Rescue personnel work at an impact site following a missile attack from Iran, in Bat Yam, Israel, June 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

The search continued Tuesday for a woman still unaccounted for after Iran’s deadliest strike on central Israel, which devastated residential neighborhoods in Bat Yam early Sunday. As recovery crews combed through the ruins, a small moment of relief came Tuesday when Home Front Command and police teams pulled two puppies alive from a damaged apartment.

The dogs had been trapped inside since the strike and were transferred to Bat Yam Municipality’s veterinary services for medical care. Authorities are now attempting to locate the evacuated owners to reunite them with the surviving pets.

Bat Yam Mayor Zvika Brut with the puppies found in the rubble caused by Iranian strike in the central coastal city of Bat Yam. Photo: Vadim Action

The strike, which flattened parts of the densely populated coastal city just south of Tel Aviv, killed eight people and wounded 180 others. Among the dead were Efrat Saranga, 44; Bella Ashkenazi, 90; Michael Nahum, 61; Meir Voknin, 53; and four Ukrainian nationals who had relocated to Israel after Russia’s invasion of their homeland.

The Iranian missile, estimated to weigh 500 kilograms, obliterated dozens of buildings in Bat Yam. According to local officials, roughly 75 structures sustained varying degrees of damage, some reduced entirely to rubble. Residents returned to scenes of total destruction, their homes unrecognizable.

“It’s a huge mess, debris everywhere, shrapnel inside the house, and we weren’t even directly hit,” Boris, a local resident, told The Algemeiner. He said authorities had not allowed him to retrieve any personal belongings from his apartment, adding that he had no home insurance. “Even if I did, most policies don’t cover terror attacks unless you add special terrorism coverage,” he said.

Under Israeli law, the Property Tax Authority is responsible for compensating victims of war or terrorism for structural damage. However, coverage for the contents of homes is limited and typically excludes valuables like jewelry or art.

“I’ve lost everything, but I’m alive, and that’s what matters,” Boris said.

Chana Ohana, 77, another resident of the devastated area, described the terror as the missiles struck. “The booms were so loud, I was sure that was the end of me,” she said. Displaced from her home, she said she had nowhere to go. “The police are supposed to arrange a hotel, but nothing yet. My son will come for me, but his apartment is tiny, and there’s no bomb shelter nearby.”

The barrage on Bat Yam marked one of the most lethal Iranian assaults since hostilities between the two countries escalated last week. Iranian strikes have targeted civilian areas across Israel following Israel’s attack on Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure Friday, in what Israeli officials described as a preemptive move to halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the scene of the strike. “We are here because we are in the middle of an existential struggle, that all Israeli citizens understand,” Netanyahu said. Standing amid the debris, he warned of the stakes involved. “Think about what would happen if Iran had a nuclear weapon to drop on Israeli cities. Think about what would happen if Iran had 20,000 such missiles. Not one, but 20,000. An existential threat to Israel,” he said. “But we are on the way to victory,” he concluded.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the site of the Iranian strike in Bat Yam. Photo: GPO

Since the devastation in Bat Yam, a series of fresh Iranian missile strikes have hit Israel in the ensuing days. In an aerial barrage overnight Sunday, missiles hit residential buildings in Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak, Petah Tikva, and Haifa. In central Tel Aviv, two missiles struck near the US Embassy damaging almost a kilometer of property and injuring dozens. In Petah Tikva, four people were killed; three died in Haifa, where an Iranian missile blast damaged the Bazan oil refinery, triggering a fire and temporarily shutting down part of its operations, the ripple effects of which are being felt in the regional energy market. Global oil prices temporarily surged to the mid-$70s per barrel before stabilizing.

Israel, meanwhile, has escalated its campaign deep into Iran. On Tuesday the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it had launched a major airstrike on a command center in central Tehran, killing Ali Shadmani, Iran’s newly appointed wartime chief of staff. Shadmani, an aide to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who held his post for three days before being killed, succeeded Mohammad Bagheri, who was killed in an Israeli strike along with IRGC commander-in-chief Hossein Salami on Friday.

