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Israel’s defence minister has said he ordered increased attacks on government targets in Iran to “undermine the regime”, while an Iranian missile evaded Israeli air defences to hit a hospital in the country’s south.
Other missiles landed around Tel Aviv, injuring at least 40 people, as Israeli planes bombed a heavy-water reactor and returned to strike the Natanz nuclear complex.
The comments from Israel Katz were the first time that regime change had officially been claimed as a goal of the seven-day-old war.
When Israel launched its first strikes, Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered a strategic operation targeting Iran’s nuclear programme, although the prime minister has made no secret of his hopes the government in Tehran would fall.
After the initial focus on military and nuclear sites, Israel recently attacked targets, including the state broadcaster, with no links to the nuclear project, but which Katz described as “symbols of the regime”.
Many Iranian opposition figures, including activists jailed for opposing the autocratic government, have rejected the idea that an Israeli war, which has already killed hundreds of civilians, represents a path to liberation for their country.
The early morning strike on the hospital in Beersheba did not cause any serious injuries because all staff and patients were in protected areas, the director, Shlomi Kodesh, said.
However it caused major damage to the building and images of shattered wards and stunned medics examining the damage caused outrage in Israel, including from the defence minister.
“These are war crimes of the most serious kind and [Ayatollah] Khamenei will be held accountable,” Israel Katz said in a post on X.
“The Prime Minister and I have instructed the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] 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.”
Donald Trump, who initially distanced himself from the conflict, has increased the US military presence in the region and is weighing up ordering US forces to join attacks on Iran.
Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, warned on Wednesday that the US would face “irreparable damage” if it shifted from supporting Israel’s defence to an active role in assaults on its territory.
There was no radiation risk after Thursday morning’s attack on Iran’s partially built heavy-water reactor near Arak, state TV said. Israeli warnings meant the area had been evacuated before the strike.
Heavy-water reactors are considered a proliferation risk because they can produce plutonium, an alternative to enriched uranium for the core of a nuclear weapon. Israel also targeted the Natanz site, which has already been hit several times.
Iranian missile strikes across Israel on Thursday injured at least 40 people, six of them seriously. One hit the base of a skyscraper in Ramat Gan, close to central Tel Aviv and about 200 metres from the city’s diamond exchange.
A takeaway pizza business took the full force of the strike. Some older buildings were wrecked by the blast, but there were no immediate reports of casualties. After several days of war, residents were accustomed to rushing to shelters.
“It was like an atom bomb. An earthquake,” said Asher Adiv, 69, who lives in a nearby block of flats. His mother was an Iranian Jew from Isfahan and Asher grew up speaking Farsi.
“The Iranian people should make a revolution, and kick out the ayatollahs,” Asher said. “We are not just fighting for Israel. We are fighting for the whole world. We ask Trump to go inside and finish the problem.”
The US president was the first subject most residents wanted to discuss, as they gathered at the police cordon to watch first responders work among the rubble and shattered glass.
Asher’s wife, Anny, who immigrated from Morocco in 1969, said: “Tell Donald Trump to be beside us. He has to bomb them to finish the nuclear sites.”
Even without US intervention, she said she thought Israel would prevail.
“Our people are strong and resilient. We will keep fighting and we will finish the Iran nuclear sites or they will finish us,” she said.
Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes. It was censured by the International Atomic Energy Agency just before the war began and is the only state without nuclear weapons that enriches uranium to 60%, one technical step away from weapons-grade levels.
Israel, which has not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, is the only nuclear-armed power in the region. It has never officially confirmed or denied having nuclear weapons but its status has been an open secret for years.
Several countries are preparing to evacuate their citizens from Iran and Israel, while flights to bring back tens of thousands of Israelis stranded outside the country get under way. Israel’s main airport has been closed since the first attacks on Iran.
Quique Kierszenbaum contributed to the reporting
