Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that Israel had destroyed Iran’s police headquarters in Tehran, as the IDF kept up heavy strikes across the Islamic Republic on the sixth day of fighting between the two countries, and as thousands continued to flee the Iranian capital.

Israeli Air Force fighter jets “destroyed the headquarters of the Iranian regime’s internal security, the main arm of the Iranian dictator’s oppression,” Katz said. “As we promised, we will continue to target symbols of [Iran’s] rule and strike the Ayatollah regime wherever it may be.”

Israeli officials have said they would welcome regime change in Tehran, while noting that it is not the purpose of the offensive, which is intended to take out Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missile capabilities.

The IDF said Wednesday afternoon that the Israeli Air Force had carried out a wave of strikes on some 40 Iranian military targets in western Iran earlier in the day. Some 25 fighter jets were involved in the action, and the targets included missiles aimed at Israel, missile storage facilities and Iranian soldiers, according to the military.

The army said that overnight it had targeted an Iranian centrifuge production site and several weapon-production facilities, as well as an Iranian Emad ballistic missile launcher that was primed for an attack on Israel. It released footage showing the strike on the launcher, as well as on Iranian soldiers at a different ballistic missile launch site.

Since Friday, Israel has hit more than 1,100 Iranian assets in hundreds of strikes in Iran, IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said in a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

“We are operating systematically to neutralize the nuclear threat,” he said, adding that the strikes are “deepening the significant damage” caused to Iran’s ballistic missiles and air defenses.

Defrin said the IAF had also bombed five Iranian AH-1 helicopters at a military airbase in Kermanshah Wednesday morning: “Their mission was to try and harm our aircraft.” Later in the day, the military said it had bombed another three AH-1 helicopters at Kermanshah.

Iranian officials have reported at least 224 deaths in Israeli attacks, claiming those were mostly civilians, though that toll has not been updated since Monday. The Washington-based group Human Rights Activists estimates the death toll at at least 585 people, including 239 civilians, and estimates that more than 1,300 have been wounded.

Israel says its sweeping assault on Iran’s top military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites and ballistic missile program launched early Friday morning is necessary to prevent the Islamic Republic from realizing its avowed plan to destroy the Jewish state.

Iran has retaliated by launching over 400 missiles and some 1,000 drones at Israel. So far, 24 people have been killed in Israel and more than 500 wounded by the missiles.

Shops have been closed across Tehran, including in its famed Grand Bazaar, as people wait in gas lines and pack roads leading out of the city to escape the onslaught.

A major explosion was heard in Tehran around 5 a.m. Wednesday, following other explosions earlier in the predawn darkness. Authorities in Iran offered no acknowledgement of the attacks, which have become increasingly common as Israeli strikes have intensified.

At least one strike appeared to target Tehran’s eastern neighborhood of Hakimiyeh, where the paramilitary Revolutionary Guards has an academy. Loud blasts were heard throughout Tehran on Wednesday, and a major road in the capital was partially closed.

The official IRNA news agency claimed that an Israeli strike had targeted a building of the Iranian Red Crescent Society in Tehran. The Red Crescent itself said an attack took place near its building. There was no immediate comment from the IDF.

The IDF said that its overnight operations had included strikes on an Iranian centrifuge production site and several weapon-production facilities. The centrifuge production site in Tehran was used by Iran to expand the scope and rate of its uranium enrichment to develop nuclear weapons, the military said.

The IDF stated that the weapon-production factories hit included a site for the production of raw materials and components for the assembly of surface-to-surface missiles that the Iranian regime has been firing at Israel, as well as facilities for making systems and components for surface-to-air missiles designed to hit aircraft.

The International Atomic Energy Agency identified the two facilities struck by Israel as the TESA complex in Karaj and the Tehran Research Center.

“At the Tehran site, one building was hit where advanced centrifuge rotors were manufactured and tested,” the IAEA wrote on X. “At Karaj, two buildings were destroyed where different centrifuge components were manufactured.”

Both sites had been under IAEA monitoring as part of the 2015 JCPOA agreement between Iran and world powers.

The TESA complex, near the capital Tehran, housed a workshop where components for centrifuges were built, the machines used to enrich uranium. In 2021, Iran said cameras at the site were damaged during what it called an Israeli “sabotage” operation.

Centrifuges are vital for uranium enrichment, the sensitive process that can produce fuel for reactors or, in highly extended form, the core of a nuclear warhead.

Iran has long insisted its nuclear program was peaceful, though it is the only non-nuclear-armed state to enrich uranium up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.