Israel Vows to Intensify Attack on Iran as Conflict Explodes

Amidst rising tensions between Israel and Iran, the Islamic Republic fired a barrage of around 30 ballistic missiles on Thursday, scoring a direct hit on the Soroka Medical Center, Israel’s main southern hospital.

In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to exact “the full price from the tyrants in Tehran,” Knewz.com has learned.

The salvo of missiles also struck residential buildings in Tel Aviv on Thursday, wounding 240 people and causing extensive damage.

According to reports from the Magen David Adom emergency service, an 80-year-old man and two women in their 70s are among the six people seriously injured in the attack.

In addition, at least 42 others suffered light injuries from shock waves and shrapnel at the various impact sites, reports have mentioned.

Furthermore, an additional 18 people were lightly injured as well while being rushed to bomb shelters.

Prof. Shlomi Kodesh, the director general of the Soroka Medical Center, said in a statement to reporters that one of the missiles had hit the old surgical ward building, which had been recently evacuated.

“There is widespread damage to other buildings at the hospital. All patients and all staff were in shelters. The several injured we have are lightly hurt, mostly from the blast shockwave,” Prof. Kodesh added.

Prime Minister Netanyahu reported the strike on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying:

“This morning, Iran’s terrorist tyrants launched missiles at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba and at a civilian population in the center of the country. We will exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran.”

In a separate post on X, the Prime Minister added:

“We accurately hit nuclear targets and missile targets, and they hit a hospital, where people can’t even get up and run away. They are harming not far from here – there is a children’s and infants’ ward here.”

“That’s the whole difference in a democracy that acts according to the law to save itself from these murderers and against these murderers who want to destroy each and every one of us,” PM Netanyahu further wrote.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz blamed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for the attacks, and said in a statement to reporters that he “can no longer be allowed to exist.”

“Khamenei openly declares that he wants Israel destroyed—he personally gives the order to fire on hospitals. He considers the destruction of the state of Israel to be a goal,” Katz added.

“The cowardly Iranian dictator sits in the depths of the fortified bunker and fires aimed shots at hospitals and residential buildings in Israel. These are war crimes of the most serious kind – and Khamenei will be held accountable for his crimes,” the Defense Minister of Israel wrote on X.

“The Prime Minister and I have instructed the IDF to increase the intensity of attacks against strategic targets in Iran and against government targets in Tehran in order to remove threats to the State of Israel and undermine the ayatollahs’ regime,” he added.

The latest escalation in the Israel-Iran conflict came as President Donald Trump reportedly mulls over whether to launch a strike on Iran’s Fordow uranium enrichment facility, which is buried under a mountain and widely considered to be out of reach, using “bunker-buster” bombs.

According to reports, the President is waiting to see if Iran decides to approach the negotiating table and abandon its nuclear program.

So far, Tehran has maintained that it has the right to peaceful nuclear energy. Still, the rapid enrichment of the Islamic Republic’s uranium stockpile has left the world concerned that Iran has more than just renewable energy on its mind.

President Trump has time and again reiterated that Iran cannot be allowed to obtain nuclear power.

According to people familiar with the deliberations inside the Situation Room on Thursday, President Trump hopes that joining Israel in its ongoing strikes on Iran will force the Islamic Republic to give up on its nuclear program finally.

However, President Trump has also kept the door open to diplomacy regarding Iran, saying that he will make a final decision in the matter in the next two weeks. A statement from Trump, read out by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, said:

“Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.”

The post Israel Vows to Intensify Attack on Iran as Conflict Explodes appeared first on Knewz.