By SAM MEDNICK, NATALIE MELZER, and JON GAMBRELL
BEERSHEBA, Israel (AP) — Israel’s defense minister threatened Iran’s supreme leader on Thursday after the latest missile barrage from Iran damaged the main hospital in southern Israel and hit several other residential buildings near Tel Aviv. Israel meanwhile struck a heavy water reactor that is part of Iran’s nuclear program.
At least 240 people were wounded by the Iranian missiles, four of them seriously, according to Israel’s Health Ministry. The vast majority were lightly wounded, including more than 70 people from the Soroka Medical Center in the southern city of Beersheba, where smoke rose as emergency teams evacuated patients.
In the aftermath of the strikes, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz blamed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and said the military “has been instructed and knows that in order to achieve all of its goals, this man absolutely should not continue to exist.”
U.S. officials said this week that President Donald Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei. Trump later said there were no plans to kill him “at least not for now.”
Israel carried out strikes on Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor, in its latest attack on the country’s sprawling nuclear program. The conflict began last Friday with a surprise wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting military sites, senior officers and nuclear scientists.
A Washington-based Iranian human rights group said at least 639 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 1,300 wounded. In retaliation, Iran has fired over 400 missiles and hundreds of drones, killing at least 24 people in Israel and wounding hundreds.
Meanwhile, an Israeli military official said that Iran used a missile with multiple warheads in an attack Thursday, posing a new challenge to its defenses.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.
There was no immediate independent analysis that could be made. However, Iran has hinted in the past that it was pursuing such weaponry.
Instead of having to track one warhead, missiles with multiple warheads can pose a more difficult challenge for air defense systems, like Israel’s Iron Dome.
Missile hits main hospital in southern Israel
Two doctors told The Associated Press that the missile struck almost immediately after air raid sirens went off, causing a loud explosion that could be heard from a safe room. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The hospital said the main impact was on an old surgery building that had been evacuated in recent days. After the strike, the medical facility was closed to all patients except for life-threatening cases, it said. Soroka has over 1,000 beds and provides services to around 1 million residents of Israel’s south.
There were no serious injuries from the strike on the hospital.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack and vowed a response, saying: “We will exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran.”
Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel, though most have been shot down by Israel’s multi-tiered air defenses, which detect incoming fire and shoot down missiles heading toward population centers and critical infrastructure. Israeli officials acknowledge it is imperfect.
Many hospitals in Israel activated emergency plans in the past week, converting underground parking to hospital floors and moving patients underground, especially those who are on ventilators or are difficult to move quickly.
Israel also boasts a fortified, subterranean blood bank that kicked into action after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack ignited the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
‘No radiation danger’ after strike on reactor
Israel’s military said its fighter jets targeted the Arak facility and its reactor core seal in order to prevent it from being used to produce plutonium.
“The strike targeted the component intended for plutonium production, in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development,” the military said. Israel separately claimed to have struck another site around Natanz it described as being related to Iran’s nuclear program.
Iranian state TV said there was “no radiation danger whatsoever” from the attack on the Arak site. An Iranian state television reporter, speaking live in the nearby town of Khondab, said the facility had been evacuated and there was no damage to civilian areas around the reactor.
Israel had warned earlier Thursday morning it would attack the facility and urged the public to flee the area.
Iran rejects calls to surrender or end its nuclear program
Iran has long maintained its program is for peaceful purposes. However, it also enriches uranium up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon state to enrich at that level.
Israel is the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East but does not acknowledge having such weapons.
The strikes came a day after Iran’s supreme leader rejected U.S. calls for surrender and warned that any military involvement by the Americans would cause “irreparable damage to them.” Israel had lifted some restrictions on daily life Wednesday, suggesting the missile threat from Iran on its territory was easing.
Already, Israel’s campaign has targeted Iran’s enrichment site at Natanz, centrifuge workshops around Tehran and a nuclear site in Isfahan. Its strikes have also killed top generals and nuclear scientists.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he would travel to Geneva for meetings with his European counterparts on Friday, indicating a new diplomatic initiative might be taking shape. Iran’s official IRNA news agency said the meeting would include foreign ministers from the United Kingdom, France and Germany and the European Union’s top diplomat.
Trump has said he wants something “much bigger” that a ceasefire and has not ruled out the U.S. joining in Israel’s campaign. Iran has warned of dire consequences if the U.S. deepens its involvement, without elaborating.
Arak had been redesigned to address nuclear concerns
The Arak heavy water reactor is 250 kilometers (155 miles) southwest of Tehran.
Heavy water helps cool nuclear reactors, but it produces plutonium as a byproduct that can potentially be used in nuclear weapons. That would provide Iran another path to the bomb beyond enriched uranium, should it choose to pursue the weapon.
Iran had agreed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to redesign the facility over proliferation concerns.
The reactor became a point of contention after President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018. Ali Akbar Salehi, a high-ranking nuclear official in Iran, said in 2019 that Tehran bought extra parts to replace a portion of the reactor that it had poured concrete into to render it unusable under the deal.
Israel, in conducting its strike, signaled it remained concerned the facility could be used to produce plutonium again one day.
“The strike targeted the component intended for plutonium production, in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, has been urging Israel not to strike Iranian nuclear sites. IAEA inspectors reportedly last visited Arak on May 14.
Due to restrictions Iran imposed on inspectors, the IAEA has said it lost “continuity of knowledge” about Iran’s heavy water production — meaning it could not absolutely verify Tehran’s production and stockpile.
Melzer reported from Tel Aviv, Israel, and Gambrell from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv contributed.