Air raid sirens preceded blasts that left multiple sites burning across the metro area
Soldiers inspect an apartment damaged by a missile strike is seen in Ramat Gan, in the outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel on March 18, 2026. PHOTO: AFP
TEL AVIV:
Iran targeted Tel Aviv with missiles carrying cluster warheads in what it said was retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani, Iranian state television reported on Wednesday.
Israel has said that Iran has repeatedly used cluster warheads, which disperse into multiple smaller explosives mid-air and spread over a wide area, making them difficult to intercept. The attack on densely populated Tel Aviv overnight on Tuesday killed two people, bringing the death toll in Israel from the war to at least 14.
Israeli security forces and rescue workers gather at a train station that was hit by shrapnel after an Iranian strike in Tel Aviv on March 18, 2026. PHOTO: AFP
An apartment damaged by a missile strike is seen in Ramat Gan, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, March 18, 2026. PHOTO: AFP
Iran will hold funerals on Wednesday for Larijani and another powerful figure killed Tuesday by Israel, Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij paramilitary force, according to the Fars and Tasnim news agencies.
Larijani is the most prominent figure of the Islamic Republic killed since Israel and the United States launched their attacks on Iran on February 28, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and igniting a war in the Middle East.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, which Larijani led as secretary, said Larijani’s son and his deputy, Alireza Bayat, were also killed in an Israeli attack on Monday night.
“Iran’s response to the assassination of the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council will be decisive and regrettable,” Iranian army chief Amir Hatami said in a statement.
Besides sending missiles and drones into Israel and Gulf nations, Iran has sought to extract a heavy toll on the global economy, including by driving up the cost of oil by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for crude.
With oil still hovering around $100 a barrel, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned Wednesday that the global repercussions of the war “has only just begun and will hit all”.
As part of an effort to reopen Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world’s crude transits, the US military said it brought out some of the heaviest bombs in its arsenal to penetrate adjacent missile sites.
The United States dropped several 5,000-pound (2,250 kg) bombs — estimated to cost $288,000 each — on “hardened Iranian missile sites” near the coast that posed a threat to international shipping, Central Command said.
US President Donald Trump earlier Tuesday fumed that American allies, which have largely distanced themselves from his war, were not lining up behind the United States to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
But Trump also boasted that the US military did not need its allies, writing on his Truth Social platform: “WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!”
Trump Truth Social post. PHOTO: X
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in an interview that nobody was ready to risk the lives of their people in protecting the strait.
“We have to find diplomatic ways to keep this open so that we don’t have a food crisis, fertiliser crisis, energy crisis as well,” Kallas said.
Read: Trump begs global help against Iran
The US has given shifting rationales for joining Israel to attack Iran and struggled to explain the legal basis for starting a new war, underscored by the Tuesday resignation of the head of the US National Counterterrorism Centre, Joseph Kent. Kent wrote in his resignation letter to Trump that Iran “posed no imminent threat to our nation.”
In Iran, a projectile hit an area near the Bushehr nuclear power plant on Tuesday evening. It caused no damage or injuries, Iran told the International Atomic Energy Agency. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi reiterated his call for maximum restraint during the conflict to avoid the risk of a nuclear accident.
Israel and the US have said preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapons programme was one of the goals of the attacks they launched more than two weeks ago.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has rejected proposals conveyed to Iran’s Foreign Ministry for “reducing tensions or ceasefire with the United States,” according to a senior Iranian official who asked not to be identified.
Khamenei, attending his first foreign-policy meeting since his appointment, said it was not “the right time for peace until the United States and Israel are brought to their knees, accept defeat, and pay compensation,” according to the official.
The official did not clarify whether the younger Khamenei, who has not yet appeared in photos or on TV since being named last week to replace his slain father, had attended the meeting in person or remotely.
Iran has responded to the Israeli-US attacks with wide-ranging strikes on its Gulf neighbours, some of which host US bases.
Gulf Arab states have faced more than 2,000 missile and drone attacks on US diplomatic missions and military bases as well as oil infrastructure, ports, airports, ships and residential and commercial buildings, and most of them aimed at the United Arab Emirates.
The war has taken a particularly heavy toll on Lebanon, where Israeli strikes early Wednesday again hit the heart of Beirut.
At least six people died, Lebanese authorities said, with media reporting that a strike hit an apartment.
First aid responders inspect the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an apartment in the al Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, on March 18, 2026. PHOTO: AFP
According to Lebanese authorities, Israeli strikes have killed 912 people since March 2, while more than one million people have registered as displaced, with more than 130,000 staying in official shelters.
