Israel Launches New Offensive Against Iran with Strikes on Key Cities

Israel is carrying out a wave of attacks around Iran on Saturday evening – with attacks on, among other things, Shiraz, Tehran and Bandar Abbas. Drones have also been launched from Iran to attack "strategic targets”, the country's Revolutionary Guard announced.

» Updated: June 21 2025

» Published: June 21 2025

Israel Launches New Offensive Against Iran with Strikes on Key Cities
Photo: Leo Correa/AP/TT

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During the evening, reports are coming from both Iran and Israel about Israeli attacks. Israel's military says it has launched a new wave of attacks in the Bandar Abbas area in southern Iran. The attacks are aimed, according to a statement, at drone depots and a weapons facility.

Iranian media are reporting at the same time that the city of Shiraz, about 60 miles northwest of Bandar Abbas, is being attacked in Israeli raids during the evening. An Israeli attack is also said to have hit a military base in the Iranian province of Qom, south of Tehran, reports the state-run news agency Isna.

Explosions have also been heard in the center of Tehran, according to journalists from the AFP news agency on the spot in the capital.

Ali Mohammad Naini, spokesperson for Iran's Revolutionary Guard, also announces that Iran is attacking Israel with drones to attack "strategic targets".

What targets are involved has not been specified by either the Iranian or Israeli side.

Three killed commanders

Earlier on Saturday, Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz stated that Saeed Izadi, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's special force Quds, was killed in a raid on an apartment in the city of Qom. According to Katz, the guard financed and armed Hamas before the terrorist attack on October 7, 2023.

Later, Israel's military announced that two more commanders in the Revolutionary Guard had been killed.

In total, the Israeli attacks have killed over 400 people since the outbreak of war last week, according to Iran's health department. More than 3,000 people have also been injured "by rockets and drones", wrote the department's spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour in a post on X.

Nuclear facility hit

The mutual attacks – which began with Israel's attack on its archenemy last Friday – continued throughout Saturday.

For example, Israel was reported to have carried out attacks in the southwestern city of Ahwaz in the province of Khuzestan, which is Iran's most important oil-producing region.

According to the UN's atomic energy agency IAEA, a centrifuge workshop at Iran's nuclear facility in Isfahan was hit in Israeli attacks on the morning. According to IAEA, it is "the third facility of this kind that has been hit in Israel's attacks on Iran's nuclear-related facilities over the past week".

The UN agency emphasized that there is no nuclear material on the site and will therefore not have "any radiological consequences".

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By TTEnglish edition by Sweden Herald, adapted for local and international readers
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