Israel threatens surge in attacks as Iran fires missiles farther than ever

Israel's defence government minister threatened a upsurge in attacks against persia on sabbatum, and Britain condemned islamic republic of iran for targeting a joint U.K.-U.S. Base in the Indian Ocean as the war in the Middle East entered its fourth week.

The Iranian attack on the Diego Garcia airbase — located about 4,000 kilometres from Iran — suggested Tehran has in its stockpile missiles that can go farther than it had previously acknowledged.

Meanwhile, Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment facility was hit in an airstrike on Saturday, an official Iranian news agency reported, saying there was no radiation leakage.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a video statement that next week, "the intensity of the attacks" by Israel and the United States against Iran's ruling theocracy will "increase significantly."

He spoke shortly after fragments from an Iranian missile slammed into an empty kindergarten near Tel Aviv. Israeli army spokesperson Nadav Shoshani posted a video on social media platform X of the kindergarten building; no casualties were reported as it was empty at the time.

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Overnight and into Saturday morning, Tehran, Iran's capital, saw heavy airstrikes, residents said. In Iraq, a drone struck the intelligence service headquarters in Baghdad, killing an officer. No group immediately claimed responsibility for that attack.

Saudi Arabia said it downed 20 drones in just a couple of hours in the country's eastern region, home to major oil installations. No injuries or damage were reported.

The attacks — and threats of more to come — indicate the war shows no sign of abating. Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi told Japan's Kyodo news service on Friday that Iran wanted "not a ceasefire, but a complete, comprehensive and lasting end to the war."

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he was considering "winding down" military operations in the Middle East even as the United States was sending three more amphibious assault ships and roughly 2,500 additional marines to the region.

The marines will join more than 50,000 U.S. Troops already in the area.

Trump's post on social media followed an Iranian threat to attack recreational and tourist sites worldwide.

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The mixed messages from the U.S. Came after another climb in oil prices plunged the U.S. Stock market and was followed by a Trump administration announcement that it was lifting sanctions on Iranian oil already loaded on ships, a move aimed at wrangling soaring fuel prices.

Officials in the U.K., meanwhile, have not given details of the attempted strike on the Diego Garcia airbase on Friday, which was unsuccessful.

Britain's Ministry of Defence said on Saturday that Iran's "lashing out across the region and holding hostage the Strait of Hormuz are a threat to British interests and British allies."

Britain has not participated in U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran, but it has allowed American bombers to use its bases to attack Iran's missile sites.

The British government said on Friday that U.S. Bombers can also use U.K. Bases, including Diego Garcia, in operations to prevent Iran from attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran targeted the base before that U.K. Statement.

Iran's official news agency Mizan said there was no leakage after Saturday's strike on the Natanz nuclear facility, nearly 220 kilometres southeast of Tehran.

The Israeli military denied that Israel was responsible for the strike that hit the nuclear enrichment facility.

The facility, Iran's main uranium enrichment site, was hit in the first week of the war, and several buildings appeared damaged, according to satellite images. The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had said that "no radiological consequence" was expected from that earlier strike. Natanz had also been targeted in the 12-day war last June.

On Saturday, the IAEA said on X that it was informed by Iran about the Natanz strike and about there being no increase in off-site radiation levels. The agency said it was looking into the incident.

The U.S. And Israel have offered shifting rationales for the war, from hoping to foment an uprising that topples Iran's leadership to eliminating its nuclear and missile programs. There have been no public signs of any such uprising, and no end to the war is in sight.

On social media, Trump said, "We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East."

That seemed at odds with his administration's move to bolster its firepower in the region and request another $200 billion US from Congress to fund the war.

Iran's top military spokesperson, Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, warned on Friday that "parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations" worldwide will not be safe for the country's enemies. The threat renewed concerns that Tehran may revert to using militant attacks beyond the Middle East as a pressure tactic.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei praised Iranians' steadfastness in the face of war in a written statement read on Iranian television to mark Persian New Year, or Nowruz. Khamenei has not been seen in public since he became supreme leader following Israeli strikes that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and reportedly wounded him.

With little information coming out of Iran, it was not clear how much damage its arms, nuclear or energy facilities have sustained in the punishing U.S. And Israeli strikes, which began on Feb. 28 — or even who was truly in charge of the country. But Iran's attacks are still choking off oil supplies and raising food and fuel prices far beyond the Middle East.

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The Israeli military said its forces were conducting a "targeted ground operation" in Lebanon on Saturday with the support of Israeli aircraft, and at least four militants were killed.

Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, which operates out of Lebanon, also released a statement saying its fighters clashed with Israeli troops in the village of Khiam, in the country's south.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced more than one million in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese government.

More than 1,300 people have been killed in Iran during the war, according to the Iranian Red Crescent. In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missiles and four others have died in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. At least 13 U.S. Military members have been killed.

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