Israel also struck additional nuclear and military infrastructure across Tehran, including sites tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and missile production, triggering mass evacuations of Tehran.

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Smoke rises following an Israeli attack on the IRIB building, the country’s state broadcaster, in Tehran, Iran, June 16, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

US President Donald Trump said he wanted a “real end” to the nuclear dispute with Iran and indicated he may send senior American officials to meet with the Islamic Republic as the Israel–Iran air war raged for a fifth day.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said meanwhile that Iran‘s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could face the same fate as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in a US-led invasion and eventually hanged after a trial.

“I warn the Iranian dictator against continuing to commit war crimes and fire missiles at Israeli citizens,” Katz told top Israeli military officials. Shortly after, Iran‘s state media reported an explosion was heard in Tehran.

Several explosions were later heard in the east and north of the city of Isfahan in central Iran, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

Speaking to reporters after his early departure from Canada, where he attended the Group of Seven nations summit on Monday, Trump predicted that Israel would not be easing its attacks on Iran.

“You’re going to find out over the next two days. You’re going to find out. Nobody’s slowed up so far,” he said.

Trump said he might send US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff or Vice President JD Vance to meet with Iranian officials.

Washington has said Trump is still aiming for a nuclear deal with Iran, even as the military confrontation unfolds.

Trump said his departure from the G7 summit had “nothing to do with” working on a deal between Israel and Iran, after French President Emmanuel Macron said the US had initiated a ceasefire proposal.

Something “much bigger” than that was expected, he said on his Truth Social platform late on Monday.

REGIONAL INFLUENCE WEAKENS

Khamenei has seen his main military and security advisers killed by Israeli air strikes, leaving major holes in his inner circle and raising the risk of strategic errors, according to five people familiar with his decision-making process.

Israel‘s military said Iran‘s military leadership is “on the run” and that it had killed Iran‘s wartime chief of staff Ali Shadmani overnight four days into his job after replacing another top commander killed in the strikes.

With Iranian leaders suffering their most dangerous security breach since the 1979 revolution that toppled a US-backed monarch and led to clerical rule, the country’s cyber security command banned officials from using communications devices and mobile phones, Fars news agency reported.

Ever since the Tehran-backed Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and triggered the Gaza war, Khamenei‘s regional influence has been weakening as Israel has pounded Iran‘s proxies – from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq. And Iran‘s close ally, Syria’s autocratic president Bashar al-Assad, has been ousted.

Israel launched its air war, its largest ever on Iran, after saying it concluded Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and has pointed to its right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including enrichment, as a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Israel, which is not a party to the NPT, is the only country in the Middle East widely believed to have nuclear weapons. Israel does not deny or confirm that.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stressed that he will not back down until Iran‘s nuclear development is disabled, while Trump says the Israeli assault could end if Iran agrees to strict curbs on its nuclear program.

Before the attack began, the UN’s nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years.

The IAEA said on Tuesday there were indications of direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls at the Natanz facility, and that there was no change to report at the Fordow and Isfahan sites.

Katz said the Iranian nuclear facility at Fordow, where an enrichment site is dug into a mountain, was an issue that will “of course” be addressed.

SHIP COLLISION

Israel says it now has control of Iranian airspace and intends to escalate the campaign in the coming days.

Israel‘s advantage leaves few obstacles in the way of its expanding bombardment, though it will struggle to deal a knock-out blow to deeply buried nuclear sites without the US joining the attack, experts say.

Iran has so far fired nearly 400 ballistic missiles and hundreds of drones towards Israel, with about 35 missiles penetrating Israel‘s defensive shield and making impact, Israeli officials say.

Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards said they had hit Israel‘s Military Intelligence Directorate and spy agency Mossad’s operational center early on Tuesday. There was no Israeli confirmation of such attacks.

