Israel and Iran launched fresh attacks on each other late on Saturday, stoking fears of a wider conflict after Israel expanded its surprise campaign against its main rival with a strike on the world’s biggest gas field.Tehran called off nuclear talks that Washington had said were the only way to halt Israel’s bombing, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacks were nothing compared with what Iran would see in the coming days.
Israel’s military said on Saturday that more missiles were launched from Iran towards Israel, and it was working to intercept them. It also said it was attacking military targets in Tehran. Iranian state television said Iran had launched missiles and drones at Israel.
Several projectiles were visible in the night sky over Jerusalem late on Saturday. Air raid sirens did not sound in the city, but were heard in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.
Israel’s ambulance service said 14 people were injured, including one critically, at a two-storey house in northern Israel following an Iranian missile strike. Israeli media reported that one person had been killed in the strike.
US President Donald Trump had warned Iran of worse to come, but said it was not too late to halt the Israeli campaign if Tehran accepted a sharp downgrading of its nuclear programme.
A round of US-Iran nuclear talks due to be held in Oman on Sunday was cancelled, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi saying the discussions could not take place while Iran was being subjected to Israel’s “barbarous” attacks.
In the first apparent attack to hit Iran’s energy infrastructure, the semi-official Tasnim news agency said Iran partially suspended production at the world’s biggest gas field after an Israeli strike caused a fire there on Saturday.
The South Pars field, offshore in Iran’s southern Bushehr province, is the source of most of the gas produced in Iran.
Fears about potential disruption to the region’s oil exports had already driven up oil prices 9% on Friday, even though Israel spared Iran’s oil and gas facilities on the first day of its attacks.
An Iranian general, Esmail Kosari, said on Saturday that Tehran was reviewing whether to close the Strait of Hormuz, which controls access to the Gulf for tankers.