Israel Bombards Tehran, Setting Oil Facilities Ablaze
The sky over Tehran was engulfed in smoke and flame on Sunday after the city’s main gas depot was struck during Israel’s latest wave of attacks on Iran, the New York Times reports.
The two countries launched renewed waves of attacks on each other late on Saturday, as leaders of both countries vowed to intensify their assault despite international pleas for de-escalation.
Iran’s oil ministry said that the gas depot, the Shahran fuel depot, was hit and set on fire. An official with the ministry said the depots at the facility, which has 11 storage tanks, were exploding one after another and threatened to significantly damage residential neighborhoods in the area.
A resident whose high-rise apartment is directly across from the depot said the force of the explosions felt like an earthquake, and multiple witnesses said the fire was spreading and lighting up the mountains around Tehran.
Israeli air defense systems late on Saturday were intercepting Iranian ballistic missiles as explosions lit up the sky over Jerusalem. Images on Israeli television indicated that many of the missiles fired in the latest barrage from Iran were also aimed for the first time at the northern city of Haifa.
The Israeli military announced on social media that its air force was attacking military targets in Iran, as Iranian state news media also confirmed that Tehran had launched its own new round of missile attacks on Israel.
