Israel has carried out airstrikes against security forces across Iran on the fifth day of the US-Israel attack, as the death toll surpassed 1,000 and Iran launched more counterstrikes and warned of the destruction of military and economic infrastructure across the Middle East.
Wednesday’s Israeli strikes hit the country’s capital Tehran, the holy city of Qom, western Iran and the entire central province of Isfahan, according to the country’s Tasnim news agency. The attacks also damaged residential units, the agency added.
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Israel said it attacked buildings belonging to Basij, a volunteer paramilitary police force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in addition to attacking buildings associated with Iran’s internal security command.
The death toll since the attack between the United States and Israel began on Saturday has reached 1,045, Iranian state media reported.
Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall, reporting from Tehran, said civilians are the most affected by these attacks and noted that the country is under fire from all directions.
“There is a continuous and sustained campaign throughout the country that does not escape any region, city or area,” he stated.
“But we know that 300 children and adolescents have been hospitalized… with more than 6,000 (people) injured,” he added.
Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said damage due to the attacks was also visible in two buildings near the Isfahan nuclear site, but that there has been no damage to facilities containing nuclear material and no risk of radiological release.
As explosions rocked the country, plans to hold a funeral ceremony for the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were postponed.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency quoted an official as citing logistical problems for the delay in the ceremony, which was due to begin late Wednesday and last several days.
Funeral arrangements are underway and are expected to draw large crowds and with them the potential threat of American and Israeli attacks to a mass mourning gathering. Some 10 million people attended Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s funeral in 1989.
Khamenei was killed early Saturday in the first wave of US-Israeli strikes, which also killed other senior Iranian officials, including the country’s Defense Minister Amir Nasirzadeh.
In response, Tehran has launched retaliatory missile and drone attacks against Israel and US military bases across the Gulf region.
While Israel, the United States and the Gulf countries have intercepted most of these missiles, some have hit military assets and civilian infrastructure. Debris from those intercepted has also fallen on some civilian areas.
Following Khamenei’s death, senior Iranian officials are working to elect his replacement, with potential candidates ranging from hardliners to reformers.
Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a senior Iranian religious leader who is a member of both the powerful Guardian Council and the Assembly of Experts, said the country was close to electing the late Khamenei’s successor.
“The Supreme Leader will be identified as soon as possible. We are close to a conclusion; however, the situation in the country is a war situation,” Khatami told state television.
Local authorities have not made any official announcement, but Israeli and Western media have reported that Mojtaba Khamenei, a hardline Muslim leader, is the favorite to become the new supreme leader of the 47-year-old Islamic Republic.
The Israeli Defense Minister threatened whoever Iran chooses to be the country’s next supreme leader.
“Every leader designated by the Iranian terrorist regime to continue and lead the plan to destroy Israel, threaten the United States, the free world and countries in the region, and repress the Iranian people, will be a target to eliminate,” wrote Israel Katz in X.
US President Donald Trump, who has suggested the conflict could last several weeks, said Wednesday that the leadership in Tehran is now in disarray.
“We are in a very strong position now and their leadership is disappearing rapidly. Everyone who seems to want to be a leader ends up dead,” Trump said.
As the United States, Israel and Iran continue to exchange fire, the United Nations has said that between February 28 and March 1, an estimated 100,000 people fled Tehran due to the conflict.
On Wednesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyad Abbas Araghchi sharply criticized Trump, saying he had “betrayed diplomacy and the Americans who elected him.”
“When complex nuclear negotiations are treated like a real estate transaction, and when big lies cloud reality, unrealistic expectations can never be met,” he said in a post on X.
“The result? Bombing the negotiating table out of spite.”
Later on Wednesday, the US Senate voted against a resolution to limit President Trump’s ability to wage war against Iran.
But Trump will face increasing domestic scrutiny as the war against Iran continues, while Israel will likely enjoy greater public support in the long term, Paul Musgrave, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera.
“The political limitations on Donald Trump are greater than they seem,” he added.
