Iran fired a pair of ballistic missile barrages at Israel early Wednesday, as Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared “the battle begins” and called to show “no mercy” toward Israelis.
The first salvo began to trigger sirens across a large swath of Israel shortly after 12:40 a.m., and included some 15 projectiles. The next barrage of approximately 10 rockets began around 40 minutes later and triggered alerts in central Israeli communities and a number of West Bank settlements.
Several minutes before the attacks, the Israel Defense Forces issued alerts warning residents of the missile fire and instructing them to seek shelter. Following each salvo, the IDF informed Israelis it was now safe to leave the bomb shelters.
There were no reports of injuries in the successive attacks, which sparked at a fire at a parking lot in central Israel, damaging numerous cars.
It was not immediately clear if the blaze was the result of a direct impact or caused by debris from an interception.
Warning sirens were also activated overnight around the Dead Sea due to a suspected drone infiltration.
“We must give a strong response to the terrorist Zionist regime,” Khamenei wrote on his English-language X account after the second missile barrage. “We will show the Zionists no mercy.”
Khamenei earlier issued a Shia-themed post in Farsi stating “the battle begins” and claiming a return to Khaybar, referring to a town whose Jewish inhabitants were conquered by Muslim forces in the 7th century.
The post featured an image a man holding a sword entering a castle-like gate, with fiery streaks in the sky overhead.
The overnight missile launches followed several smaller salvos throughout Tuesday, with the IDF saying it believed the attacks were decreasing in scope as Iran’s capabilities having been degraded by Israeli strikes.
Meanwhile, the IDF issued an evacuation early Wednesday morning for residents of District 18 in Tehran to leave the area, saying that Israel was going to take action in the area targeting military infrastructure.
Shortly later, the military announced that the Israeli Air Force had embarked on a new wave of strikes in the Iranian capital, without immediately providing further details.
Along with the strikes in Tehran, Iranian news websites reported explosions in the city of Karaj, where Israel has previously targeted a centrifuge factory.
Now in its sixth day, Israel set out on the operation in Iran with the objective of removing the “existential threat� of the Iranian nuclear program and ballistic missile capabilities.
Israel says its sweeping assault on Iran’s top military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites, and ballistic missile program is necessary to prevent its longtime adversary from getting any closer to building atomic weapons. At the beginning of the campaign on Friday, it said the situation had become an immediate existential threat to the Jewish state.
Iran has retaliated by launching more than 370 missiles and hundreds of drones at Israel. So far, 24 people have been killed in Israel and more than 500 wounded.
Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 224 people, according to Iranian officials.
Agencies contributed to this report.