Israeli forces fired at it, the force said on Friday. Unifil added that the Israeli military has repeatedly demanded that its peacekeepers vacate its positions along the Blue Line and deliberately damaged camera, lighting and communications equipment at some of these positions.

• Two people were killed in a strike on Majd al-Krum in northern Israel, Israeli media said on Friday, following a statement from Hezbollah saying it targeted the northern Israeli town of Karmiel with a large missile salvo.

• Lebanon’s transport minister, Ali Hamieh, said Israeli bombing put a second border crossing between the country and Syria out of service, leaving one official passage between the two nations operational. The UN refugee agency (Unhcr) said Israel’s overnight airstrike on the Jousieh crossing in Lebanon’s northern Bekaa area jeopardised the main escape route for people fleeing the conflict in Lebanon in search of refuge in Syria. More than half a million people, mostly Syrians, had crossed into Syrian territory since Israel began heavily striking Lebanon late last month, according to figures by the Lebanese authorities on Friday.

• Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, called for pressure on Israel to end what he called the “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza, as he met the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in London. Blinken stopped over in the UK to brief leaders from Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan after he had been unable to meet them on his recent tour of the Middle East. Blinken also met with Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, in London on Friday, with the US top diplomat saying Israel “must take the necessary steps to avoid civilian casualties and not endanger UN peacekeepers or the Lebanese armed forces”.