Israel launched widescale strikes against Iran on Friday, saying it targeted nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories and military commanders and that this was the start of a prolonged operation to prevent Tehran from building an atomic weapon.

Iran had launched about 100 drones towards Israeli territory in retaliation, which Israel is working to intercept, Israeli military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said.

Iranian media and witnesses reported explosions including at the country’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, while Israel declared a state of emergency in anticipation of retaliatory missile and drone strikes.

Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards corps said its top commander, Hossein Salami, was killed and state media reported the unit’s headquarters in Tehran had been hit. Several children had been killed in a strike on a residential area in the capital, it said.

“We are at a decisive moment in Israel’s history,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a recorded video message.

“Moments ago Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival. This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.”

Defrin said 200 Israeli fighter jets took part in the strikes, hitting more than 100 targets in Iran.

Israel could now confirm that the chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards and the commander of Iran’s Emergency Command were all killed in the strikes across Iran, he told an online briefing.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement that Israel had “unleashed its wicked and bloody” hand in a crime against Iran and that it would receive “a bitter fate for itself”.

Source: Reuters