LIVE: Iran’s IRGC intelligence chief killed by airstrike

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has announced the head of its intelligence Majid Khademi has been killed by an Israeli airstrikes this morning.

In a statement published on Telegram, the Revolutionary Guards said Khademi was an ‘esteemed commander’ who helped defend the regime for 50 years.

Khademi was appointed the head of the IRGC’s intelligence division in June last year when his predecessor Mohammed Kazemi was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Tehran during the 12-day war.

The IDF has claimed responsibility for Khademi’s assassination.

Striking civilian infrastructure installations during war is illegal, EU chief Antonio Costa has said in a social media post.

The warning came Donald Trump threatened to devastate civilian infrastructure in Iran if it did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

‘Any targeting of civilian infrastructure, namely energy facilities, is illegal and unacceptable,” Costa, the president of the European Council, said.

‘This applies to Russia’s war in Ukraine and it applies everywhere. The Iranian civilian population is the main victim of the Iranian regime. It would also be the main victim of a widening of the military campaign,’ he said.

‘The European Union urges Iran to immediately put an end to its attacks against countries in the region and to allow for the reestablishment of full freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.’

Israel has attacked Iran’s largest petrochemical facilities at the South Pars gas field, Israel’s defence minister has said.

In a statement Israel Katz said the IDF has ‘powerfully struck’ two production units in the city of Asaluyeh, Bushehr province.

Several explosions were heard at Iran’s South Pars Petrochemical complex in Asaluyeh, Iran’s Fars news agency reported on Monday.

Companies that provide electricity, water and oxygen to Asaluyeh were attacked, but the Pars petrochemical company has not been damaged, Tasnim news agency reported, adding that the electricity supply to all Asaluyeh petrochemicals units had been cut.

In March, Israel attacked Iran’s main energy source, the South Pars gas field and its infrastructure at the nearby Asaluyeh processing hub, prompting Iranian attacks on energy targets across the Middle East.

Iran has claimed it has forced the US LHA-7 into retreat

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have claimed they have forced a US amphibious assault ship into retreat after targeting it at sea.

Iranian state media is reporting the LHA-7, also known as USS Tripoli, was pushed back into the southern Indian Ocean following a confrontation.

The Guards also targeted a container ship which they said belonged to Israel with the identifier ‘SDN7’, without disclosing its location.

by Taryn Kaur Pedler, Foreign News Reporter

Iran is rapidly restoring its missile bunkers to working order just hours after they are pounded by US and Israeli strikes, according to fresh intelligence assessments.

The White House has pointed to a drop in Iranian drone and missile launches since the conflict erupted as evidence that Tehran’s strike capabilities are being crippled.

But a newly published US intelligence report cited by The New York Times suggests otherwise, indicating the regime still possesses a substantial arsenal and is swiftly repairing damaged sites.

Some of these massive missile bunkers are buried deep within granite mountains that can withstand crushing pressures far beyond those that conventional construction materials can withstand.

This material puts up the toughest barrier possible for even the most powerful American bunker-busting bomb – the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator.

One of these fortresses, the Yazd missile base, is thought to possess an automated rail system that runs through tunnels linking assembly areas, storage depots, and multiple concealed exits cut into different faces of the mountain.

South Korea will send five ships to the Saudi Arabian Red Sea port of Yanbu to help establish alternative oil supply routes to the Strait of Hormuz, a ruling MP has said.

Oil prices have surged amid the war, raising growth and inflation risks for South Korea, which relies on Middle Eastern crude for around 70 percent of its imports.

The situation has prompted Seoul to prepare emergency measures, including a fuel price cap – the first such step since 1997.

MPs are also looking at alternative oil routes after Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes.

‘Korean-flagged vessels need to be dispatched to alternative routes’ to secure crude supplies using export routes that bypass the Strait of Hormuz, lawmaker Ahn Do-geol told reporters after a meeting with relevant agencies, including the energy ministry.

‘We are pushing to deploy five South Korean-flagged vessels to Yanbu port in Saudi Arabia, in the Red Sea region,’ he said, without giving details.

Iran’s foreign ministry has said a US operation to rescue a downed airman may have been a cover to ‘steal enriched uranium’.

Donald Trump confirmed the second crew member of an F-15E that went down over Iran on Friday had been recovered in a ‘daring’ search and rescue operation.

Iran’s military has called it ‘a deception and escape mission’, insisting it was ‘completely foiled’.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said there are ‘many questions and uncertainties’ about the operation.

‘The area where the American pilot was claimed to be present in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province is a long way from the area where they attempted to land or wanted to land their forces in central Iran,’ Baqaei said.

‘The possibility that this was a deception operation to steal enriched uranium should not be ignored at all’.

Israel has said it plans to accelerate production of its Arrow missile interceptors amid the war with Iran.

The announcement came after questions emerged over how long Israel’s interceptor stocks would last, with some analysts pointing to shortages of Arrow interceptors in particular.

‘The Ministerial Committee for Procurement has approved the Israel Ministry of Defence (IMOD) plan for a major additional acceleration of Arrow interceptor production,’ a defence ministry statement said.

Defence Minister Israel Katz was quoted in the statement as saying that Israel has ‘sufficient interceptors to protect its citizens’.

Each Arrow 2 interceptor costs an estimated $1.5 million, with Arrow 3s around $2 million.

Israel has said it has recovered the bodies of four people from the rubble of a residential building in Haifa following an Iranian missile strike.

‘In summary, all four missing persons have been located… All were found without signs of life, and MDA paramedics declared them deceased,’ Israel’s emergency service, Magen David Adom, said in a statement.

Earlier today, Israeli firefighters reported locating the bodies of two of the four missing individuals.

Israel’s foreign ministry said Iran is ‘deliberately targeting civilians’ adding to its ‘long record of war crimes and crimes against humanity’.

The Kremlin has said the entire Middle East is ‘on fire’ when asked about the latest threats made by Donald Trump towards Iran.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the death of IRGC intelligence chief Majid Khademi has ‘severed’ another ‘central arm’ of the Iranian regime.

Netanyahu said on X: ‘Tonight, we eliminated Majid Khademi, head of the Intelligence Division in the Revolutionary Guards, one of the Iranian regime’s senior officials, who had only recently assumed his role after his predecessor was eliminated.

‘In addition, we eliminated Asghar Bakri, commander of Unit 840 in the Quds Force, who is responsible for attacks against Jews and Israelis around the world.

‘Whoever acts to murder our citizens, whoever directs terror against the State of Israel, whoever builds the Iranian axis of evil—their blood is upon their head’.

Israel has struck Beirut’s southern suburbs today after its army warned residents to evacuate.

Pictures show clouds of smoke billowing as Israel targeted a Hezbollah stronghold that has been pummelled and largely emptied following repeated strikes.

It comes after an Israeli strike targeting an apartment building in a town east of Beirut killed three people, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

‘Israeli enemy airstrike on the hills of Ain Saadeh kills three civilians, including two women, and injures three others,’ the ministry said in a statement.