Israel and Iran’s long-simmering tensions erupted into missile attacks last Friday, when Israel launched a suprise attack against military and nuclear targets in Iran and wiped out the top echelon of Iran’s military command. Iran retaliated with waves of ballistic missiles.

Days on, the conflict appears set to continue with daily missile attacks and aerial bombardments on both Israel and Iran.

Senior Iranian army commander Kioumars Heydari said attacks against Israel will intensify with a new wave of hundreds of drones, state media reported. It also reported Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said a ‘more powerful’ new wave of missiles was recently launched towards Israel.

Israel has warned its campaign will escalate in the coming days and promised reprisals for civilian casualties following Iranian missile strikes.

“If (Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front, Tehran will burn,” Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said.

Israel’s bombardment of Tehran

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have bombed sites across Iran and said its targets included nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories and military commanders as part of an operation it said was aimed to prevent Tehran from building an atomic bomb. Iran says its nuclear programme is only for peaceful purposes.

Missile and air attacks have been especially concentrated in the capitol, Tehran. On Monday, Israel’s military claimed to have control of Iranian air space following successful strikes against Iranian air defence systems and in a post on X ordered residents of a large section of Tehran to leave ahead of more attacks.

U.S. president Donald Trump also called for large scale evacuations in a post on Truth Social: “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”

Iran says more than 224 Iranians have been killed in the attacks since last Friday, most of them civilians.

Iran’s retaliation against Israel

Iran has retaliated with waves of long-range and ballistic missile and drone attacks against cities across Israel.

While Israeli missile defences have intercepted many missiles and drones before reaching their intended targets, some missiles have penetrated the layered network of defences. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has claimed to employ a new method that caused Israel’s defence systems to target each other and allowed Tehran to successfully hit many targets, without providing further details.

Dozens of apartment blocks and other buildings in central and northern Israel have been wrecked by the waves of missiles since Friday.

The severity and depth of the damage have outstripped anything that either Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip or Hezbollah fighters in neighbouring Lebanon have managed to inflict on Israel in decades of confrontation.

Israel says 24 people have been killed, all of them civilians.