Iranian officials have reported 224 deaths, mostly civilians, while Israel said 24 civilians had been killed.

World oil markets are on high alert for any strikes on Iran‘s energy infrastructure or elsewhere in the region that could hit global supply.

Two oil tankers collided and caught fire on Tuesday near the Strait of Hormuz, where electronic interference has surged during conflict between Iran and Israel, but there were no injuries to crew or spillage reported. About a fifth of the world’s total oil consumption passes through the waterway.

Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson said Israel‘s “uncalculated” attack on Iran‘s South Pars gas field was worrying “everyone” but production was steady.

Iran shares the field, the world’s biggest, with Qatar.

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US military vehicles drive in Hasakah, Syria, Dec. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Orhan Qereman

US forces have pulled out of two more bases in northeastern Syria, visiting Reuters reporters found, accelerating a troop drawdown that the commander of US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces said was allowing a resurgence of Islamic State.

Reuters reporters who visited the two bases in the past week found them mostly deserted, both guarded by small contingents of the Syrian Democratic Forces – the Kurdish-led military group that Washington has backed in the fight against Islamic State for a decade.

Cameras used on bases occupied by the US-led military coalition had been taken down, and razor wire on the outer perimeters had begun to sag.

A Kurdish politician who lives on one base said there were no longer US troops there. SDF guards at the second base said troops had left recently but declined to say when. The Pentagon declined to comment.

It is the first confirmation on the ground by reporters that the US has withdrawn from Al-Wazir and Tel Baydar bases in Hasaka province. It brings to at least four the number of bases in Syria US troops have left since President Donald Trump took office.

Trump’s administration said this month it will scale down its military presence in Syria to one base from eight in parts of northeastern Syria that the SDF controls. The New York Times reported in April that troops might be reduced from 2,000 to 500 in the drawdown.

The SDF did not respond to questions about the current number of troops and open US bases in northeastern Syria.

But SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, who spoke to Reuters at another US base, Al Shadadi, said the presence of a few hundred troops on one base would be “not enough” to contain the threat of Islamic State.

“The threat of Islamic State has significantly increased recently. But this is the US military’s plan. We’ve known about it for a long time … and we’re working with them to make sure there are no gaps and we can maintain pressure on Islamic State,” he said.

Abdi spoke to Reuters on Friday, hours after Israel launched its air war on Iran. He declined to comment on how the new Israel-Iran war would affect Syria, saying simply that he hoped it would not spill over there and that he felt safe on a US base.

Hours after the interview, three Iranian-made missiles targeted the Al Shadadi base and were shot down by US defense systems, two SDF security sources said.

ISIS ACTIVE IN SYRIAN CITIES

Islamic State, also known as ISIS and Daesh, ruled vast swathes of Iraq and Syria from 2014 to 2017 during Syria’s civil war, imposing a vision of Islamic rule under which it beheaded locals in city squares, sex-trafficked members of the Yazidi minority and executed foreign journalists and aid workers.

The group, from its strongholds in Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, also launched deadly attacks in European and Middle Eastern countries.

A US-led military coalition of more than 80 countries waged a yearslong campaign to defeat the group and end its territorial control, supporting Iraqi forces and the SDF.

But Islamic State has been reinvigorated since the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December at the hands of separate Islamist rebels.

Abdi said ISIS cells had become active in several Syrian cities, including Damascus, and that a group of foreign jihadists who once battled the Syrian regime had joined its ranks. He did not elaborate.

He said ISIS had seized weapons and ammunition from Syrian regime depots in the chaos after Assad’s fall.

Several Kurdish officials told Reuters that Islamic State had already begun moving more openly around US bases which had recently been shuttered, including near the cities of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, once strongholds for the extremist group.

In areas the SDF controls east of the Euphrates River, ISIS has waged a series of attacks and killed at least 10 SDF fighters and security forces, Abdi said. Attacks included a roadside bomb targeting a convoy of oil tankers on a road near the US base where he gave the interview.

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