Loud explosions were reported across Tel Aviv and Jerusalem early Saturday morning as Iran launched another wave of missile strikes in retaliation against Israel. Air raid sirens sounded across multiple Israeli cities, and the military ordered residents to return to shelters amid what officials described as an “intensifying assault.”
Footage from Tel Aviv showed smoke rising from the ground following an impact, moments after the Israeli Defense Forces confirmed the detection of additional incoming missiles. The escalation follows Israel’s recent airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure, in which top Iranian commander General Hossein Salami of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was reportedly killed.
The ongoing hostilities have triggered a broader regional crisis. Iran’s leadership, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued strong warnings to Israel, vowing that its retaliation would continue. Meanwhile, the Houthis in Yemen launched a ballistic missile toward Tel Aviv in a show of support for Iran, further widening the scope of the conflict.
As tensions escalate, the International Crisis Group (ICG) has cautioned that the next actions by U.S. President Donald Trump will be pivotal in either mitigating or worsening the crisis. The ICG criticized Trump’s response so far, arguing that framing Israel’s attacks as strategic leverage for nuclear negotiations is a dangerous miscalculation. The group urged the U.S. to intervene diplomatically, recommending pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt military operations and offering Iran incentives like sanctions relief to de-escalate.
The ICG also proposed that Trump consider blocking future weapons shipments to Israel if hostilities intensify, warning that the current trajectory risks triggering a prolonged and devastating war across the Middle East. They acknowledged that such moves would be politically challenging, but stressed that continued escalation poses far greater dangers.
With the situation rapidly evolving, international attention remains fixed on the growing Israel-Iran conflict, as regional and global powers brace for potential fallout from a broader war in the Middle East.
