The Iranian Red Crescent Society said US-Israeli strikes had killed at least 787 people in Iran as the war entered its fifth day and explosions sounded around Tehran. The toll was reported amid continuing Iranian missile fire, fresh Israeli attacks and drone incidents affecting American diplomatic sites in the Gulf.
Iranian state television reported explosions near the capital at dawn. Israel said its air defenses were activated in response to incoming missiles from Iran. Since the conflict began, Iranian ballistic missile attacks had killed 11 people in Israel, while most incoming fire was intercepted, according to the supplied account.
The previous day, Israel struck Iranian missile launchers and a nuclear research site. It also said it attacked facilities used to manufacture and store ballistic missiles and destroyed what it described as a secret underground nuclear headquarters. Israel offered no evidence for its assertion that the site worked on a component for nuclear weapons, and neither the United States nor Iran immediately commented on that specific claim. Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful.
The United States’ military campaign was extensive. Adm. Brad Cooper, the senior US commander in the Middle East, said American forces had struck nearly 2,000 targets in Iran, severely damaging air defenses and destroying hundreds of missiles, launchers and drones. Satellite imagery from Vantor showed damage to the domed roof of Iran’s presidential complex, supporting Israel’s claim that it struck the site, although Iran did not acknowledge casualties or damage there.
The war also created a leadership crisis in Iran after the initial strikes killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian authorities were working to choose only the second new supreme leader since the 1979 revolution. Israel said it targeted a building in Qom where clerics were expected to discuss the succession, but was still assessing whether anyone had been hit.
US President Donald Trump had suggested the fighting could continue for weeks or longer. His administration described objectives ranging from weakening Iran’s missiles and navy to preventing a nuclear weapon and limiting support for allied armed groups. Although Trump urged Iranians to overthrow their government after Khamenei’s death, senior US officials subsequently said regime change was not their objective.
The conflict was spreading beyond the main combatants. Drones caused limited fires at the US Embassy in Riyadh and near the US Consulate in Dubai; all personnel were accounted for. American diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Lebanon closed to the public, and the State Department ordered non-emergency personnel and relatives to leave several regional posts. Airspace closures stranded travelers as governments organized evacuation flights.
Casualties were recorded across several countries. Lebanon’s health ministry said 50 people, including seven children, had been killed as Israel struck Hezbollah. Kuwait reported an 11-year-old girl killed by falling shrapnel during an interception. Three people were killed in the United Arab Emirates and one in Bahrain. The US military confirmed six service-member deaths, including four Army Reserve soldiers killed in a drone strike on a command center in Kuwait.
The Red Crescent figure of 787 was an attributed wartime count, not an independently verified total. Even with that limitation, the convergence of reported deaths, attacks on diplomatic sites, leadership upheaval and expanding military operations showed a conflict moving rapidly beyond its opening strikes and imposing costs across the region.
